Tidal Fury

[Mavrick]

This gelding should be followed where ever he runs. The time that he recorded on the 6th at Carlisle in a beginners chase was superb and even the runner up that was beaten 9 lenghts (Akilak) should be followed.

[sjones]

Runs on Friday mate.

[Mavrick]

Thanks
He is certainly head and shoulders above the rest even though the runner up was unable to follow up recently. The only worry is Buena Vista as he got within 2 lenghts of Boychuk over hurdles. I think he will do very well to win this on his debut after a 6 month layoff but I would just rather I knew something about his fencing ability before I oppose him. Even money might turn out to be a blinding price, but he made a slight blunder at the last at Carlisle last time out and they are the easiest fences in Britain so a step up to 2m3f+, a much tougher course and on ground that despite his trainers comments and the reports from France maybe not quite perfect for him, he is probably best left until he runs in a bigger field where all the runners are exposed and we can safely put a line through all of them, and he is a bigger price.

[Mavrick]

1225 Haydock
The drop back down in trip should suit much better then the 19.5f last time. Only really has to beat Flying Enterprise, who looks a better horse over two and a half anyway.
6/4 which is available now on BF doesn't look like value and again he is best watched, especially on the forcast ground.

[Godspot]

Sorry to but in on your thread bud but I was doing this anyway:

12.25 Hayd Class 3 16f hvy cn
SS RPR TS
109 139 99 7 g FLYING ENTERPRISE(IRE), CD, fit, SS rate this horse better than Tidal Fury & gave a figure higher than TS, which is rare.
97 128 128 6 g PRINCIE AZZURRO(FR), on my reckoning, would be better off in a h’cap & jockey booking suggests he’s not here to win.
107 149 153 5 g TIDAL FURY(IRE), BF, returns to trip & similar ground as winning debut but this is Haydock where the fences are harder than Carlisle. Has 8/14 tips & is favourite on the strength of what is looking more like a dubious TopSpeed figure by the day. The value here could be Flying Enterprise’s RPR of [139].

Interesting but there are better races than this today.

[Win2Win]

Interesting but there are better races than this today.
That depends on peoples individual view on the race. Some folk don't go near handicaps, other make a lot of money from them.....etc...:wink

[Mavrick]

mi casa, su casa Godspot
I know what you mean about the speed rating looking dubious. I gave the Carlisle race a rating of 83, and the form doesn't really seem to be standing up at all, but I'm sure it will and he must have the best part of a stone in hand of Flying Enterprise today. The ground and this being Haydock maybe against him, and the price is too short. I won't oppose him for the sake if at these prices though. Always best to completely ignore the jockeys I find, unless It's a big name jockey where you know the price will be artificially short.

[Win2Win]

My A+ bet won :)

[Mavrick]

Well done W2W. You're a braver man then me to dabble in them prices. Now maybe Akilak can be forgiven for his poor showing when stepped up last time and can run them ragged when dropped back to the minimum. He is entered on the Tuesday over 21f at Ayr.

[Godspot]

but there are better races than this today.

Life's contradiction, strikes again....

Of all the available Top Speed figs from Saturday's racing, at present that is from Haydock, Newcastle & Fairyhouse, which race do you think produced the highest? No prizes for guessing. Not quite as high as Carlisle but he's done it twice now & that should erase the doubts about the first. He's qualified for h'caps now & it will be interesting to see what mark he gets. Nick Mordin has virtually written a book about him & considers him Arkle material.
As for Akilak, he runs well 'fresh' and that's about it, so basically ran true to form by disappointing last time.

[Mavrick]

Yes that was quite a good run. I only gave him a speed rating of 75 this time, but you can only win as they say. I consider Mordin to be the best in the business but I don't know about him winning the Arkle. Was that written in the weekender as I can't see it on his website and I can't get hold of the newspaper as I don't live in the UK. Akilak does look better after he's had 4 weeks+ off but I put his last run down to the bounce factor and he will be a different proposition over shorter and should still win over 21f on Tuesday.

