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Jeremy,
Maybe it’s not many races in total, but it’s some of the biggest in terms of prize money – Star De Mohaison, Halcon Generlardais and Taranis last season, Jack The Giant this season, have scored in major races.
The effect is that of an early closing race in which one or more of the entrants gets to run off a mark established a year before the race. It’s great for the connections of the horses that find themselves in this position, but as they have to have been successful enough over fences to pick up plenty of prize money, do they really need this extra bonus?
AP
is it further complicated by experienced French horses being bought and racing over here – I always thought that the art of placing a horse to win was to get it down to the right handicap mark by any [legal] means possible..is there any difference in running horses over hurdles/fences or over different distances…look at the number of Irish trained National winners that have run over hurdles to keep their handicap weight down or being raced on a right handed track when their preference is for left handed tracks
Alan,
All fair points, and graciously put as always, but at the same time I don’t find the hurdles wins of the steeplechasers you mentioned all that different to, say, something winning the Grand National off a mark that was allotted at the start of February but already found to be inadequate by the time of the big race. At their core, both are simply dealing with a horse being sent out to try to win a race off a mark of the likes they won’t see again in a hurry.
Judged purely on Racing Post ratings, for example, Simon might have been expected to run off 158 in the National following his Racing Post Chase win, rather than the 143 off which he contested both races. Entirely as a matter of interest, and notwithstanding this was one "blot" which ultimately wasn’t converted into a win in the big race (though he was travelling fine to me when he departed), would do you regard this as any more or less acceptable / worthy of redress?
Jeremy
(graysonscolumn)Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
- Total Posts 17716
Jeremy,
Maybe it’s not many races in total, but it’s some of the biggest in terms of prize money – Star De Mohaison, Halcon Generlardais and Taranis last season, Jack The Giant this season, have scored in major races.
The effect is that of an early closing race in which one or more of the entrants gets to run off a mark established a year before the race. It’s great for the connections of the horses that find themselves in this position, but as they have to have been successful enough over fences to pick up plenty of prize money, do they really need this extra bonus?
AP
AP
From your list:
Star de Mohaison, latest hdl run, btn off 139, chase mark 158
Halcon Genelardais latest hdl run btn off 145, chase mark 156
Taranis latest hdl run btn off 135, chase mark 162
Jack The Giant latest hdl run won 1l off 127, chase mark 151The inference being that chase and hurdle marks are not interchangeable, and to have equal handicaps across any 2 codes would penalise a large part of the horse population, with very little benefit to anyone.
It might also be worth noting that all 4 winners you mention were heavily backed favourites, which one suspects is the real reason behind the HRA’s call for change.Jeremy,
Personally, I’d do away with the current procedure for all early closing races, flat and NH. Even if the entries are made weeks in advance, the handicap should be based on the ratings that apply on the day of the race.
Before we had computer based official handicap marks, publishing the weights early was the only way punters would have the info needed for an ante-post bet. But now everybody knows the ratings and the risk of a rise for winning races in the weeks before the big event would be well understood.
And unless one the bookies men on here can tell us different, I’d suggest that the volume of ante-post betting on handicaps (excluding the National) would be a great deal less than back in the days of the Druids Lodge Confederacy – most ante-post action nowadays is surely on the big weight for age contests.
If you sat down now with a clean sheet of paper to design a race program, would you really invent a sub-section of handicaps that were based on outdated ratings? And if your answer to that is yes, what would be the purpose of such races?
AP
Excuse my ignorance, but with the exception of the National, does much (or any) alteration to horses’ OR actually happen in the weights for early-closing handicaps? I can’t say I’ve noticed anything significant as far back as I remember. As a result I’d have to question why all horses don’t just run off the marks they turn up with on the day (allowing of course for normal penalties).
I really am against the move to homogenise, equalise and generally make life fair. Imagine the National without the theatre of the weights announcement, the plotting and scheming to get a good weight and the lumpy ante post bets flying around straight afterwards. Some of my earliest racing memories revolve around fireside discussions between my uncle and father on what weight horses had got in the Schweppes or the Sweeps Hurdle- the anticipation was fierce!
