Handicappers' Corner: Sea Moon a York star

Handicappers' Corner / Simon Rowlands / 25 August 2011 / 6 Comments

Sea Moon: A top-class prospect

"Sea Moon 's eight-length success was the widest in the Great Voltigeur for many a year and marks him down as already above the standard usually required to win the St Leger."

After a busy week for Group performers, Simon Rowlands runs the rule over the best European performances...

There were Group races and significant performances aplenty in the last week, so much so that it is difficult to know where to start.

In terms of pure merit, Twice Over's success in the International and Sea Moon's in the Great Voltigeur, both at York, ranked highest with Timeform ratings of 128, though the former was slightly below average for the race while the latter was decidedly above it.

Sea Moon 's eight-length success was the widest in the Great Voltigeur for many a year and marks him down as already above the standard usually required to win the St Leger, for which he has been installed a short-priced favourite. Seville and Namibian underperformed, but the distant runner-up Al Kazeem was already established as smart.

This was only Sea Moon's fourth racecourse appearance and further improvement seems more likely than not. He really is an exciting prospect, and not just for the world's oldest classic at Doncaster.

Twice Over had found Rip Van Winkle just too good in the International 12 months earlier but his best was good enough this time, with Midday idling and Await The Dawn (now also rated 128) later found to have been off colour.

The biggest threat to Sea Moon at Doncaster could come from Blue Bunting, who enhanced her reputation once more with a battling success over Vita Nova in the Yorkshire Oaks. The winner now has a Timeform rating of 122 and would be receiving 3 lb from the colts if running in the St Leger. She is proving tough, consistent and bordering on high-class.

A similar remark could be made in terms of ability and toughness (though not necessarily consistency) about Margot Did, who struck an unexpected blow for the fillies in the Nunthorpe Stakes at York.

She also ran to 122, though the result seemed highly contingent on where on the course the horses raced. Hoof It (still rated 128) ended up away from the main action and is best forgiven his defeat, while Wizz Kid (ran to 114, rated 122) caught the eye in fifth.

The two-year-old picture is becoming more interesting with each passing week. The unbeaten Dabirsim was a good winner of what might otherwise have been a slightly substandard Prix Morny at Deauville, his three-length defeat of Family One earning him a rating of 119p which has been bettered only by Harbour Watch (now 121p) among juveniles this campaign.

Best Terms is another who is undefeated after four races. She might not have the scope of others of her age, but she is certainly smart, and her defeat of Fire Lily (who received weight) in the Lowther Stakes by two lengths in a good time resulted in an above-standard rating of 117.

The Futurity Stakes at the Curragh probably wasn't a vintage edition (last two won by Cape Blanco and Pathfork), but the ready winner Dragon Pulse does at least look likely to go the right way for a while yet. His new Timeform rating of 114p has him marginally top of the tree among Irish-trained juveniles.

Deauville's Sunday card also featured notable wins for Jukebox Jury (ran to 118, remains on 121) in the Prix Kergorlay and Announce (rated 117) in the Prix Jean Romanet, the latter filly nosing out Timepiece in an exciting finish.

Jukebox Jury has his quirks, but he also has plenty of class and more options open to him now that he has proved he stays long distances. Other stayers he may come across in future include Opinion Poll, who ran to 122 in winning the Lonsdale Cup at York, Fame And Glory, who seemed race rusty when beaten in a listed contest at the Curragh, and Fox Hunt.

The last-named, trained like Jukebox Jury by Mark Johnston, was only sixth to Moyenne Corniche (rated 112) in the valuable Ebor Handicap at York but comes out best at the weights off a mark of 110 and ran to the same figure of 118 that saw him beaten narrowly by Opinion Poll off level weights at Goodwood.

Comments (6)

1. Ian | 25 August 2011

   Simon,

   Sorry to hijack your blog but as a thinking man's handicapper would you be able to offer any opinions/insights on some of the technical form issues below....met with deadly silence on the forums...Cheers, Ian

   ----------------------------
   Am looking for any London based enthusiasts who are keen on embarking on working on developing forecasting models for horse racing odds etc. People that can help steer my graft/ideas with better grasp of statistics/pure maths or programming than me – the two or three heads better than one mantra.

   I have developed a programme which can handle large amounts of form data/manipulate different factors etc. I have a few ideas and have read many things on the kinds of statistical models that people develop (eg based on Chapman and Bolton paper in the 80s). Mutinomial Logit Models/Maximum Likliehood Estimations etc etc… all a little above my head at the moment (oh how I wish I took the statistics options when offered to me at uni back in the day!). I realise this kind of approach is not everyone’s ‘bag’ but if anyone is interested in offering help, I’d be most grateful. Following on…..

   Anyone done any work on researching recency weighted means of form factors? Seems logical but needs to accommodate the random influences on results – I’ve seen Zipfs Law/Fibonacci series used but that intuitively to me places too much weight on more recent events when considering many horses have excusable blips LTO in an otherwise progressive profile…suggestions for an algorithm for removing the blips from the profile…anyone done any research on placing importance on factors depending on time elapsed?

   Pace analysis in our non-sectional world – spread of lengths beaten/ average lengths beaten as a measure of estimating pace effect in a race?

   Algorithms for predicting improvement or ‘coming to form’ etc??

   
   Anyone interested in seriously tackling or collaborating in any of the above???

