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I don’t know for sure, and would be interested in other people’s answers, but it depends, besides anything else, on how strong the wind is.
Viewed entirely subjectively, I have come to the conclusion that a strong wind into their faces would hardly ever slow a horse down more than 30 lb (I think that’s about 0.25 sec per furlong). The kind of wind that they reportedly had on Wednesday at Doncaster might have had a 15 to 20 lb effect. Obviously a wind in their faces slows horses down more than the same wind behind speeds them up. I would say that the effect of the wind behind is in the region of half of that when its into their faces, and I make only a small adjustment for side-on winds. In fact it might be best to treat them as negligible in most cases.
While it is obviously desirable to make your timefigures as satisfactory as you can, I seldom back a horse on a good overall race time timefigure alone, while going allowances arguably just need to be more accurate than the official version (not difficult) and not really landed on the head of a pin.
I expect some to disagree.
These times at Doncaster are almost freakishly fast.
I think today’s (Thursday’s) times suggest that the difference between the round course times and straight course times is largely down to the wind, which had less of an effect than on the first day (when the two races started on the round course seemed to be steadily-run in any case).
I must admit that I estimate the effect of the wind and then compare my findings with those of someone who accesses more information and goes into things more mathematically than I am prepared to do. As with apparently different going surfaces on one track, I apply my estimate of the effect of the wind according to how much of the race a horse has been running with/against/side-on to a wind. Has anyone got any suggestions of how to improve this approach?
Also, I wonder whether you should apply a "drying-out" factor during the course of a day’s racing. Most times it would make little or no difference, but when conditions are as hot and windy as this week at Doncaster then perhaps it is sensible. That said, it could be argued that conditions are already so firm that they are limited in how much they can dry out further.
I know that James Willoughby maintains that a going allowance based on the number-crunching of times is not necessarily the same as an accurate description of the going. He feels that the ground is not "firm", as in potentially jarring, at Doncaster this week for all that the times "suggest" very strongly that it is. Personally, I take the going allowance more as a stamina index which happens to correspond pretty closely, most of the time, with the state of the surface.
Although time analysis clearly can involve a good deal of interpretation, it is at least based on something tangible, and I find alternative approaches to assessing the state of the going (with the possible exception of the "going stick" ) unacceptably subjective.
I make the times of Caesar Beware, Librettist and Playful Act particularly encouraging compared to the horses’ abilities, and I would describe the going as "firm" on both days.<br>
(Edited by Prufrock at 8:45 pm on Sep. 9, 2004)
My "man at the course" described the wind as "moderate" and almost exactly behind the runners (direction 200 degrees, when 180 is directly behind) and did not indicate that it varied markedly during proceedings. He also emphasised that there was a good covering of grass.
Whatever, the conditions yesterday resulted in very fast times, ones that would usually be commensurate with firm going, and while the wind was a factor it seemed not to be a huge factor.
Beaten a length. Unlucky.
What do people make of the state of the going at Doncaster?
It has to be firmer than the "good" given officially, surely?
You are not wrong!
Some critics of time analysis would take these comments and some of the assumptions that have to be made as evidence that timefigures are "guesswork".
Well, in a way they are, but they are educated guesswork I reckon, and we are far better off using time analysis than not provided we are aware of its limitations.
The difference between a 5f standard time and a 6f standard time depends, along with other matters, on what level your standard times are pitched at.
For instance, if your 5f standard time is 58 sec, then a 12 sec difference between that and your 6f standard time is quite a different matter from a 12 sec difference if your 5f standard time is 65 sec.
13.7 sec difference between the standard times for the two distances at Haydock seems too much by the best part of a second, but I couldn’t comment for sure without knowing the actual standard times themselves.
As a matter of interest, if you take the view that the conditions on the straight course and the round course were different at Haydock on both days (and I think you are right to do so), how do you apply your going allowance?
It shouldn’t be assumed that all races started on the round course have the same going allowance throughout their length. For instance, more than half of a 8.14f race at Haydock is run on the straight course, but only about 5.5f of a 14f race there is.
The alternative as I see it is to assume that the going on the round courses and the straight courses are uniform throughout their length and to apply the respective going allowances according to the proportions of the races that are run on each. But this is, also, an assumption. <br> <br>As a result, I have slightly different going allowances for the races started on the round course.
