MY time as a professional jockey has come to an end, and the next chapter of my career sees me in a different capacity in my new role working for RaceiQ – and I hope it’s a journey you will join me on.

RaceiQ’s mission is to bring a new level of data analysis to racing, alongside the rollout of sectional timing data across Ireland. One tool we will be using is the Finishing Speed Percentage (FSP), which uses the sectionals to calculate the speed a horse covers over the last half a mile of a race, as a percentage of its overall race speed.

We have also introduced a ‘Lengths Gained Jumping’ (LGJ) model which uses speed metrics to measure every horse’s jumping performance. If you imagine that the average horse jumping a fence records a zero – so that effectively zero is the par figure – we can put a positive or negative number of lengths on every horse’s jump at every fence at a Racing TV track. That enables us to evaluate exactly how their jumping compared to the rest of the field. Each week I’ll be picking out the stand-out performances, according to the RaceiQ metrics.

Il Est Francais

I’ll start with the stand-out performance of the Christmas period. On St Stephen’s Day at Kempton Park, we were blown away by one horse in the three-mile chase division – and it wasn’t in the King George. It was, of course, the novice Il Est Francais in the Ladbrokes Kauto Star Novices’ Chase.

This special horse, having his first run in Britain, notched up a time 4.45secs quicker than the King George over the same course and distance. But it was his breathtaking jumping which caught the eye, gaining him 27 lengths on the field – and he seemed to have plenty up his sleeve. He’s definitely one for the King George next year.

Dinoblue

When you look in more detail at the sectional times, it won’t just be fast finishes telling the story of the race, sometimes it’ll be the slow ones. Take the Paddy’s Reward Club Chase that Dinoblue stormed home in, or did she? Courtesy of an injection of pace by Gentleman De Mee midway through the race, she simply outstayed the others, rather than quickening away from them as the eye suggests.

She completed the last half mile 1.93secs quicker than Gentleman De Mee, but this was because she slowed down less than him, not because she sped up. She notched up a Finishing Speed Percentage (FSP) of 98.83% compared to his 96.44%.

Galopin Des Champs

We saw a far improved jumping performance from Galopin Des Champs in his demolition of his opponents in the Savills Chase at Leopardstown.

Through our RaceiQ lens, we saw him gain nearly 10 lengths on the field through his jumping, which was a good performance, considering the quality of the opposition. When he was beaten in the John Durkan the time before, he had given away around 15 lengths through his poor jumping, and was beaten just under two lengths.

The sectionals show he quickened up very impressively too, covering the last half a mile 4.4secs quicker than the runner-up, Gerri Colombe. He also clocked up a FSP of 107.75% to back that up further.

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