- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 1 month ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Racing authorities still cling to the illusion that it is for the benefit of the future breed and not a medium for betting and generating levy. Handicappers can be geldings and may only win a race because of a weight advantage rather than ability. That does not mean some former handicappers cannot win Group races but a "handicapper" is still used by some as a derogatory term as in"just a ….". Whereas, an "elite" Group or Listed winner has "official" proven quality and an exaggerated value for future breeding.
Group races
Group races, also known as Pattern races, are the highest-graded races of the Flat season.
The idea behind the Pattern, which was implemented in 1971, was to give a balanced structure to the season.
It aims to offer an even distribution of different types of races at all distances across the season and across Europe.
This system of grading races allows some measure of a horse’s ability to be ascertained and helps to categorise horses for breeding purposes.
The Pattern grades the existing top races into three groups:
Group One: Classics and other races of major international importance
Group Two: Races of an international importance but at a slightly lower level than Group One races.
Group Three: Mainly domestic races which serve as preparatory races for higher group events, such as Classic trials.
Listed races
Below Group standard, races are similarly graded with listed events being next in importance.
Listed races are superior to average races but are below Group standard.
Handicap races
Horses which are not good enough to compete in Group and Listed races run in handicaps.
In handicaps, each horse is allocated a weight on the basis of its past performances.
The idea is to give every horse in the race an equal chance of winning – a "perfect" handicap would see a dead heat between all the horses in a race.
And quite right too I believe. Group racing is all about identifing the elite and the conditions of British Group races – only giving penalties to horses who have already achieved above that level and not penalties/allowances at Group 1 level does that.
In other countries such as America and Australia where they give Group/graded status to handicaps you are potentially rewarding an unexposed horse that the trainer has successfully managed to hide and keep ahead of the handicapper.
It also means that you are allowing the subjective opinion of the handicapper to potentially give status to an inferior animal.
Also our handicaps give horses a wide weight range – 20 pounds is normal – whereas in American handicaps the weight range is much smaller and often favours the high-weights that the secretary is trying to encourage to run.
Wouldn´t be a great idea to have the King George or Ascot Gold Cup as h´caps, we already have the dodgiest handicapping system in the world without adding the prospect of a Wigham trained G1 winner to the mix.
But there are handicaps in GB that have Listed-race-status -how is this possible?
And what about the "Heritage Handicaps", where top-weights have ratings of 105-110 => which are a Listed-race-ratings!
Personally I think Listed handicaps are wrong as well although I can see how it is an attempt to show they are high quality races.
As for heritage handicaps I think it is great that there are opportunities in valuable handicaps (often more valuable than pattern races) for highly rated horses. This is the norm in Dubai. Don’t think they should have black type status though.
- Total Posts 17716
The occasional big handicap allows runners rated higher than 110 – Tillerman, for instance, ran in the 2002 Tote International off a rating of 119, which is surely a gp2 rating?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.