[Win2Win]

I consider Mordin to be the best in the business

Cough Cough!! :rolleyes:

[Godspot]

Let's face it, none of us can be right all the time (Mathare excluded, of course!:laugh ), there wouldn't be any Bookies if we were but he (Mordin) was right about about Invasor at the Breeder's Cup meet & right again recently about that Bar Steward, Siberion(Ger), that beat my fun bet thread at Plumpton last week. You're entitled to your reservations (Keith) but Mordin & myself go back a long way. I have a folder with cuttings of his systems column from the Weekender that date back to the early nineties, I think I have all his books & I basically owe a lot of my understanding of horse racing (maybe that's why I'm so skewed...:rolleyes: ) to this very man. If there is one person that this life owes a beer to it is Nick Mordin. Anyway, what was I on about, oh yeh!

Yes, it has Tidal Fury as an Arkle prospect in big headlines on his website, right at the bottom of his November archive (scroll down to the bottom of his Weekly Report - the Irish one is good this week). Of course this was before along came Lennon, Fair Along, Pablo Du Charmil, My Way Du Solzen & there's more... Right now, Mordin's Arkle is going to have more runners than the National but like he says, 'last season it was an exceptional year for Juveniles, this, it would seem, Novice Chasers.' Also right now, his heads in a pickle about Kauto Star, he reckons if he is 'champion the wonder horse,' he's the slowest one we've ever had.

'Ere, someone had better tell Fadetoblack's G/F of Mordin's latest tip for some Xmas beer money - Hi Cloy EW at 33/1 in the King George..He's serious..:(

Anyway, I'm off to start an 'N&M' fanclub or was it Tuesday's entries? I'll let you know what I think of Akilak's chances. Great name though!:ermmm

[Mavrick]

Thanks, but I must be blind as I still can't see it :splapme I have to agree. Mordin has easily been the single biggest influence on me as a gambler. I carry "Betting for a living" in my laptop case whenever I travel anywhere and must have read the journal in the back a thousand times. He has allowed me to cut my form analysing time down by about 2/3rds and I still probably wouldn't be compiling my own speed ratings if it wasn't for him. I have never backed systems blindly and never will but reading his book about them has been invaluable as you realise that all profitable betting is systematic in a way. He doesn't have a forum on his site though, so hats off to Keith for having one of the best resources on the web.
I still rate My Way De Solzen a better horse then Fair Along. He just needed a bigger break than 10 days.

[Godspot]

so hats off to Keith for having one of the best resources on the web

Hear, hear, to that!

I suppose Mordin is too busy traveling to have his own Forum, in many ways he's a bit of a pioneer is our Mord's. His Cheltenham Bumper system has to be one of, if not the best winner finding approaches to NH racing I've ever come accross but he was the first to start talking about RPT, Rest Pattern Type horses, the first to encourage the use of your own speed figures for bumper races and as racing & breeding over the years has become more international, the first to latch on to that and start producing figures for French, German, Argentenian racing etc.

He also likes the chances of My Way Du Solzen back at Cheltenham, says he has a preference for 'undulating' courses & has twice now disappointed at Sandown.

Akilak will be odds on tomorrow, most of the opposition has scarpered & it's not hard to see why. He's ran 11 times under NH rules & has clocked a TS of over 100, 8 times; the best of the rest I think in tomorrow's field has managed to achieve that once in 12 attempts. I was going to suggest doing Birdwatch, EW against him, figuring that he's been behind a couple of decent types in his last two & may improve over this longer trip but he's opted for the 2 miler on the same card.

