Data and new technology is something that horse racing has been generally slower to pick up on than other sports. Sectional timing, for example, is used at many tracks in the UK, but isn’t used at any tracks in Ireland.
At All About Sunday, we are embracing the use of technology as we believe that it will give you, the owner, a clearer picture of how your horse is training and where they are in terms of their journey to peak performance.
Let’s take Cisco Disco as an example. Cisco Disco is our three-year-old gelding who won on his final two-year-old outing at Galway. He is now gearing up for a run at Dundalk in early March before his first major target of the season which is a three-year-old only handicap at Leopardstown, at the end of that month.
Doing fast pieces of work
Before his Dundalk outing, Cisco Disco will do one or two fast pieces of work at Dundalk to get him up to race fitness. We plan to give his owners a breakdown of the sectional times of the piece of work which will be over six furlongs. This will give them a chance to compare his work times to his race times to see how Cisco Disco is coming along.
Sectional times in Dundalk
The Dundalk race will be run over seven furlongs. The course average for a seven furlong race on the polytrack surface at Dundalk is 1m. 25.75 secs. The current record for a seven furlong race on Dundalk’s polytrack was set by Michael Halford’s filly, Surrounding, in October 2018 when she ran it in a time of 1m. 23.14 secs. We can use these comparisons to gauge what sort of level Cisco Disco runs to in early March.
The Premier League and Rugby use GPS
Other sports, such as football and rugby, use GPS trackers to measure a players work rate in a match. They can find out the distance they ran during the game, their top speed as well as many other important elements. At Sunday, we want to do the same with our racehorses. It not only gives our trainer, Jack Davison, a good idea of how the horse is coming along but it also gives you, the owner, a clear picture of where your horse is at fitness wise and you will be able to know if they’re going to perform at their peak in a race.
