As the 2013/14 National Hunt season reached November the echoes of a common refrain rose steadily in volume. The King George VI Chase had come into view. It was always highly likely that the first and second from 2012 would run again, fitness permitting, in the same race at the same point on the calendar, but there was a difference in the numbers assigned to each horse. Roughly a 6 for Long Run and a 25 for Captain Chris. Long Run was the winner in 2012 - he beat Captain Chris - but he did so by a neck. A year later, if - (insert reason(s) why) - Captain Chris could run a yard or so better he would be winning a (parallel) King George. Reward for Long Run holding him off by an inch instead of a neck, six apple crumbles. Reward for Captain Chris going one yard and one inch quicker, twenty-five apple crumbles. Which would you choose (freezer facilities are available)?
The reason so many people were going crumble crazy relates to an abstract notion that is ingrained, but rarely ever questioned, within the sport of National Hunt turf racing. That notion says that what should be one of, or for many the most important factor when placing a bet is a concept that has no foundations: "Value".
Understanding the reasons why this concept is flawed is not the aim here. They have been addressed, in extremely preliminary form, some time ago here (no alterations to that article have been made since). Nonetheless, because the notion as it relates to British turf horse racing lacks any form of credible foundations, it is not difficult to explore the myth without the need for an extensive and technical exposition. Unfortunately, the re-match that was to form the basis of this example was denied when Captain Chris was found to be lame in the week before the King George. But with the ground once again riding soft, the performance of Long Run would elicit a fairly accurate conclusion to the "four-times-the-price-value" theory. There was an added extra too, as Menorah happened to be four times the price of Silviniaco Conti, whom he had beaten by a length in the Grade One Betfred Bowl at Aintree (behind race winner First Lieutenant) at the end of the previous season (this was a very flaky claim, given the entirely different conditions of that race to this).
So we can see the angle quite clearly. The selection of one horse at a bigger price than another with closely matched form to that horse is a timeless approach. Other tools from the full spectrum of traditional racing language (first time out record, track, ground, stable form and so on) can then be used to support the basic evaluation of the approach and, significantly, that the bet is therefore "value", the most emphatic supporting agent any bet can lay claim to. Now, with the race run - in this case the King George VI Chase - something intriguing occurs. Regardless of the result, in the vast majority of cases the notion of "value" then disappears from discussion, reviews and highlights reels. If the concept of "value" is so crucial before the event, why does it become so irrelevant after it?
The reason why is that the concept of "value", whatever its perceived validity, is "present" only before a race. After a race is run it disappears, vanishes, like a phantom. Two-fold, part of the reason for that is that when the winner and placed horses cross the line no-one cares any longer because the result and monetary returns are then known and fixed. "Value" as a concept evaporates once its use as a reason for betting evaporates. The other reason is that language to describe "value" when "value" was not theoretically present is missing from traditional betting language. If a horse like Captain Chris had, for example, run far worse than expected by "value" theorists, what terms do we then use to describe that reality? "Dark value"? "Anti Value"? It is nothing short of incredible how much time is afforded to discussions of abstract, man-made formulations (prices) rather than the specific characteristics, profile and stamp of the horse in question. Those abstract prices are irrelevant because the influence they have in determining a horse's performance is close to zero in and around elite level competition.
Silviniaco Conti won the King George his Gold Cup performance hinted he could. Menorah, at four times the price or more, was pulled up having never been in the race. Long Run, the signifier of "value", unseated his rider when well beaten having struggled from some way out, which by "value" logic suggests Captain Chris would also have been toiling. He certainly would not have had the class of the front two and would have been a long way adrift on that basis. All this was not difficult to predict but in the justification process for betting "value" was writ large across performance prediction and winner selection. Now those performances can be analysed they confirm what many thought so surely we must term that process, those original prices, "Dark Value" or "Anti Value", meaning that many things of huge significance were being omitted from the thought process. In adumbrated form, it was obvious from Long Run's first two performances that the mentality on which his physicality depended had "gone", and he was a shadow of the horse he was last year. So how in any way was his performance in last year's race significant not least when the race itself had a completely different texture, with greater depth and two or three new, improving, top class horses in the field? Captain Chris's own build-up was also much changed. When all this was know Captain Chris had come into roughly the same price as Long Run so how then was his original "value" at "four times the price of Long Run" to be described? Nothing. The whole abstraction, the time invested in it, the flawed thought process simply slides away to be resurrected another time, for another race, destined to repeat itself ad infinitum.
