Here I’ll blog about pretty much anything to do with horse racing.
In part one of this article I used sectional timing data to analyze the top UK and Irish flat jockeys judgement of pace in a race. I used a few different metrics to come up with various charts for the top fifteen jockeys as decided by wins in higher class [...]
Judging a jockeys ability has long been an inexact science, with some widely different views on how effective certain pilots are. Some jockeys like Jamie Spencer polarize opinion, while others like Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori are generally accepted as two of the best around. What forms these opinions though [...]
You buy a racehorse, pay a trainer to train it, then have to pay for extra's like entry fees, jockey and transport fees when it races. There is also vet bills and farrier bills. Surely after coughing up all of that you're entitled to feel that without owners there [...]
I concentrate mostly on UK racing so I don't normally bet much on Irish Flat Racing, but I was doing a Goodwood and Galway tips package last week, so was faced with plenty of races with reserves, and the associate problems that brings in trying to find value bets. That, [...]
Punters help fund Irish Horse Racing, without them it's unlikely there would even be any racing. You would presume then, that the powers that be, would treat such an important group with the respect they deserve. You might even think that they would go out of their way to keep [...]
This years Coventry stakes seems to be the cause of quite a bit of debate over the worth of the form. One camp is using the lack of winners to come out of it, as justification for saying it's worked out poorly, while others led by Timeform's David Johnson, and [...]
Last Saturday’s Epsom Derby was a fascinating race, but the result has led to claims of tactical genius from Aidan O’Brien. Was it really a stroke of genius to go slow, to get the favourite Dawn Approach pulling, or did they get lucky? To credit Aidan as the brains behind [...]
This years eagerly awaited Cheltenham Festival kicked off on March 15th, and the first point of note was the ground. We were assured it was going to be soft, by the clerk of the course, some local trainers went further, suggesting it would be heavy. Imagine most people's surprise then, [...]
It seems the ride AP McCoy gave Binocular in today’s Irish Champion Hurdle has caused a fair bit of debate. Firstly I should add I place backed Binocular, and place laid Thousand Stars, so I wasn’t best pleased. Immediately after the race I thought if ridden more vigorously between the last two hurdles he [...]
The World Thoroughbred Rankings for the 2012 Flat Season are out, and no surprise that Frankel is on top of the pile. His rating of 140, which he achieved twice, in the Queen Ann at Royal Ascot, and also in the Juddmonte International at York, is the subject of some debate [...]
