Frankel – that 142 rating, what do you think handicappers?

[Anonymous]

Cav
Not sure that it helps in either direction, but I’ve hand-timed Blue Bunting’s final 2f (as well as able, given the camera angle) at 25.65 secs, which isn’t really that far in front of DE’s 26.5 secs for Frankel.

[Cav]

Big tailwind on the Rowley Mile last night. Cloud Illusions rated 75 running to within 0.6 of a second to Frankel on similar official going.

Will check out the windspeeds and update later.

[360 degrees]

Personally if he beats all the older top milers by half a length having seen off protracted challenges from the 2 pole in a fast time at Ascot, I’ll consider it a more meritorious performance despite the lower rating it will doubtless receive.

Exactly. If the 2000 had had a similar finish (or anything at all competitive), it could have been a race to note.
As it is, any rating drawn from the 2000 is for me completely fictional. The race is irrelevant.

[TheBluesBrother]

BB,
You obviously put a lot of work into your figures, and generously share the resultant lists wih this board, so maybe you’re the one who could give an honest and unbiased answer to the following question:

Just how accurate and reliable is Dave Edward’s going allowance for the 2 days of he Guinea’s meeting?

Clearly (imo) the overall times for Sunday were appreciably slower than Saturday’s; slow enough for DE to change his time-based ground description from g/s to soft (patently misleading – even though justified by his m.o.), yet only allow a marginal (0.10 secs) for the different g.a.
Not having a go at Dave Edwards specifically, you understand, as I’ve reached the conclusion that nobody really knows what the diffference was on the 2 days, or, precisely, what caused it.

I just received an answer from Dave Edwards to this question about how he calculated the going allowances for both days.

There are no hard and fast rules which govern the determining of a going allowance for a particular meeting it is basically an educated guesstimate backed up by 30+ years of experience and a ‘feel’ for a particular race, arrived at after analysing the times recorded compared to standard, climatic conditions and calibre of horse.

Some people ignore the fastest and or slowest race(s) on the card then add the other times above standards together and divide by the number of furlongs to arrive at an allowance.

Eg Four of the races are in total 25 seconds slower than their respective standards and were run over collectively 50 furlongs and then deduce an allowance of 0.50sec per fur.
I do not concur with this view as by ignoring the fastest or slowest time distorts the findings and surely ignoring the fastest race misses the point of the exercise.

That does not mean it is wrong just that it does not sit comfortably with my outlook.

When analysing the times at a race meeting there is invariably a ‘key’ race which is a starting point and then by working through the rest of the card methodically an allowance is
decided upon provided other races sit comfortably in place.

Obviously one has to take acount of official going descriptions, rail and distances changes, wind speed and direction in order to be as thorough as possible.
Then it is necessary to use Sky+ and rewind races to try and get some meaningful split timimgs to try and support or in some cases refute the allowance.

For instance some days the humble seller/claimer my be the quickest race on the card. Does that mean the winner is a cut above that grade or were the other races simply
just slowly run.
Much fuss was made about the 132 earned by Frankel in the 2000 Guiuneas but in reality they key race that day was the concluding 1m hcp run over course and distance won by Bahcelli.
He was 2.90sec slower than Frankel and carried 1lb more but using BHB ratings as a guide was vastly inferior 126-87=39lb.
All things considered in my judgement he warranted a figure of 93 and by using the methodology Frankel emerged with 132, a figure I was quite content with.

The allowance on Sunday was bigger as to the best of my knowledge the wind, which distorted the findings of the clock on both days, was stronger.
On Sunday I took the view that Blue Bunting was a 115 performer on the day and time as they say will tell whether my judgement will be vindicated.

I hope this sheds some light on what is a fairly complex matter. As long as one is ‘consistent’ in determining an allowance the ‘system’ should work. It may be on a higher or lower scale but its all relative. As my mentor Ken Hussey used to say’ Never be afraid to go out on a limb’

The object of the time test is to beat the handicapper not agree with him and often the clock indicates an above performer long before the world and his dog have latched on.

Kind Regards

Dave Edwards

[Author]

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