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The official handicapper clearly has a high opinion of the form of the Cleeve Hurdle, with the ratings changed as follows :
Big Bucks +11 now 170
Punchestowns + 3 now 173
Fair Along + 2 now 166
Lough Derg + 1 now 160
He’s also put an end to the career of Joe Lively with a 13lb rise to 166.
On the Triumph Hurdle front, Walkon was raised 4lbs for his win and is now rated 152, with the Howard Johnson trained Silk Drum put up to 145 for his comfortable win at Doncaster on Friday.
Away from the big races, Tom George is probably wondering who he offended on seeing Kilbeggan Blade raised to 141 over hurdles for winning a novice contest at Towcester!
Putting Joe Lively up to 166 shows nothing more than a slavish addiction to the figures and an apparent lack of common sense.
Rob
Putting Joe Lively up to 166 shows nothing more than a slavish addiction to the figures and an apparent lack of common sense.
Rob
I disagree. Were the assessor to follow a ‘slavish addiction to figures’ he’d have been entitled to go much higher than 166. He gave a two and three quarter length beating to the 164 rated Halcon Generlardais conceding him 6 lb and beat the 166-rated third over 20 lengths off levels. Joe Lively was pretty much unexposed given a slog on bad ground and whilst I’d be surprised if he could reproduce the run without having such conditions it’s far from out of the question that figure is fair.
RPR give him 165 and Timeform 166.
Can’t have it that Punchestowns improved on his Ascot run. A lot of Saturday’s form had more to do with coping with conditions than anything else.
Hello,
JOE LIVELY: Surely in the calculations it must be taken into account that HALCON is an incredibly slow horse that requires a marathon..or are horses’ running styles and distance not even considered??
To be fair, it would be a problem and difficult to measure..
regards,
doyley
AP,
Kilbeggan Blade won that race very easily and it appears the handicapper has taken the view that both he and the runner up will have improved dramatically over hurdles in line with their chase ratings. Whether that is fair or not is another matter.
I would have all of the Cleeve ratings a few pounds lower as I don’t believe Punchestowns improved on his previous run. I also don’t believe he is quite yet the equal of Inglis Drever either. Big Bucks definitely deserves a rise though as he won pretty comfortably.
The Cleeve is awfully high. I can’t see how you can interpret Punchestowns as bettering his Ascot form at all, let alone to the tune of 3 lb. Perhaps alarm bells should have started ringing when Lough Derg was meriting a rise for his run?
Have to agree with DJ on the Pillar (although admittedly at first glance 166 looks huge)- the handicapper has actually taken Halcon as running 7 lb below form, and I can’t see that’s being overly-harsh on JL if I’m honest.
"Can’t have it that Punchestowns improved on his Ascot run. A lot of Saturday’s form had more to do with coping with conditions than anything else."
Totally agree – I’d have left the other three on the same mark and raised Big Buck’s by 7 or 8
Aragorn,
I’m sure your analysis is spot with regard to Kilbeggan Blade – in fact he’s now rated 141 over both hurdles and fences. Just can’t think of any previous example of a horse reaching such a high mark without winning anywhere other than Towcester!
One I forgot to include is Bensalem, who went up 21lbs to 153 after his duel with Diamond Harry.
I am not really a ratings man (horses are animals not machines) and prefer to give credence to other attributes, such as racing style.
However, I can fully understand how the Cleeve hurdle contenders were all raised as it was a race full of top horses. Like others have said, the ground was bad so I would be concerned that many of the runners who ran well on saturday are crucifying there festival chances, not due to ratings, but due to the fact the races were a hard slog!
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