What I was going to ask you, you do your own speed figures, have you an equation that you apply to your ratings to then gauge an estimated official rating? Mordin was talking about Presenting Express the other week, he said, 'I've given him a 39 which eqautes to an estimated OR of 150.' I think he was trying to say, he's well h'capped but if you divide the latter by the former you get, 3.85. Multiply Kauto's 41 & In Compliances 44 by that you get: 158 & 169 respectively & you can see why his head is in a spin about Kauto. If you apply that equation to all his other figures you get an estimated OR of a lot of horses & then comparing them with OR's you can then determine who is well h'capped according to that set of figures. You can then compare those with other sets of figures; when you get more than one set of figures agreeing, then it becomes interesting.

I was going to have a bet today but I went for a beer on Saturday (first one for a month) & someone cajoled me into having a quid on their Bonus Ball sweepstake to fill the card up - I'm not really the gambling type but one of the barmaids has just been round to tell me I've got £49 to pick up! I never could just have one beer.......

[Mavrick]

Hear Hear

He is certainly a pioneer, but sometimes he causes me to look too much at certain factors (like equipment and fate of front runners at certain tracks etc) and I sometimes ignore the obvious:doh However the amount of stakes I must have saved by taking them things into account I would have ordinarily ignored has saved me a fortune. If he had a tipping service which were about his personal selections and not his systems selections then i would probably join it. I think he just makes his money now adays selling his Speed Ratings and writing in the paper.

First of all, I'm not quite sure how he is compiling his ratings now adays. I do mine near enough exactly how he says to do them in "Betting For A Living" and "Mordin On Time" using his class pars. Sometimes I use my own judgement when it comes to beginners and novice chases. Mine are out of 100 and his look like they are around the 45-50 mark. Maybe you know? I use the Windows Address Book to store them and now have more then 1000 horses stored and they are only for chases as that's all I look at. When I first started I just downloaded the PDFs on the raceform website and used the speed ratings that David Bellingham ( I think it's him) compiled. Most of the time they are ok but sometimes I totally disagreed so I just use my own now.

Second, I don't do anything with my SR's. There are too many variables when it comes to how a horse has earned a high rating (etc ground, course, size of field, pace etc) to use them to compile handicap ratings or your own official ratings. I know people do but I think it's a mistake.

I share Mordins view when it comes to the effect of weight which is one of the factors that the OR governs. Basically it should be ignored, unless the animal is small and has to carry a large burden or it's a mare. The other factor is the class of animal that the horse will have to run against which the OR works scarely well as lots of horses have a set class ceiling and even after many seasons the animal will reach the same OR several times but will never really beat it.

The only other ratings I sometimes compile when I really want to try to separate closely rated horses are class ratings, which again I use Mordins methods. These verge on brilliance for their simplicity and effect. This is why I really rate the handicapper "Simon" so high.

I thought about using Speed Ratings / over time, on a graph to look for performance patterns. Mordin talks about something similar in America called "Sheets" or something, but I couldn't be bothered and as I generally only concentrate on a select band of horses ( this has now got quite large) I tend to remember the horses performance patterns.

I don't know how he can be so decisive about Kauto star as he's always won so easily. He is probably better over shorter and will not be able to win the Gold Cup, but they are all running scared when it comes to the King George. The people that followed his advise to lay 6/4 or under will get their fingers burnt.

I have just got back from my local watering hole in Prague where they have WiFi and have been looking at Akilaks race. The ground and distance is a bit of a worry as "Morgan Be" could be anything. I tried rating the race when he was behind "Archie Babe" and it was quite hard. It was at least 64 and could be much more. I gave Akilak a 77 when he was behind Tidal Fury but there are too many variables. Ayr is a funny old track.
I'm going to run scared especially as you will probably be right and he will start odds on. Maybe 5/4 as they might tip up "Morgans Be" but he will probably be Napped and not worth getting involved in.

