Australia / Simon Rowlands / 27 March 2012 / 1

Fast though Frankel is, he has something to prove in terms of pure speed against Australian super sprinter Black Caviar. Timeform's Head of Research and Development Simon Rowlands reports...

The recent announcement that sectional timing will be provided for the majority of meetings in the 2012 QIPCO British Champions Series should have whetted the appetite of racing fans in the UK and further afield.

One of the highlights will undoubtedly be Royal Ascot, at which TurfTrax sectionals will be provided for every race over the five days.

That gives the tantalising prospect of measuring the speed (top, average, and so forth) for both Black Caviar and Frankel, if not in the same race, or at the same distance, or even on the same day, but at least on the same course.

Black Caviar - on a Timeform rating of 136, the equal of, or better than, any of her sex in history - is likely to take in the Diamond Jubilee Stakes over six furlongs on June 23.

Frankel - on 143, the highest-rated horse of either sex since the 1970s - may go for the Queen Anne Stakes over a mile on June 19 or the Prince of Wales's Stakes over two furlongs further on the following day.

Black Caviar has been sectionally timed throughout her career, as is customary in her native Australia. By contrast, sectionals were partly guesswork where Frankel was concerned until British Champions Day last September.

On that day, Frankel posted a 10.99-second furlong (the third-last furlong) in winning the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. That speed (40.95 mph) was faster than any by-furlong speed posted by Deacon Blues in winning the British Champions Sprint over two furlongs shorter on the same card.

It is almost certain that Frankel ran faster previously, at some stage of the race, in winning the Sussex Stakes at Goodwood (hand times had him running around 10.6 seconds for back-to-back furlongs).

And it is almost certain that he ran nearly as fast, and sustained his speed for a good deal longer, mid-race in winning the 2000 Guineas at Newmarket.

There is no need for such speculation where Black Caviar is concerned. Her times and speeds are well chronicled, and they make extremely impressive reading.

As if 200-metre sectionals of 10.83 seconds in the Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley in January and 10.64 seconds in the C.F. Orr Stakes at Caulfield in February were not enough, Black Caviar then posted an astonishing 9.98 seconds in winning the Lightning Stakes at Flemington later in February.

That time, recorded in the middle section of the 1000-metre race, is very nearly 45 mph in old money. Black Caviar would have been pulled over for speeding elsewhere in Melbourne!

A few important qualifications of those times need to be made, however.

Firstly, 200 metres is not (quite) a furlong. A pro-rata conversion turns Black Caviar's 9.98 seconds for 200 metres into 10.04 seconds for a furlong.

Then there is the nature of the track to consider. Flemington is dead flat, by all accounts, whereas Ascot has, according to TurfTrax's detailed survey, a remarkably consistent 1.3% incline for the length of its one-mile straight.

Here, I turned for help to Bob Wilkins, author of the superb "Bioenergetics and Racehorse Ratings", which was shortlisted for Sports Book of The Year in 2010.

According to Bob's calculations Frankel's 10.99 seconds up an incline is equivalent, in bioenergetic terms, to 10.63 seconds on a perfectly flat surface (further details will be posted below).

It should be said that there is a possibility the surface was quicker at Flemington than at Ascot: it's almost impossible to tell for sure. Furthermore, horses can be expected to run faster at 1000 metres than at eight furlongs, all other things being equal: by around 4% to 5% taken over the length of the race, but with greater variation within that for the longer distance than the shorter.

All of this narrows the gap between the one-off sectional for Frankel at Ascot and the lifetime-best sectional for Black Caviar at Flemington. But it does not close it entirely.

Where sectionals and overall times are concerned, Black Caviar has shown herself to be capable of speeds which Frankel has not yet been recorded as achieving.

If judged on pure speed, the evidence weighs heavily in Black Caviar's favour. In terms of speed sustained over a longer distance, the evidence begins to swing the other way.

If the unbeaten mare turns up at Royal Ascot, race fans could be in for something very, very special.

And there should be no hiding place where the clock is concerned for her rivals for the title of Best Horse On The Planet, either.

Simon Rowlands will be writing a series of articles on some of the fundamentals of sectional analysis on these pages in coming months.

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1. Simon Rowlands | 27 March 2012

   Here are the more detailed workings most helpfully provided by Bob Wilkins in response to a query of mine:

   "The nub of your query is - "if Frankel was timed at 10.99s over a furlong at Ascot, where the uphill gradient is 1.3%, how much faster could this have been if the track had been level"?
   
   The way of dealing with an uphill gradient is given on page 45 of "Bioenergetics and Racehorse Ratings". In addition to the cost of running on the level, there is an extra component of power needed to counteract the gravitational force acting downhill, and the overall effect is to increase the cost of running, Cr.
   
   Using the Ascot gradient the effect is to increase Cr from the standard value of 3.728 to 3.855. We only need to consider this and the air-resistance term. The kinetic energy term can be ignored as this is a sectional timing, not a race with a standing start.
   
   So the first step is to calculate the power P required to run a furlong in 10.99s with Cr = 3.855 i.e. with the gradient.
   
   The next step is to assume the same effort (P) is used without the gradient (Cr = 3.728) and equate this to the right hand side of the Power Equation. This then gives the new speed, and hence the time taken, which comes out to 10.63s, a reduction of 0.36s.
   
   I have tried tackling this using other (less accurate) methods, and I'm happy that these figures are pretty close to reality."

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