Adding Weight to Merit Rating debate

Justin Snaith was asked for comments during yesterdays Kenilworth meeting. I found one comment to be particularly interesting. Justin was asked about the chances of Little Red Corvette. He replied something along the lines of:

"Kzn form does not stand up to Cape form"

I stand to be corrected but I think he may have even said this twice when commenting on another horse or race. Im not sure that I understand this, but could it mean that KZN horses are not rated correctly. Surely the idea behind MR is rate horses to have an equal opportunity to win no matter where they are in the country.

The experts will shout; what is the corrolation between form and MR. Well, the comment leads me to beleive that horses racing in KZN, creating form, which in turn leads handicappers making adjustments, could be rating KZN horses, and out of town horses who ply there trade in the region, to high.

Comments?

Could it be what they are running against in their respective regions?

Quantity and Quality over quality..

Maybe. But surely habdicappers should be able to have an understanding equal, if not better than trainers. If Justin can stand up and say the horse cant win, due to KZN form, then surely the horse does not have an equal chance of winning and the system is not working.

Out of the races held at Scottsville on Sunday not 1 horse with the highest MR in a field won a race. What is the point of this?

It was probably done just to aggravate you.

alcaponee i recommend you go onto the nhra website and read the document on merit ratings ..from your last comment you clearly dont understand merit ratings

I wouldn't take too much notice of that comment of Snaith....if he was right all MR handicap races in the natal season would have been won by a Cape horse,whenever participating.Bear in mind they take the cream to Durban.
You have to ignore fixed weight races and I don't think the results supported his comments!
MAGIC do you have any stats in the data base?

MR must be attached to time..
TIME of the CYCLE for that horse..
when a horse peaks a certain time of the year, then the merit rating is 100%..

what we find is horses that have more or less the same merit rating in a race, but all are in different time period in the cylce..
iow, my merit rating is only true for a brief period of the year..same time every year..some horse have faster cycles and have 2 or 3 periods in the year where the merit rating is true ..

so what justin means..??????
a horse ran in KZN MR100 and won..
8 weeks later the horse returned to capetown..
runs a CPT MR100 and unplaced..
however..I suggest..next year..instead of sending the horse back to CPT, run the horse in KZN..and see...will be unplaced too..

hence if we do OLAP..
load FORMGRIDS DATA into CRYSTAL REPORTS or COGNOS cubes..I will show you..

Whats that Jack - Snaiths comments or merit rating? (lol)

Pirates - Maybe I don't understand it but what I do see is trainers having to run horses in races to try an manipulate ratings. At who's expense?

Pirates - went to the NHRA site and read the handicapping publication - only have a couple of comments on this.

Horseracing unfortunately is not about sport, its about gambling. If horses were allowed to compete at level weights true undefeatable champions would emerge and the gambling in racing would die. It then follows that MR is a system that muddles form and creates betting opportunities.

I now understand - dont make betting decisions on MR you will lose more than you will win.

AW I agree with your methodology

David
call Crystal..
ask them to give the clan a demo on this site
with cubes..
OLAP...
and the different patterns that emerge..
they will do it for free..

you cannot begin to imagine the world that will open......

The company that does our insurance administration software is developing a new product using cubes. They have shown us the new version. All I can say is night and day.

There is a place for attempting to give each horse an equal chance in a race based on ability shown...hence M.R. handicaps and a place for races at weight for age thereby truely or atempting at least to see the best exposed...something Pocket Power has proved many times. Racing would be diminished without any of the two.