Nor did the long time favourite, Cue Card, escape the same abstraction. Because he was favourite and also because his general profile had suffered inaccurate inflation (as a result of many things associated with his Haydock run), as the day dawned many realised that this was an altogether different test for him. As his price was pushed out by the men and women who created the abstraction of his price in the first place, a curious mist descended and seemed to offend many people. How could Cue Card possibly be the same price as, or a bigger price than, Silviniaco Conti whom he had beaten at Haydock? "At the prices", that other classically traditional way of crowbarring in a "value" justification regarding a horse which people are increasingly no longer certain about, began to shape much of the day of race talk. But "prices" did not help Cue Card get air into his lungs, and "the price" did not help Menorah with a thankless task nor would "value" have helped Captain Chris move comfortably in the company of improving elite horses this time around. Dark Value was all over the King George, but will "value" exponents work on concepts to help explain the other, hidden side, of their approach to themselves and to others?
The currents carrying the misunderstanding residing in the flawed structure of the "value" concept run deep. The Value Myth 2, the article that will uncover more fully their theoretical roots, is a complex one that must wait until the Summer. What the first article made clear is that those currents continually flow and swirl around the word "repeatability". No National Hunt turf race is ever repeated with the exact same conditions. "Value" as a concept is dependent in its entirety on the same situation(s) being repeated. In those two lines we can therefore point to the futility of "value" as a concept. The King George VI Chase of 2013 was different in innumerable ways to the King George VI Chase of 2012. To claim any kind of "value" on the basis of relating the outcome of the first event to the potential outcome of the second event is simply flawed.
"Prices", "value", "at the prices", "how is <x> a shorter price", "how is <y> a bigger price": None of this affects the outcome of a race. To have basis in the reality of making profits on events the situations in question must have repeatability. To reiterate, no National Hunt turf race is ever repeated. It is a far, far more interesting elite level sport when each individual horse is the main focus. Not just in a traditional sense of form, fitness and so on, but the animals themselves, their shape, constitution, physicality, mentality, technical aspects, bridle ratio and so on, those things which are only briefly discussed, if at all, before the numbers come tumbling in to obliterate nearly all the foundations of interest and enquiry.
The real value, the value that does not require quotation marks, perhaps lies in the widespread and unfailing commitment of the general racing community to the repeated use of a flawed concept as a way of navigating every racing event. By analysing elite racing performances in a way that has nothing to do with "value" whatsoever, it becomes possible to predict outcomes with a much greater degree of conceptual rigour. In so doing, the implications of performances from each elite event for the next one in that division or a related one can be tightened or loosened accordingly. Not always, but more so than before, it is possible to work to improve the tools needed to predict a horse's performance in advance of its target race. As for the King George VI Chase, it has now passed for another year. A whole year to wait for those wishing to repeat the unrepeatable, to claim "value" from an unrepeatable event. Unless, of course, some difficult questions are brought under consideration, and the "dark value" of this year's race is remembered.
The reason so many people were going crumble crazy relates to an abstract notion that is ingrained, but rarely ever questioned, within the sport of National Hunt turf racing. That notion says that what should be one of, or for many the most important factor when placing a bet is a concept that has no foundations: "Value".
Understanding the reasons why this concept is flawed is not the aim here. They have been addressed, in extremely preliminary form, some time ago here (no alterations to that article have been made since). Nonetheless, because the notion as it relates to British turf horse racing lacks any form of credible foundations, it is not difficult to explore the myth without the need for an extensive and technical exposition. Unfortunately, the re-match that was to form the basis of this example was denied when Captain Chris was found to be lame in the week before the King George. But with the ground once again riding soft, the performance of Long Run would elicit a fairly accurate conclusion to the "four-times-the-price-value" theory. There was an added extra too, as Menorah happened to be four times the price of Silviniaco Conti, whom he had beaten by a length in the Grade One Betfred Bowl at Aintree (behind race winner First Lieutenant) at the end of the previous season (this was a very flaky claim, given the entirely different conditions of that race to this).
So we can see the angle quite clearly. The selection of one horse at a bigger price than another with closely matched form to that horse is a timeless approach. Other tools from the full spectrum of traditional racing language (first time out record, track, ground, stable form and so on) can then be used to support the basic evaluation of the approach and, significantly, that the bet is therefore "value", the most emphatic supporting agent any bet can lay claim to. Now, with the race run - in this case the King George VI Chase - something intriguing occurs. Regardless of the result, in the vast majority of cases the notion of "value" then disappears from discussion, reviews and highlights reels. If the concept of "value" is so crucial before the event, why does it become so irrelevant after it?
