Showing posts with label Sectional. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sectional. Show all posts
Monday, September 9, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Sectional Debrief: Kempton, Wednesday May 8
"What is clear from the sectionals is that Tajheez is quite a bit better than those who chased him home..."
Simon Rowlands returns with his latest sectional analysis...
Regular readers of these Sectional Debriefs will know the score by now: the table below identifies the general run of the races, and sectional rating for the winners of those races, based on the fact that how a horse achieves an overall time affects what that time is.
The good news for those coming late to the party is that past Sectional Debriefs can be found elsewhere on this site; the bad news is that you have already missed a couple of nice winners - Spillway and Fig Roll - since this series began a few weeks ago!
Kempton's Wednesday evening meeting had a majority of steadily-run (or even slowly-run) races, as shown by the high finishing speed %s and commensurately high sectional mark-ups in the table. The exceptions are the first and last two races: those last two races resulted in decent overall times and even better sectional ratings, but that first race did not.
There is no apparent reason why the Tagalaka time was so modest, for it was not an obvious function of the pace of the race. As a result, the winner goes on the "to oppose" list. Indeed, the whole race is worth viewing with some suspicion.
Cape Alex ran close to par in winning the 12f handicap (third-placed Time Square went a bit faster than ideal in front) and sectional mark-ups for all the runners are small. This looks solid form, but there are no obvious eye-catchers, in other words.
The 7f minor contest won by Double Your Money is quite a bit more interesting, however. The winner set a decent pace but was given a bit too much rope, and third-placed Kabbaas (86 sectional rating) and fourth-placed Singersongwriter (88 sectional rating) did well given how things unfolded. Singersongwriter (who posted roughly 34.9s final 3f) had a BHA mark of 74 prior to this and is especially interesting.
The other horse to take from proceedings is Tajheez, the short-priced winner of the 11f handicap. The sectional adjustment does not bridge the gap between his overall time and the time that could be expected of a horse with his ability, but it comes close. What is clear from the sectionals is that Tajheez (roughly 36.0s final 3f) is quite a bit better than those who chased him home. Rating him 6 lb better than the result is realistic, and that could be enough to see him follow up in similar company.
To Follow: Singersongwriter, Tajheez
To Oppose: Tagalaka
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Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Sectional Debrief: Kempton, Monday April 22
Simon Rowlands analyses the sectionals from Monday's meeting on the all-weather at Kempton Park...
Both the potential and the limitations of sectionals taken by hand can be illustrated by the Kempton meeting on Monday April 22. On the one hand, sectionals taken for the leaders and engineered for individual runners at the 3f marker identify the general run of the races and flag up a number of interesting performances. On the other, the unavoidable absence of sectionals for every horse at every furlong almost certainly results in some important information being missed.
Still, for as long as British Racing prefers to invest in projects other than sectional timing, even diehard sectionalists will have to make do with living in a state of semi-ignorance.
The most obvious piece of missing information is that for (the appropriately-named) Secret Talent in the 7f maiden. The last 3f sectional shows that the race turned into a sprint, but it does not capture the fact that the winner quickened from the front in tremendous style something like a furlong AFTER the sectional (and yet he won by 7 lengths and the same).
The mark-up based on last 3f sectional is modest in view of the overall race time, but a very rough estimate of 21.7 sec for the last 2f for the winner would result in a sectional rating of 105, not 79. The likelihood is that Secret Talent is a decidedly useful performer, and that he will rate well into the 100s. But there is a large degree of educated guesswork involved in that from a sectional point of view.
Some observers will tell you that Bright Strike did well to win the 7f handicap "against the pace bias that had been evident throughout the afternoon". This is nonsense and reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the subject. Both pace and position can be modified on a by-race basis and therefore pace and position analysis needs to be conducted on a by-race basis. The only enduring pace bias is that the overall time of an individual running in a non-efficient way will be compromised.
Bright Strike did well to come from a bit off the pace specific to the race he was running in and deserves to be rated in the region of 5 lb more superior to the placed horses than implied by the bare result. Fourth-placed Excuse To Linger made late headway also and can be rated third-best.
