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Quote: from stevedvg on 11:22 am on Sep. 29, 2006[br]I don’t see why people have such a problem with Jack’s idea for an article.
I can understand why they think it’ll be doomed to failure and the argument won’t be up to much.
(after all, if you believe in ratings, you’ve got to believe that any attempt to "disprove" their worthiness will fail)
However, let the lad have a crack at it before you judge.
Personally, I’m looking forward to reading it (with a mixture of fascination, amusement and horror). So, I’d be pretty bummed out if he was talked out of writing it!
Steve
Ive always said it..people want to read controversial pieces. Im sure an argument can be made against ratings but that probably depends more on what you expect from ratings. Do you expect them to reflect the ability of horses across generations or in reality just within a narrow group of subjects.<br>
SHL
I’m looking forward to that article. I never use ratings when I’m betting and I win thousands.
If anybody doesn’t believe me, I can post my Betfair P&L on the public forum!:biggrin:
But is the point of article whether rating horses yourself, as a number is the way to go about selections or whether the official (or anyone elses) ratings are of no relevance or interest
I have a bit of sympathy for the first point… :)
Come on jackane… get scribbling
I’m not saying that ratings should be eliminated – of course people like to follow ratings, whether they be RPRs, ORs, Topspeed, Timeform, or even their own.
But they are simply not reliable as a betting source. Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you had bet on Timeform’s top rated horse in every single race at Cheltenham and Aintree, you would have been down I’m sure.
if ratings were incredibly important and reliable in the racing world, then they would have a far bigger impact on the betting market, and also on every joe punter.
But for me, I find it more comforting and reliable to sit down and take a look at the horses that each horse has beaten, whether he goes on the ground, what trip he wants, how we wants to be ridden, etc
Ratings won’t actually tell you ANY of the above. One could argue that it would give a rough idea of the horses he/she has beaten, but if there were ratings for every single little variation, ie. ratings for 2m 3f, 2m 4f, 2m 5f, etc, there would be no time to watch the racing because it would be so complicated.
For instance – Dubai Millennium. Given a Timeform rating of 140 (I’m 95% sure this is right – I would check but I really am fed-up of my dial-up connection taking long to load a page), only 5 horses in history have received a bigger figure.
However, I believe, and I have spoken to others who feel the same, that he is one of the most over-rated horses in history. No doubt he was a top class horse, but over a 1m 2f on dirt, who would you back – Dubai Millennium or Ghostzapper (rated 137 by Timeform)? Even Cigar was given a lower figure than DM.
Moon Ballad won the Dubai World Cup (Sheikh Mohammed benefit race) by 5 lengths, 1 less than DM – so why not the huge fuss over him too? The form of his World Cup is top notch, with Harlan’s Holiday, Grandera and Nayef filling the 2-3-4 places.
Dubai M’s World Cup form is actually very weak, considering the 2nd horse was way past his best, and the 3rd and 4th weren’t amazing by any stretch.
At least Moon B beat a Nayef at his peak, and may be argued that the 2nd Harlan’s Holiday was at/near his peak. Far stronger form. I would back Moon B over Dubai M in an instant.
Bloody Nijinsky only got a rating of 138!
You cannot follow any rating blindly, example:
My QEII ratings
Court Masterpiece 115<br>Araafa 112<br>George Washington 111<br>Librettist 110<br>Proclamation 110
Others not considered worth bothering with
CM’s rating was obtained via a special set of circumstances, probably never to be repeated.
So, Araafa had the TOP mile performance imo (key)
GW 2nd top rated
After considering other variables like Pace, going etc, from the above you have to decide, do you, go with the horse (GW) that may be potentially better than his rating at a short price or the Proven horse(Araafa) at far bigger odds.
Personally, i’d always go for the Proven horse, which i did
the ratings have been a reliable betting medium by identiifying the first two home, i didn’t win on this occasion, but had someone else been using these ratings and done a similar process, they may have thought GW’s price was worth taking and they would have collected
<br>The sheep/idle follow commercial ratingsmonger blindly and sometimes they will collect like yesterday with Dutch Art and GW.
Others use them as i’ve tried to explain above (using their own knowledge too) it will be these people who will probably make the ratings and this GREAT game pay
(Edited by empty wallet at 8:23 am on Sep. 30, 2006)
- Total Posts 438
Ratings are a good starting point when it comes to assessing a race. Obviously, you then have to consider such factors as ground, trip, draw, the stables’ current form, likely pace, etc.
As for jackane’s article, I’m looking forward to reading it: any viewpoint, when expressed clearly and logically, has to be of interest. The reader may disagree but at least he’s looking at things from a different perspective and, as nobody knows everything, he may well learn something.
jackane normally puts his arguments forward in a sensible manner. My one concern, and this is meant as constructive criticism, is that his English isn’t always the best; he’ll need to sharpen up on that front if he is serious about becoming a journalist (although it must be said that there have been some seriously badly-written pieces in the racing press over the last few years).
