Instructions – part one

Well, with all the debate going on recently about how one stable can dominate purely by having the most horses, I thought I would look at the area of skill that those stables with the most horses allude to as the true difference.
Instructions clearly make a difference but the question is, and this is the important point, do they make enough of a difference to give one stable a consistent advantage over another. Now the thing that a lot of people forget is that instructions have been with us since the beginning and in the beginning there were dominant stables as well, the difference between then and now is that there are more instructions and it is the thorough understanding of the effect of these that is being touted as the true difference between trainer ability.

In the rules section it states:
The instruction you select for your horse will help determine what kind of pace the horse will run in the first half of its race or work.

So to interpret that we can assume that in a one mile race a horse will only react to what you have instructed for four furlongs. We can only guess that what comes in the second half of the race is determined by the race engine rather than the horse. A horse that has been restrained for four furlongs would have more gas left than a horse that had been pushed for four furlongs so it stands to reason that the restrained horse would start to make ground. The down side of this of course is what pace you have restrained your horse at. The base for every horse must be horse lead so if your horse runs 24 seconds for the first two furlongs it stands to reason that under restrain instructions it would run slower than that. If the pushed horse has built a big enough lead in the first half of the race the restrained horse can only run its maximum speed after being restrained and it may not be able to make up the lost ground quickly enough. The engine part of this scenario would be traffic as even a horse that can run fast enough to catch the pushed horse cannot do so if it is blocked.
So with the fact in mind that instructions only work for the first half of the race lets carry on with the actual instructions.

Horse Lead:
The rules say. Horse Lead allows a horse to run freely. The horse will be allowed to determine the pace it wants to run. This may or may not be the best pace for the horse. The jockey will not do a lot of restraining or pushing the horse unless dictated to by traffic or positioning.
So, that very first section poses some interesting questions. It seems contradictory that a horse is allowed to dictate its own pace unless the jockey decides that the structure of the race dictates some action. In effect this contradiction suggests that there is already an anomaly between horse lead and jockey lead and that would lead to some inconsistency.
Next in the rules comes. Some horses may not run well with a lot of restraining or pushing and if that is the case horse lead should work well for them most of the time. Some horses set to horse lead can fluctuate in the pace that they run. There will be horses that naturally come out running fast one time and slow the next, other horses will be much more consistent with their pace under horse lead.
Now what I read here is once again contradiction, some horses will be more consistent, some wont, some will run fast sometimes, some wont sometimes. It just all seems wishy washy and to be honest for want of a better word, random.
The more I read this part of the rules section the more I understood that horse lead just cannot work consistently in todays game. Years ago there was a large spread of abilities, a race would have horses working a minute for 5 furlongs running against some running 1.03 in their works. That meant that horse lead became more consistent because even if things occurred that went against the quicker horse at the beginning the second half of the race when the horse was running with no instruction other than the race engine would see it come through and win. Nowadays most races contain a majority of runners that are working within a half second of each other and that means horses running on horse lead would only have to deviate slightly in their pace to run a completely different race.

My conclusion for horse lead is that it is just too random to use in the current climate at HRP and that is the main reason for the inconsistent results we see so often. OK, so bearing that in mind we must look very carefully at the remaining instructions and try and find some consistency.

There are three categories of instructions and I will be talking about them rather than individual instructions.
Firstly style based Instructions, from the rules section:
These include the instructions Heavy Push, Push, Restrain, and Heavy Restrain. The baseline for these instructions is horse lead. The horse will come out of the gate at its horse lead pace and the jockey will either heavily push the horse, push the horse, restrain the horse, or heavily restrain the horse. Time is not directly part of the equation. Only the riding style is of importance. The style based pace instructions translate from works to races more directly than timed based pace instructions because they do not include the class factor.
Now the initial problem I have for this is in the second sentence where it says the baseline for these instructions is horse lead. We have already deduced that horse lead is inherently inconsistent so we therefore must assume that style based instructions are the same. Restraining a horse from its normal pace when that normal pace is not consistent means we cannot be sure that the instruction will be followed. This is where the first fable is found at HRP, the fable that a horse likes a certain instruction and can only run best using that instruction. It plainly says that horses that dont like restraining or pushing are better on horse lead, so if we find a horse that doesnt run well on horse lead and use a style based instruction how can we ever be sure what it will do if the instruction is based on horse lead.
The final part of the rules say, The style based instructions translate from works to races more directly than time based instructions because they do not include the class factor. This part is better because it suggests consistency between works and races but of course we then hit the problem of its correlation to horse lead.
My conclusion for style based instructions is therefore that they are a useful tool to determine whether you horse can be controlled in a race. If it reacts differently using these instructions in a work it would be natural to assume it can be controlled in a race and therefore isnt the type of horse that will only do well with the inconsistent horse lead instruction. As for race conditions i see these as a one off type instruction that could maybe be used to help with a poor draw or to help a horse travel over a longer or shorter distance than it is used to.

