Betfair Official Blog

Sectional Timings: A handy skill to add to your betting armoury

Simon Rowlands has got his stopwatch out...

I have mentioned sectionals a few times over the weeks and feel that some further explanation of them is required. I do not intend getting too mathematical, so those for whom the sight of an equation is a turn off need not look away.

A few basic principles underlie why sectionals are worthy of consideration by the serious punter. Chief among them is the concept that the speed at which a horse is capable of running from a to b is important information. Where this concept tends to fall down is that the purpose of a horse race is not to run as fast as possible, merely to run faster than one's rivals.

As such, overall race times - even when adjusted properly for going, ability, weights carried, trip, track and so on - are subject to the pace at which a race is run. When a horse races efficiently its overall race time is a good reflection of its ability under the prevailing conditions, but when it doesn't it isn't.

Put simply, if a horse runs too quickly or too slowly early on it will not be able to get from a to b in as short a time as it otherwise might have.

Sectional times break down a horse's overall race time, so that variations in pace can be identified and the degree to which a horse has run efficiently can be deduced to a significant degree. Sectional times are provided for most racing on all-weather courses in Britain by TurfTrax, and excerpts of these times have started to appear in the Racing Post.

It is also perfectly possible to gather accurate sectionals for courses not covered by TurfTrax simply by using a stopwatch and videos. All you need to do is establish a good juncture at which to take a time and then to record how long there is between the leader passing that juncture and the leader (which in this case will be the winner) crossing the line.

Individual finishing times can be deduced from the official result easily enough. In Britain, margins between horses are a conversion of the time lapses between them, according to a fixed scale of 0.25 sec per length over jumps and 0.2 sec per length on the Flat. For instance, if the winner of a race by two lengths on the Flat recorded 100.00 sec then the runner-up will have recorded 100.40 sec, or thereabouts.

Armed with this information, it is a fairly simple job to establish individual sectionals - should you want them - by identifying how far back horses were at the sectional and converting visual margins yourself. There is also the more laborious option of clocking horses individually.

Despite what some might imagine, sectionals can be very useful over jumps in determining whether races have been run quickly or slowly. It is, besides anything else, easy to tell when a horse passes a certain juncture, as fences are fixed and hurdles are seldom moved significantly. It is child's play to know when to start your stopwatch in such circumstances.

In order to establish what this all means, however, you need to compare sectionals with the aforementioned overall race times. A quick time - by which I mean a time that is quick compared to the horse's ability - is nearly always an indication of an efficiently run race. Identify enough of the sectionals that give rise to quick times and you will identify how to run quickly.

By the same token, identify enough of the sectionals that give rise to slow times and you will learn how NOT to run quickly.

This may seem like a bewildering prospect given the wide varieties of horses, tracks, trips, conditions and so on that are involved, but analysis of overall race times has long since cracked this and crucially sectionals are best dealt with as a percentage of a horse's overall race time, which simplifies things most helpfully.

There are occasions on which percentages need to be adjusted for circumstances themselves. But, if, for instance, you reckon that a horse "should" get to the two-furlong marker in a mile race in 75% of its overall time then generally speaking that holds up regardless.

Even if you take sectionals no further, you can, armed with this knowledge, be much more confident about interpreting the run of a race. Was the way the race unfolded likely to have suited those that raced close up? Did it favour speed over stamina? These are crucial considerations to any racing analysis, and it is remarkable how easy it is to get them wrong if the sectional facts are unavailable or ignored.

It is, nonetheless, entirely possible to take things much further and to adjust overall race times so that they reflect the abilities of the horses concerned more accurately.

It follows from this that it is possible to produce meaningful ratings based on sectional information. But that is a much bigger subject and one that really would have to involve equations!

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Ironically, there are few particularly interesting sectional horses engaged in the next few days. But I recommend readers shortlist Avoca Dancer and (probably at a longer price) Smirfys Systems for the 20.20 at Wolverhampton on Thursday, while Ginger Princess must be followed if she runs in Britain in the next few weeks and Glenridding can be opposed next time after a succession of soft victories.