Horse Racing / Jack Houghton / 24 January 2009 / Leave a comment

Jack Houghton comments on Simon Rowlands' recent article on the art of reading a horse's ability by watching him stroll around the paddock...

Do you ever feel like you're being baited? I mentioned to Rowley that I was a little short of inspiration for this week's missive, and that I was looking forward to an upcoming sabbatical from betting.betfair.

It's okay, it's okay... I'll be back at the start of March so your withdrawal symptoms from my writing will be short-lived.

Back to Rowley. Knowing I was lamentably lacklustre in the ideas department, he posts his latest article: a summary of the thoughts of a chap called Jonjo on paddock watching; giving us pointers for next time we go to the races. And I couldn't help thinking: did he only write it to wind me up? Was this his way of giving me a fraternal, virtual nudge towards something to talk about?

Because OMG (text speak, get with it): a greater pile of poop I have not read since being forced by a toddler into repeated recitals of "The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business"; about, of all things, a mole who walks around with a dog-turd on his head.

First up, Jonjo tells us we should make note of horses who track-up. Unless they can't track-up, in which case we should watch them move to post instead. Okay, I've done all that and can confirm all the horses I saw either tracked-up, or moved on their way to post.

Look for horses who really use their shoulders. Yep, they all do that. Apart from one. He didn't use his shoulders and just kind of keeled over when trying to walk. What next? Oh yes, a confident, bold slap of the hoof. Ooh, it's tricky this one. Is that a bold and confident slap I see over there? I'm not sure. In the end I decide it's more of a rakish, foppish wallop, so discount the horse from calculations.

Now the head. Eliminate all the ones with overly small eyes. Hang on, there's a horse with one eye over there. What about him? Well, having no eye must be worse than a small eye, so he's out.

Jonjo isn't worried about overbites. After all, Dancing Brave had one. I'm not an expert Jonjo, but I think Keira Knightley has one as well, and it hasn't done her any harm. So we agree: overbiters are in.

He likes big ears on a horse. Does he mean he likes horses ridden my Kevin Manning? Because he has massive ears. No, no, he's talking about the size of a horse's ears. Good-sized rather than small and piggy. None of the horses I see have little pink ears, so they all pass the earing test. But I swerve a couple with sweaty heads, as advised, mainly because it looks like they want to eat me.

Right, now we need a neck in-keeping with the rest of the horse's physique. Yes, they all have horse's necks. Apart from that furry creature over there, but that turns out to be John McCririck.

I can't take this nonsense anymore. Does anyone seriously think the size of a horse's ear or eye will affect it's athletic ability? They don't. And any shysters who try to convince us otherwise should be treated with the same contempt with which sensible people treat astrologers and financial advisors.

A horse's racing potential is determined by a combination of factors like the efficiency of its cardiovascular system, its percentage of slow- to fast-twitch muscle fibres and its proprioceptive ability. And none of this can be determined to any degree of accuracy by simply looking at a horse.

In all the years I've stood next to so-called "good judges" - whether in sales' rings or paddock-side - I'm yet to find one able to divine anything other than a series of characteristics within a standard deviation for racehorses. And none of them demonstrated any success with their predictions of ability; other than you would expect from someone picking horses at random.

That's not to say that horse inspection doesn't have its uses. Ensuring regimented biomechanics when buying can help eliminate horses likely to be more prone to injury. But paddock-side, unless a horse is doing something it doesn't usually do, inspection is of no use whatsoever.

Think of it in terms of your tissue price. If a horse has a sweaty head, how should that affect its odds? Does it turn a [3.0] shot into a [5.0] shot? If anyone can cogently answer that question I might change my tune. In the meantime I'm off to look at pictures of Keira Knightley's overbite.