handicapping

[bayley0195]

sorry if this question has been asked before but i fairly new to horse racing and im struggling to under stand the handicapping system. I understand the weight a horse carrys goes of there official rating. however i cant understand how a horses weight goes up and down if there official rating doesnt move. is there a minimum weight for different class race? for example a horse ran yesterday of 9-2 and the info for the race said he had increased by 5 pounds but on his last race he was 9 – 7??

please help as im baffled!

[crizzy]

Fairly straightforward but I’ll let someone else answer as there are some people on here who will do it in a quarter of the words or less! It depends on the class of race basically..I’ll go now

[indocine]

Hi, it should fall into place if you read the

conditions

of the race.

[bayley0195]

thank you for info didnt realise all that was in the racing conditions. the only thing im struggling to understand is that in my example above the horse won his last race at 9 – 7 but in this race was at 9 – 2 but the info on the race said he may struggle with extra weight but he was heavier in the previous race and won so why would it be a struggle?

thanks

[Burrough Hill Lad]

Bayley, as Indocine has indicated, the handicap is framed according to the conditions of the race … the weight the horse carries is relevant to his official rating (OR), sometimes referred to on here as the horse’s handicap mark.

The 5lb "rise" you refer to is not the weight the horse is set to carry in one particular race, it refers to the horse’s OR … so if it was rated 90 for example and put up an improved performance, the handicapper may have raised him to an OR of 95 for his next race … hence 5lb extra … the weight in any one race depends on the ability of the horses that he’s racing against.

To try and explain this further, if the topweight in the handicap is set to carry 9-7 and is rated 109, then your 95 rated horse would carry 14lbs less (109-14) than that at 8-7.

Hope that helps and that I’ve not embarrassed myself with my lack of understanding

[Burrough Hill Lad]

Using a real time example, look at the last race at Musselburgh today … look at the OR column and see how the weights graduate pound by pound according to their OR differential versus the top weight of 9-7
http://horses.sportinglife.com/Racecard … 87,00.html

[apracing]

Perhaps this might help – it’s the official explanation from the BHA website.

http://www.britishhorseracing.com/insid … apping.asp

AP

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