Handicaps..are they right?

As a punter,
the very first thing I look at is whether the race is a handicap or another type.

I will only play a handicap if I have a strong opinion about a horse or a price. I tend to leave them well alone, especially low MR races and low to medium fillies races.

It's supposed to be a mind game, but handicaps aspire to turn races into a lottery. I also wish there was more variety than MR Hcps and Plate races, I pray for more conditions and WFA and 2yo Ltd hcps.

As a breeder,
it bothers me very much when inconsistent horses who get rewarded by the handicapper and have their ratings dropped to come and and win, run nowhere for 6 months and repeat. While better and consistent horses don't get lowered and get beaten by some in and out thing repeatedly.

It means that the 'wrong' horses are often winning and then used as superior breeding stock or statistics. If ALL our races where handicaps, the good horses would be consistently slowed by weight to make inferior horses equal. It has a place possibly, especially in places like mauritius who just race geldings.

All in all, I have little good to say about low MR racing.

Bring on maiden handicaps - I like this idea.

However to work I believe it should be open to maidens with a minimum (6?) of runs to minimise scol-dougery and for say 50% stakes.

At the moment if you have a 60-65 rated Horse, it is very hard to win a maiden, and the only choice you have is to send them to PE or such. So at half stakes it works out about the same BUT the local trainer doesn't lose the Horse (unless of course they want to - lol).

So an c maiden -50MR, B maiden -57MR and A-Maiden -65MR 'Handicap' could be arranged @60kgs - wfa allowances to even it up.

As for 'sellers' 'claimers' etc. I know some swear by them, I'm not sold eitherway - but anything that shakes things up, might be worth looking into.

Jim.

The loss of Bloemfontein has made it even harder to win with moderate animals. Like it or not, that place was a lifeline for many of the less priveleged players. If it takes more bottom level races elsewhere to try and make up for their loss, so be it. Big resident yards in PE and Kimberley mean they are not a real substitute for Bloem.

Jamster

It is a terrible idea.

What do we do with a 1/2 Maiden winner against ordinary maiden winners when they meet?

Is the dam of two 0.5 winners = to the dam of a 1x winner?

What ratings do you give them?

What about 25% races for ponies, zebras and camels?

Don't be a silly boy, JackD. A win in a half stakes race is a win, not a half win. Kimberley stakes are half of Johannesburg stakes, but a win in Kimberley is not recorded as a half win. You rate the winners and the losers according to the same method as any other race.

But I'm sure you knew that already and was just being mischievous, eh?

JD,

The '1/2 Maiden winner' would carry it's MR forward (it may be adjusted depending by the handicapper in the same way that an ordinary maiden's would be) and would compete against the normal maiden winner on handicap terms. So in theory, the '1/2 maiden winner' will receive weight from the ordinary maiden winner.

There would be no such thing as a '0.5' winner; a win is a win, and that is happening today as well: in the catalogue it says the horse has won 5 races, it doesn't say that the horse has won 5 5 MR 65 races or 5 allowance plates. The onus is on the prospective buyer to determine the 'merit' of the 5 wins.

Just my opinion off course.

OK

Why don't you propose we take our Maiden Plate program and half the stakes and double up the races?

it will be to double the amount of winners going through (good),
it will half the income of maiden winners (bad),
it will increase the number of possible betting opertunities (good)
it will decrease the ave size of field (good for owners, bad for tote)
it will clog up the program unless the next rung is widened
it will change 8/9 race cards to 11/12 races (?)

your 'winner' class of horse will drop (does it matter?, probably not)
and if we scrapped MR Hcps lower than 70 to make room, it would even be inspired.

Frodo, I do think that the TBA (Bloodstock SA) needs to urgently catch up with the Equimark example of publishing merit ratings in its sales catalogues. That takes much of the guesswork out of the equation, and is a very important tool now that MR handicapping has been around for some ten years.

Magic, while they invoke hidden rules with limits and half penalties and the like, the system is not true.

If you want someone to base their valuation of a yearling using MR, then it would be nice if it was an objective rating rather than a subjective one.

JD,

My personal opinion is that the stakes for maidens are too high anyway in relation to the handicaps(ducking for cover as I write this) and there are not enough maiden races around; so in a sense I agree with your suggestion, but not to the extent of halving the stakes and doubling the races; perhaps a 20% decrease in the stakes and a 20% increase in the number of maiden races programmed.

Magic, the MR's in the catalogue does help; but they can be deceivng too, as it seems the highest MR the horse achieved is shown and it is not always a true reflection of the horse's real ability. In my view, I always look at a catalogue in the same way as at the brochure from Pick and Pay I get in the post; if you don't take note of the fine print, you are most likely going to be screwed. I suppose that's why I hardly find anything to buy at the price I am willing to pay.