The 'After Hours' Racehorse

recylingbin wrote: »

Not many races start at those times though.

Two of them today!


It's nothing to do with the time.

And he's back! Just when you had forgotten about your lost fivers the After Hour's horse "After Hours" is back at a racetrack! See first post

It's been 23 days since his last run which is a pretty average break. He'll have been exercised most days since and will have been feeding up on the best of food. Who's paying for all this you might ask?

A man named Richard Whitehead owns After Hours and pays all the bills. He's had a few horses over the years and all run in his silks.
Everyone will be aware that jockeys wear different coloured silks (tops) during a race. If you buy a racehorse you will be asked to design your own silks. Any horse that runs in your name will then wear your colours. If you ever happen to have two or more in the same race they will wear different colour caps to differentiate them.

So Richard Whitehead has been paying for After Hours to be looked after and trained by Henry Oliver and it can be quite expensive. Training fees average at about €15,000 per year!
The horse stays in the trainer's stables where owners would go to visit their loss horse in between days out at the races. The trainer will also be in contact with the owner reasonably regularly and updating him/her on the horse's progress and outlining any plans for the future.


Speaking of the future, I've been in contact with Henry Oliver myself recently in a bid to get us the inside word on the horse and to learn a bit more about him. Here's what he had to say:

Henry Oliver wrote:

After Hours was bought last March after winning a point-to-point. A lovely horse, he is due to run at Newbury on Friday and will then be due a handicap mark. I think he's decent, I'm bringing him back in distance to 2 miles as he has a high cruising speed and travels well. He may well go chasing as he jumps great. He won a heavy ground point-to-point and a bumper on fast ground. He's a well travelled horse - he was once at Coolmore* and then with Nicky Henderson**. Had his problems as a 3yo - he was weak, but he's a big, fine strong horse now.

* the world's largest breeding operation of thoroughbred racehorses. Headquarters is based in Fethard, Tipperary
** one of the top National Hunt trainers

Thanks Henry!


SO SHUT UP ALREADY NEVERWAINING, IS HE GOING TO WIN???

Probably not. Not today. He's running in another maiden hurdle but this one looks quite a bit tougher than last time. It's a higher class of a race at a showcase meeting. It might be a beginner's race (of sorts) but this race (like most) is held every year and this has had some pretty high quality winners over the years. It looks too tough for After Hours at this moment in time.

SO WHY IS HE RUNNING???

Well he has to run somewhere. And it was mentioned by Henry that he's due a handicap mark soon. So a little bit about handicaps:

Handicap races are races in which the official handicappers try to give each horse an equal chance of winning by allocating them different weights to carry.
The highest rated (or 'best') horse in the race is given the highest weight to carry; and then inferior horses will carry lower weights (the weight is made up of the jockey and the saddle. Lead is also inserted into the saddle if needed).
For most owners, handicaps offer their best chance of winning a race. Without them, the top horses would almost always win and there would be no point in owning anything other than a top horse.

Now for the official handicapper to allocate a horse a handicap mark he obviously has to see the horse running and get a feel for it's ability. So generally a handicapper will allocate a horse a handicap mark for hurdles after three hurdles races (though if a horse wins one it'll get one straight away).

So that's what I meant in the first post and above by beginner's races (novices, maidens). After Hours has had one run in a Novice Hurdle and this will be his second run in a Maiden Hurdle. He should be allocated a handicap mark after today's run and then he will be eligible to run in handicap races, against horses of similar ability.
So in many cases, not necessarily with this horse, but in many cases you will not see a great deal of improvement in a horse on his third 'beginners' hurdle race (or sometimes in any of them!). The bad case scenario is that the horse appears better than he actually is and the official handicapper allocates him too high a handicap mark. It can take quite a few further runs for a handicap mark to drop. The good case scenario of course is that the handicapper looks at the horse's three hurdle runs and allocates a winnable handicap mark.


At the time of writing he is currently available at 50/1! Again, he won't be carrying any of my money.

He runs at 3:45pm at Newbury and you can listen to the race here (click the play button in the top right).
You can view the racecard here.
For the latest odds see here (pink means prices are increasing, blue means shortening).

Best of luck After Hours!


Any questions just ask.


TLDR: He will be more interesting next time out.

1 hour folks!