How a Cruising and Acceleration Rating Works in Race Analysis

Recorded July 2025 for How a Professional Punter Thinks: Kingsley Bartholomew’s Glasshouse 2025 Breakdown. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

The CAM number I use stands for cruising acceleration metric. It is not one rating. It is two ratings sitting together: a cruising rating and an acceleration rating. Read on its own, either number can point you the wrong way. Read together, and with a bit of thought about where the horse is going to settle, they tell you a lot more about how a race might be run.

What the cruising rating is telling you

The cruising rating measures how fast a horse can travel while it is just cruising along. A high number means the horse can put itself on the pace, or up near it, without burning much. In one race I looked at, The Inflictor came out on top with a cruising rating of 99. He is a horse who can really put himself further up the speed. In a previous run he got well back and paid the price, because he had nothing left at the end.

What I am really hunting for with the cruising metric is a horse with a high cruising speed that is going to sit off the pace anyway. If The Inflictor leads, he is going to use a lot of that 99 early and he will not have as much acceleration left. If he settles fourth, he is conserving energy. Then that acceleration rating of 96 becomes worth more than the number says, because he has not spent the cruising speed to get there.

The acceleration rating and the weight trap

Here is the part people get wrong. These are raw ratings. Weight is not factored in. So you can look down a field and see a horse with a big acceleration figure and think you have found something, when really the number is being helped by a light weight.

In that same race, Far Too Easy had a high cruising speed and acceleration figures of 96 and 97. Good numbers. But he was carrying 60 and a half kilos, while horses further down the field were carrying 53. Fortunate Kiss was the interesting one. Carrying 53 kilos, with a raw acceleration rating of 100. If you love acceleration, you are all over her. But her cruising speed was only 82, which tells you she will get back in the run. That is the trade-off you need to see before you commit.

Reading the two numbers together

On raw numbers, 97 beats 96 by a point. That does not settle it. Because I do not think The Inflictor will use all of that 99 cruising rating early, his effective acceleration is likely higher than the 96 on the page. Far Too Easy is going forward and carrying the weight. Same ballpark on paper, different picture in the race.

The pattern also shows you the one-paced types. A horse like Warney sat on 92 into 93. Not much separating the two ratings. That is a horse with no real gear change, just the one speed all the way through.

So do not read the CAM number as a ranking. Split it, look at the cruising rating, ask where the horse will settle, then ask what the weight is doing to the raw acceleration figure. That is where the number starts doing real work for you.

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More from Kingsley

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From the full video: How a Professional Punter Thinks: Kingsley Bartholomew’s Glasshouse 2025 Breakdown

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