Betfair Official Blog

It would be a shame to reduce Denman's performance to a set of numbers

"The Assistant" encourages racing fans to forget about ratings and weights when assessing Denman's awesome Gold Cup win and wonders whether Kauto Star will ever be the same again

I have to admit, I just couldn't see it coming. True, Denman had been impressive in his Hennessy and Lexus victories, but they looked like the wins of a Premiership side over non-leaguers: the prevailing of the competent over the ineffectual. When Denman stepped-up against the top-flight glitterati of Kauto Star and Exotic Dancer he would be out of his depth. Or so I thought.

The mathematicians of the sport pointed out the facts of the matter. Denman was not even second best in the field on ratings. Phil Smith, the official handicapper, had him 4lbs below Kauto Star and 1lb below Exotic Dancer.

What's more, the stopwatch brigade called attention to their data that said he had yet to put up a Gold Cup performance time-wise. One speed-rating disciple, a long-term successful professional punter, pointed out that on his ratings there were five horses, including the 100-1 outsider Celestial Gold, who had better time achievements in the book.

Speaking to that same disciple after Denman's victory, he was kind enough to let me know that "The Tank" had now put up a Gold Cup performance time-wise. Thanks. Very useful to know. "If you're interested," he continued, "I now make Denman the best horse in the field on the clock, a couple of pounds ahead of what Kauto did in the fast-run Betfair Chase in November."

And no doubt my friend's speed-rating reappraisal of Denman will be followed quickly by others. A literal translation of his defeat of Kauto Star puts him in the handicap-rating stratosphere of the high-180s, making his Gold Cup Victory the best performance by a chaser since the 1960s. The more likely assessment, assuming that Kauto Star ran a little below his best and using Neptune Collonges or Halcon Genelardais as the benchmark, puts him somewhere in the low- to mid-180s, compared to Kauto Star's 180.

So perhaps it's not worth getting too excited about what we saw Denman do in the Gold Cup. Yes, it was riveting, but in the final analysis all that happened was a horse improved a few pounds to beat a horse who ran a bit below his best. In the now data-driven world of horseracing punting, there will be plenty of boffins who are sat, in an emotionless state, thinking just that. But to reduce the race result to a set of banal numbers is to totally miss the point.

Besides, it's not like the numbers provided much help before the race, so what's the point of paying any attention to them now? It's a bit like the international theory academics who clamoured to show why their various models provided the best explanation for the break-up of the Soviet Union. The fact is that none of them predicted it. Isn't that proof enough that all the models were crap?

For as much as Denman's performance will bring plaudits from the mathematicians, they will fail to explain the enormity of what he achieved. With two of the best staying chasers of recent times behind him, he went to the front with over a circuit to go and asked them to sustain a pace faster than anything they would usually be asked to sustain for more than a few furlongs. Put simply, he crushed them.

For every time their equine brains registered the human equivalent of, "we have to slow down soon, we don't normally race this quick," their jockeys asked them to go faster still. More was required to try and catch the phenom thundering along in front.

Which is why you now worry about the future of the horses that finished behind. Harry Findlay has repeatedly talked in interviews of Denman's ability to break the spirits, for good, of the horses who have tried to take him on.

It would be easy to accuse the ebullient owner of anthropomorphic idiocy, but Findlay's comments contain a truth: horses have an in-built perception of their place in the herd that is based on their ability to outrun others. Talented horses of the likes of Kauto Star and Exotic Dancer are not used to being beaten. They're certainly not used to seeing another creature disappear into the distance when they have no more left to give. However an equine might process these things we do not know, but it will be interesting to see if Kauto, for one, is ever the same horse again.