Heavier than heavy

In this age of technology where we can split atoms and determine the winner of a race down to one one hundredth of a second you would have to wonder why horse racing perpetuates the use of an archaic system of describing the ground conditions at race meetings.

Last Saturday we had identical official going descriptions of ‘Heavy’ at Aintree, Chepstow and Navan. If we look at the results from these three meetings there is quite a variance in how the horses performed and you would have to suspect that the underfoot conditions were far from uniform across the three venues.

At Aintree just 37 of the 66 horses managed to complete their races with 36% of the total runners pulling up (24 horses).

Over at Chepstow 54 of the 73 runners managed to finish their respective races. 17 horses were pulled up, equating to 23% of the runners at that meeting.

Navan saw 81 of the 100 runners complete their races and 14 horses pulled up, which is 14% of the total.

It seems apparent that the ‘heavy’ going at Aintree was appreciably worse than it was at Navan, yet there is no provision for either of those tracks’ clerks of the courses to go beyond ‘heavy’ when describing the ground.

The clerks of the courses can add in some subtle variations such as at Sandown on Saturday where the official going was marginally different with Heavy (Soft in places) or at Cork on Sunday when it was described as Soft to heavy (Heavy in places), but they cannot tell us when the ground is worse than the standard description of Heavy.

Considering a horse’s ability to handle the underfoot conditions is one of the most important factors when analysing the relative chances of horses in advance of races, it’s bizarre that horse racing (particularly in Ireland) continues to rely so heavily upon an individual poking the ground with a stick to come up with the official going description, and that even then there are no options available to describe any surface that is more testing than the standard heavy.

On a similar note, judging one horse’s performance relative to another’s is what makes horse racing such an intriguing and fun sport from both a spectator and betting point of view. Take El Fabiolo and Jonbon who both won last weekend and all going to plan will clash for the third time in their careers in the Champion Chase at Cheltenham in March.

Jonbon narrowly won their first encounter over hurdles, when probably benefiting from an experience edge over his rival. El Fabiolo emphatically reversed that form when they met again over fences in the Arkle Challenge Trophy at Cheltenham back in March and since that encounter the pair have both excelled over fences, winning six more races between them.

There is the remote possibility that they will both turn up for the Clarence House Chase at the end of January, but the unavoidable clash will happen at Cheltenham in March when they will race in the Queen Mother Champion Chase. It will be one of the highlights of the Festival to watch them face off against each other and it will also be interesting to see how the betting market fluctuates on the race between now and then.

The bookies have more or less given up on ante post markets as a betting medium in recent years, going unattractive odds on virtually every potential runner. Ante post is now little more than a tool for their PR departments to keep the brands in the news. The current offerings of evens El Fabiolo and 11/4 Jonbon represent zero value at this stage. Those odds equate to 30/100 the pair coupled three months out from the race and if for any reason they don’t turn up you lose.

Changing the subject, for anyone worried about the impending doom for horse racing on the back of affordability checks and advertising bans, they should read last Saturday’s Irish Times article about land prices in Tipperary. If Coolmore Stud is actively buying up large swathes of the county for almost three times the market value I think we can safely assume that the horse racing industry will be immune from the effects of the new gambling regulations.