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QIPCO 1000 Guineas, Newmarket, Sunday 2nd May 2021

Discussion in 'Horse Racing' started by QuarterMoonII, Mar 21, 2021.

  1. NassauBoard

    NassauBoard Well-Known Member

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    Snow Lantern got a speed rating of 70 from Proform and Alcohol Free got a figure of 67. Chindit got 70 for his race too. It suggests the forums favourite flat expert is probably being very fair in suggesting that looking at the maiden winners in the Guineas is fair and logical.
     
    #21
  2. Grendel

    Grendel Well-Known Member

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    The Racing Post assessed Snow Lantern's win as follows:-

    1. Snow Lantern RPR 95 (Up 11 lbs)
    2. Derab RPR 95 (Up 8lbs)
    3. Fantastic Fox RPR 94 (Up 24 lbs)
    4. Hiromichi RPR 73 (Up 12 lbs)

    That seems to be giving a fair bit of improvement to the 3rd and 4th and it is difficult to give Derab much more without starting to look a bit suspicious. Derab looked as if 7F was a bit short for him on debut and as a Sea The Stars half brother to Enable, there is ample stamina to suggest that a mile might be shorter than his optimum trip this year.

    If we were to postulate that Snow Lantern improves a stone from now until Guineas day, that would leave her on a theoretical rating of 109 and it would need to be a poor Guineas if that were the winning rating. Pretty Gorgeous is rated 113 and even when she was beaten over 7F on good ground in the Moyglare, she was given as running to her mark of 110, so you would think she could run to at least that in the Guineas over a mile.

    Joseph O'Brien has said that Pretty Gorgeous has wintered well and looks fantastic. Despite having good form on soft, the trainer believes that she will be quite versatile ground wise and that she will probably get 10F.

    From my own perspective, I thought Pretty Gorgeous was the one who was always going to prosper better at 3YO than old foe Shale. If Joseph's filly has improved from last season I think she is the one to beat in the Guineas with stamina assured.

    If Santa Barbara is as good as the reports suggest, they may all be playing for second here but I would be asking myself who Aidan's second best 3YO filly is, because it could be that Santa Barbara is the best, ahead of a mediocre bunch.
     
    #22
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  3. Bustino74

    Bustino74 Thouroughbred Breed Enthusiast

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    Enable got a RPR of 103 after her first run as a 3yo, up 20 on her first race rating. Horses can improve a great deal as 3yos, some don't improve at all. You have to take a view on whether they are being hard or generous I suppose.
     
    #23
  4. Ron

    Ron Well-Known Member
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    The ratings are not the B all and end all in terms of a horse's ability. They are simply measurements based on their finishing positions in relation to other horses. You only find out it's true ability when you discover what it can't achieve.
     
    #24
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  5. NassauBoard

    NassauBoard Well-Known Member

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    RPR are useless. Fact. <laugh> EOS<laugh>
     
    #25
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  6. OddDog

    OddDog Mild mannered janitor
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    My expert eye (don't <laugh>) was very taken by Snow Lantern's stride - the way she really grabs the turf with her front legs. Particularly visible when she quickens clear after the 2F marker. Beautiful action and somewhat reminiscent of her dad <ok>
     
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  7. Bustino74

    Bustino74 Thouroughbred Breed Enthusiast

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    Agree totally Ron. Also any rating must use some yardstick. If you use the wrong yardstick or try to rate a field of horses who are all improving at different rates then you have problems.
     
    #27
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  8. Grendel

    Grendel Well-Known Member

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    Racing Post figures and Official Handicap figures are compiled based on the same logic. We know that generally speaking a horse on the flat cannot be better than 140 and that at worst not be worthy of a rating at all. We have hundreds of years of racing to bring to the table for comparison and any horse can be assessed roughly using distance won or beaten by and we are always going to bear in mind that in some cases the formlines might be tenuous.

    What is the alternative? Just taking a best guess?

    Ratings are only a starting point in a selection process but sometimes we might have very little other evidence to go on and Classic winners will have an average rating that any realistic contender will need to be capable of approaching on the day of the big race.

    Any unbeaten horse is obviously an unknown quantity until it meets with defeat but we can assess the likelihood of a horse improving enough in time for a tougher assignment.

    I think Enable is a poor comparison to use. For a start she was an outstanding example as a filly. Not many, if any, in my lifetime is going to match her career progression, so in my mid any comparison is fairly spurious. Enable's main target was six weeks from her seasonable debut, whereas Snow Lantern only has two weeks to find enough improvement to win a Guineas. Enable actually ran again before the Oaks, when she landed the Chester trial. Her RPR for that race was 111, so she only improved by 8 lbs in the next race. Snow Lantern is going to need much more than 8 lbs to land a Guineas.

