- This topic has 4 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by
.
- Posts
When a horse is described as “well handicapped” on the flat relevant to his/her hurdles/chase rating, what exactly does that mean? Tempo Mac for instance ran off 57 in a Down Royal flat handcicap this evening, and is currently rated 134 over hurdles.
As a general rule of thumbb how many lbs should separate a flat rating from a NH one in order to begin to regard a NH horse as “well handicapped” on the level?
When I started to compile speed figures for national hunt racing, I needed a base rate to work from, on the flat I used a base rate of 100 and a weight of 9-0.
Looking at thousand of races using Raceform Interactive, I found that horses improved 27lbs for hurdle races and 33lbs for chases.
So we have 27lbs + 33lbs = 60lbs / 2 = 30lbs.
So I added to 30 to the flat base rate of 100 = 130 and used a weight of 11-0.
I now that Mick Fitzgerald uses a weight of 40lbs when he converts national hunt ratings to flat as his guideline, this would be a good rule of thumb as a starter to work from.
Mike.
Interesting, Mike/Ivanjica, and something I hadn’t given much thought to.
It seems generally accepted now that attracting new people to betting on racing is difficult, mainly because young folk especially are not willing to put in the time to learn the intricacies.
Why can’t we just have the same ratings-base for all codes?
I’ve always used 40lbs as a rule of thumb on the basis that the very best Flat horses have a rating of around 130 and the very best Jumps horses have a rating of around 170
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.