David Thiselton
THE current leaders of the three-year-old male and female crops, Mount Pleasant and Anything Goes respectively, both won Grade 2s over 1450m at the Turffontein Inside course on Saturday and according to the sectional times provided by statistician Jay August there is little between them, although the handicappers in giving Mount Pleasant a merit rating of 127 currently rate him a full seven points higher than the filly.
August prefaced his figures by saying, “Both races were as close to true run races as possible and both winners ran as close to efficiently as was possible. The main difference was the filly got a faster pace objective up front than the colt and was also ridden out to a higher degree than the colt.”
The Grade 2 Spring Fillies and Mares Challenge was run at a fair clip and the leader Mil Queen reached the 1000m mark in approximately 26,70 seconds. Anything Goes went past the 1000m mark in 27.03 seconds. Those two times in Mount Pleasant’s race, with Cirillo given an easy lead, were 26.69 and 27.29 respectively.
Anything Goes reached the 400m mark in 64.56 seconds while Mount Peasant reached it in 64.65 seconds.
The next sectional from the 400m to the 200m mark is the telling one as Anything Goes ran it in 11.87 seconds compared to the 12.01 of Mount Pleasant.
That suggests she accelerated slightly better, , although on the other hand she had the advantage of coming off a slightly better pace.
She also ran the final two 100m sections slightly quicker than Mount Pleasant, 4,97 and 6,86 seconds compared to 5,05 and 6,89 seconds.
Their relatively slow final 100m times would surprise a few but is in fact normal.
Although the winners often appear to be “flying” they are invariably just slowing down at a lesser rate than the horses they are beating.
These times are all approximate but show Anything Goes to have run the race at an average of 6.09 seconds per 100m compared to the 6.11 of Mount Pleasant.
Both horses produced impressive finishing speed.
Anything Goes finishing speed over the final 400m was 102.7% compared to her time for the rest of the race, while Mount Pleasant’s figure was 102.1%.
A figure of 100% is considered efficient on a flat bowl with a running start, so 102.7% with a standing start is about as efficient as one can get considering there is a steep incline at Turffontein on the turn.
The handicappers do not take time into account but rather a performance relative to others in the race.
They gave Mount Pleasant the higher rating after making the fit course and distance specialist Zouaves the line horse. Mount Pleasant faced this 116 merit rated horse on 1kg worse than weight for age terms and beat him by 4,40 lengths.
The line horse in Anything Goes’ race was the consistent Magic School. She faced this 110 merit rated horse on 2kg worse than weight for age terms and beat her by three lengths.
Anything Goes carried 53,5kg compared to Mount Pleasant’s 51kg, which adds to the merit of her sectional times.
On her side was that she had last run five weeks earlier, whereas Mount Pleasant was coming off a 14 week break.
On pedigree it is difficult to say how much further the two horses will go.
Anything Goes is by the speed influence Var out of a half-sister to the champion miler Capetown Noir, but her damsire Parade Leader provides some stamina.
Mount Pleasant is by the precocious speedster Vancouver, who won three sprints as a juvenile including the Group 1 Golden Slipper and he was being prepared for a sprint campaign in Ireland and Britain before being retired. Mount Pleasant’s one-time winning dam is by Fastnet Rock, a speedster who, like Danehill, is described as a stallion who has the capacity to produce individuals who can race effectively and produce speed at some point in a race. However, his dam is a half-sister to two horses who respectively won the Group 1 Australasian Oaks over 2000m and the Group 1 Australian Oaks over 2400m.
August concluded by saying, “Mount Pleasant was presented with a slower pace objective and easily passed that test. The question is what would he have done with a steeper pace? We don’t know but given whom he beat it is assumed he would have passed it as well. But that is the problem with handicapping. It is an offset against a known quantity irrespective of the pace or time of the race.”
August also pointed out another problem with handicapping at this time of the year was the large weight for age differential between three-year-olds and older horses. He said there was no way of knowing whether Anything Goes was more mature or less mature than Mount Pleasant and thus ahead of or behind the weight for age curve.