   Cheers
   

2. David Saphir | 26 August 2011

   Hi Ian
   Interested in reading your blog, i maybe of some help to you.
   I was a former racecourse bookmaker for 31 years 1969-2000 and a professional punter from 1959 until 1969.
   I formed a tissue on course and was one of the first layers in the ring to offer odds. I have studied handicapping and the
   time test since the age of 15, i shall be
   72 in february 2012.
   i was interviewed by phil bull of timeform fame in 1959 and was offered a position to work for the organization but
   declined the offer after having a touch on Tudor Monarch in the 1959 Stewards Cup. i was always my own man!
   i am sure i can impart some valuable knowledge to your quest, unfortunately i had 3 daughters and no son, who i could pass on my experience of odds and horse racing. i would be interested to hear from you however i havent been london based since 2000 i live on the south coast but still follow horse racing and football on a day today basis and still punt!

3. Ian | 26 August 2011

   David,

   Would love to talk. Perhaps there is a way of contact away from Simon's Blog (appologies again for hijacking it Simon). Perhaps Simon or Betfair could facilitate the swapping of emails away from the public domain somehow.

   Many thanks for the reply David. I look forward to contacting you. I have put many years of work into trying to achieve what it sounds like you have.

   Regards
   Ian

4. Simon Rowlands | 26 August 2011

   Hi Ian.

   Flattery - "thinking man's handicapper" - always works with me! However, I have an insanely busy few days with work and non-work so I hope it's OK if I get back to you some time next week.

   I have already considered, or was shortly to consider, much of what you have raised. It is always very good to have intelligent and challenging questions asked.

   In the meantime, welcome also to David, a man with an even longer Timeform history than mine! You are more than welcome to discuss these matters on here if you wish.

   Regards

   Simon

5. Ian | 26 August 2011

   Simon,

   Thanks for the response. Not got round to the pace problem yet but food for thought regarding the profile question. Some research on moving averages offered some encouragement on this. Methods employed in stock trading to eliminate knee jerk reactions (see investipedia website - I think that was what I was reading)- which in my limited experience are exactly what many punters are commonly prone to. Intitial experiments seem to show that this would be a useful thing to investigate further on a large dataset...finding the time for me to program that is difficult at the mo...but the jist is moving averages (of ratings for example) give a good indication of general profile (progressive or regressive) but also if, calculated over the right number of races do have some power at illustrating when the horse is coming 'back up to the boil'. Trialed it for 10 or 20 horse profiles on a spreadsheet - next step is coding it into my database over 1000s of horse profiles. Difficult whilst sat here doing the life sapping civil service job im being employed to do (and may not be employed to do if i spend too much time discussing my real passion whilst im being paid to work!)!

   Cheers,

6. Simon Rowlands | 31 August 2011

   Sorry for delay in responding.

   In terms of recency, my further research does indeed suggest a slightly lesser emphasis on recent efforts than that provided by Fibonacci/Zipf. It seems to be in the region of 30/25/20/15/10 (as opposed to 40/25/15/10/5 or 44/22/14/11/9). This is a one-size-fits-all solution, though: sometimes a different weighting is more appropriate.

   I suggest that you also need to consider the maximum value from the array of recent efforts - this is what customarily prompts the master rating - and that the weighting of this component should be nearly as much as the others combined.

   That's one version of recency - how many starts since a given effort - another is how many days since an effort was recorded. I have not researched this thoroughly, but I have looked at how absence since last race affects how a horse might perform against expectation.

   This is revealing. On the Flat, horses returning within a week perform about 2 lb better than par compared to expectation as expressed by the horse's Timeform rating. Horses returning after between 2 weeks and 7 weeks are fairly normal. But those returning after between 8 weeks and 12 weeks underperform by about 2 lb and those returning after between 13 weeks and 32 weeks by about 6 lb. The best turnaround of all was one of 48 hours (+ 3 lb).

   I don't believe this identifies a "flaw" in the ratings as much as the fairly logical conclusion that horses backing up quickly are fit and well while those coming back after 100 days off may not be. In both categories there will be many exceptions.

   The same approach to "days since last run" for jumpers is slightly complicated by how to deal with non-completers but seems to suggest that the effect is less marked. Horses returning inside a week are again best (+1.5 lb), and those returning inside a month are fractionally better than par, but horses off for a longer time are only slightly (less than 1 lb) below what could be expected. This tallies with experience: jumpers hold their form over a longer time and tend to have their races spaced out more. You can be more forgiving of absences over jumps.

   I have not yet looked at whether "backing up" (as the Aussies call it) is distance-dependent or class-dependent. I suspect it is in both instances.

   Regarding pace analysis, I think any proxy for sectionals is likely to be crude. Horses may get strung out more, on average, in truly-run races than slowly-run ones, but there will be many exceptions, some of them prompted by extraneous influences such as the draw.

   The good news is that there seems to be a growing appetite for bringing back sectionals to some degree, and an increased interest in the subject from the authorities, so we may not have to guess quite so much in future. This is something I hope to write about again in the coming weeks.

   Just re-reading your initial post, I operate a "stop-loss" on performances, so that a poor effort - the kind of "blip" to which you refer - does not skew the figures too much.

   As far as algorithms predicting "coming to form" etc are concerned, you may want to consider a version of Markov Chains using the large data sets of which you speak. If you get enough incidents of horses performing in a given pattern you should have an outline frequency of a horse running well/par/poorly "next time". I would use ratings and group them into ranges below the maximum value of an array. E.g. 80/85/100/0/95 is -20/-15/0/-40 (if 40 is the stop loss)/-5....gives x% to form, x% 1 to 5 below form etc next time.

   It has to be emphasised in all of this that such a macro approach is likely to miss some of the nuances involved in racing. I would, for instance, treat a horse running "poorly" on its third run in maidens (thus qualifying it for a mark) rather differently to a horse running poorly in other circumstances!

   Simon