Calling the Handicappers or Vee or any experts?!

Excellently put, Rob. We have been down the road before, but the best system would probably be a combo of the two.....

louisg Wrote:

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> Excellently put, Rob. We have been down the road
> before, but the best system would probably be a
> combo of the two.....


i agree lg and im a punter first and foremost but the operators are looking at the bottom line and it wouldnt suit them...i also love watching top horses but the industry is not about that anymore..as iv said on numerous posts the glory days of racing are well and truly past us ..

And there I agree with you entirely, Pirates. As a punter, I am not in your league. As a Trainer, I dont have "stupid" money for purchases, cannot compete in the modern numbers game which requires large numbers of genetically superior and expensive horses, where stakes earnings and returns are not that important.
So, when I do find a "good" horse (not a top horse, just a good, honest horse who will win his races), then I am seriously pissed off when the system stops the horse, myself and the Owner from benefitting for a change. That same system is letting a weaker horse win more races.

And yes, I am wrong for blaming the handicappers. The system is the problem. Ultimately, I (and many other Trainers) am simply doing my best for my Owners, looking for returns and to keep it viable for my Owners to stay in racing.

And I battle to explain to my Owner why his weak horse is a 5 time winner and his good horse is a two time winner. And I hear the stories about only running your horses in the right races and about it being a programming problem.

But the point is, as Flash says, its the bad horses clogging up the system and it is MERIT RATING that is keeping those same horses in racing. Programming is simply catering for the product of Merit Rating...

unfortunately the racecourses are so far from each other that its impossible to be in 2 places at one time unless you have satelite yards which is a major cost factor...in britian and australia you will have many racecourses within 150km of each other and placing horses is so much easier...solutions are hard to find back here

Tell me about it !! Drove the filly Societi back up here on saturday after work at Clairwood - the traffic was an absolute joke !

....but those 'bad horses clogging up the system' earn money for their owners, do they not - so if we get 'rid of them' we lose more owners :S

From my point of view the MR 'system' while not perfect is certainly a big improvement on the RF system - the fact that it keeps more 'moderate' horses in training for 'longer' is not a bad thing - the problem imo is that the 'rules' under which the handicappers must operate (as well as handicapping 'mistakes' - we are all human after all), cause the 'better' horses to be rated too high when compared against the more 'moderate' horses - but there are always exceptions - like Taarish winning the other day as a 3 yr old in an 'open' handicap off a rating I personnally thought far too high

And in an MR world, 'good' and 'bad' horses should not be judged to be 'good' or 'bad' according to the number of races they have won (don't we preach that everyday to Julie and Rod :S), if rated correctly, a 2-time winner rated 86 IS a 'better horse' than a 5-time winner rated 78 - this fact may not be necessarily reflected in their earnings though, depending on the time frame (the 2-time winner may only have raced for a couple of months, while the 5-time winner has been racing for 3 years). The problem comes in when the 2-time winner gets 'stuck' with his 'high' MR even though he might not have won for a while - and this needs to be handled better - but in practice 'what' and 'how' should this be done - taking into account that (some?) trainers manipulate MR's?

Frodo please tell me what is the lowest MR you have seen a juvenile receive after winning its maiden? I gaurantee you that whatever this is I will find you a 5 time winner with a lower rating than the juvenile winner. is this the system you like? moderate horses get advantage over better ones? sorry for me these show how stupid the decision is to keep kimberley in stead of bloemfontein

Flash Harry Wrote:

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> Frodo please tell me what is the lowest MR you
> have seen a juvenile receive after winning its
> maiden? I gaurantee you that whatever this is I
> will find you a 5 time winner with a lower rating
> than the juvenile winner. is this the system you
> like? moderate horses get advantage over better
> ones? sorry for me these show how stupid the
> decision is to keep kimberley in stead of
> bloemfontein


Amen !!!

Flash, in theory in a perfect system, no horse should 'get advantage' over any other - but currently I agree that the way juveniles and even 3 yr olds are rated after a maiden win, need improvement - this is not a problem with the system, but rather with its application - imo

Flash Harry Wrote:

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> Frodo please tell me what is the lowest MR you
> have seen a juvenile receive after winning its
> maiden? I gaurantee you that whatever this is I
> will find you a 5 time winner with a lower rating
> than the juvenile winner. is this the system you
> like? moderate horses get advantage over better
> ones? sorry for me these show how stupid the
> decision is to keep kimberley in stead of
> bloemfontein


Flash you are correct and its going to take a long time to get the rating down...

Flash Harry Wrote:

---

> Frodo please tell me what is the lowest MR you
> have seen a juvenile receive after winning its
> maiden? I gaurantee you that whatever this is I
> will find you a 5 time winner with a lower rating
> than the juvenile winner. is this the system you
> like? moderate horses get advantage over better
> ones? sorry for me these show how stupid the
> decision is to keep kimberley in stead of
> bloemfontein


net or gross rating forthe 2yo?

pirates i have the suspicion the handicapper factor in the allowance when awarding mr figure to juvenile winner - what do you think? all ways i here when the complaints of getting a mr 86 after beet a juvenile field "yes but he will run off a net 74" or similar. to me is bull shit. also i doubt the handicapper ever go back and rerate the mr awarded after an early season victory when he has more data to work on