I use a going allowance which is in effect the rating (on my scale) that a horse would have to run to carrying 10-0 or wfa equivalent to equal my standard time. Firm is up to 59; good to firm is 60 to 84; good is 85 to 113, and so on.
On the Friday I have the following figures:
Horse………………(Going allowance)/timefigure<br>Premier Fantasy…(101)/78<br>Solar Power……….(101/78<br>Saadigg…………….(86)/83<br>Goodbye Mr Bond..(86)/86<br>Sendintank…………(80)/63<br>Milk And Sultana….(82)/54
On the Saturday:
Forever Phoenix….(98)/106<br>Defining……………..(77)/77<br>Tante Rose…………(98)/115<br>Zohar………………..(98)/77<br>With Reason………(84)/83<br>Spaced……………..(84)/79<br>Stephano…………..(80)/76   ÂÂÂ
I’d say Tante Rose’s time is no more than respectable: a good time for this sort of level would be 7 to 10 lb higher.
The best times relative to the horses’ abilities over the two days were by Saadigg, Goodbye Mr Bond, Forever Phoenix and Stephano.
There were 3009 votes.
I wouldn’t mind betting that a lot of them could be traced back to bookmakers and those who work for bookmakers.
I was surfing the net for references to legendary punter Pat Naylor and was directed to this site.
There have always been instances when the stewards might have been too lenient, and there always will be.
My suggested improvements would have to go hand in hand with an increased ability to prosecute miscreants and an increased desire to do so as well.
If two or three amateur stewards at the course, assisted as at present by a paid stipendiary steward, prove incapable of achieving this then full-scale professionalism may be the only answer. ÂÂÂ
The argument against professional stewarding always used to be that it would be too expensive. If you had a vast army of professional stewards from which a team would travel to each and every race meeting (as seemingly suggested by Ian Davies above) that is almost certainly what it would be.
However, we now live in an age of sophisticated telecommunications and there is no need whatsoever for this to happen. All there needs to be is a rolling panel of experts monitoring the day’s racing from the comfort of their own homes and liasing through a nominated leader with the small number of amateur stewards who would still turn up at the course to interview those involved and mete out justice if necessary.
Video-conferencing/web cams should be part of this process.
If this sounds vaguely familiar it is because the first part of this process—the expert monitoring of the racing, including for evidence of non-triers—is in effect what the BHB’s own team of handicappers already do (when, that is, they aren’t dragged off to some race meeting or other for largely cosmetic purposes). The second part of the process—liasing in real time as a matter of course with the stewards at the course—surprisingly doesn’t. This is almost certainly due to the antiquated notion that the Stewards have that they are the dog wagging the tail rather than the other way round.
The BHB are quick to lecture others on the "integrity" issue and to tell us all precisely how British racing should be modernised.
Perhaps they could start by modernising the way the BHB interacts with the Jockey Club on this fundamental and yet very important matter.
Having been away from here for a few days I think I’ve missed the bus.
I’d just like to point out that the contention, made much earlier, that "350 races out of 8500 in a year is only 0.4% of races" is wrong by a factor of ten and to add my congratulations to Ian Davies (and to thedarkknight) for some telling observations.
I do agree, however, with Jim’s essential point that the authorities should be detecting the skullduggery in the first place (and acting on it thereafter), rather than leaving it to a member of the public like Ian Davies to read races for them, no matter how shrewd a judge he happens to be. ;)
Does anyone who knows about bots have any view on how much they have evolved in the last couple of years on Betfair?
I’m sure I have run into a few in the past and they were no bother at all. It seemed easy to outfox them or just leave them to their own devices and move on somewhere else.
I don’t doubt that they have become more sophisticated (less obviously "bots" for a start) and more widespread since then, however.
(Edited by Prufrock at 11:13 pm on May 7, 2004)
More, please, gamble!
Bots exist. A more interesting question might be "are bots a good thing, a bad thing or just a, errrm, thing, neither particularly good nor bad?"
(Edited by Prufrock at 6:01 pm on May 5, 2004)
Give him another star—another two stars—I say!
Right, when do we get to flush his head down the lavatory?
