* The original enquiry referred to a specific bet with another person. With the intention now to keep Boston Bob to hurdles the bet has been mutually voided. The discussion of physicality that follows in no way refers to any one individual viewpoint or approach to racing. Quite the opposite, it is based on a general apathy across all racing media and platforms towards the use of important racing language of a certain kind.
The original enquiry asked why, despite seemingly obvious signs of ongoing physical issues, Boston Bob retained a relatively high profile during general pre-season expectations. Instead of a keen focus on the details of the horse's performance and profile following his last-fence fall in the RSA Chase, that outcome was written off as simply "unlucky" and his next, far more worrying run, summarised as an "end of season" effort where again he was assumed to be "getting into the race when falling" when in reality it was fairly clear he was struggling within himself. It took until December the following season for the trainer to confirm that those ongoing issues were in fact "muscle problems" and that they were a problem serious enough to keep the horse away from jumping fences.
This explains, categorically, the unusual shape of his energy distribution in the RSA Chase, an aspect of performance analysis that many reviewers of that race failed to grasp. I concluded that:
Many reviewers mistook the phase when Boston Bob lost his position in the race and got shuffled back to last place as a (most unusual) positive move by his jockey to give the horse the space to overtake the whole field and win. Without being able to know for sure what kind of physical problems his trainer was continually managing throughout the season, I chose to reference general "conditioning" as the reason for this dropping back to last place. We now know that muscle problems of some kind were impacting on the horse's level of performance. It is testament to how little information is in the general domain regarding racehorses and physicality that even when an explanation has been given we are not much closer to understanding the specific implications of the problem. Presumably - for without a clear frame of reference we are in the dark somewhat - Boston Bob's muscle problems led to a 'tying up' of his physical power, his capacity to race. It could also have been a nutritional imbalance: the ongoing struggle with his conditioning may have been his diet and the effects of that on his muscular strength. All this is essentially the reason Ruby Walsh chose to ride Unioniste instead.
Either way, we can be more certain that in both the RSA and Champion Novice Chase his muscles were unable to cope with the elite novice demands of those races, whereas before in weaker races or trials he 'got away with it' to an extent, but only just in the case of his Moriarty win. The gruelling nature of the RSA Chase is well documented. He appeared to be racing comfortably enough but even the in-running comments of the Racing Post fail to note his brief but significant demotion for no apparent reason to last place. A horse moving well within himself and with the requisite levels of residual class would have no cause to fall away in such a manner. The RUK commentator Richard Hoiles did reference it, however:
"....and Boston Bob's been shuffled right towards the rear in company with Terminal who has always been towards the tail..."
at which point there were seven fences left; he was still last (one horse was detached) with five fences left before moving into sixth place three out. It is at this point that another problem becomes obvious: Boston Bob is hanging to one side. His jockey begins to pull on the right rein indicating his horse is leaning left. When Boston Bob is pulled wide to make his sweeping move around the bend - at a great expense of energy - he does not maintain his position in the centre of the course but almost immediately moves over to the left rail, appearing to lean briefly into the rail at one point. Approaching the last fence the jockey has the reins elevated quite dramatically in his attempt to keep the horse straight but the battle is eventually lost, the horse is tiring, tying up, and falls by failing to lift his front legs sufficiently. What most considered unlucky was a tired fall.
In racing such discussions are eschewed. There are many obvious and credible reasons for this. Time constraints is one; the omnipresence of the Value Myth is another, whereby top class races are easily reduced to a simplistic form of reasoning that suggests something at a big price has a chance (regardless of whether it does or not); and sensitivity is another, trying to ask trainers to discuss physical issues relating to horses in their care will never be a straightforward task. Nor is it mandatory in any way to have to discuss physicality: winners can be found and previews can be written in any number of ways, but it often feels as if something is missing, as if the story of what is really happening on the track and behind the scenes is a little unknowable, because the use of language to undertake performance analysis is accepted and understood to be traditional: "the form", "come on for the run", "not wound up fully", "better on this track", "got the run of the race" and other somewhat ambiguous terminology often conceals more than it reveals.
This applies not just to racehorse performance analysis but also to actual top class race requirements. The structure, the depth and the sheer physical demands of, for example, a King George VI Chase or an Arkle Chase are such that very few and usually only one or two horses in training can cope with them. Why is that? What is it about these elite races that exacts such a physical toll on so many horses and which select few horses therefore display the right characteristics for those special challenges? What is found when asking such questions is that traditional forms of language that are sufficient for everyday racing lose a lot of their relevance when analysing elite contests and this is one of the reasons why horses with highly questionable characteristics can be seen to maintain extremely prominent positions in betting markets for the kind of Graded races found at the Cheltenham Festival.
His trainer may not have been willing to state publicly that Boston Bob had muscle problems but, if looking carefully enough, the horse was only too willing to do so.
The original enquiry asked why, despite seemingly obvious signs of ongoing physical issues, Boston Bob retained a relatively high profile during general pre-season expectations. Instead of a keen focus on the details of the horse's performance and profile following his last-fence fall in the RSA Chase, that outcome was written off as simply "unlucky" and his next, far more worrying run, summarised as an "end of season" effort where again he was assumed to be "getting into the race when falling" when in reality it was fairly clear he was struggling within himself. It took until December the following season for the trainer to confirm that those ongoing issues were in fact "muscle problems" and that they were a problem serious enough to keep the horse away from jumping fences.
