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i see another promise whose last chase rating was 140 when he won a grade 1 after winning a grade2 and coming a good 5th at cheltenham bears no relation to his hurdles rating of 95 which he is running off in a hurdle at newcastle on tuesday at 4.40
how fair is this ?
Although there is the possibility that such is the quality of Another Promise’s fencing, that he is one of those horses who was always destined to be considerably better over fences than hurdles.
But come on Smithy, 52lbs better? 98 is hardly above selling company, whereas his 150 over fences means he’s entitled to a genuine entry in the Champion Chase, which he holds.
This is a particularly horrendous example which has come about by a pretty unusual state of affairs. As soon as the horse arrived at Ferdy Murphy’s he went straight over fences and a combination of the new yard and new obstacles (it’s anyone’s guess how much each contributed) propelled him to heights you wouldn’t have dreamt of in his previous incarnation.
Worth noting he’s also entered in a handicap hurdle at Kelso on Thursday. Murphy obviously wants an easy run into him before Cheltenham, and has used his obscenely low hurdle mark quite cleverly here IMO.EDIT: Available at 1.79 on BF currently. As much as the markets is still forming at this stage, I get the feeling I’m missing something!
I am only trying to play Devil’s advocate, friggo.
I am a huge fan of the horse, but wouldn’t be in a rush to get involved tomorrow. He is unlikely to be given a hard time with a view to bigger fish to fry later in the season and do we know why he has been off for so long? (he was due to run in the race Tamarinbleu won at Cheltenham, wasn’t he?).
It is a particularly significant difference in ratings, and the benefit of hindsight may prove he was a great bet, but I won’t be paying to find out.
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But come on Smithy, 52lbs better? 98 is hardly above selling company, whereas his 150 over fences means he’s entitled to a genuine entry in the Champion Chase, which he holds.
This is a particularly horrendous example which has come about by a pretty unusual state of affairs. As soon as the horse arrived at Ferdy Murphy’s he went straight over fences and a combination of the new yard and new obstacles (it’s anyone’s guess how much each contributed) propelled him to heights you wouldn’t have dreamt of in his previous incarnation.
Worth noting he’s also entered in a handicap hurdle at Kelso on Thursday. Murphy obviously wants an easy run into him before Cheltenham, and has used his obscenely low hurdle mark quite cleverly here IMO.EDIT: Available at 1.79 on BF currently. As much as the markets is still forming at this stage, I get the feeling I’m missing something!
Anyone who thinks a horse of his calibre has been plotted up to win a 3 grand race didn’t really ought to be allowed real money.
i was thinking that reet but why run him over hurdles then – will it be schooling in public to fine tune the chelters prep or a chance for a reverse betting coup with the ready excuse for the stewards that he might have needed the run or isn’t as good over hurdles ?
if he dots up twice before cheltenham at odds on how will his odds be affected for the big race, maybe connections don’t care about that as it’s cheltenham ?
if all is fair the trainer should have him fit enough to dot up, if he doesn’t i can’t help feel these sort of situations don’t help racings image as a fair sport
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i was thinking that reet but why run him over hurdles then – will it be schooling in public to fine tune the chelters prep or a chance for a reverse betting coup with the ready excuse for the stewards that he might have needed the run or isn’t as good over hurdles ?
if he dots up twice before cheltenham at odds on how will his odds be affected for the big race, maybe connections don’t care about that as it’s cheltenham ?
if all is fair the trainer should have him fit enough to dot up, if he doesn’t i can’t help feel these sort of situations don’t help racings image as a fair sport
And Ferdy Murphy cares about racing’s image?
He will win easily on Tuesday. He will reappear on Thursday and get turned over at odds on.
He will then go to the Cheltenham Festival.
Given his latent potential, and the prospect of runs at Cheltenham, Aintree and Punchestown, is he really going to run twice in three days after a long absence?? Even if he wins tomorrow, will he be turned out again on Thursday??
is there a site which tells you how ratings are calculated, id like to understand better the different types. is there 4 types of official ratings? turf, all weather, chase and hurdle??
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How do you stop it?
By having a universal rating for each horse, whether it runs over hurdles, fences, on the flat or the AW?
That way any horse that wins a good race is immediately handicapped out of any other prize, in any other discipline, and has to be sold to race abroad. When all the decent horses have gone, that should put an end to this nonsense.
Thinking about this and I wonder is this workable:
If a horse’s handicap marks (fences vs hurdles) differ by more than say 21lbs (or whatever figure is deemed appropriate), then when moving from the higher sphere to the lower sphere, the horse cannot race in a grade that is more than 1 grade lower than the last race they ran in.
That isn’t worded very good (ha ha) but in practical terms, it means that Another Promise wouldn’t be allowed to run in a Hurdle below cl2 this time because he ran in a cl1 race over fences LTO. Then he can be reassessed by the handicapper based on his performance in the cl2 event, .
Obviously you’re never going to eliminate the problem entirely but it should go a long way to stopping a lot of it. No (respected) trainer is going to run a Pattern-grade chaser in a cl3 chase just to exploit his much mark in a cl4 hurdle race NTO.
Or are they?
Anyone remember Truckers Tavern. He ran in the Rowland Meyrick in 2003/4 off 162. His next outing in a handicap was over hurdles on his seasonal reappearance and was turned over off a mark of 125.
Interesting one this, the horse is such an athletic chaser that as Smithy says it’s most unlikely he’ll ever be as good over hurdles as fences. That said his hurdling mark comes from the form he showed for the hapless J. Supple.
I’d far rather swerve the race than try and guess what will happen.
This horse is always a late starter in the season and due to the poor weather is further behind than normal – otherwise he would have ran against Denman at the w.e. This is a chance to get him back on a racecourse in a grade his Hurdle rating would place him. I’d say it is certainly not any kind of plot job and just a chance to get the horse racing again prior to a tilt for place money in the Gold Cup. I wouldn;t be having a bet today.
I must be honest and say this doesn’t worry me at all. I’m one of those who creates my own book for a race, and when assessing a horse running in a hurdle race after competing over fences I always rate the horse on hurdle form. In the event of the opposite then vice-versa….
All I would say is that this practice appears to be on the increase. Whether there’s a profit to be made by backing horses exploiting favourable marks I’m unsure. In my opinion, these horses are invariably over-bet. For every horse that appears to be ‘well-in’ there’s a Vodka Bleu who gets walloped.
I’m of the view that the hurdling and chasing game are very different. If trainers want to switch horses regularly between the two codes that’s their right. But I think there are many more trainers getting it wrong than getting it right.
We did have a similar discussion a few weeks ago…
https://theracingforum.co.uk/forum/v … ht=#131425
As for Another Promise today, Ferdy Murphy’s have been generally running as though really unfit first time out and at severe odds on, I wouldn’t think of today as anything other than a prep.
He might be good enough to win off his hurdle mark, and did win first time up last year (albeit in a chase off 95 at Hexham), but I’m rather inclined to view today’s 18-runner/4-place handicap as one for a nice each-way dabble than one for hammering into the favourite.
(For the record, Ever Special looks interesting at 50/1+)
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