Race Tempo: how fast was the early gallop?
Two horses can finish a length apart and have run very different races. One sat up with a strong gallop and kept going; the other was held up and passed tired horses late on. Race Tempo says which kind of race it was.
For every Flat race with sectional times, it measures how fast the leaders went over the first half of the race and sets that against the usual for the same course and trip, with the ground allowed for. The usual comes from at least 20 races over that course and trip in the three years before, and the reading says how many it was judged against. The video above shows where it appears and how to use it.
Five readings
Each race is given one of five readings: Dawdled, Steadily run, Truly run, Briskly run and Strongly run. A Dawdled race went noticeably slower than usual early on; a Strongly run race went noticeably quicker.
On any Flat result
Open a result and expand Sectional Analysis. The reading sits on a line above the tabs. The seven-furlong handicap at Newcastle in the video was strongly run: a third of a second a furlong quicker than usual, judged against 348 races over the same course and trip.
The Race Tempo tab lists the field with each horse's position at halfway, its Spread, and a short note when its run stands out against that gallop. At Newcastle the two who raced up with the pace weakened, while Yaajooz was thirteenth of fourteen at halfway and won, and Educating Rita came from last to finish third.
Spread is the gap between a horse's best and worst furlong against par, in seconds. A small figure is an even run.
Meeting Pace
Meeting Pace keeps its own pace label for each race, which says who the race suited, and shows the Race Tempo reading beside it, with the full line underneath.
In the form lines
On the racecard, open a horse's form and switch to Sectionals. Each graded Flat run carries a Tempo pill and its Spread. Hover the pill for the full reading and how that horse ran against it.
In the System Builder
Search tempo in the System Builder to find rules for how the horse's last race was run, the horse's note in it, and its Spread. They are all known before the race, so a system built on them finds today's qualifiers as well as back-testing. In the video, two rules (last race strongly run, and the horse came from the rear) pick out Yaajooz and Educating Rita in a race at Newcastle a few days later.
In Breakdowns, the Sectionals tab splits any system by how the last race was run, the horse's note or its Spread.
Who can use it
Race Tempo is part of the Sectionals add-on on RaceMetrics Pro and Proform Premium. It covers British Flat racing from 2019; over jumps the early gallop says far less about how a race is won, so jumps races are not graded.
More detail is in the Sectionals guide and the help section on Race Tempo.