Shahrazad, Order of Service, Pether's Moon and King Olav were all winners who were leading turning in. In each case, at least one of their rivals did better than they did in time terms from the sectional, but that is not to say any of them was clearly flattered.
Black Truffle (59 sectional rating) comes out best on sectionals in the opener, but only just ahead of Shahrazad in a race run in a decent overall time (given the abilities of the horses concerned); the same can be said of Shearian (72 sectional rating) in Order of Service's race; Pether's Moon comes out best in his race, with the first two more superior to their rivals than the bare result; Mount Abora (67 sectional rating) might have finished closer to King Olav set less to do, but the eased winner won well enough (and in a reasonable enough time) to think that he was comfortably best on the day in any case.
Foxhaven came from second at the sectional in the first division of the 11f handicap and comes out scarcely better than second or third on sectionals in what was a tactical affair. Midnight Feast came from a few lengths back to take the concluding 7f handicap, with South Cape (66 sectional rating) also worthy of marking up from the bare result. Runner-up Homeward Strut (66 sectional rating) and fourth-placed Mishrif (61 sectional rating) looked to have been slightly favoured by the run of the race.
To follow: Bright Strike
To oppose: Foxhaven, Homeward Strut
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Monday, July 16, 2012
Sectional Debrief: Day Three Newmarket July Meeting
Mayson’s success in the Group 1 July Cup took many by surprise, but the evidence of the clock is that he is bordering on high-class...
Simon Rowlands, Timeform's Head of Research and Development, reviews the sectionals from the third and final day of Newmarket's July Meeting...
A substantial amount of rain on what was already just about soft going turned conditions "heavy" for day three, though nowhere near unraceable as some were suggesting. Furthermore, overall and sectional times indicated that conditions deteriorated a negligible amount as the card progressed.
The following are the headline figures from the day, provided by TurfTrax:
• The fastest opening furlong was recorded by Reply (14.61 sec, 30.80 mph from a standing start) in the Group 1 July Cup, in which he finished last of 12.
• The fastest individual furlong was recorded by Ortensia (11.41 sec, 39.44 mph) in the third of the six furlongs of that race. The mare's effort was short-lived and she finished fourth.
• The fastest closing furlong was recorded by Hasopop (14.13 sec, 31.85 mph) in the steadily-run two-year-old conditions stakes which followed the feature event. Hasopop won by seven lengths and eight lengths in a field of three.
• Mayson's success in the Group 1 July Cup took many by surprise, but the evidence of the clock is that he is bordering on high-class, if not quite so good as a face-value interpretation of the result might suggest. He set a good pace after the opening furlong, registering three successive sub-12-second furlongs in the middle of the race, on his way to a good overall time. His last two furlongs sectionals were both faster than any of his rivals'.
• The first furlong of the opening one-mile handicap was remarkably slow (16.25 sec, 27.69 mph), and the horse that set it, Ocean Tempest got back up having quickened to challenge again with a sub-12-second furlong between three furlongs and two furlongs out.
• Olympic Glory had just enough left to hold off Birdman in the Group 2 Superlative Stakes, his final furlong a fairly slow (compared to his overall time) 14.57 sec, raising some doubts about his stamina for still further when conditions are testing.
• Bonnie Brae had as many in front of her as behind her mid-race in the 15-runner Bunbury Cup Handicap but jockey Ryan Moore had judged things well, and she recorded close to optimum sectionals as she overhauled pace-setters Captain Bertie and Captain Ramius, posting the fastest sectionals for the last two furlongs for good measure. Captain Ramius, in particular, probably deserves marking up.
• John Louis made all in the concluding handicap, though sectional analysis shows he was plodding by the end and that his overall time will have suffered by going as fast as he did earlier. This sectional profile - of a leader running his rivals into the ground and holding on for a win in a slowish time - is seen more often over jumps but was also in evidence in Cape Blanco's 2010 Irish Champion Stakes success on the Flat.
Full details of by-furlong individual sectional times for the first two days of the Newmarket July Meeting can be found on the TurfTrax website: http://www.turftrax.co.uk/tracking-data-julymeeting-2012.html
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