Well done winning the bonus ball. I'm too tight to play that or the lotto. A fun bets a losing bet. Unless you win of cause:laugh

[Godspot]

Here's Mordin on Tidal Fury, this is about 1 third of what he wrote:

"The going was officially soft at Carlisle but race times indicate it was actually what would be called good to yielding in Ireland. Tidal Fury won the race well by a big margin, running only a couple of points off the biggest rating I gave him in France. Clearly he’s a solid Arkle prospect. But I would be very cautious about betting him beyond two and a quarter miles or on genuinely soft ground as all his best French form was on yielding or faster ground according to the going allowances I make for my speed ratings. As I’ve mentioned before, French going reports are a joke. So don't get misled by all those wins you see in Tidal Fury's record on 'very soft' going. It’s not always soft at Auteuil as the official going reports suggest. The going there varies just as much as it does on other courses and it’s high time the French racing authorities had a long hard look at how they're using the penetrometer."

He beat me again today, this is what he said about Abragante (a winner at Taunton this very afternoon) a couple of runs back when he scored him a 37:

"ran a pattern class time to beat TURGEONEV (37) at Haydock. He would almost certainly have won his chase debut on his previous start too but for tipping up. His official rating is ludicrously low for a horse with his level of ability. So it looks likely that he's going to run up a sequence of wins."

Like i was saying earlier about converting figures into estimated OR's:

37x3.85=142, today he won a h'cap chase off've an OR of [116]. I'm going to do that right now what I was saying earlier. I've only been on-line a month & have only been getting the weekly reports but there are at least 100 horses whose figures I can convert in to estimated OR's & come up with another couple of Abragante's.

Mordin's scale goes up to Detroit City's 45 & In Compliance's 44 at present. He talks of Pattern Class from about 37+ & Grade One >41. It's a bit of a compressed scale, I like to have a bit of distance between the numbers.
If you're using his former methods & getting different figures he's obviously changed his method but not by much. Your figures are not far from double his. To convert your figures to estimated OR's, multiply by 1.8, you'd get a [135] for Akilak tomorrow, TS & RPR are higher but they're weight adjusted. I know what you're saying about playing with the figures though, 'that's worth that & that's that!' as one renowned columnist used to say.

The trouble tomorrow again is the distance factor, it reminds me off Labelthou(Fr) & Flight Leader(Ire) (the answer there is in the brackets, (Fr)=2m, quality chaser, (Ire)+3m quality chaser) at Cheltenham recently. A quality mid-dist figure stepping up in trip and bump into a true stayer. You know what I think half of this problem is. I know trainers have to experiment to find out whether a horse stays & find it's optimum trip & all but a lot of it I think is about preservation of the h'cap mark. But then like Mordin says somewhere, even the best horses like Desert Orchid didn't succeed on their first try at three miles. There could even be something other than Morgan Be in that race tomorrow that would have Akilak over a longer trip.

My Weekender form book just happens to be open at the page where Tidal Fury got beat. I was thinking at some point 'cor look at that - 2nd, 3rd, 4th all previous winners, 3 of the beaten 5 were OR [120+]'s, race was the fastest of the day and this was a chase debut - quality!' And then realised it was the day Tidal Fury as beaten fav tried stepping up in trip but the race analyst fell for exactly what Mordin was saying up there about:

"There were no real excuses for him for he has won on this sort of ground in France." :splapme

[Win2Win]

I tipped Abragante!!

Are you having sex with Mordin? Plus publishing his writing without his permission is breach of copyright, and makes you liable if he contacts me.

[Godspot]

No, we're not having sex, he won't even reply to my emails. Please pass on my details if he does contact you :)

[Mavrick]

I didn't see Akilaks race and they haven't got the comments in running up yet. But I expect he was prominent and faded or just never went on the ground. No great surprise. I never saw that Kilmackilloge was a non runner in Coach lanes race. If I had I probably would of backed him as 8/11 is not bad for a one horse race.

