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Captain's Blog - 6th April 2011

The Importance of Pace Analysis

Descaro went in for us yesterday at 13/2 under the excellent SDS (Silvestre De Sousa) to secure a decent profit for the day and to set us up nicely for an assault on Aintree on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. SDS did have something of a reputation for being particularly good on sprinters which was and is totally justified, but what makes him good on sprinters also makes him good on horses over a distance of ground. That special something is excellent judgement of pace.

The more time I spend watching Racing the more interested in pace analysis I become. I am miles behind the curve though as the subject has been widely analysed in the USA for years and my good friend James Willoughby has written some excellent pieces on the subject, but for some reason the more I look at the form book the more I keep wondering why I am trying to find winners without having ever properly understood the importance of pace. There has been no greater intellectual development in the World of Handicapping in recent times than that of pace analysis and as I watched pace play a vital role in the outcome of all the races at Kempton yesterday I am moved to improve my understanding of this vital winner finding tool.

Of course the mathematical quantification of pace is something that many people far more capable than I still grapple with but maybe the tussle is worth it. If it can explain why a horse can earn a speed figure of 77 when winning from the front and can achieve the same figure when plodding into fifth in a different race then it's value is obvious. Over the last five years pundits and the like have embraced the concept of biases on racecourses, something that happened courtesy of the coverage of American Racing on ATR 1 some years ago. Now the intellectual landscape needs to change and deal with the difficult issue of pace analysis. Without this analysis Polytrack and Tapeta Racing will remain a mystery. Of course it may be that the idea of pace analysis promises more than it will actually deliver, the great Andy Beyer certainly believed this, but synthetic racing has promised more than it has delivered as well, and as a student of the sport I feel the need to examine this concept and treat it with more respect than I have previously done so. There has to be a way of cracking the Polytrack conundrum and this could just be it?

I am in the studio tonight to present all the action from Kempton. Dave Nevison will be my guest and we will be delighted to receive your e-mails to studio@racinguk.com . Please do get in touch with your Aintree thoughts and if you can help us out with a bit of Polytrack pace analysis then that would be great.

Time for me to bid you farewell for another day. Enjoy the sun and happy punting.

Today’s Selection

7:40 Kempton - Indian Jack (SP)