The reason why is that the concept of "value", whatever its perceived validity, is "present" only before a race. After a race is run it disappears, vanishes, like a phantom. Two-fold, part of the reason for that is that when the winner and placed horses cross the line no-one cares any longer because the result and monetary returns are then known and fixed. "Value" as a concept evaporates once its use as a reason for betting evaporates. The other reason is that language to describe "value" when "value" was not theoretically present is missing from traditional betting language. If a horse like Captain Chris had, for example, run far worse than expected by "value" theorists, what terms do we then use to describe that reality? "Dark value"? "Anti Value"? It is nothing short of incredible how much time is afforded to discussions of abstract, man-made formulations (prices) rather than the specific characteristics, profile and stamp of the horse in question. Those abstract prices are irrelevant because the influence they have in determining a horse's performance is close to zero in and around elite level competition.
Silviniaco Conti won the King George his Gold Cup performance hinted he could. Menorah, at four times the price or more, was pulled up having never been in the race. Long Run, the signifier of "value", unseated his rider when well beaten having struggled from some way out, which by "value" logic suggests Captain Chris would also have been toiling. He certainly would not have had the class of the front two and would have been a long way adrift on that basis. All this was not difficult to predict but in the justification process for betting "value" was writ large across performance prediction and winner selection. Now those performances can be analysed they confirm what many thought so surely we must term that process, those original prices, "Dark Value" or "Anti Value", meaning that many things of huge significance were being omitted from the thought process. In adumbrated form, it was obvious from Long Run's first two performances that the mentality on which his physicality depended had "gone", and he was a shadow of the horse he was last year. So how in any way was his performance in last year's race significant not least when the race itself had a completely different texture, with greater depth and two or three new, improving, top class horses in the field? Captain Chris's own build-up was also much changed. When all this was know Captain Chris had come into roughly the same price as Long Run so how then was his original "value" at "four times the price of Long Run" to be described? Nothing. The whole abstraction, the time invested in it, the flawed thought process simply slides away to be resurrected another time, for another race, destined to repeat itself ad infinitum.
Nor did the long time favourite, Cue Card, escape the same abstraction. Because he was favourite and also because his general profile had suffered inaccurate inflation (as a result of many things associated with his Haydock run), as the day dawned many realised that this was an altogether different test for him. As his price was pushed out by the men and women who created the abstraction of his price in the first place, a curious mist descended and seemed to offend many people. How could Cue Card possibly be the same price as, or a bigger price than, Silviniaco Conti whom he had beaten at Haydock? "At the prices", that other classically traditional way of crowbarring in a "value" justification regarding a horse which people are increasingly no longer certain about, began to shape much of the day of race talk. But "prices" did not help Cue Card get air into his lungs, and "the price" did not help Menorah with a thankless task nor would "value" have helped Captain Chris move comfortably in the company of improving elite horses this time around. Dark Value was all over the King George, but will "value" exponents work on concepts to help explain the other, hidden side, of their approach to themselves and to others?
The currents carrying the misunderstanding residing in the flawed structure of the "value" concept run deep. The Value Myth 2, the article that will uncover more fully their theoretical roots, is a complex one that must wait until the Summer. What the first article made clear is that those currents continually flow and swirl around the word "repeatability". No National Hunt turf race is ever repeated with the exact same conditions. "Value" as a concept is dependent in its entirety on the same situation(s) being repeated. In those two lines we can therefore point to the futility of "value" as a concept. The King George VI Chase of 2013 was different in innumerable ways to the King George VI Chase of 2012. To claim any kind of "value" on the basis of relating the outcome of the first event to the potential outcome of the second event is simply flawed.
"Prices", "value", "at the prices", "how is <x> a shorter price", "how is <y> a bigger price": None of this affects the outcome of a race. To have basis in the reality of making profits on events the situations in question must have repeatability. To reiterate, no National Hunt turf race is ever repeated. It is a far, far more interesting elite level sport when each individual horse is the main focus. Not just in a traditional sense of form, fitness and so on, but the animals themselves, their shape, constitution, physicality, mentality, technical aspects, bridle ratio and so on, those things which are only briefly discussed, if at all, before the numbers come tumbling in to obliterate nearly all the foundations of interest and enquiry.
The real value, the value that does not require quotation marks, perhaps lies in the widespread and unfailing commitment of the general racing community to the repeated use of a flawed concept as a way of navigating every racing event. By analysing elite racing performances in a way that has nothing to do with "value" whatsoever, it becomes possible to predict outcomes with a much greater degree of conceptual rigour. In so doing, the implications of performances from each elite event for the next one in that division or a related one can be tightened or loosened accordingly. Not always, but more so than before, it is possible to work to improve the tools needed to predict a horse's performance in advance of its target race. As for the King George VI Chase, it has now passed for another year. A whole year to wait for those wishing to repeat the unrepeatable, to claim "value" from an unrepeatable event. Unless, of course, some difficult questions are brought under consideration, and the "dark value" of this year's race is remembered.
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