I must have already read that about Tidal Fury as it sounds very familiar.
I'm sure mordie won't mind as we're not passing his writing off as our own and we're not profiting from big'n him up. If he does then he will have to come to the Czech Republic to hunt me down:laugh

I think it's important for people that are new to the game and want to be able to study horse racing that they have a good starting point and don't just buy any old literature on the subject. Of cause if they would rather have a social life and not turn into a hermit like me then they can't go wrong by just subscribing to this site :D

What you said about trainers preserving their handicap mark is spot on. Someone said that the only way to be successful in handicaps is to cheat by not placing their horses correctly. Well that only works in our favour as it gives us short prices horses to lay, or oppose by backing something else that has conditions to suit.

The declared going in France is abit of a joke, but sometimes it isn't much better here. Especially at Plumpton where the clerk of the course could do with having his penetrometer inserted somewhere it wasn't intended so the reading comes out heavy :laugh

Mr Splodge is probably going to be a good lay tomorrow as the racing post are bound to tip him up and he's as slow as they come.
I strongly advise that you start compiling your own speed ratings as it only takes about 20 minutes to do a whole week when you get quick at them.

[Mavrick]

On 2nd thought I don't think Mr Splodge will be that greater a lay. Not that I'll be that surprised if he's beaten.

[Godspot]

Was Mr Splodge running at Fakenham? I visited some site earlier giving forecast ratings for Fakenham tomorrow. Rather like Mr Splodge it's all a bit absent, must be a NR.

I had a feeling our little correspondence was going to lead there somehow, me doing my own Speed Figures; I've just dug up Mord's, 'On Time' to see how long it was since last time. 1996, oh yeh, that makes sense, life got slightly disrupted in '97, you know it's taken me almost 10 years just to get back on-line. Crazy. So, TS, SS, RPR, Mordin's figs, Timeform's are not enough - I have to have my own! :spinning

Actually, i was just thinking t'other day that this is a good time of year to re-evaluate what you're doing. Cos of the holiday period & the weather violently interupting proceedings - there can be a lot of days, no racing & it gives you time to have a sort out. And like you say, once you get into the swing of it, it don't take long.

I failed to mention the horse that beat Tidal Fury yesterday, Buena Vista(Fr), another Arkle prospect, though may be reliant on 'st ground. What rating did you get for him?

I missed Akilak's race as well, I've sort of lost my enthusiasm lately, there's always a bit of a lull in quality this side of Xmas - I'm busy preparing the December Review for the blog, I should have my own website soon after crimble as well. It would be handy actually, to use my own ratings - at least then I'm not juggling someone elses. I looked into his, Akilak's breeding, he has two sibling's & neither stayed much further than 2m. That's another reason why i love this game, the breeding, it is the main reason why this sport is such an infinite science.

Sometimes it's just nice to be able to talk horses with someone, when I get started in a pub it can be like I've broken in to Czechoslovakian at times. Mind you it's handy to get served, most of the pubs on the seafront are manned by Czech barmaids. It must be pretty quiet in Prague these days, I mean, 1/2 of them are over here aren't they? The meat factory a few miles down the road from Hobbs' yard is full of them, Butlin's the same & just trying to get your pint can be quite entertaining these days:spinning .

So what are you doing over there while they're all over here? Waiting to see that big chase that they have over there, no doubt!

I'm tipping Chevalier Errant on the 'Andcaps thread for tomorrow, it seems a bit desperate to have to rely on a 13yo nag but his latest Raceform SS figure was way ahead of his rating & he's running off the same mark under a penalty. Almost fits into about 3 different systems so anything over 6/4 & I might even back it as well!:D

[Mavrick]

Yeah Mr Splodge was at Fakenham. I changed my mind after having a good look at the race.
At first glance I wanted to oppose Chevalier Errant but gods knows with what. Yankee Holiday earned a SR of 70 from me and then he went and did my money next time he ran and is looking like a bit of a monkey. CE might be a 13 year old but seems to be in the form of his life (SR 63 10-12) but I wouldn’t have been able to bring myself to back him. There was a quite a few quid wanted to be layed on Ben Britten last night which I thought was a little strange as he doesn’t really seem to have taken to fencing. (I have just seen the result and he has won I wouldn’t of backed him in a million years) A complete mine field of a race if you ask me.

