Taking shortcuts when doing the form is a dangerous past time and the win by Sniper's Bullet in the Group 1 Railway Stakes on Saturday highlighted this to such a degree I am somewhat embarrassed to confess my slackness. In my podcast I stated "I will give Sniper's Bullet the bullet" due to the statistic that his prior 8 starts at the distance had yielded zero wins. The fact is he has raced at 1550m once (considered 1600m by most form guides), 1600m exactly 7 times and once each at 1800
Taking shortcuts when doing the form is a dangerous past time and the win by Sniper's Bullet in the Group 1 Railway Stakes on Saturday highlighted this to such a degree I am somewhat embarrassed to confess my slackness. In my podcast I stated "I will give Sniper's Bullet the bullet" due to the statistic that his prior 8 starts at the distance had yielded zero wins. The fact is he has raced at 1550m once (considered 1600m by most form guides), 1600m exactly 7 times and once each at 1800m and 2000m. Yes, he has not won on any of those 10 occasions but to give him "the bullet" on just those raw figures, as I did, was grossly unfair as my examination of his form will show.
Let's have a look at his career properly. His first 1600m run was at the end of a campaign when beaten 2.3L at Group 1 level behind Mentality as a 3yo. (forgiveable)His next 1600m run was at Group 1 level again this time beaten 0.4L to Casino Prince and 0.2L to Tuesday Joy (great run) , followed by a 2.3L defeat to Mentality in a field of 5 where the racing positions barely changed during the race. Pace would have been an issue (forgivable) His next run was in the Group 1 Doncaster beaten 3.5L to Triple Honour when caught wide from barrier 15 of 20 runners (forgivable) followed by a flop in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes over 2000m (distance, spell = forgivable)He was sent for a 35 day break to tackle the Group 1 1400m Stradbroke Hcp but flopped and was spelled.
In the Spring he flopped in the Emirates (poor run) before tackling the Railway Stakes where he was beaten 0.1L to Gilded Venom(great run) His next run saw him beaten 2.3L to Niconero and Gilded Venom at wfa over 1800m and then he was whisked back to Randwick for a flop in the 1600m Villiers Handicap finishing 15th.(forgivable runs:certainly the Villiers was) Surely he had had enough by then as he spelled. This time in he was beaten 4.8L to All American in the Emirates (poor run) and, of course, he won Saturday at 15/1.
One of the reasons I am forming my Generic Ratings is to make sure I have a figure for each horse I rate at a certain distance that is a fair indication of what has been done in the past. The 0.4L to Casino Prince and 0.2L to Tuesday Joy would have been enough to have him rated fairly highly at 1600m but his second last year would have made the figure more reliable. I am not saying in any shape or form he would have been top rated but he would have been much closer to the A position than the 10th I allotted him last Saturday using such a ratings process.
Sorry Sniper's: I apologize
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