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What appalled me was that later on, when talking about the racing, Alice Plunkett said, ‘Edwardstone, was overjoyed to watch that’. A time when they were well aware that Kalif Du Berlais had died. Hugely insensitive and a very poor choice of words.
They do tend to have sniffer dogs at most of the bigger meetings. They certainly did at Ascot, Newmarket, Kempton and Doncaster last year.
I was an annual member for more than 25 years but haven’t now been for a few years. Thought I would miss it but don’t really as I can’t really handle the huge crowds as well as the cost. Jockey Club make huge profits from the Festival which helps subsidise other meetings. I’ll be going to Newmarket for the Guineas, £40 for the 2000 and £30 for the 1000, both in the Premier Enclosure. I think that is great value. Much smaller crowds, plenty of room and quality racing and it’s warmer. I’ll also be going to Warwick in a few weeks for Fiver Friday. Quite happy to let others pay exorbitant prices at the festival.
From GSP: ‘The BBC are far left, and racist!’
Just so I get this right, is this the same BBC where the chairman had a career in banking, is a former advisor to both Johnson and Sunak, a former director of a right wing think tank and has donated over £400K to the Conservative party? Is it the same BBC where the Director General has a CV of working for big business, was a former Conservative party candidate for election and held office in the Conservative party at a local level? The same BBC that has several business people on its board including a former communications director for No 10 Downing Street for the Conservatives?
Just asking in case there’s another BBC I’m not aware of.
And just so we are fully aware of what you mean would you explain what you consider ‘far left’.
You could argue that he got off lightly. He actually only got 3 months and 10 days for the alcohol offences. In many jobs you would have been dismissed for one of those let alone multiple breaches. These offences put fellow jockeys and horses at serious risk of injury or worse.
The biggest part of the ban was for the deliberate and knowing breach of covid regulations and the calculated attempt to decieve and lie. In fact he also got of lightly on that because he got 3 x 11 month bans but because they run concurrently he is only banned for 11 months.
I have no problem with events that are decided by judges opinions, after all most sports are decided or influenced in some way by an officials decision or opinion to some extent. To me though one thing I’ve noticed when watching things like diving, gymnastics etc. is that when the experts in the studio give their view it is nearly always the same as the judges so they know exactly what is good or bad. Another really important point is that you very rarely hear the competitors complain about the points awarded, even when it’s very close and may have cost them a gold medal.
Would agree though that curling is a fantastic watch.
As much a sport as any other (horses running round a field). In fact they are highly skilled and brave competitors. I’ve been skiing and snowboarding and both are difficult. Hard enough to stay upright on a snowboard let alone do what they do. Really don’t know why you call them ‘privileged posh kids’. A lot of them are just ordinary people who have made a lot of sacrifices to get where they are.
‘Helping illegals’
As stated before, crossing the channel to seek asylum isn’t illegal.
TROY111 ‘no one deported that’s illegally crossed the channel with the help of coast guard and RNLI’.
Just about all this is untrue. It’s not illegal to cross the channel to seek asylum. And the attack on the coast guard and RNLI is appalling. All countries have an obligation to help people in trouble at sea. The coast guard and RNLI save people without any regard to where they come from and put their own lives at considerable risk to do this. They are real heroes.
I also have horses through the Owners Group. I think this is a great way to get into ownership for those of us not blessed with huge wallets. Far better than a racing club. With a racing club you join the club but they own the horses. With the Owners Group you physically have a share in the horse you choose. They also have a good scheme to find homes when the horse retires.
potato: You have admitted here you have ignored the previous running’s to back up your own analysis, something you accused someone else of doing. 4 years is just not enough data, you say you looked at that because the fences have changed but they changed 6 years ago, so why not use 6 years? The problem though is by just using winners you have restricted your sample size to just those 4 horses. What would you have said if in 2018 the photo was reversed and Tiger Roll had lost by a head instead of winning by a head?
The issue isn’t about whether 8yo’s (who do run well, there’s no doubt about that) 7yo’s, 9yo’s etc are better suited it’s how you come up with that that is important. To do a meaningful trends analysis you need a large sample size and you have to take into account how all the horses ran, not just 4. As Ginge and myself have said you have to take into account how they are expected to run. Use something like impact values they are easy enough to calculate. I found this today take a look and take particular notice of the last two paragraphs. https://www.timeform.com/horse-racing/features/rowley/the-timeform-knowledge-measuring-trends-and-effects-2082015
Winners only is a flawed way of looking at things which is why so much draw analysis is poor. And remember ultimately trends analysis can be useful but cannot replace knowledge of individual horses.
