- This topic has 44 replies, 18 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 1 month ago by
.
- Posts
The Irish trainers seem to complain a lot more about handicap ratings since their established "top class" horses don’t look good enough. Now that they are unlikely to win any of the "feature" races (Champion H and C, Stayers H, Ryanair or Gold Cup) at Cheltenham, the handicaps mean more to them.
Mark
Value Is EverythingI’ve copied and pasted this from the BHA handicappers blog page and think it shows perfectly why the Irish and British systems remain so wide apart.
One of the most interesting runners was the Irish-trained Dancing Tornado. Our jumping team assesses every single performance in Ireland as well as all the racing here. We want every horse in a handicap to have a fair chance. But the Irish system of ratings is so different from ours that we have not found a way of using their figures. Dancing Tornado is a perfect example. His rating in Ireland was 126 but he went in here twelve pounds higher. Had he been given a fair chance of racing competitively? Absolutely. He was only beaten a head and half a length in a really exciting finish off 138. And what is his new mark in Ireland after that race? 129. This is not in any way an attack on the Irish Handicappers who have had some tremendous finishes to big handicaps recently. It is just to point out why the two systems do not marry up.
Well, it was obviously difficult for the British H’capper to weight up the form of a 3 runner Listed Hurdle. Did the favourite run badly, or was he turned over?
I opted for the latter explanation – it made sense in the context of the previous win.
(Ninetieth Minute – Coral Cup.)A few more questions…..
Do the BHA rate every race run in Ireland or just the important ones?
Are updated BHA ratings for Irish horses published weekly, similar to how they publish UK ratings?
Are the most recent BHA ratings for Irish races available anywhere? (web or elsewhere)
Do the BHA have a rating for Trafford Lad and Hurricane Fly?Thanks.
The impression I get is that they do rate all races.
They keep the ratings to themselves, and you find them out if an Irish horse is entered in a handicap.
You might be able to find out the ratings on Trafford Lad et al at the end of the season.
Actually, I’ll have a quick look on the BHA site now.
Edit: At the end of each season the BHA publishes spreadsheets of the top Anglo-Irish Chasers & Hurdlers (c140+) split into novices, and into 2m, 2.5m, and 3m+
You can see the ones for 2007-08 here
The answer to the first three questions: yes (every race), no and no. There is a general policy amongst the world racing authorities that a horse can only have one ‘official’ handicap rating, which is always the one published by the racing authority of the country in which the horse is trained. (At present, for example, you will not find handicap marks for Godolphin horses on the BHA website as they are currently trained in Dubai).
The BHA team even produce ratings for Irish bumpers so that the elimination sequences for the high-value bumpers over here are as accurate as possible.
From the experience of seeing Irish runners appearing in Scotland and the North the BHA Handicapper seems fairly close to the mark with his estimates.
In general the Irish ratings are about 14lbs lower than those awarded by the BHA. Selection Box was rated 106 in Ireland before last Saturday, but won a handicap chase at Ayr off his UK figure of 121. I do note that Selection Box’s line on the latest set of ratings is blank, which suggests that ratings are published as horses are entered. This does beg the question of how the trainer knows if a horse qualifies for a particular handicap.
Rob
Thanks Marcus. Its a shame they are not published, watching the racing this week I reckon the BHA have done an excellent job rating the better Irish novices.
Good question Rob. I dont see why they cant publish a rating after a race, none of this weeks winning Irish novices have a published Irish mark yet!
I thought this was an interesting article from Donn McClean reflecting on the performance of Irish horses in the Cheltenham handicaps.
http://betdiary.ie/donnmcclean/2009/03/20/final-cheltenham-musings/
"
2. The handicapping of Irish horses
It reared its head again when Ninetieth Minute won the Coral Cup (the cheek). I was asked, quite sternly, by a senior member of staff at the BHA if I was happy now, as if it was my fault that an Irish horse had won a handicap hurdle at Cheltenham. Fair play to Dermot Cox and Tom Taaffe and Paddy Flood. The reality is that Ninetieth Minute is rated 140 in Ireland which meant that – under the tacit agreement between Ireland and the UK that horses rated 140 or higher in either jurisdiction, should (“should”, mind you, not “has to”) race off the same mark in both countries – he was allowed race off 140 in the UK.
Have a look at the other handicaps though, excluding the Cross-Country Chase, which you legitimately can, given that success in that race is much more dependent on a horse’s ability to handle the unique demands of the course than it is on handicap marks or weight carried. Not so good. In all the other handicaps, nine other races in total, the best that Irish-trained horses could manage was two third-place finishes. In the William Hill Chase, the best Irish horse finished 14th, in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ race, the best-placed Irish horse was 10th. Irish horses won seven of the 15 non-handicap races, yet they only won one of the 10 true handicaps. There is something askew there somewhere.
Tony O’Hehir made a good point in his column in the Racing Post today. Two of the handicaps were won by wide margins. Andytown won the Martin Pipe race by nine lengths, while American Trilogy won the County Hurdle by 11 lengths. Can you imagine the fall-out if either of those had been Irish-trained? We are still hearing about Sky’s The Limit.
"
I think he makes some valid points here. Hopefully some solution to the handicapping issue can be found before next year’s festival. I don’t think any of us should hold our breath though.
The simple fact is there is often little collateral form until the end of the season so the handicapper is in an impossible position. It’s an impossible argument to solve and for a punter, working out which side of the sea has the stronger relative form and getting it right can prove profitable surely.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.