God bless the Levy Board, which has thrown its weight behind the idea of sectional times in British horse racing. This is an idea whose time has come, about 20 years ago, but we’ve taken the devil’s own time to do anything about it.
The levy board has offered up £900,000 as a means of incentivising media rights holders to get their tracks producing sectional time data forthwith. Those rights holders will be paid a fixed sum by the levy board for each fixture for which data is published; that per-fixture payment will decrease next year and again in 2021, so that there’s a lot to be gained by getting on with it now.
The hope is that within a couple of years, to the strains of the hallelujah chorus, all British tracks will have a means in place of producing sectional times and at last we can all stop guessing about whether the early pace was fast or slow. When a race pans out in an odd-looking way, we’ll have a helpful tool for investigating what happened. When a horse does something impressive, we’ll have an extra bit of data to illustrate the achievement.
The argument in favour of sectionals is often framed just now in terms of driving up betting interest in racing, and we can certainly hope it will have that effect. But there’s so much more to the case for sectional timing, including the insights it could offer into fence placement or the use that could be made of it by stewards and handicappers.
Fundamentally, sectional times help us to understand our sport and if that isn’t worth a big chunk of money and a grim determination to push this project over the line, then I don’t know what is.
Of course, some tracks (notably Ascot and 12 courses owned by ARC) are already producing sectionals, so this scheme will be a fair reward for their efforts.
On the other hand, I note that this initiative is all carrot and no stick, so I suppose there will still be executives who will let it whistle past their ear, leaving some of our tracks entering 2022 in a 1982 state of mind, and doubtless with some of the same sandwiches on sale.
Wednesday’s best bets
Happily, seven-furlong handicaps at Catterick remain as entertaining now as they were 40 years ago, with that familiar charge down the hill, scrabble round the bend and slog back up the hill to the line. There are two such races at the end of today’s card and I shall be taking an interest in both.
Gavin Cromwell has become a very notable name in low-grade flat racing in this country, as well as training the Champion Hurdle winner, and he may be adding to his 32% British strike-rate with Lappet (5.00) at 4-1. She was having just her third start for Cromwell, and her first in Britain, when she made all at Musselburgh last week and there should be more to come, for all that she scored by just a neck.
I was hoping for better than 7-1 about Chickenfortea (5.30) but the price has collapsed about Eric Alston’s grey. He hasn’t done much this year but he’s mostly been raced over six furlongs and needs further. His best three career starts have all been at Catterick and he is now on a mark 10lb lower than when he last tried this course and distance, when second in September.
There’s been a non-runner in the nap’s race at Lingfield, so Dream Kart, a Mark Johnston speedball, is only 2-5. Bleugh. But the admirable Cherry Cola (2.40) may not have finished winning yet and is available at 11-4 earlier on the card.
You can still get some 6-1 about Kafeel (3.40), the subject of some interest in the selling handicap. He hasn’t won since March last year but his rating has dropped as a result and there were some signs of revival on his last run before switching from Gary Moore to Alexandra Dunn.
Catterick
2.00 Blitzle 2.30 Whiskey And Water 3.00 Mrs Bouquet 3.30 Ghathanfar 4.00 Lever Du Soleil 4.30 Mercenary Rose 5.00 Lappet 5.30 Chickenfortea (nb)
Lingfield
2.10 Ragstone Cowboy 2.40 Cherry Cola 3.10 Royal Hall 3.40 Kafeel 4.10 Laikaparty 4.40 Dream Kart (nap) 5.10 Attorney General
Yarmouth
2.20 Magical Ride 2.50 Bubbly Splash 3.20 Soloist 3.50 Fearlessly 4.20 Muscika 4.50 Going Places 5.20 Sonnet Rose
Kempton
5.15 Soar Above 5.45 Recuerdame 6.15 Forbidden Dance 6.45 Skyman 7.15 Airbrush 7.45 Encryption 8.15 Walter White 8.45 Revolutionise
Bath
6.00 Perfect Grace 6.30 Edged Out 7.00 Conspiritor 7.30 Desert Lion 8.00 Rose Hip 8.30 Toolatetodelegate 9.00 Oborne Lady