Good post Ginge. The bit where you say ‘Meaningful trends analysis must take in to account expectation’ is absolutely spot on.
I would like to ask potato why just 4 running’s? Why not 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10? Is it because if you did your results on age would be skewed, after all before that no 8yo had won since 2002? The problem with your analysis is it such a small sample size, just 4 horses. This is why % rivals beaten is a superior method because even over a small sample of races it includes all the horses of an age group not just those who won. It takes into account those that didn’t run well which yours ignores. Again, as Ginge says you need to take into account expectation.
If you read Simon’s analysis you will see that on his analysis 8yo’s run well but, I would like to correct you. You say that he put 7yo’s and 8yo’s together to cook the books in fact the combined % rivals beaten for 7yo’s and 8yo’s was 52.5%. If you look at 7yo’s on their own their figure comes out at 53%.
potato wrote:
‘Trends that mean something from our old TRFer Mr Pru:
Why do his trends mean something?(implying my personally researched 4 year trends dont mean anything)
The most recent trends are always the most relevant as racing and races are always evolving.
For the record the article by Simon Rowlands is awful and I stopped reading at the first part of his statistical analysis.
Because he wanted to make a case for Ramses De Thaille he showed the records of 9 year olds, the record of 10 year olds, yet grouped 8 and younger together which then gave that group the best record.
He ignored that no 7yo has won the race since 1940 and instead used the superior record of 8yos to justify betting a 7yo
Truly awful journalism from pru imo
Blatantly twisting the data to suit his selection’I’m sorry potato but Simon’s analysis was far superior. To say it was awful shows a lack of understanding of proper analysis. Your trends analysis falls into the same trap as that which we see in many publications, in that it concentrates on winners only. Your analysis is flawed because by using winners only you don’t have any context. If we use age group as an example. A certain age group may have more wins but, it may also have many more runners. To illustrate 4yo’s may have won four of the last five running’s of a particular race but they may have had 95% of the runners, in that time if 5yo’s had won once and had two seconds from just 3 runners, which age group has performed better? You need to compare how well an age group has performed to how they should have performed at random. When doing trends analysis you should look at how well horses ran not purely who won. This is why Simon also looks at places and number of runners beaten so that you get a much better picture of what has happened in the past. In your post you criticise Simon for his representation of a 7yo but if you read his blog on ATR he explains that very few 7yo’s have ran in the National and that they have performed above expectation.
I am no expert on statistics and interpreting data but have learned an awful lot from Simon Rowlands articles which, not only have helped me profit from following his selections, but also improved my own ability to analyse a race.
Sorry haven’t been on for a while. Jack for Kendergarten Kop it said 8-10f but it was one of those times when you look at the price and feel even if everything might not be quite right for him it was worth a punt. Another example now.
Up to Saturday the book had been showing a slight profit backing all horses each time they ran. My preferred way is stop when they’ve won as they obviously go up the handicap and that was showing a decent return. Saturday however was the big one, the one we dream of. There were three horses in the book running. One was in a hurdle so I ignored it obviously as we are looking at well handicapped 3yo flat horses. There were two others in the same race. One had won it’s previous race at a nice price of 6/1 but had since gone up 6lbs and I decided to have a small saver despite the fact that I don’t normally back them after a win because of it’s price of 12/1 when I backed it. The other intrigued me. The horse was Diocletion. I had backed it in it’s first race when it was favourite at 2/1 which is about the lowest price I would take. It came 3rd running decently. On Saturday it had been entered at Doncaster in a race that was over 1m 6f which was much longer than suggested in the book. Balding had sent three horses up and two were entered in low value races but this won was in a 30k race. I was wondering why he would enter this horse in this particular race. Why send three up but enter this one in 30k race when it was slightly out of the handicap and running a distance in excess of anything it had done before? It’s breeding suggested it may like this distance and I just couldn’t get away from it. It was a nine runner race and was the 50/1 outsider. Everything screamed each way bet. I thought hard and decided at that price I had to have a small one and be happy if it got placed. I didn’t wade in, more just dipped my toe in the water. I’m glad I did. It started at 33/1 and yes it did the business. 50/1 was the biggest winner I’ve had since I backed Ikdam on the tote at 143/1 for the Triumph Hurdle in 1989.