Handicaps..are they right?

The other day I had the sound on and was intrigued to hear the presenters in HK moaning that because Whyte was riding the favourite that it's odds had been 'decimated' into just over 4/1. Now maybe they double up there and 4/1 is actually 2/1 for all I know.

UK racing often has a bunch of horses at 4's and 5's and every expert selecting a different possible winner and that I would think is the goal of hcap racing.

Anyway, the point is that if our handicappers are doing the job correctly, shouldn't we see racing where the betting is flatter and would then reflect that each horse does have a real chance of winning, or that they are 'handicapped to win'.

If in handicaps we still see short favourites consistently, then it must mean that the perception is that the handicapper is wrong and that (before the race at least) we think that the race is NOT properly handicapped. It is possible that the system has been so bastardised that it is now a shambles.

Jack,

If the system is a shambles, then there should probably be an unusually high % of winning favs in handicaps.

I ran a quick&dirty, and below are stats for the last 2 months, for Maiden races and for MR races.
I suppose to this properly you need to collate the SP's of the winners in the categories and see what that shows.

Mdn
======================================
races fav won (2nd)

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trackcode C
count 8 5 (0)
trackcode D
count 12 3 (3)
trackcode E
count 9 3 (3)
trackcode F
count 20 3 (5)
trackcode H
count 8 2 (5)
trackcode J
count 19 10 (2)
trackcode K
count 31 10 (4)
trackcode L
count 10 2 (3)
trackcode Q
count 11 1 (3)
trackcode R
count 9 1 (2)
trackcode S
count 10 5 (2)
trackcode T
count 11 4 (2)
trackcode V
count 22 8 (2)

---

count 180 57 (36)
======================================
That's 32% wins, and 45% in the first two

MR
======================================
races fav won (2nd)

---

trackcode C
count 13 4 (0)
trackcode D
count 6 3 (3)
trackcode E
count 11 3 (2)
trackcode F
count 45 16 (7)
trackcode H
count 12 4 (4)
trackcode J
count 25 5 (4)
trackcode K
count 32 7 (7)
trackcode L
count 10 3 (2)
trackcode Q
count 26 9 (7)
trackcode R
count 18 4 (2)
trackcode S
count 15 4 (0)
trackcode T
count 14 3 (3)
trackcode V
count 26 8 (4)

---

count 253 73 (45)
======================================
That's 29% wins, and 47% in the first two

Handicap favourites come off better when you look at 1st & 2nd - so the system is failing?

This is NOT about trying to stop favourites, but in a handicap the handicapper should be giving the rest of the field a chance to be competitive.

An equally quick response is to suggest they either not dropping horses fast enough, or they are not accessing horses properly (as confirmed by the betting and the market continually).

Red tribution running again on Sunday off the same mark (79). Cant seem to win off this mark but remains at the mark forever amen.

Just Dane MR 68
9 yr old
99 RUNS 9 WINS two in 4 months

CC rated 74 after 1 win

Always happy to discuss MR's. What is your point?

You do know that when handicapping horses, the number of wins or stakes earned is irrelevant?

one three year olds and two year old over rated
maiden winners to heavily penalised intially.
there should be a floor limit in a sense for 8 time winner etc. should not be allowed back to a 64 rating.

Sylvester Wrote:

---

> there should be a floor limit in a sense for 8
> time winner etc. should not be allowed back to a
> 64 rating.


I agree so much with you on this. Get it into that tellytrack debate.

Jack Dash Wrote:

---

> Sylvester Wrote:
>

---

>

---

> > there should be a floor limit in a sense for 8
> > time winner etc. should not be allowed back to
> a
> > 64 rating.
>
>
> I agree so much with you on this. Get it into
> that tellytrack debate.


Nonsense. If that's the horse's level, that's the horse's level. On the one hand JackD takes the view that number of wins has nothing to do with handicapping (on which he is 100% correct), but then in his next post he advocates a view in which races won is a criterion of some sort. Come now, Jack. Make up your mind, my boy.

It's like this magic:

1. no. of wins has nothing to do with hcpping (you agree)

2. watching a geriatric horse getting up to win 8th race below maiden race level just because it has a 800m head start over a mile is pathetic, and is counter the olympian spirit in every way. Why should a breeding-racing community have the 'wrong' horses winning just because the handicapper made it so.

So there is no contradiction...HOW you rate horses and WHETHER a MR42 should be facilitated a win are not the same discussion.



tch tch...you should know better!

What "wrong" horses winning, JackD? That's your opinion, nothing more. Handicapping is supposed to be about giving every horse an equal shot at winning. Whether it's a 3yo running for the third time or a 9yo making its 100th start is irrelevant. Horses must be handicapped to run where they belong. It's a far from exact science, but anybody who advocates a "minimum" rating based on a horse's number of wins is not going to get any support from me.

That stinks too much of race figure "handicapping", a travesty that we in SA have managed to put behind us.

BTW, horse racing isn't the Olympics. To try and imbue racing with the "spirit" of an event which a)occurs every four years and b) is specifically intended to be a showcase for the best in each participating event is fallacious. It's apples and oranges. Racing is a 364 day a year (365 in leap years!) activity and it is futile to think that the best horses are going to compete every day. Racing is about trying to make money - or at least lose as little of it as possible - from racing run-of-the-mill animals, and anybody who has a 10 time winner who can only compete off a 60-something MR should not be denied his winning opportunity because of some airy and entirely misplaced ideal of olympian excellence.

I disagree completely with you.

In fact I yearn for the race figure days enormously.

At least then a 10 time winner was a star and you where rewarded for having a good horse rather than a horse inconsistent enough to keep going up and down in the ratings at the expense of better horses caught by the handicapper and punished for consistency.

It was great to read your race analysis in earlier years when you would point out beaten horses who where really winners "at the weights", or horses in your opinion who should have won.

The 'travesty' you call race figure handicapping at least ensured a meritorious route to the top of the pyramid. Race figure racing also had the effect of letting handicap racing begin after you had won maidens, novices and graduations to get real handicappers, rather than a circus where shit compete against each other in slow plodding races and 'good' horses concede weight everywhere.

The simple truth is merit handicapping works better in the July class horse than in the "1 win from 50 run" class, and also does nothing to help the breed which still counts wins as it's benchmark. If you buy a yearling out of a one time winning MR86 mare in preference to a 4 time winning MR76 mare, I take my hat off to you.

PLEASE take us back to race figures where an A Div race could have 12 runners all older than 5 years and all with 7 wins or more. In CT the average "A Div" race will struggle to have more than 2 horses who have won 5, and that is because you seem happy that we have "E" and "F" division handicap races to entertain us now.

Finally, my reference to the Olympics is only that any aspiration in horse racing that we strive for the best, should not be overwhelmed by hand-outs to the useless. Maybe bad horses should move on, after all it's a competition and not a bleeding heart charity. What's the point of fluking something above average equine athlete, only to be handicapped out time and again.

Should racing be a MERITOCRACY where you are rewarded for talent and ability, or (and I googled this) "the opposite of meritocracy is
kakistocracy, or the rule of the worst".

Now are you having a go at me?