My advice to Jackane would be to understand what he is criticising in the first place.
Quote: from Prufrock on 8:51 am on Sep. 30, 2006[br]My advice to Jackane would be to understand what he is criticising in the first place.
<br>I do not understand all the in’s and out’s, but it does not stop me criticising some ratings. :biggrin:
What Jackane doesn’t seem to realise is that a rating is for a PAST performance ( with no guarantee of it being repeated) and not for a future one
<br>If ratingsmongers could take into account todays racing conditions etc and adjust for this, then he would possibly see them performing better
(Edited by empty wallet at 9:13 am on Sep. 30, 2006)
Quote: from davidbrady on 1:38 pm on Sep. 29, 2006[br]I’m looking forward to that article. I never use ratings when I’m betting and I win thousands.
If anybody doesn’t believe me, I can post my Betfair P&L on the public forum!:biggrin: <br>
Please tell us more! :)
Quote: from jackane24 on 4:46 am on Sep. 30, 2006[br]
But they are simply not reliable as a betting source. Like I mentioned in a previous post, if you had bet on Timeform’s top rated horse in every single race at Cheltenham and Aintree, you would have been down I’m sure.
Long term, Timeform’s top-rated win circa 50% of all races, as they are fond of reminding us in their adverts. However, what is far more telling and what they don’t tell us is that blindly backing all their top-rated will lose you money at SP.
As far as I’m aware.<br> <br>The efficacy of ratings. from a profit/loss point of view, is not solely down to how ‘good’ they are at pinpointing winners but – crucially – the degree of exposure they get.
If I were the only subscriber to Timeform I daresay betting the top rated blind would return a profit.
As Phil Bull (Timeform founder) said when he made his methods public – "I have soiled my own nest"
if ratings were incredibly important and reliable in the racing world, then they would have a far bigger impact on the betting market, and also on every joe punter.
You’ll scarcely find a horse racing market priced up without reference to ratings. The big bookmakers are among a certain commercial ratings organisation’s biggest customers.
Timeform top rateds operate around the 30% mark and top two around the 50% mark. More tellingly, they out-perform random chance by a factor of nearly 3. You stick a pin in and I’ll nominate the Timeform (or other credible ratings service) top rated and we’ll see which has better predictive capacity.
Betting is about more than taking a one-dimensional approach, of course, and the fact that considerations of ratings are so implicit in the pricing-up of races is one reason why "backing top-rateds blindly" is seldom profitable.
There is nothing to say that ratings can’t be predictive and adapted to the day’s conditions. Even Timeform has realised that, though it has arguably gone nowhere near far enough down that particular road.
Timeform’s comments on horses are every bit as important as their rating, if not more so.
Quote: from Prufrock on 10:39 am on Sep. 30, 2006[br]
There is nothing to say that ratings can’t be predictive and adapted to the day’s conditions. Even Timeform has realised that, though it has arguably gone nowhere near far enough down that particular road. <br>
<br>Maybe some other ratingsmongers should pick up that guantlet
Here’s an idea for raters – Perhaps horses could be rated according to the going with three ratings for each horse a bit like this –
George Washington
Soft/Heavy 114<br>Good to Soft/Good 128<br>Good to Firm/Firm 132p
Or perhaps by distance –
Chief Singer
5-6F – 125<br>7-8F – 128<br>9-10F – 120
Does anyone already do that? If not perhaps an opening for someone?
(I just made these ratings up for illustrative purposes btw so please no posts ripping them apart!)
That lends itself to certain types of racing but not all. You usually need a horse to be pretty exposed before you start discriminating between different conditions based on what it has already achieved. Most handicappers have separate ratings for turf and all-weather (and sometimes for Polytrack and Fibresand), so there is plenty to be said for it with that proviso in mind.
Timeform already rate horses before they have even set foot on a racecourse through provisional ratings, based largely on pedigree and trainer standards, and they also project ratings on improving horses much more than they used to. Some (I believe that TDK is one) seem not to approve of the latter, however, and that has probably prevented them from taking the matter much further. There is, I suppose, something to be said for keeping ratings simple and considering suitability to going etc separately. ÂÂÂ
Quote form Pru – "You usually need a horse to be pretty exposed before you start discriminating between different conditions based on what it has already achieved"
Agreed, but if horses are being rated after one run (or, even, provisionally rated BEFORE they’ve run) surely you just need one run on a surface to apply a rating. The rating would show the standard that the horse had run to on that going or distance (for example) and then people would have to interpret the rating in the context of the horses overall form structure.
Maybe it’s just too much info though, I agree, and the wood would be obscured by the trees.
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