    Enable actually lined up in the Oaks with an official rating of 107 and emerged from it rated 120. It is my belief that she probably went in nearer 110 but that is still not enough to have won the Guineas I feel and the Oaks was in June, so can Snow Lantern surpass Enable's figure by May 2nd and win the Guineas? Enable retired on a rating of 125, so she never really improved much after winning the Oaks. It was more a case of being consistent around the 120 mark and it was her toughness and constitution that made her a win machine in a fairly mediocre few years.

    With anything involving a bet, you have to question whether the odds reflect any value? Does Snow Lantern have a chance in the Guineas? Yes she has a chance but at 8/1 it is saying she has an 11% chance of winning the race. Pretty Gorgeous on 7/1 is saying she has a 12.5% chance of landing the race. Is a Fillies Mile winner really only 1.5% more likely to win than a maiden winner?

    Santa Barbara is 7/4 and that represents a 36% chance of landing the race. Again, is a maiden winner really three times more likely to win the Guineas than a Group 1 winner?

    I can't see how Pretty Gorgeous can be bigger than 4/1 on the day of the Guineas and that represents a 20% chance on the book.
     
    #28
  9. As We Know

    As We Know 1 of the top judges in Europe

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    Im unaware of any decent horse in the history of racing achieving an accurate paper rating in a maiden and if Snow Lantern ran in a handicap off 95 shed be 3s on, ive got her at 107 after yesterday and I think 114/115 will be enough to go extremely close in this years renewal. Obviously I cant back that figure up based on paper form, its entirely based on my own intuition, im confident the front 3 in that maiden are all 100+ and she was comfortably best.
     
    #29
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  10. As We Know

    As We Know 1 of the top judges in Europe

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    I compared the sectionals of the maiden to the Spring Handicap over the same distance and it shows the maiden was 2.5s(15 lengths) slower than the handicap for the first 5f, and 1.2s(7.2 lengths) faster for the final 3f.

    Its very typical of a maiden race where the gallop just isnt strong enough to fully expose the horses, the front 3 have done well to pull 9L clear considering and it suggests they are pretty decent, Group 3 level was my impression, with all 3 open to improvement given their profiles and pedigrees, all having their second runs after highly promising educational debuts, and all having their first run of campaign.

    please log in to view this image


    Snow Lantern was notably keen in the early stages, which is not uncommon for a horse on their 2nd start I have noticed over the years, and a more strongly run race at a higher level should benefit her in that regard.

    For some more context, comparison against the second division of the 3yo mile maiden, which saw Foxes Tales and Counsel pull 8L clear of the 3rd, shows that after almost identical first 5f times, the first division ran the final 3f almost 8 lengths faster.

    please log in to view this image


    Foxes Tales was rated 93 on RPR, just 2 pounds below Snow Lantern and Derab, despite the clock showing they are nowhere near the same class of animal.
     
    #30
    Last edited: Apr 19, 2021
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  11. Ron

    Ron Well-Known Member
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    What we have to bear in mind is that ratings are historic (ie they are based on available data). With fully exposed horses the ratings are more relevant;

    However, with young horses, as Bustino says above, if you try to rate a field of horses who are all improving at different rates then you have problems.

    The OR and RPR ratings are not reliable in young lightly raced horses. They work on lengths and pounds and take no account of how much a horse had in hand, how much effort was exerted in finishing 6th in a field of 12, whether the course and/or going was ideal, whether it was given a tender ride, how much physical scope it has etc etc.

    For example, a potential Derby winner is given a light introduction in a maiden, as an immature baby, with instruction to the jockey to not push the horse and to win as cosily as possible and gets allocated a rating of 80. Then put away and trained for the big race, maybe with a pre Derby run as a final prep, (which it wins easily but from low rated horses, and gets an RPR rating of 112) and later gets rated 130 for winning the Derby, it doesn't mean the horse improved 32lb from the first race to the second race, nor a stone from the prep race; it means the "raters" hadn't a clue how good the horse was at any stage of its early career. After winning the Derby they still don't know how good it is. They do now know that it was good enough to win the Derby

    As Phil Bull, the founder of Timeform, once said: “a timefigure will tell you how bad a horse isn’t, but not necessarily how good a horse is.”

    Times aside, I used a similar argument above when I said "You only find out it's true ability when you discover what it can't achieve"
     
    #31
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  12. Grendel

    Grendel Well-Known Member

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    Snow Lantern isn't going to run in the Guineas. She will go for the Musidora or the Michael Seely at the York meeting.

    The race is finally starting to cut up and it is 6/4 Santa Barbara and 5/1 Pretty Gorgeous at the head of the betting now.

