Top Notch Tonto and the Cambridgeshire ..

Will only run if ground isn't fast according to trainer

In Rishis CH4 interview post race the trainer said that he would not run in a handicap again and that the softer the better???

I'm struggling to come up with timefigures for Haydock as the ground seemed to slow noticeably after first 2 races but looking at my previous figures I can't see how Hay Dude and TNT both improved by a lot, so I'd be looking at HD having run to his best prev fig which was a 97 so I'd go 103 for TNT. But of course that would mean the rest ran some way below their best.
It will be interesting to see what the handicapper does.

I have it as a 5lbs improvement from TNT, with some of those behind below their best. As Stevie says it depends what the handicapper does, he may overreact. The mile races were run 50y further than advertised and the 1m6f races were 100y further than advertised. I know rails are moved to preserve ground but I find it very amateurish that a race can be run as much as nearly half a furlong further than the advertised distance, not that I should be surprised.

Thank - you boys. Something to think about.

Yes I had to increase my standard by 2.8s for the mile race, the 2yo race I gave Chief Barker a 100 last time, Chysellium a 90 and lily rules 83'. So a direct comparison after adjusting for wfa would lead me to a rating of 15lb higher for  Top Notch Tonto race which if I didn't adjust for ground slowing I'd get 99 for Chief Barker and 117 for Top Notch Tonto but I chose to use an allowance that suggested it slowed down by around 0.1s per furlong which meant I have TNT on 103 and chief barker 99. But I may look back again at results after doing other meetings as im about 2 days behind

Of course it's people I overrated that Newmarket nursery Chief Barker won in which case perhaps the ground didn't slow by that much. Will wait to see how Trip To Paris (2nd in that Nursery) gets on in his next race first as according to my figures he has around 16lb in hand of his mark.

I was wrong Liberator, he's clearly improved.

Baboushka.

Had a snifter and a stonking bet on my beloved Alloa at 16/5. OI OI OI. Go on Lib.

Yes, Stevie, I was guilty of underrating him too, I said he'd improved 5lbs, should've been double that. When they changed the official 1m 30y distance at Haydock to 1m a couple of years ago I soon realised my standard needed changing, which was made more difficult by the constant tinkering with the rails there. It was possible that Top Notch Tonto just improved again last time at Redcar, but I can now see that my 1m standard was slightly wrong. I did lay Caspar Netscher against him last time, but in hindsight it was very much an opportunity missed as TNT should've been a strong bet at 5/1.

my standards for Haydock are shot to pieces. Had some correspondence with the CoC while back which included the discovery that the 12f start (I think) had been moved so that the stands could see the stalls.

Add in the new drainage that was applied to an "inner" track on which the sprints were run for some time 2 to 3 years ago and was substantially faster than the previous track ..... with a different differential between the 5/6f standards..... and now no idea what course they run the sprints over.....

At least they tell you what racing line the stalls and rails are moved to..... but find it very difficult to know how to adjust the resulting standard times.

Only times feel safe relying on are races run over the same distance there these days

Yes, I'd say it's probably now the worst track in the country for time analysis. Courses like Newbury and Newmarket aren't as straight forward as people might think, but once you understand how much influence the wind can have there they're managable. Haydock provides a load of other headaches. While one result doesn't necessarily prove or disprove a high rating I think it's likely I screwed up with the Haydock Sprint Cup rating.