Judging pace is a lot harder than we realise - but there was no excuse for these jockeys at Sandown

I've always wondered just how good jockeys are at judging pace and watching some of the racing at Sandown on Saturday made me wonder some more.

Thanks to sectional timing, which has been available at all British tracks for a while now, we can in hindsight tell whether a race has been run too strongly, too slowly or has just about been perfect.

Jockeys don't have the benefit of hindsight, though, so how does a pacemaker know whether they are setting the right gallop for their horse? And how do those behind know whether they should sit on a leader's heels or lay way off the pace and let them get on with it?

I think it's no more than guesswork. This is not a criticism of jockeys - not yet anyway - as I think we take it for granted that they should be able to judge something that is virtually impossible.

It's impossible because the difference in speeds they are going relative to each other can be tiny but can also make a huge difference in lengths gained and conceded.

I know, for instance, that when I get in my car I would not be able to tell the difference between 30mph and 33mph without the help of a speedometer. Yet the differences between the speeds horses are travelling at are considerably less than that. They'd have to be because if the leader went off at 33mph and the second-placed horse at 30mph there would be a gap of more than 30 lengths in just a minute. Just 1mph difference in the space of a minute equates to a little more than ten lengths.

In big fields, and especially at the big festivals, we often see races run at overly strong gallops simply because those who chase the pace do not want to let the leader get away from them. There is rarely much consideration of how fast they are going.

There was no better example than the King George V Handicap at Royal Ascot, in which the leader Davideo set such a suicidal gallop that he took the entire 19-runner field through the second furlong in under 11 seconds and did a scarcely credible 10.22sec himself - in a race run over a mile and a half.

Given a smaller field for a lesser prize on another day, they might well have let him get on with it and tire himself out, which is what he obviously did by finishing stone last as the pace completely collapsed and those held up came to the fore.

Tom Marquand poses with the trophy after winning the King George V Stakes on Desert HeroCredit: Alex Pantling

Tom Marquand rode the winner that day and we could say he judged what was happening perfectly to give the King his first winner at Royal Ascot.

He was more likely riding to orders, though, and you have to assume that was the case when he held up Ramensky in last in the final race at Sandown on Saturday despite going much, much slower early over a shorter trip than he had done on Desert Hero at Ascot, and despite there being a runaway leader.

If Marquand wasn't riding to orders, then it becomes hard to believe he could judge it so perfectly at Ascot yet so badly at Sandown - and that adds weight to my theory that jockeys don't really have a clue how fast they're going.

I don't blame them for that, but there must on occasion be some clues they can pick up on.

There were plenty in that Sandown race that I'd like to spell out (this is the criticism bit) for them: if there is a Coolmore-owned son of Galileo, trained by John and Thady Gosden and ridden by Ryan Moore, do not give it a ten-length start in the first two furlongs. It won't end well.

By the way, Marquand was singled out only because he won the Royal Ascot race. Ramensky wasn't good enough anyway, and all the other jockeys - Hollie Doyle, Kieran Shoemark, Tom Queally, William Buick, Andrea Atzeni and Rossa Ryan (almost a Who's Who of the best around in Britain) - were equally culpable.

Other than a certain race at Worcester recently, it was the most ridiculous race I have witnessed so far this season, and had I owned any of those behind the easy winner I'd have expected an apology.

They are all fine jockeys, and I have to say I make just as many mistakes sitting on my backside at zero miles an hour as they do on the back of a thoroughbred, but it doesn't mean they can't be called out when they are so clearly off their games as they were on Saturday.

This is a free sample of Paul Kealy's Betting World, an email that's sent every Wednesday to Members' Club Ultimate subscribers as part of The Ultimate Daily, our evening email newsletter service.

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