You certainly won’t regret deciding to do your own ratings as it’s always better to have information that the rest of the betting public don’t have as when your ratings differ from TS, raceform or timeform then the odds won’t be compressed by the general public over betting it. If you have Windows Address Book on your computer then I can give you my ratings. I have about 700 on there and some more in a paper address book which I should really put on my computer before I lose it. I have only rated the winner of the races, but it’s very easy to work out the rest of the horses in the race using their beaten lengths. So in effect there are probably ratings for at least 1500 horses. There are quite a few gaps during the season but you should be able to assign ratings to at least ½ the horses declared in a chase and just work out the rest by hand. Most of the time I can put a line straight through half the field before even looking at SR so it doesn’t normally take more then 10 minutes to assign the rest. I’ve only recently got involved with the high class chases so the biggest gaps are around them, nearly all the mid-class handicappers are there for the last 9 months at least.

This time last year was exactly the time I started doing my own ratings because of the extra time I had with meetings being abandoned. Up until then I just used the raceform ratings which I saved on my computer.

I gave Buena Vista a SR of 76 when he beat Tora Bora, so they both should be good things to follow as long as there trainers don’t get over excited. Breeding is one of the things I don’t get involved in as I like just dealing with exposed runners, I will always want them to have already proved that they stay a certain distance. I never touch the flat.

I know what you mean about not having many people to talk to about horses. I started up a diary thread on here to have a bit pf a banter about some of the horses I back but it only attracted a couple of people and then I got a little bogged down as the Autumn started and there were so many more races that I had to look at and it went a bit quiet. I moved over here just over a year ago and I use to work for William Hill and then Corals and I had plenty of people to talk to about racing now I just have my Girl friend who is Czech and she’s knows just as much about horses as I know about politics in Cambodia.

The Velka Pardubicka is the big race over here and I had planned to go and watch in October but I got a bit side tracked. Probably by some three legged donkey running at Towcester. Prague is lovely and so are the Czechs. Why they would want to move to England (apart from the obvious) is beyond me. The beer here is 50p/pint , the public transport system is excellent, the women are beautiful and did I say that the beer is 50p/Pint. At the moment Prague is packed with tourists because it’s Christmas and it’s a nightmare trying to walk anywhere in the centre. I’ve already done most of my xmas shopping (that’s where I have just been) and now i can relax with beer and betfair. But not in that order.

[Godspot]

at least 100 horses whose figures I can convert in to estimated OR's & come up with another couple of Abragante's.

160 to be precise but only about 100 have an Official Rating & who do you think's name is right next to Abragante's as the most well h'capped of this little group? Cousin Nicky & not far behind him is Bishop's Bridge who are running against each other in the 2.20 @ Exeter this very day. I'd give it to the former but you could dutch 'em to be safe & if you want to be even safer bring in Nenuphar Collonges.

I'm going to start a new thread here as last weeks results have begun to shine a light on a very promising Arkle candidate, Killaghy Castle(Ire)

[Mavrick]

I was going to lay Cousin Nicky if I could have done it for 3/1 or less. By the time I looked at the markets last night he was already trading at 7/2 and when I went out today he had drifted quite considerably. I should of just left an offer but I didn't think he would get backed in so much. Nevermind. If you did get involved in the race I hope you left in Neptune Collognes in the end.

Tomorrows racing at Hereford looks terrible. I can't see past "Golden Duck" and "Theocritus" in the first, but "Golden Duck" will be 6/4 at best.

[Godspot]

It does look pretty naff but I'm into Anshabil 1.00pm & Darayabad & Kickahead & even Seribase in the 2.30.

Since Quibble (who I had written off on account of too many ?? & crosses - postdata) won the other day my little Bubbling Under qualifiers (using Raceform's SS) have run into a LSP backing blind. The 2.30 race is harder but the Henderson horse should be hard to beat, shame it's not a mare.