Cunha (Grand Extravaganza)?

I'm curious and I have a question for Mr Cunha, who I think has posted here in the past.

You find this horse Grand Extravaganza (had beaten 1 horse home after 3 starts).

With a MR35, you run it in a Maiden (and win)
Then (re-rated MR65) you run in a Hcp 3 weeks later (3rd).

So the question is 'Why did you not run in a hcp off your rare and valuable MR35'?

If you could win a maiden carrying 56.5, surely a Hcp would have been a walk in the park, and you could only have been rated of your winning distance.

Even a 10L victory (in a Hcp) would have seen you still a 55, some 5kg better off than now.

Jack Dash, quite simply.... A maiden race is worth more than a handicap in KZN... Shocking but true but nevertheless we are having fun with her and will continue to do so hopefully

What you did with this filly Dylan is a miracle!

Dylan, thanks for the reply. I had wondered whether you can actually find a race for a horse with such a low rating.

The point of the post though, is not about Dylan's great coup, but is to point out that while the merit rating system pushes out many winners below MR70, and even MR60, that I would have an educated guess that the average for a colt maiden PLATE win is 80-ish and a filly 78-ish.

The real amazing thing is how extremely few (if any?) maiden winners occur outside of plate races, even though they are severely penalized compared to running a maiden in a handicap.

Karel Miedema pointed out to me how important it is for the average horse to enter into it's post maiden win off the correct mark with his own horse Ferchard as example.

1. Ferchard ran in 2 or 3 maiden races before winning a Work Riders race receiving an MR74. After that graduation (still 74) and was dropped to 73 for his first Hcp (7th).

2. Ferchard then proceeded to win 4-in-a-row with ratings 73 75 78 84. Karel pointed out how essential it turned out that Ferchard had kicked off with a MR73.

3. My own filly (1 win) BEGINS her post win career as MR84, same as Ferchard who is 84 AFTER (10 runs, 5 wins).

So the question remains, why do people insist that their fist win is in a maiden PLATE race, whilst a starting win in a Hcp may set one up like Ferchard?

Amazingly, not one professional can answer me.