Posts Tagged ‘laggers’
Why stall 1 wins at Chester – even when it’s stall 9
Sunday, July 11th, 2010Yesterday’s City Wall Stakes was a fascinating race to watch from many perspectives, and well worth a second look for as long as the video link here holds good. We wrote beforehand about the draw statistics at Chester, which were completely against the eventual winner, Blue Jack, drawn in stall 9. Our favoured runners were drawn 1 and 2, with Glamorous Spirit, in stall 2, the best previous front runner in the race and therefore predicted to lead early.
The prediction was right – Glamorous Spirit set off at a furious pace and quickly led towards the inside rail. However, the pace was indeed furious. Glamorous Spirit must be one of the fastest breaking horses in training. She was also our front-running prediction in the Epsom Dash a few weeks back, when drawn on the unfavoured inside rail there – indeed she did break best, but her poor draw meant her race was quickly over.
In the context of yesterday’s race at Chester, she effectively burned herself out early on, and faded to be last – though even with this explanation, her run was still some way below her best form. (She may be seen to better effect on a straighter track where her early speed will not be blunted, as when winning a valuable race at the Curragh prior to yesterday’s outing – though the trainer seems to think otherwise.)
However, from the perspective of the Chester draw, Blue Jack, the winner, provides us with the most interesting run from this race. There’s no better use for the cliche “the exception that proves the rule” than his run. Blue Jack broke slowly, as indeed our lagger statistics over at the Betwise Members’ area (available until next Saturday) also correctly predicted. Blue Jack was given over a 50% chance of starting the slowest in the race before it began. As the commentator noted, Blue Jack was indeed slowest out of the stalls and “lost a few lengths at the start” – at least in relation to the rest of the field being carted along by Glamorous Spirit. However, Blue Jack’s jockey, Richard Kingscote, used that negative to good advantage and rode a very shrewd race, dropping her in behind the field early and hugging the inside rail position around the Roodee’s tight bends. It’s this position that produces the strong bias to stall 1, with any runner that sticks to the inside rail covering far less ground than those racing wide. The fact that R Kingscote managed to obtain it from stall 9 was a nice bonus. With the pace at which the leaders set off, he was able to let Blue Jack gain momentum in his own time – but the crucial point is that this was done on the inside rail. So “stall 1” wins at Chester, even when it’s stall 9…
Front Runner analysis: 4.15 Beverley today
Saturday, May 29th, 2010As promised in this month’s Racing Ahead article, Betwise are previewing different races here every week to shortlist each contender’s probability of being the front runner in the race.
The first question a good cynic should ask is: What’s the point of trying to predict front runners? Here are a few reasons:
All our front runner rankings are produced automatically, using the Smartform Database, looking into every runners’ previous history and assessing their running styles against each other for the race in question. We’ve found that the method has the best record of success in smaller fields over sprint distances – so we’re picking out the 4.15 at Beverley as today’s race.
Below are the list of likely slowly starters (LAGGERS), followed by the list of faster starters (LEADERS) that we would expect to front run today. The first figure after the horse’s name shows the chance that we think that runner has of leading (or being a lagger) today; the figure after the horse’s name indicates its stall position today. So, for the list below, we think that Fullanby and Fitz Flyer each have an approx. 30% chance of starting slowest today, and we think it is 46% likely that Masta Plasta will be prominent and/or lead from the start.
LAGGERS:
Fullandby, 0.31, 4
Fitz Flyer, 0.27, 3
Look Busy, 0.20, 1
Kaldoun Kingdom, 0.17, 6
Tombi, 0.06, 2
Masta Plasta, 0.00, 5
LEADERS:
Masta Plasta, 0.46, 5
Tombi, 0.28, 2
Look Busy, 0.21, 1
Fullandby, 0.05, 4
Kaldoun Kingdom, 0.00, 6
Fitz Flyer, 0.00, 3
As with using any tool for race analysis, the analysis does not stop on one rating, and it’s important to interpret these figures in the context of today’s race. Concentrating purely on who will front run for a second, we also note that our second ranked front runner, Tombi, is wearing first time cheekpieces, which it’s possible may bring about earlier speed.
On the race itself, it’s a decent quality race, as we can tell from the Class (2) and prize money on offer, so running styles alone are unlikely to tell us which horse will win (in a lower class race where all horses are exposed, stealing a lead on an average field can be a bigger advantage). On this score, Masta Plasta is well rated, but has less potential for improvement than the rest of these, at age 7. Plus, he has not won since 2008. Furthermore, a 46% chance of being the front runner, still means a 54% chance against. Even so, he’s our likeliest contender, some way ahead of the rest, and very unlikely to start slowly. Tehrefore, at 6.0 + he is worth considering as a back to lay bet (but not on this evidence alone to win) since he should be well in contention until the closing stages of the race.
Lots more work can be done on the analysis of this or any other race using these ratings – bringing into play speed figures and relative ability for example. One of the nice features of Betwise’s leader/lagger ratings is that you can use and interpret them as you wish as an input for your own analysis, whatever betting angle you are looking at – from laying slow starters, backing to lay front runners, to predicting pace and win strategies.
Tags: Beverley, front runners, in race comments, in-running, laggers, Masta Plasta, Smartform
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