Sectional Debrief: Cheltenham Open Meeting 2016

Depending on who you listen to, and on the extent of tweed in their wardrobe, the National Hunt season “proper” either starts and ends with the Cheltenham Festival in March, begins around the time of the publication of Timeform’s Chasers & Hurdlers in October or is a 12-month-a-year antidote to the abomination that is Flat racing.

For even many diehard jumps’ fans, however, it is Cheltenham’s Open Meeting in November which truly shows that the winter code is “open for business”. Some people even start taking the action seriously enough to consider overall and sectional times as a means for measuring performance. If you are one of them, you have come to the right place.

There is a misconception in some parts that times do not really matter over jumps. If you think that it does not matter if one horse runs 20 lengths quicker than another on the same day, at the same course and distance, or that it runs the same overall time but completes the final half-mile 20 lengths faster than another, then there is probably not a lot that will convince you otherwise.

For the rest of us, it matters, for it tells us something (maybe a lot) about the athletic abilities of the individuals concerned. It is, however, most unlikely to tell us so much that we can afford to ignore other relevant factors, such as stamina, fitness, temperament and jumping ability. But that is not the point.

One problem with time analysis over jumps is that it has been impossible to get accurate race distances, and thereby credible standardised times against which to measure performances, until about 18 months ago.

That has changed for the better. Even if it had not, an understanding of how quickly a horse finishes its race, or how quickly a race itself finishes, may give significant insight into that horse’s ability, or how much speed or stamina has been required in general. Sectional timing, in other words. 

Let us look at each of the three days of the Cheltenham Open Meeting through the prism of sectional timing. Overall times are my own, taken from the leader breaking the plane of the start and not the tapes going up, as are sectionals (many published overall times are still manifestly misleading). Sectional distances are estimated from Google Earth, times and video analysis.

The headline – “by race” – figures for the leaders at the sectional and the leaders at the line on Friday are as follows:

Due to the configuration of the Cheltenham course, and notably its stiff finish, “par” finishing speeds (the speed at the end of a race compared to the average speed for the race overall) are a bit under 100%.

The finishing speeds of the races won by What A Moment, and, to a lesser degree, Peregrine Run show that speed was tested more than stamina (with implications for individual positioning) in those races.

Conversely, the races won by O O Seven and Un Beau Roman finished slowly compared to par, with the former a remarkable 4.2s (around 20 lengths) slower over the last 3.65 furlongs than Astracad’s race over the same course and distance earlier.

O O Seven was winning a significant novice chase, while Astracad was winning an ordinary handicap, but the latter was about 3 lb quicker overall than the former (after weights carried are factored in) when something like 14 lb the other way might be expected given the winners’ respective abilities.

Closer inspection of by-obstacle sectionals shows that the novice was more than 4.0s slower in the first mile or so than what was a truly-run handicap, before a mid-race that was ferociously fast.

That is a highly inefficient way of racing, and it is no wonder that the novices completed so slowly. O O Seven’s time up the run-in was several lengths slower than any other chase winner on the card.  

One consequence was for margins to be exaggerated in the novice, with fifth-placed Its’afreebee value for nearer six lengths behind the winner than the 18 lengths by which he was beaten, according to sectional-upgrading methodology (all such upgrades can be found in Timeform’s Sectional Archive).

The handicap won by Un Beau Roman did not fall apart so much, but sectionals imply that second-placed Pairofbrowneyes and fourth-placed De Faoithesdream might have finished just ahead of the winner ridden a bit more conservatively.

Significant rainfall made the ground softer on day two than day one (I make it a difference of in the region of 40 lb, or around one going category). But the beauty of the finishing-speed metric is that it is comparable across different circumstances, for it reflects ratios and the conditions themselves are implied in the overall times.

Those finishing speeds were less extreme than on the Friday, but closers were fractionally helped in the day’s big handicap, the BetVictor Gold Cup, in which Taquin du Seuil came from some way back to edge out front-running Village Vic.

Clondaw Cian himself ran close to par (he was about four lengths back at the sectional and has an individual finishing speed of 99.6%) in the intermediate handicap hurdle, and appears to have run a useful overall time, in a race in which none of his rivals exceeded 97.7%.

Although beaten a fair way at the line in sixth, Arctic Gold helped force the pace for a long way, despite racing closer to the inside than many on the day, and was still in with every chance approaching the last: he can be expected to run a lot better next time.

Conditions appeared to be about 11 lb quicker on Sunday than on Saturday, but still “good to soft”. Fox Norton looked a serious Champion Chase contender to many after his authoritative win in the Shloer Chase, but time analysis recommends a degree of caution.  

His overall time was only around 1.2s quicker than the useful novice Le Prezien in the preceding race, and if Fox Norton finished slowly then his well-beaten rivals did so to an even greater extent (incidentally, some time sources appear to have misjudged the start, with the difference between the two races being 0.9s if taken from jumping the first fence).

In simple terms, the runner-up in the novice, Hammersly Lake, ran much the same time as the runner-up in the Shloer, Simply Ned, and presumably no-one is imagining that the former is a serious rival for a potential Champion Chaser.

Interestingly, the leaders in last year’s Shloer – won by the great and now-retired Sprinter Sacre – were about 2.0s (roughly 10 lengths) behind Special Tiara in the first half of their race, before a final time that was 1.1s quicker, underlining how attritional this year’s edition was in comparison.

The Shloer was not the only fast-early-slow-late race on the card, either, as those finishing speed %s show. Sternrubin can be forgiven a slightly below-par fifth to North Hill Harvey in the Greatwood Hurdle (a race which produced a good overall time), having forced an overly-strong pace. Ballyarthur paid to a degree for a similar ride (as well, possibly, as for staying nearer the inner) when fourth in the race won by Behind Time.  

Not all races were run in this manner, of course. In particular, the opener was steadily-run, as well as messy in the closing stages for good measure. It resulted in an overall time more than 10.0s slower than for the Greatwood, which, in turn, was faster than the concluding bumper (despite the absence of hurdles being likely to have made several seconds’ difference).

There is a plethora of information to be derived from accurately-taken times and sectionals, of which the above is just a taster: Timeform’s Sectional Archive goes into things in more detail.

For those looking for a few horses to take from the meeting from a sectional point of view, the following would be my recommednations: Its’afreebee; Arctic Gold; Special Tiara; and Ballyarthur.