    No doubt this will be the year that a hype horse turns out to be a superstar and my 20/1 on Pretty Gorgeous won't be a winning ticket but as long as she runs I will be happy enough. Winning is always a bonus in this game.

    Alcohol Free was described as top drawer by Andrew Balding and he's convinced she will stay a mile. If so she has a chance but Cheveley Park winners have a poor record in general of stepping up to a mile in the Guineas. The same issue applies to Sacred, who has form at 5F. Best of luck to them for having a go but I couldn't back them.

    Not many fillies with a realistic chance in my opinion and I could see the field being small.
     
    #32
  13. Bustino74

    Bustino74 Thouroughbred Breed Enthusiast

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    These figures are great, how do they get them? Alcohol Free was nearer average time than Snow Lantern yet gets a lower figure. Chindit was closer to average than Snow Lantern yet gets the same figure.
    There was no comparison intended or any implied dig at any other rating or anyone else. The point I was making, through a horse we all know well, was that Enable only had a RPR of 83 going into her 3yo debut. She was 3rd in that race yet her RPR went to 103. I think the RP man earned his corn that day as he obviously used the right yardstick and also judged the level of improvement she had made as well as that of the horses that beat her.

    I just think at this time of year and over longer distances horses can make vast improvements.
     
    #33
  14. As We Know

    As We Know 1 of the top judges in Europe

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    What a bizarre decision to skip probably the weakest looking guineas of the century, have to ask why are they in the game?

    To get black type in a listed race at York with a pedigree like that, is that really going to add any value to a Frankel x Sky Lantern whos already won a race? the chances of her being unplaced in this Guineas was pretty slim but looks like they are trying to be clever, but they will find the coronation stakes a far tougher event to go in at the deep end and she hasnt a prayer of winning the Oaks.

    I was going to back her again at 8s because I genuinely thought that was still a good bet, even though i already had 33s. Not interested in either guineas now, thankfully fancy one strongly in America. Mother Earth should be a nailed on place if she runs but I dont back ew and sounds like she wont be beating Santa Barbara.
     
    #34
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2021
  15. NassauBoard

    NassauBoard Well-Known Member

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    They are done against a rolling average race time for the distance, so unlike the RP standard times they are adjusted continually throughout time. They have lots of explanations on the site.

    Agree with you completely in terms of rating lightly raced horses. Nigh on impossible to know
     
    #35
  16. Grendel

    Grendel Well-Known Member

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    I was just saying that Enable is not a good comparison to Sky Lantern in terms of the latter horse having only two weeks to "Git Gud"

    "I think the RP man earned his corn that day as he obviously used the right yardstick and also judged the level of improvement she had made as well as that of the horses that beat her"


    I can't agree at all with the Racing Post man having a good, or inspired, day at the office. Enable finished 3rd behind the unexposed Shutter Speed, who was thought Gosden's best filly at the time, but the runner up Raheen House had an official rating of 110 coming in and that makes it a simple case of plugging in the numbers to get a figure for a filly who was a neck behind Raheen House in receipt of 5 lbs. Raheen House had been 4th in the Group 1 Racing Post Trophy on his previous outing and had, himself been raised quite substantially in the ratings for his effort behind "Rivet Delight" who was simply called "Rivet" when the race actually took place. Not being disrespectful to the Racing Post assessor at all but rating inexperienced horses based on their form with horses who already have an official rating is a lot easier than pulling together several lines of form from with tentative rankings at best.

    I do get the point about big improvers but there is a glass ceiling set by how high even a top class horse can reach and we know this from historical observation. When we are punting we have to sometimes second guess the likely scenario in search of some value in the odds we are going to take. Most of the time we are probably wrong but even when we are not getting a winner, if we have avoided a bad value favourite or had a better run for our money than backing the disappointing horse at shorter odds, I think it makes for better punting overall.

    Each to their own methods, a winner is a winner after all.
     
    #36
  17. Masher 19

    Masher 19 Member

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    Followed you last year on love was hoping you had another pearl of wisdom this year but never mind , who do you fancy in America if you don't mind me asking
     
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  18. As We Know

    As We Know 1 of the top judges in Europe

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    Rock Your World in the Derby, but should warn you I am on a pretty extreme run of cursing animals, will do well to make it to the start
     
    #38
  19. Ron

    Ron Well-Known Member
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    Timeform clip

    upload_2021-4-22_1-25-26.png
     
    #39
  20. Grendel

    Grendel Well-Known Member

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    Noon Star won well at Wetherby today. It wasn't a strong race but the further they went the better she looked. You would think she can only come forward from this and it looked like the Oaks trip would be right up her street. Generally 12/1 and 14/1 for the Oaks now. Happy enough with a ticket on her at 33/1 in a weak looking year so far.
     
    #40

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