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Thread: The Road to the Cheltenham Bumper

  1. #1
    Senior Member Desert Orchid's Avatar
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    The Road to the Cheltenham Bumper

    I don't see a thread for this. If there is perhaps a mod can merge this with it.

    Normally I don't bother too much with the race and often don't even look at it other than in retrospect.

    However, I've always wondered how much faster these races should be compared with their equivalent hurdles races (since they're not slowing down for the obstacles).

    This piece by our (ex-) fellow forumite Simon Rowlands caught my attention as it is the first time I've seen a theory on the subject published. He asks for feedback so I hope he looks in and reads this.

    Meantime, here's the link:
    https://www.attheraces.com/blogs/sec...hampion-bumper


    I first realised I had to try and find an 'allowance' per hurdle for Bumpers when I did my time ratings for Wither Or Which's race back in 1996, from which he emerged with a rating in the high 160s and based on which I backed him ante-post for the following year's Supreme, which he never got to.

    If Simon does look in, I can tell him I allow 0.8s per flight, based on years of trial and error with no more tech than a battery-operated calculator. Where fences are omitted in chases, I allow a full second.

    Visually, it might seem horses don't lose much ground at all, after all we see them run through spaces in hurdles where they've been knocked to the ground.

    However, my memory is long enough to envisage Dayjur's leap close home in America when he lost a commanding advantage.

    Horses lose ground in the air. That's a fact of physics. But, for me, one of the things that seems overlooked is the subsequent momentum that has been lost and the amount of time it takes to recover it. I think it takes a few strides and while we are obviously still talking fractions of seconds, they all add up.

    And those 4/5ths of a second equate to about four lengths.

    Per flight.
    Last edited by Desert Orchid; 22nd November 2020 at 2:48 PM.
    Illegitimi non carborundum


  2. #2
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    Have little time for NH 'sectionals', but comparing bumpers to hurdles is the road to perdition, imo. Obstacles undoubtedly cause breaks in the pace, so - by definition - hurdle races, comparitively, will be less energy sapping than straight-forward flat races.
    Not a big fan of ante-post either, so taking 6/1 against an indeterminate field, on who knows what ground, is beyond the pale, in my view.

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    Colin Phillips (22nd November 2020)

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