Dangerous to disregard the pace at which a race is run

Betting Strategy / The Assistant / 05 October 2007 / Leave a Comment

Our girl in the yard tells us about one of the most misunderstood aspects of horseracing

Worrying times at the stable. One of the lads found a cockroach on the yard and it told him to p*** off. Apparently there's a nasty bug going round.

Okay, this has nothing to do with the lofty discussion of pacing promised last week, but hearing a joke in a racing stable that a). is funny, and b). is something you can tell your mum, is a rarity. So I felt the need to share.

Now, race pacing.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of horseracing - by both punters and industry professionals - is how the pace a horse runs affects its performance.

This is highlighted by a conversation I overheard in the parade ring at a jumps meeting recently. A trainer, who shall remain nameless, was giving his jockey, who remains predictably brainless, instructions.

The jockey says: "I've got a low weight, so was gunna lead and really stretch them from the start. That should make the weight tell."

The horse went fast at the start, but a lot slower at the finish.

The best chance of a horse performing to its ability is for it to run an even pace from start to finish, irrespective of weight carried.

If a horse races above its optimum even pace for a period - perhaps because of a fast start or a mid-race surge - then it enters oxygen debt, a state where it can't breathe in the amount of oxygen needed to fuel the effort.

Racehorses can perform in oxygen debt for only a limited period of time, and a horse reaching that state too early in the race will struggle at the end.

Conversely, a horse running below optimum even pace might not reach oxygen debt until much later, having too much left at the end. It's a delicate knife-edge that is left in the hands of jockeys to negotiate. Oh dear.

This is the detail behind the advice given last week: "if they've gone quick, the horses at the back are at an advantage, if they've gone slow, the ones at the front are at an advantage."

The difficulty for in-running punters is having a definitive guide as to how fast they have gone. Unlike in other countries, sectional times are not given universally in Britain and even if they were, you would require thorough knowledge of what these times represented on Britain's idiosyncratic courses.

One way would be to build up a database of distance-specific sectional timing information for every racecourse and, stopwatch in hand, compare what is going on in front of you with what your data says is fast or slow. But this would require a massive investment of time and resource.

What is clear is that anyone betting in-running without some grasp of the pace they are running is at a distinct disadvantage.

But if you can't be bothered with the hard work and so decide to eschew in-running punting altogether, it doesn't mean you can ignore sectional times. Because they still give an invaluable guide to performance when analysing a past race.

For example, if a horse is held up off a slow pace but still finishes a close third, you will know he is better than the bare form, whereas the market will likely undervalue him next time..

Giant's Causeway's 2,000 Guineas second provides ample evidence of this. He looked pedestrian when King's Best scythed past him in the last furlong. But Giant's Causeway had raced close to a blistering pace throughout. All the others that did the same finished tailed-off, but he plugged on - a sure sign that this was a class horse whose jockey had simply got the pace wrong.

The ability to decipher race pace in this manner can pay dividends in identifying prospects that the general populous normally ignores. Which is why I'd advise anyone to oppose Sublimity whenever he runs this season. Yes, he was visually impressive in the Champion Hurdle, but an analysis of the pace of the race will tell you that the jockeys on Brave Inca and Hardy Eustace went way too quick, and that Sublimity was simply running past slowing horses at the end.

Don't get me wrong, he's a good horse, but the market will overreact to that visually impressive performance every time he runs from now on.