AI And The Huge Risk To Racing (IMHO_

What do we all make of AI, and I don’t mean what it may do to the job market, I am talking about horse racing? The first thing to mention is that I am no expert (I can barely work my phone ffs), but I am happy enough to state that it is still at an embryonic stage and can only get better (or more accurate) but is that a good thing?

We have (lets admit it) spent most of our betting lives searching for the “Holy Grail”, any betting system that made a profit day in day out and would see me living on a yacht in the south of France sipping margaritas – but we are still looking and I am stuck with a pint of best at the local hostelry once a week – not quite what I had planned.  

The important thing was, if we ever found “it” we had to keep it to ourselves, if everyone knew what was the point - enter AI stage left.

I already know someone using an AI system of some sort and finding the majority of winners in his top three for each race, turning almost every contest into a profit making probability. Fantastic and good luck to him - but what happens when it gets to the stage where any of us can type in “who wins the 3.35pm at Sandown” and it is correct 90% of the time? Looks good at first glance but is it really – Ladies and Gentlemen I give you a resounding and very loud NO – it is the end of racing as we know it. If everyone could find the winner that easily then that means no-one will take a bet on the result so what is the point?

Bookmakers close down with the exception of slots and casinos (all other sports would follow the same downward spiral as racing betting eventually, they may not be as betting dependent but once you know the result in advance the interest will slowly ebb away), bit our sport will be the first to die. No betting means no levy payments, no media rights, no race sponsorship, and nowhere to have a bet, leaving racing a very different beast to the one we al know and love.

Doom and gloom – maybe, and if ever I would love to be proved wrong this is it, bit I felt something had to be said and said now - what racing’s powers can do I am not so sure, but I am very wary that affordability checks, tax harmonisation, and so on are a smoke screen and the real problems are yet to darken our door.

Having read my previous comments I need to find something positive to write about for the sake of my own sanity, and as a glass half full type person I do not like to be so negative – but the facts cannot be ignored and sadly AI won’t be going away. I guess the retirement of amateur jockey David Maxwell deserves plenty of air time  even if he was a marmite character that you either loved or hated.

It never ceases to amaze me me how punters who struggle to sit on an armchair dish out abuse to jockeys, and (more importantly) he bought and paid for his own horses and if you weren’t aware he was not a professional then more fool you. He retires with a record of 75 wins in the UK and one in Ireland and I doubt he steps too far away from the sport he clearly adores.

Anyone wondering why he is retiring at the age of 47 needs to know he broke his back for the FOURTH time in the Foxhunters at Aintree in April, and was told by his doctor that he needs to stop –  they make jumps jockeys of sterner stuff than us mere mortals and that’s a fact.

On to the racing…..

Saturday

1.30pm Newbury

A Group Three over five furlongs makes for a tough beginning to a Saturday with a missed kick at the start potentially decisive, but in a race won by No Half Measures last year for Richard Hughes, who went on to score at Group One level this season, we should not underestimate how important this race could prove. Three-year-olds have dominated recently with four of the last five winners, despite only getting a solitary 1lb from their elders, but I am hoping that trend is bucked in 2025 as Willam Haggas sends Montassib back to the track for his first start since October last year when he finished fifth in the Champion Sprint at Ascot. I have to confess this is not his best trip, with all eight career victories over six or seven furlongs, and also that he will undoubtedly improve for the race with Ascot once more the target, but his handler  reports him to be well enough to take his spot, and if he gets the rub of the green I can see him running into a place regardless.  

1.50pm Ayr

Trainer Andrew Balding has won two of the last nine runnings of this Listed contest over a mile and a quarter, and he has every chance of adding to that with the lightly raced Almeric, a son of Study Of Man who took his maiden at the second attempt last season, and returned with a length victory at Newmarket in the Listed Feilden Stakes over nine furlongs in April when staying on nicely, suggesting the added furlong here will not be an issue. I am hoping his absence has been down to wating for an Autumn campaign as he seems to prefer a bit of cut in the ground, but my bets will be reduced as it may be for very different reasons which is a concern. The form of his last win has been franked with runner-up King Of Cities winning a Group Three on his latest start, and the firth winning a novice and a handicap, and if he is ready to do himself justice, he can improve enough to take this.

