Group Penalties

[NWRA]

Often when looking at Group/Listed races, I look for horses which have won in the class of race (or better) before and now don’t have a penalty for it.

An example would be La Cucaracha, who came out at Goodwood last year in a Group 3 without a Group 1 penalty for her Nunthorpe win. She was meeting distinctly inferior horses on level terms. I think that was due to the entries procedure for the race – this circumstance is rare, so I’m more interested in when penalties are cancelled after an amount of time, which is more common.

So, I have some questions about the way Group penalities work, and would be grateful for any help:

1) How long does a Group penalty last? and is it always the same, whether the race was won as a 2yo or 3yo+?

2) as far as I can tell, if a horse wins a Group 1, and then comes out in another Group 1, it won’t be penalised; if a horse wins a listed race, and then comes out in another listed race, it will be penalised and carry a listed penalty. What are the rules in Group 2s and 3s? are previous Group 2/3 winners penalised when they appear in the same class again?

… Thanks…

[Venusian]

I don’t know, but there’s an exception to these penalty rules in the King’s Stand Stakes, which is currently a Group 2, but doesn’t have any penalties for Group 1 winners.

[Happy Jack]

A general rule of thumb is that in the majority of conditions races (bar Group 1 races where everything races off a level playing field) a horse usually carries a penalty if it has previously won at the same level or higher. However, there are many variencies – for example some Group 2 races would only penalize those that have won a Group 1 in the last twelve months, others would penalize those that have won a Group 1 in their lifetime. There are also rare occurrances, such as Venusian has mentioned above, where there is no penalty structure whatsoever, although off the top of my head I can’t think of another example.

[doyley]

Hello,

Group Status vanishes, SOMNUS ran at Chester the other day without a "penalty"…Basically the 10 STONE is allocated in Handicaps… Most Group Horses, even placed cannot enter handicaps, which unfortunately is the lifeblood of Bookies, but I don’t think a penalty exists for Group winners, or places..

regards,

doyley

[doyley]

Hello,

Going from that, obviously you have the ridiculous "Filly" and "age " allowance…but otherwise "penalties" don’t exist in Group Races.

regards,

doyley

[doyley]

Hello,

I have read happy, and Venusian’s posts’, I may be missing something that all horses’ that enter a Group 1 have the same weight, except what I stated above…there are no ******* penalties…

Our horse, raced off the same weight, by christ if I knew there were ******* penalties, I would have trained him on…and taught him to smash the goal past George Washington in nets…. Well that upset the Majority of the Gorgeous George fans…

regards,

doyley

[FlatSeasonLover]

Heavy night again Doyley?

[Author]

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