As well as that, how could there be lively ante post betting on an event when the weights carried were an unknown?
I think you have to realise that it’s precisely because not all races are the same or totally fair that is their very attraction- it’s a bit like the homogenisation of the British and Irish high street- when they all look the same, it’s bloody boring!………………but isn’t the point of handicaps that every horse has theoretically the same chance of winning and that their handicap marks should be totally fair?
Colin
Friggo,
To give a recent example, six horses ran in the 2007 Ebor off marks lower than they had on that day, including the winner Purple Moon.
He won a Listed race at Goodwood after the weights were published and was raised 12lbs by the handicapper, but had just a 4lb penalty at York.
AP
- Total Posts 17716
Friggo,
To give a recent example, six horses ran in the 2007 Ebor off marks lower than they had on that day, including the winner Purple Moon.
He won a Listed race at Goodwood after the weights were published and was raised 12lbs by the handicapper, but had just a 4lb penalty at York.
AP
Another heavily backed winning favourite, AP.
God only knows why anyone who bets regularly would want to give one of the more signifcant advantages punters have back to the enemy?
Haven’t banged your head, have you?To give a recent example, six horses ran in the 2007 Ebor off marks lower than they had on that day, including the winner Purple Moon.
AP, that’s a good example of exactly what I was getting at. The Ebor doesn’t need any intervention from the handicapper. It’s not a specialist distance, or course, so why do they have to insist on setting the weights in stone at an early stage? Doing away with any rules that say horses have to run off the mark on which they were first entered would be the fairest option. Would there be any problem at all with not publishing weights until the 5-day stage?
Off at a slight tangent but I do think there is a logical case to be made for updating the current Penalty system and bi-weekly reassessment of ORs. Official Handicappers today have ready access to televised replays of races and number-crunching computerized databases so it does seem strange that horses who win a race can have upto two weeks to run in handicaps with a penalty, or a succession of penalties, rather than have their ORs changed pronto based on the merit of the win(s).
But, admittedly, as Reet Hard pointedly observes it would mean another “significant advantage” the punter has being lost.
Not sure how it’s an advantage to punters – at a guess the bookies are also aware that the horse is well in at the weights. OK, Purple Moon was ‘heavily backed’, according to the bookies PR men, and we all know they are paragons of virtue and honesty.
But heavily backed at a short price – the only advantage would have been knowing before he won the Goodwood Listed race!
AP
It doesn’t offer punters any advantage whatsoever. The people who benefit are the connections of horses who are potentially well treated as it gives them an opportunity to wait until the weights are published before revealing how good their horse is (without losing the opportunity to run in the valuable handicap off a favourable weight of course).
- Total Posts 17716
It doesn’t offer punters any advantage whatsoever. The people who benefit are the connections of horses who are potentially well treated as it gives them an opportunity to wait until the weights are published before revealing how good their horse is (without losing the opportunity to run in the valuable handicap off a favourable weight of course).
Even in ‘bookie speak’ that is absolute tosh. TDK.
All of the 5 horses Alan mentions were heavily backed on the day of the race, 3 of them to around half of their morning odds, and nothing is more certain than it wasn’t just connection’s money that did it.
Since whenever did any winning favourite not favour the punter, let alone in the major betting race of the week, as most of these were.If you mean it is more likely to produce a short priced winning favourite RH, then you are correct. If you think that in the long run that that provides an "advantage" for the punter over the bookmaker, then I think you are mistaken. Yes, bookmakers tend to lose money when the favourite obliges due to the weight of money placed on them, but in the long run taking money on these horses is profitable for the layers.
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TDK/AP
As you both seem to think the current system doesn’t confer any advantage to punters, maybe you could answer the following questions:
1} How many of those punters who backed Purple Moon down to Ebor favourite wouldn’t have backed him without the knowledge that his listed win conveyed?
2) How much harder would it have been for Purple Moon to win the Ebor had he not run in the listed race, and thus not incurred the 4lb penalty he carried at York?
Tell me again that it doesn’t make a diffference to punters.
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