3.00pm Ayr

I am sorry, but for a Group Three this looks a pretty poor field but I guess I just have to knuckle down, bite the bullet and get on with it. After all, one of these has to come home in front, and if I have it right (for once), then that horse will be Roger Varian’s Coming Attraction. Second on her Goodwood debut when only beaten a length, she has followed that with a five-length success at Chelmsford when allowed to race near the pace, and then at Chester when she made all the running, only needing to be pushed out to score by a length and three-quarters. This is a step up in class but she has done more than enough to deserve her place in this line-up, and if she can slip the field bright and early I can see her making every post a winning one to come home alone, with Richard Fahey’s Catching The Moon my idea of her most dangerous rival.

3.15pm Newbury

The Mill Reef Stakes used to be a far more reliable guide to the better juveniles each season than it has become in recent years I am sorry to say, and I would be surprised if any of these went on to make their mark in a classic either here or anywhere in Europe. Sadly, that does not make finding the winner and I would love to see Into The Sky come home in front for trainer Jim Boyle who thoroughly deserves a decent horse in his small yard as he is one of racing’s “good guys”. He can go well but the race he won on debut looks a bit questionable (he won at odds of 80/1 and you don’t see those too often), and sadly, at the current odds (he is trading the 9/4 jolly as I write), I will be feeling guilty and looking elsewhere for better value. Rock On Thunderhas the form in the book and although no each way pick at 7/2 or thereabouts, he has an experience edge as well, after four starts including a win at Leicester.  Second to Wise Approach in July over course and distance, the winner went on to finish third in the Group One Prixy Morny at Deauville to give the form a decent look to it, and he was then second once more, this time in the Gimcrack at York where he made almost all the running before hanging late on to be beaten a length. Back at Newbury I am hopeful those antics will not be repeated, and if Kevin Stott can persuade him to keep a straighter path, he may prove too strong for these.

3.35pm Ayr

Hard to see how I can ignore the Ayr Gold Cup, one of the biggest betting races of the Autumn and a fiendish puzzle with the draw and the six furlongs meaning luck with undoubtedly play a part. Last weeks stats went tits up to be fair, but we soldier on regardless – nothing finds every winner but we have hit a 25/1 shot playing this way and that won’t be the last of them. Looking back at the last 15 years and the following facts rear their ugly heads and will be the basis of my calculations: No winner priced bigger than 28/1 at the off, 14 finished in the first 12 last time out, 14 were aged six or younger, 14 were rated 89 or higher, 14 were rated 109 or lower, 14 had raced a minimum of four times this season, and all 15 had last raced within 60 days. Add all these together and you cut the original field down to a more manageable six (for those interested, they are Two Tribes, Aramram, Purosangue, Flash Harry, Run Boy Run, and Jubilee Walk), but I need to pick one of them, and hopefully the right one! Purosangue is trained by Andrew Badling who has had 12 winners in the last fortnight, and who has won this twice since 2013 with Highland Colori (20/1) that year and Donjuan Triumphant (13/2) in 2017, and better still, the horse has won off a mark of 104 in Listed company, albeit it back in 2023, suggesting his current rating of 96 is not one he can’t handle. He has been out of sorts recently hence a tumbling down the handicap, Oisin Murphy takes the ride, first -time cheekpieces are applied, and if they can get him back to his best, the 20/1 or so looks sorely tempting as an each way price.  

3.55pm Newmarket

I am anything but convinced why I have even included this race because, as a trial for the Cesarewitch, who knows how many will or won’t be showing their true hands ahead of the race itself?  It seems to me a good excuse to revert back to a stats based analysis once more, and in the last 15 years we have only seen one winner priced bigger than 9/1 which I confess, came as a bit of a surprise. Only one came out of a stall numbered higher than nine which I suspect is more down to field size than any pattern over this trip, while all had finished in the first 10 on their previous start. 14 came from the first five in the betting which looks a positive stat to use, and 14 were aged seven or younger. 14 were officially rated 77 or higher, and 14 were rated 100 or lower, while all had raced within the last 90 days, and if we add those together (is that even possible?) then we come up with a frankly disappointingly large “shortlist” of six horses, so there is more work to be done. None of them left have won over the trip of two and a quarter miles which sends out warning to anyone having a bet, but if we have top-three options then how can I not like the chances of Reverend Hubert. Trainer Charles Byrnes has had two runners in this race over the years, winning with both of them, and he clearly understands the type needed to win this. Currently rated 137 over hurdles, he stays more than three miles so it seems fair to think his stamina will not be an issue, his last start on the Flat was at The Curragh in June when he finished a running on ninth over two miles off a mark 2lb higher, but he has won on the level when in the care of Richard Hannon back in 2022 off 5lb higher than this, and looks to have a better chance than his odds imply.

Sean’s suggestion:

Coming Attraction 3.00pm Ayr