Paddy Flood's race analysis: 'His body weight is back, which is a negative signal to the horse'

Paddy Flood, a former jockey turned coach and lead analyst for irishracing.com uses his race riding experience and depth of knowledge to provide first-class analysis on our new show The Jockey Angle.

Flood analyses three rides from the week prior and offers up fascinating insights into how races can be won and lost.

Here, he focuses on a handicap over 1m1f at Ballinrobe won by Merlin The Wizard under Dylan Browne McMonagle.

Paddy Flood’s analysis

We've got Billy Lee in stall one, Colin Keane in stall two, Dylan Browne McMonagle in stall six, and Chris Hayes in stall nine.

Billy Lee is in stall one. Stall one is the plum draw at Ballinrobe. Ballinrobe is a really tight right-handed track, even over jumps, and position in a race is absolutely vital.

For me, Billy Lee's body position is very neutral, or even negative. That's giving the horse a signal that Billy doesn't want him to come out of the gates all that fast. That tells me Billy doesn't want to lead, obviously.

Now highlight Dylan Browne McMonagle's body position. He's lying right down on the horse's neck, trying to get his horse out of the gates as fast as he can.

All the riders outside Billy are down low on the horse's neck, squeezing them forward, whereas you can see Billy Lee's shoulders quite clearly and you can also see his helmet clearly. That tells me his body weight is back, which is a negative signal to the horse, especially at Ballinrobe.

Maybe Billy's horse doesn't want to lead, but I would have thought he might have given it a bit more of a squeeze leaving the gates.

Colin Keane does try to give his horse a squeeze out of the gates, and you can see that in his body position as well.

The other thing we pick up here is Chris Hayes in stall nine on a horse wearing a hood. Riding a horse in a hood is a tricky job for a jockey.

He's just a split second late. The gates are only just opening, but every other horse is already out and gone. Chris is only a split second behind, not even half a second.

Maybe he wanted to go back anyway, but having that hood on for that split second longer than it should have been has probably cost the horse four or five lengths at the start.

Races are hard enough to win without giving away ground as the gates open.

I think Billy Lee should have given his horse a squeeze leaving the gates.

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Browne McMonagle secures best position

Billy Lee has come out, taken back, and allowed the others to go around him. Dylan Browne McMonagle has flown out of the gates, given his horse a really good squeeze, and landed outside the leader.

That's probably the best position at Ballinrobe - either second on the outside of the leader or maybe third on the rail, because if the leader drifts off the rail slightly, you nearly always get a gap.

Billy Lee is on the inside, third or fourth last. Colin Keane is on the outside, third last. Those are the horses that came out of stalls one and two.

For my money, they're now in the worst possible positions at Ballinrobe.

Stuck wide on a tight track

From three furlongs out at Ballinrobe, you're already turning quite tightly right-handed. If you're stuck behind horses, you've got runners in front trying to quicken while others are beginning to slow down.

The horses in front start coming back into your lap just as you're trying to build momentum.

Automatically, you're going to have to pull out to get around them. But if you're four or five pairs back, you have to come around horses that are already making their runs, and perhaps another horse that's quickening as well.

Before you know it, you're four horses wide going into a bend, and that's never ideal.

You can see here that Colin is starting to think, "Do I commit now?" But he can't commit yet.

You can see he's one, two, three, probably four or five horses off the rail.

Billy is still stuck on the inside with nowhere to go. He's just hoping for a bit of luck, but he's not going to get it.

To be fair to Colin, he's ridden the race correctly. Because he couldn't get out of the gates quickly enough, he has to sit and suffer, waiting for everyone else to make their move before he can press the button and get his horse into top gear.

The best ride wins the race

You can see Billy is still on the bridle. Colin is now flat out. He's committed, but he's committed wide. If Billy doesn't get the run on the inside, he also has to come wide.

That means they're going four, five, maybe even six horses wide by the time they straighten up.

Meanwhile, Dylan Browne McMonagle has already gone into top gear and is asking his horse for everything. He just lasts home and wins well in the end, while the other two horses are really only getting going at the line.

For me, the best ride won this race - not the best horse.

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