Sectional Times From Leopardstown and Cheltenham

from my blog richardmooreracingblog.wordpress.com

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The perils involved with sectional timing in jumps racing were fantastically demonstrated at Leopardstown on Irish Champion hurdle day (24th January). I have written here before about how when timing horses from the second last home (their finishing efforts if you will), the time must then be read in context with the overall time for the race, which must then be evaluated in terms of the overall times that day for races on the same track. The table below will outline perfectly what can happen if the correct context is not applied to an individual sectional time.

Leopardstown 24/1/16 Hurdle Races

Horse                Weight       Distance    2nd Last to Last    Last to Line    2nd Last to Line    DFRPSTD*
Don’t Touch It       11-12            2 miles            31.4                          17.9                   49.3                    + 19.9s
A Toi Phil                11-03            2m 4f            29.6                        14.7                     44.3                    + 23.9s
Faugheen                11-10           2 miles            31.0                          15.7                   46.7                     + 9.0s

*DFRPSTD = Deviation From Racing Post Standard Time (for the full race)

In soft going conditions for jumps races, the generally accepted rough guide is to equate one second to around four horse lengths. This is clearly far from an exact science but I am only using it here for argument’s sake. If you looked at the final couple of furlongs for A Toi Phil’s novice hurdle win over 2 miles 4 furlongs in isolation against Faugheen’s devastating performance in the Irish Champion hurdle over half a mile shorter, you will see that the novice actually covers the distance from the second last to the line almost 2.5 seconds faster. This would look an incredible result given the difference in ratings for the two horses, and also bearing in mind that the novice was running over a longer trip. Could A Toi Phil really have come home around 10 lengths in front of Faugheen had he been in that race? This question is answered by examining the overall times. A Toi Phil’s race was run in an overall time almost 24 seconds slower than the Racing Post standard time for a 2 mile 4 furlong race in Leopardstown, an indication of an understandably slow early pace on the desperate ground. Faugheen’s race on the other hand was the standout overall time for the day, only 9 seconds off the standard for a 2 mile race. So while he may have come home slower than A Toi Phil from the second last, by the time the two horses would have theoretically come to that flight, Faugheen would have been around 70 lengths clear!

Despite this reality check on the clock, A Toi Phil is a horse with massive potential. This was only his third race for Willie Mullins, having had one start in France (Mullins has said that he thought he was only broken late in life). His inexperience was very much to the fore on his first start in this country when he cocked his jaw and ran out soon after the start at Clonmel. He still looked lairy enough when beating Don’t Touch It at Leopardstown in December, but he took a huge leap forward in terms of maturity in winning this Grade Two. His finishing times compare favourably with Don’t Touch It’s earlier win on the card (the difference in the sectional was 5 seconds, despite the different distances for the races, and with broadly similar standard times). The form looks solid, and he is most certainly a rapidly improving horse to keep on the right side of going forward. His profile has been a little under the radar so far for a Willie Mullins’ horse (probably due to his wayward tendencies), but on this evidence he looks to have a serious future ahead. In terms of bare form, he beat the 129-rated Acapella Bourgeois by a comfortable seven lengths, so assuming he is given a rating of around 142 or so, he could well be a flyer in a big handicap before the season is out. Unfortunately, he is likely to be too highly rated now to get into the Martin Pipe handicap at Cheltenham (a ceiling of 140) so the more competitive Coral Cup might be his only option if he wants to avoid the Grade One Neptune or Albert Bartlett races.



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Cheltenham Trials Day (30/1/16) provided us with two massively impressive hurdles winners in the shape of Yanworth and Thistlecrack. Below is a similar table for the hurdles races that day. Given the stiffness of the new course at Cheltenham in desperate ground conditions that day, I have just timed the efforts up the hill from the back of the last flight. On the day some horses looked like the camera footage was set to slow motion coming up the hill and this is merely an exercise to try and give some idea of whether a horse was struggling home or quickening.

Horse                           Weight    Distance    Last to Line    DFRPSTD*
Protek Des Flos                    11-0     2m 1f       26.8s              +35s
Yanworth                            11-12    2m 4f       25.6s              +36s
Thistlecrack                   11-08    3m               25.7s              +45s
Solstice Star                   9-11      2m 1f       25.4s                +36s

The first thing that caught my eye was the remarkably similar deviation from the Racing Post standard times for Protek Des Flos, Yanworth and Solstice Star. Thistlecrack’s race was clearly the slowest-run, with jockeys unwilling to press on early on the heavy going over the three mile trip, and the bare form might need treating with caution. The next anomaly was Protek Des Flos. This horse looked to be finishing like a train up the hill on the day as he sprinted past Clan Des Obeaux, but his final sectional was over a second slower than Yanworth, despite that horse having raced half a mile further. Yanworth was also hard-held the whole way up the run in, leading one to believe that the final time could have been a second or two faster with some ease.

Yanworth’s time was extraordinary in another respect too when compared with the handicap hurdle winner Solstice Star. This was a dominant front running performance by a progressive handicapper with a similar standard time to the Yanworth race, but the two horses came up the hill in almost identical times. This was despite Yanworth racing over half a mile further in distance, and carrying 29lbs more on his back. Given that Solstice Star will now have a revised official mark of around 135, Yanworth looks a horse more than capable of tearing apart an average Neptune field. The quotes of 2/1 currently available look on the generous side.

The final horse to catch my eye from that day in Cheltenham was Frodon. This four-year-old was having his first run for Paul Nicholls in the final handicap hurdle, and he was eye-catching to say the least. He jumped impeccably and travelled in the manner of a vastly more experienced horse. Nicholls had said prior to the race that he might need the run, and this was borne out when Frodon travelled strongly into contention going to the second last, before hitting a flat spot and finally keeping on into third place. This horse is part-owned by Potensis Bloodstock, who have won the Fred Winter handicap at the festival before with Sanctuaire, and I would think this race will be firmly on the radar for this horse. He is not in the market for the Fred Winter with many of the top bookmakers currently, those who have priced him up have him at odds ranging from 12/1 to 16/1, and I think he should be backed as soon as connections make a declaration of intent to target the race.