The next group of instructions are Time based instructions, the rules say:
The pace the horse is looking to be run at is linked more closely with time. There is a class factor that is an important part of these instructions and influences the pace the horse will be trying to run at.
OK, so this instruction directly affects how fast your horse will try and run in a race. It is  difficult to assess the pace of a race even if you look at each runner so there would be an element of informed guessing to be made but atleast you can assume that as long as your horse had the ability and could be instructed against horse lead then it would run more consistently. There are a group of times listed that would help with your decision but also a list of random and non random events that may effect the instruction so whilst this certainly seems to be the clearest of the instructions it also has some random factors built in.
The bit that is often confused is the piece where it mentions the class factor. The problem with HRP recently is that an allowance or even a claimer can be run in a very similar time to a stakes race and yet this is said in the rules section:
Q.Does the class of the race effect the pace or instructions?
A.Yes. The average pace in a higher class race on average is going to be faster so selecting average in a higher class race will result in a faster pace for your horse.
Now this part is where the waters are muddied a little as I have just stated that the class factor has narrowed so much that it makes very little difference. So now the instruction just becomes a matter of adjustment. If a horse wins an allowance on average it may need to be adjusted to below average in a stakes race to run a similar time. leaving it on average will cause it to run quicker than you want it to in a stakes race.

So how do time based instructions fare against horse lead and style based, well they certainly seem to suggest more consistency. So as long as your horse can take an instruction pace based instructions used properly and with a little bit of luck can give the horse a better chance of repeating its best run.

Finaly we have Positioned based instructions, this is what the rules say about them:
The jockey will try to maintain a certain position with the horse. The jockey will not over push or over restrain the horse to get it into that position, however. That means the horse may not ultimately make it to that position depending on how this sets up.

Now this instruction seems to be the most relevant to most people. If your horse is a front runner you would think selecting lead would be obvious, if your horse was a natural closer then close or trail would seem obvious. However and this is a big however we have all got experience of the second part of the rule on this instruction. It is pretty much all down to the jockey and that brings in a whole group of randoms that can once again breed inconsistency. Jockeys seem to vary hugely in ability, they have listed riding styles and also hidden talents when it comes to maneuvering a horse or finding gaps. If you are unlucky enough not to get the jockey best suited to the instruction you have selected then it is most likely the instruction will fail.
I would conclude therefore that using a positional instruction is only an option if you get the jockey most suited and of a high enough percentage to carry out the instruction.

At the end of the rules section is a list of reasons why your instruction will not be carried out, these include, traffic and positioning, being hung out overly wide and a few random incoherent reasons like ‘these types of things and others’ is mentioned that seem to suggest you are at the mercy of things not in your control.

So what is my conclusion in all of this?

Well, I am pretty sure most people use horse lead and that is why horses are so inconsistent in a race at HRP at the moment. They are so close in ability anyway that using the most random of instructions would certainly add to the ‘chance’ factor. Style based instructions are too closely linked to horse lead to be consistent on raceday but could be useful in works and on the odd occasion when a poor draw may need an over-riding instruction. Positioned based instructions seem to rely on jockey AI too much so again they can be used if retaining the right jockey but in a lot of cases may prove inconsistent. Finally and probably the most consistent of instructions are pace instructions. As long as you have a horse that will take to an instruction and is good enough to run at the pace you want it to it seems to me that this will get you the most consistent results.
But is that enough to make the difference between a stable like mine and a stable like Mb Stables or Australia Wide. The answer is yes but the difference is not as big as some would like to make out. To win a race with or without an instruction you still need a horse that is the best in the race or close to it. If you buy the best horse in the race or breed and own it then you have a much better chance than the player who has the fifth best horse in the race it really is as simple as that. Sure the right instructions will help my stable win maybe 10% of the time but if the trainer of the best horse in the race is using the right instruction then the best horse will win most of the time.
So if you are winning at a rate of around 15%, I would suggest that using instructions correctly may get you to 18 or 20% and that may be the difference between a loss of $500 and a loss or $100 a month. But if you want to compete with the most successful stables at HRP consistently you need to get the instructions right only after you own a horse in the top three in every race you enter.

In my next piece I will be publishing some experiments with instructions to try and prove or disprove some of my conclusions. Till then get instructing!

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