Clyde you biscuit

I don't know about 'stealing' KM.

Although I take your point about 'two systems'.

The thing is yes with the better Horses the current system puts them at a high mark and I an agree rightly so.

However I think what most have a problem with is the high ratings for comparative avg Horses. i.e 74 for a Horse that won't win another race until it's down 10-12 points - if then!

So some form of realignment IS needed, I made my suggestion to try and make a said current 74 come out closer to a 64. Especially as the avg. (and below avg) Horses are in the vast majority.

KM if you have a fairer sollution, I'd be very interested to hear, as you've prob. forgot far more than I will ever know - lol!

Anyhow KM thanks for your response - Jim.

Clyde - Agree with Clyde on a lot of points. A horses career is not that long and a horse that cannot win for a long time, in some cases more than a year, needs to be looked at and a MR drop automatically imposed. Horses race to win and owners expect wins.
I disagree a bit that we will be able to create more champions by having 3 year olds race against eachother only. A champion 3 year old is one that can take them all on and win. I dont believe that we should be creating false champions.
I agree strongly that racing should not be overly complicated. Complication or trying to understand the complexities of racing is what scares new punters off. I understand the intelligent bet approach but why should one need a racing degree just to have a bet. This type of thinking and the promotion of this, promotes elitism and turns the average Joe punter away.

Mathew - Mr Patience. Well done for not getting involved in the shoutathon. You made some intersting points and have to agree that the post above is probably the right way to go. It follows Clydes thoughts but allows the owner trainer to venture into open company if they so desire. Did not agree with your intelligent punter points of view though as it is this type of thinking, why racing does not attract new punters in bulk. I have been racing for 4 years and still know very little about MR and how I can use it to my punting advantage. How long will anew guy try before he packs it in. Not too many and like the 3 year olds of which 5% go on thesame probably applies to new punters.

Handicappers - Singing from the same hymn sheet and therefore did not have too much to offer individually. Vee believes the system in its computerised form is perfect and no one on the panel including himself is qualified to state otherwise. Unfortunately handicapping is not purely based on the computerised system and therefore human intervention makes it imperfect. Anything that is subjective can never be perfect. A point was raised about trainers jumping all over the handicapper when they want ratings lowered. Does this type of thing not subconciously affect ratings of some of that trainers other horses either way?

The question was is the system flawed. Absolutely. Look how many horses take more than a year to win again but no system is perfect and unless anyone of us have the perfect system stored away somewhere, nothing will change in the near future.

One other intersting point that was raised is that our horses do not race in their later years as they do in other countries. Sean Tarry is one of the few leading trainers that keeps his horses going. This probably needs to be looked at. are horses being retired too early for the sake of breeders and buying and selling of new stock.

Overall the discussion seemed to focus in on horses breaking in to racing, the 2 and 3 year olds, and very little attention was given to anything other than this. Lets be honest there are horses out there which are being punished by this system and some are using the system to their advantage.

I believe strongly that the system does not encourage trainers to send their horses out to win everytime as these horses will be penalised for doing so. You are left with trainers plotting a career which includes Merit rating protection in their plans. Mike Bass can comfortably send Pocket Power out to win every race as he is at the top of the pile and jump in MR makes no difference. Conversely horses on the boarderline of making it into the big races need to have the correct MR to be competitive with Pocket and therefore have their ratings protected by being entered into races which make the horse look worse than they are but good enough to be in a big race. Hence we are left with terms such as prep run and the other 10000000000000001 one liners!

How can this type of thing be good for Joe the Punter and horseracing in general?

Jim

How can you say "the avg. (and below avg) Horses are in the vast majority." ?

If the average and below average is in the vast majority, the average would come down LOL. Is this an example of oxymoron?

IMO Handicaperrs try to stop the horses from winning.
Owners tries and buy that good one.
If you manage to get a good one, clap hands and sell it quick.
The handicapper will make him an ordinary horse.
The trainer will try and put it in races to get the most wins out of the horse.
To get a champion is the same as getting a normal 3 time winner.

You being a bit unfair Kobus.
The truth of the matter is that a really good horse won't run in a hcp often.

Thought about something else on the way home. should we not be looking at putting young horses against veterans (6, 7 or older) to gauge their MR rather than 4 year olds who are entering their prime? At leats the older horses will have a longer career.

I saw an ad in the Sporting Post I think looking for a handicapper/stipe for a middle east country..6 figure salary in pounds tax free..how much are our handicappers paid here in SA?

One thing to keep in mind, is the number of opportunities available in handicaps for a given horse population.

For instance, since 1 Aug 2008 there were 220 handicaps at Turffontein/Vaal turf.
These were contested by 950 individual horses.

It means that if all horses should win it would have needed at least another 730 races (and no horse could win more than once).

You can imagine the financial implications and extra racedays needed for that.

Are these stats correct or am I missing something. 4.3 horses per race.

Very interesting discussion.

JD, I believe I understand where Jamster is coming from; if one looks at the horse population, in terms of ability (and MR?) it can be shown as a triangle; the majority of horses' ability is below a certain ability rating - but off course you kmew that.

Karel, I don't see your point; could you explain in more detail please? How do you get to the 950 extra races?

Al, I don'e believe we should race younger horses against 'veterans', but I do think we should (probably from April/May onwards) give the 2 yr olds the opportunity to race against 3 yr olds in handicaps. This will vailidate the ratings of the 2 yr olds against their elders (and the 2 yr olds will then have more accurate ratings when they turn 3).

The end goal should be to have accurate ratings and this will make the task of finding winners easier, even to the uneducated or novice punter.

In the same way I think there should be handicaps restricted to 3 and 4 year olds, so that the 3 yr olds will have more accurate ratings when they turn 4.

There should still be normal 'open' handicaps open to all horses; so a trainer of a 'good' younger horse will still have the option of racing against older horses.

Good point Frodo - the only flaw in this argument is that 3 year olds do not seem to be rated correctly currently if I understand Clydes arguments, as they are being rated against horses in open company. You will therefore end up with false 2 year old ratings too.

Rating 2 year olds will be a nightmare. It seems that 2 year olds show potential first and ability much later (IMO)

"if I understand Clydes arguments, as they are being rated against horses in open company. You will therefore end up with false 2 year old ratings too."

Which leads me back to why I posted the above about 70 / 75 maximum for maiden 2's/3's.

And yes frodo, you're right that's what I meant - lol!

i.e. top Horses we'd all like 5% Really good - 10% good - 25% ok - fairly ok 25% - fairly bad 25% - 10% . . .

= 65% avg / below avg. (pokes tongue out in JD's direction)

And no this isn't an actual poll JD dbl-lol!!