This explains, categorically, the unusual shape of his energy distribution in the RSA Chase, an aspect of performance analysis that many reviewers of that race failed to grasp. I concluded that:
"With only two runs in his legs when contesting the RSA, going deep into that race would have been a highly strenuous experience. He again lost his place (conditioning) which then resulted in the need for a rather dramatic sweeping move around the field to surge into the lead (stressful) meaning he was likely to be tiring rapidly when he fell at the last fence. It was not an even, fluid movement through the race; it was staccato, rise and fall, surge and tire. Analytically that can also be deduced from his next start, where the effort of the RSA was revealed in full."
Many reviewers mistook the phase when Boston Bob lost his position in the race and got shuffled back to last place as a (most unusual) positive move by his jockey to give the horse the space to overtake the whole field and win. Without being able to know for sure what kind of physical problems his trainer was continually managing throughout the season, I chose to reference general "conditioning" as the reason for this dropping back to last place. We now know that muscle problems of some kind were impacting on the horse's level of performance. It is testament to how little information is in the general domain regarding racehorses and physicality that even when an explanation has been given we are not much closer to understanding the specific implications of the problem. Presumably - for without a clear frame of reference we are in the dark somewhat - Boston Bob's muscle problems led to a 'tying up' of his physical power, his capacity to race. It could also have been a nutritional imbalance: the ongoing struggle with his conditioning may have been his diet and the effects of that on his muscular strength. All this is essentially the reason Ruby Walsh chose to ride Unioniste instead.
Either way, we can be more certain that in both the RSA and Champion Novice Chase his muscles were unable to cope with the elite novice demands of those races, whereas before in weaker races or trials he 'got away with it' to an extent, but only just in the case of his Moriarty win. The gruelling nature of the RSA Chase is well documented. He appeared to be racing comfortably enough but even the in-running comments of the Racing Post fail to note his brief but significant demotion for no apparent reason to last place. A horse moving well within himself and with the requisite levels of residual class would have no cause to fall away in such a manner. The RUK commentator Richard Hoiles did reference it, however:
"....and Boston Bob's been shuffled right towards the rear in company with Terminal who has always been towards the tail..."
at which point there were seven fences left; he was still last (one horse was detached) with five fences left before moving into sixth place three out. It is at this point that another problem becomes obvious: Boston Bob is hanging to one side. His jockey begins to pull on the right rein indicating his horse is leaning left. When Boston Bob is pulled wide to make his sweeping move around the bend - at a great expense of energy - he does not maintain his position in the centre of the course but almost immediately moves over to the left rail, appearing to lean briefly into the rail at one point. Approaching the last fence the jockey has the reins elevated quite dramatically in his attempt to keep the horse straight but the battle is eventually lost, the horse is tiring, tying up, and falls by failing to lift his front legs sufficiently. What most considered unlucky was a tired fall.
"...at Punchestown he was out the back on the first circuit and detached at the back on the second. No doubt his class and heart - he appears to be a brave horse that tries hard - were behind his slight progress approaching three out but the simple effort to try and get closer whilst still last appeared to tire him and he fell quite heavily. Staying chasers often race prominently with power and rhythm that increases gradually and evenly with intensity: this has not been the stamp of Boston Bob's races owing to his physical problems."His Punchestown run requires little elaboration. What is startling is that the question of physicality was never really brought to the fore in general terms and, as a result, he was mentioned in a number of places as being the "best outsider" for the Gold Cup. A horse that was a late starter, has had ongoing physical problems for some time and fell as a result of those in his last two races...in a Gold Cup? Conventional "racing speak" does not appear, to me at least, to be comfortable with discussing the myriad and often fascinating aspects of physicality among elite and potentially elite horses. In many ways, it shows a clear lack of invention and willingness to invest time in a structured form of enquiry regarding a compelling feature of National Hunt racing (in particular). Yet in the purely human world of sport, physiology and the monitoring, control and discussion of physical problems is absolutely central not only to the progression of individual and team performances but to levels of understanding of why certain types of performance occur when they do (levels of physical performance in the Premier League following demanding Champions League fixtures with short recovery periods is one such team example; the monitoring of heart rate and other physiological indicators during training sessions is a simplistic example at an individual level).
In racing such discussions are eschewed. There are many obvious and credible reasons for this. Time constraints is one; the omnipresence of the Value Myth is another, whereby top class races are easily reduced to a simplistic form of reasoning that suggests something at a big price has a chance (regardless of whether it does or not); and sensitivity is another, trying to ask trainers to discuss physical issues relating to horses in their care will never be a straightforward task. Nor is it mandatory in any way to have to discuss physicality: winners can be found and previews can be written in any number of ways, but it often feels as if something is missing, as if the story of what is really happening on the track and behind the scenes is a little unknowable, because the use of language to undertake performance analysis is accepted and understood to be traditional: "the form", "come on for the run", "not wound up fully", "better on this track", "got the run of the race" and other somewhat ambiguous terminology often conceals more than it reveals.
This applies not just to racehorse performance analysis but also to actual top class race requirements. The structure, the depth and the sheer physical demands of, for example, a King George VI Chase or an Arkle Chase are such that very few and usually only one or two horses in training can cope with them. Why is that? What is it about these elite races that exacts such a physical toll on so many horses and which select few horses therefore display the right characteristics for those special challenges? What is found when asking such questions is that traditional forms of language that are sufficient for everyday racing lose a lot of their relevance when analysing elite contests and this is one of the reasons why horses with highly questionable characteristics can be seen to maintain extremely prominent positions in betting markets for the kind of Graded races found at the Cheltenham Festival.
His trainer may not have been willing to state publicly that Boston Bob had muscle problems but, if looking carefully enough, the horse was only too willing to do so.
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