Merit Ratings

As a matter of interest,the horse Watch the Weather that ran 2nd to Draconian,won its maiden on Sunday and on a line through Flaming Al & Media Maker ran to a 96,so having beaten him by 3.25 lengths,Draconian may even be underrated.Time will tell.
I think our Hdcpers do pretty well on the whole.


(NHA have rated Watch the weather officially at 93,since Sundays win)

Sure, I don't dispute the absolute ability the horse may have. But so far his rating is higher than Noordhoek Flyer and Pierre Jourdan was for their wins. The horse may well be a champion, but at the time of rating there was on 2 horses in the field who had raced before so rating this horse essentially "champion" is inspired ratings.

I agree in principal with Jack here. The handicappers had no way of accurately rating this horse a 94 because of the lack of exposed form in his debut run. Whether this horse will turn out to be a champion or not has nothing to do with his actual rating in his actual race start?!???!

I know the handicappers do a great job and there are so many things involved when taking into account what a horse should be rated, but surely these panels shouldn't "guess" at what a horses ability may be in relation to his future starts? They should rate him on what he has actually accomplished. Once again nobody could have foreseen what would have happened to that form line. All they could do was rate him on the bare form of the win.

Even though the win was super impressive, I personally could not see them giving an unexposed 2 year old a rating of much more than 88 for that win.......unless, as mentioned in my post before, there is something I'm missing in the ratings of 2 year olds?

Thanks for the input though guys, I enjoy reading your opinions and suggestions!

I play of a 24 but i am actually an 18

Horsies we make them scratch players after on round not very sense.

Cleome My Kazzie demented software or demented HANDICAPPED HANDICAPPER

To be fair to the handicappers,horses are not normally rated until they are 3 and have had 3 runs,so in this instance,all they have to base the rating on is the the huge database of one,2yr old run,so they are forced to estimate(or guess if you prefer) with very little.
They are forced into this predicament cos imagine the outcry if they insisted on at least 2 more runs before a handicap run is allowed (ie.Novice and Graduation) because they not prepared to guess!!
IMO no area of local racing does a better job than our handicappers.How many times have you heard the trainers concede that,contrary to their belief,the handicappers got it right!

How about an interesting innovation for this forum......a competition whereby forumites have to rate the first 4 past the post in pre-selected races(get K Madiema or Magic to select,as they are aware of the races that are least straightforward)).Estimate entries must be posted(before official ratings are determined),stored and then assessed after a certain number of further runs,to get the results.
In the USA,tipsters or experts are called "handicappers" for good reason.........lets see how many we have!

I believe the handicappers assessment of the Draconian race will be justified,as a whole.( ironically,the exception may be Draconian itself,as many from that stable run their best race 1st time out,and don't kick on as expected,or until much later)

Yip, "handicapping" as they call it here in the US is a huge deal, however the handicapping is not only the assessment of a horses ability in relation to another horse, but also the figuring out the horses trip in a certain race and exploring their chances in their following start. I would say the American version of "handicapping" is a mixture between MR judges and form studying.

.....This competition sounds great Rob as we might learn something from our own studying of form!

Sorry, Jack, I misread your post. However, the starting price is not an issue in my book. Whether it was expected or not is hardly germaine, especially as the implication is that the horse was not fully wound up and has more to come than some hot favourite that had the sh!t worked out of it to be ready on debut. The form speaks for itself, whether the win was "expected" or not. I have reason to believe that Draconian is one of those horses that doesn't show a whole lot at home (remember Bold Silvano before the 1900?), but we all know that it's what happens in races that matters. As a half brother by Falbrav to the Gold Cup third Predestination, it it is perhaps not surprising that he doesn't display fantastic speed in his work anyway. I find betting to be a largely misleading indicator of a horse's worth, and generally find betting moves to be collossaly overrated all round especially as our markets in SA are so fickle and a horse's price can bounce around all over the place seemingly in the blinking of an eye.

The comparison to Noordhoek Flyer and Pierre Jourdan needs to be weighed up in light of all turf MRs (outside of PE) having been raised by three pounds since they won their maidens. Furthermore, they won their maidens later than Draconian in terms of the time of year, so presumably their post maiden win MRs (92, in today's terms) would have been a bit lower than Draconian's on the WFA basis.

I have no idea whether Draconian is as good or better than his rating, and there may very well have been elements of both guesswork and retroactive handicapping involved, but at least one very shrewd analyst (who admittedly owns a share in one of the beaten horses) punter SMSd me within moments of the race suggesting that there had been plenty of very good horses in the field and that the formline would produce a heap of winners. Sometimes, we just have a feel for these things and perhaps one or more of the handicappers got the same "vibe". I remember many moons ago being on holiday in Cape Town when Bush Telegraph won first time out and coming home to tell my mates that this was a champion. The interesting aside here, returning to the subject of the betting, is that the odds-on favourite who finished second died as a mediocre one time winner. I know this was ages ago, but I just use it as an example of how a debut win can sometimes jump out and hit one between the eyes.

Of course handicapping is very subjective, and we are talking about the same handicappers who somehow came to the conclusion that Hot Rocket was a five pounds superior animal to What A Winter after their respective debut wins, in the same province and at the same time of year. They have reason to be a bit embarrassed now, at least with the benefit of hindsight, and maybe Draconian will leave them with egg on their faces again. But considering the imponderables that they have to deal with, I agree with Rob that on the whole they do a better job than often given credited for, and they'd have to offer an insane salary to even tempt me to switch places with them.()

And, yes, these are the sort of lively debates that racing forums should be all about. B)