- This topic has 308 replies, 45 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 6 months ago by
.
- Posts
Depends if you think ratings is the be all and end all. Sea the stars never won any race with a wow performance but was clearly a top,top horse. The ground was clearly a huge factor so in hindsight wasn’t a bad run at all. All depends on your point of view.
You don’t think Sea The Stars Eclipse and Irish Champion were Wow performances?
Value Is EverythingThat first run of the season is always going to be the biggest mark against him being up there with the best , good derby winner ..no more
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
For me – it does not matter if COT has been beaten / run below form. What matters is what level of form he has achieved at his best to be rated up with the best.
Coolmore maintain City Of Troy is “our Frankel”.
City Of Troy must improve another 20 lbs in order to be rated up with Frankel on Timeform Ratings.
Timeform do occasionally get ratings wrong, but not that wrong.City Of Troy will do well if he’s the top rated three year old by the end of the season.
On current Timeform Ratings City Of Troy ties for second best horse (of any age) in the Ballydoyle stable.
Value Is EverythingGinge you can get beaten … just not so badly , let’s be honest he’s never going back down in distance … hes not fast enough
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
You can’t really ignore poor runs when rating horses, unless it’s spectacularly bad (an outlier) – that’s not how stats usually work; I think he’s a good, possibly a very good horse. However, a poor Guineas run, the Derby was good, and the Eclipse was workmanlike…..
His rating should drop after Saturday; receiving weight and beating just a decent opponent.Timeform’s original provisional performance rating for the Eclipse has now been dropped significantly. So Al Riffa has now only improved a small amount from the Ganay. The same for Ghostwriter improving a small amount from the 2000 Guineas. City Of Troy’s performance is now rated as 4 lbs worse than the Derby, with both ratings having a “+”. His Master Rating remains 127p.
Value Is EverythingCity Of Troy’s Master Rating should not be changed just because it is thought worse than the Derby. This was on softer ground and over a different trip than Epsom. Changing ratings with so little evidence is surely wrong, Andy?
Value Is EverythingTotally agree ginge. Hawk wing got his huge rating due to handling soft going. You surely can’t change his rating on ground he hated. Timeform seem to choose the narrative rather than dealing what’s in front of them. I’m sure on good to firm going cot could put up a top performance at York especially with the long straight. I’m sure timeform will overreact to that if it happens. Most folk form their own opinion anyways. Timeform a bit of fun as far as I’m concerned.
Ratings are just peoples opinions anyway. You get some group races, group 1s even where the BHA, Timeform and the Racing Post all have different top rated horses.
Regards COT, Racing Post had him 5lb below his Derby win and it was also below his Dewhurst win on their scale.
More interestingly for me, the BHA didnt think his Derby win was as good as his Dewhurst win. His official rating comes from his Dewhurst not his Derby performance. They’ll publish how they assessed the Eclipse tomorrow.
One other point I’d add is the Derby and probably the Guineas would always be races where the ratings of the whole field are subject to change throughout the season based around the subsequent form of the race, preferably form over a similar distance. So they could drop COT if that race turns out to be worse than they expected it to be, there’s an element of best guess with the progression of younger horses because you dont have any solid form to base it around. The Eclipse will be easier to best guess because Al Riffa is unlikely to have suddenly improved a stone or even half.
“The second Al Riffa had been well below form on his last run on very firm ground in the USA. However, on soft ground on his penultimate start / 2024 reappearance in the Group 1 Ganay, put up what was then his career best effort”
I thought Al Riffa’s best performance was when he was just beaten by Ace Impact last year at Deauville. That was the only time a horse got with a length of him. The Ganay run was a lot deeper though.
Al riffa could well be improving rapidly after his injury ravaged last season. Ratings will inevitably change as season goes on. Rosalllion struggles to beat Henry longfellow, who is another likely to improve as the season goes on, and gets a glowing review. Also just beats haatem. All about opinions as has been said.
Speaking of Mr longfellow I wonder if he could rock up in the juddmonte if going is soft.
Al Riffa may have been within a length of Ace Impact (at level weights) in the Deauville Group 2, Botchy. But that was Ace Impact’s first run for over two months and was his Arc prep. Didn’t need to be anywhere near the form of his French Derby or Arc victories. Runner-up Al Riffa did not beat the third and fourth by far enough for me to rate the performance that highly. Only finishing a head in front of Birr Castle, with a further 2 lengths back to the fourth placed Greenland. Neither of those two have done anything like those he was in close proximity with in the Ganay.
Value Is Everything“Also just beats haatem”.
Rosallion’s performance in the Irish Guineas is worth rating better than the race distances suggest, Mickey. Rosallion was held up in a comparatively slowly run race. Whereas Haatem raced prominently in that slowly run race and was the first to kick for home. ie Rosallion had to close on horses that were themselves quickening. Rosallion doing well to win at all given the circumstances. In reality that’s not “opinion” either, it’s a fact from what we know of how pace works in races.
Value Is Everything
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.