One of the arguments sometimes put up against sectional timing is that any half-decent racereader should be able to judge the pace of a race with their eyes in any case. This may be true some of the time, but not all of it, and even then only in general terms. Anyone thinking they can judge with the naked eye the precise difference between a horse travelling at, say, 38 mph and one travelling at 37 mph is deluding themselves. And, yet, the difference is great in terms of how it affects performance.
Visual racereaders tend to take their cues from how bunched a field is and how many of the horses are racing freely or being pushed along. As rules of thumb go, these are not bad ones, but they are sometimes misleading, as was shown on the Saturday of York's Ebor Meeting.
After half a mile of the mile-and-three-quarters Ebor Handicap, the course commentator opined that the runners were going along at "a pretty decent pace". The truth was very different. The on-screen sectionals showed the leaders reached that juncture almost 4 sec slower than the leaders in the earlier Melrose Handicap over the same distance. The difference was about 6 sec by the time the runners had got to the 3f marker, from which point the Ebor runners came back more than 2 sec quicker.
Expressed in more familiar terms, the last-3f speed of the winner of the Melrose Handicap, Dark Crusader, was 99.6% of her average race speed, as she came from last to first in a truly-run race, while Tiger Cliff's Ebor win came in 108.5%, as he quickened best at the end of a notably falsely-run race. The former % is close to par for the course and distance, while the latter is not.
Dark Crusader was not flattered to win - besides anything, she may have been last, but she was not last by much by the time they reached the sectional - but the run of the race probably exaggerated her superiority somewhat. On the other hand, Tiger Cliff looks to be better than the result - especially compared to third-placed Number Theory, who raced more prominently - as does fourth-placed closer Ted Veale.
Fortunately, these points were made eloquently by James Willoughby on Racing UK after the race and with reference to sectional times. It is not necessary in this day and age for post-race analysts to rely on imprecise and generalised visual impressions: alternatives do exist.
Three of the seven winners on Saturday came from last place 3f out, and another three came from mid or rear. Some might suggest that the track was "playing to closers", but sectional analysts know that pace is a by-race phenomenon and that such things should be viewed on a by-race basis as a consequence.
A horse's energy needs to be nursed more on rain-softened ground (such as prevailed on Saturday) than on the quick ground that obtained at the meeting's outset. Not all jockeys managed that feat on Saturday.
The last two winners benefited no small amount from the run of the race, especially Threes Grand, who looks one to oppose on the back of this. By contrast, the only all-the-way winner, Astaire, looks to be about 5 lb more superior to late-closing Wilshire Boulevard than the bare result of the Gimcrack Stakes suggests.
Readers looking for a "to follow" horse from Saturday are pointed towards Mecca's Angel, who refused to settle early and did a bit too much before finishing second to Hot Streak in the listed race: she can rate into the 100s another day.
Kiama Bay is picked as a "to follow" horse from Friday, having finished best of all into third (last 3f in 36.3 sec) behind Chancery in a race run in a good overall time. The Friday headline figures are as follows:
The Nunthorpe Stakes itself has already been analysed HERE.
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