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Not sure which forum to post this in, thought this one the most appropriate. Someone may have answered this before, but I ain’t gonna trawl through 5000+articles.
I’ve produced my own handicap ratings and speed ratings for sprinters and milers in the past, but I have never handicapped chasers. (Don’t worry, I ain’t going to bet on the figures, I just want to be able to form my own opinion on the ratings that the Official Handicapper and the Racing Post give.)(I’ll still primarily concentrate on type of course, ground, distance etc.)
On the Flat, I started off by dividing the distance into 16, so 5 fulongs was 3.2 lbs per length, 1 mile was 2 lbs per length,
I then moved over to dividing the time of the race into 220 seconds, so a 55 second 5 furlong race at Epsom was 4 lbs per length, while a 63 second 5 furlong race at Pontefract was 220/63 = 3.5 lbs per length.
I’ve given up handicapping sprinters a couple of times in the past because it takes up far too much time, and have no intention of taking it up again, but what is the general consensus as to the scale I should have used?
I was fiddling about cackhandedly with spreadsheets rather than a database, so I could never get around to doing any empirical research as to what happens in practice when two in-form horses reoppose at different weights. (I know this is reported on in one of Beyer’s books, but that was in America on dirt.)
(I could use the spreadsheets to compare ratings given in a race to those achieved prior and subsequently, so could after the event modify ratings for a race that had taken place a few weeks before, but boy would it have been easier to do with databases and a bit of programming.)What is the pounds per length scale used by the Official Handicapper for chases?
What is the pounds per length scale used by the Racing Post for chases?
Does the official system still suffer from drift, or has it been nullified by the use of computers? In the past, the Official figures used to drift down, and were hiked up 10lbs every 5 years or so.
In a handicap chase, what should I do to avoid my figures drifting downwards? In my first season, when I was doing it manually, my Flat ratings had drifted 4lbs down by August.
What scale do you recommend I use for chasers?
(If it isn’t too far out of whack with the scale others use, I am toying with the idea for a laugh of using my 220 second method again.)
I don’t pay that much attention to ounds for lenths unless I think both horses have run up to thir best which is seldom the case….A rule of thimb would be 1 length to a pound but what if a horse has been eased when beaten e.g……..could be 20 lengths that should have been 5 lengths so it will throw your ratings right out the window.
Another very important factor is the ground…..on heavy you might allow a bit more like 3lbs for a length ot it could be 30 lengths if the second hated soft ground…………you can use it sometimes but to my way of thinking use weight as aguide to how much you bet….If you really fancy a horse and he’s getting say 6lbs weight allowance for age then you have a huge advanatage if you think he is better than the older horse.
Obviously it works sometimes this pound for alength but overall it’s a dodgy way to be trying to pick winners
Thanks, I agree with everything you say and knew it already. I just want to arm myself with some figures in case I ever get involved in an argument with you.
Hi Gerald.
Quite a lot of questions to answer there. I would say that pounds per length should properly use both time and distance. You correctly identified that 5f at Epsom is a different proposition to 5f at Pontefract. Not least, the speeds at which the horses are finishing are significantly different, and yet it is finishing speed which determines the margins returned as a translation of time lapses.
There is, to the best of my knowledge, no definitive answer to the pounds-per-length conundrum. Some have attempted it with basic physics, but basic physics is not really appropriate where the complex issues of horseracing (biology, wind resistance, friction etc) are concerned.
You can, however, come up with a reasonable assessment of how pounds-per-length should be in terms relative to itself through empirical enquiry. I am sceptical of using reopposing horses (which you mentioned) here, as, besides anything, there is a well-documented tendency for better horses not to beat lesser horses by as much as they can. However, if you take a standard type of race in which the differing abilities of the horses have been theoretically "normalised" – handicaps of particular field sizes and on particular types of surfaces, for instance – then the average margins between horses in those races show a clear correlation for distance and time. 1/average margin for such races tells you a great deal about the relative poundage that should be used. You will also find that you need a different poundage allowance for fibresand than for turf, in a way that is additional to the different times/speeds on the two surfaces.
I have used a slightly higher poundage allowance than you have, but this has been complicated recently by the alteration to returned winning margins (for instance, where once a time margin was returned as 5 lengths, the same margin might well now be returned as 6). My jumps poundage allowance varies between about 1.3 lb per length for the fastest 2m races to only about half of that for a Grand National run in a slow time. This, again, ties in closely with real-life evidence rather than just theory.
I don’t know what the BHA and Racing Post use as their poundage allowances. The default settings for pounds-per-length on the "your ratings" section of Racing Post are so basic that they surely cannot be the ones that their own handicappers use. You could, of course, consider enough examples of RP-rated races and work backwards from there, if you wished.
Indeed, you referred to one manifestation of the "well-documented tendency of better horses not to beat lesser horses by as much as they can" in a post on another thread:
Top weights do well in Nurserys (handicaps for 2yos), because the horses generally have only had 3 or so runs, and the good horses haven’t necessarily been stretched enough for the handicapper to know how good they are.
Aka "the concertina effect".
Gosh, how did you do that? I didn’t know you could lift a quote from one thread and use it in another . . . I could have a lot of fun with that later on . . .
(Don’t answer, that was a rhetorical question.)
Surely the BHB/BHA’s standardisation of margins by equating distance with time makes it easier for handicappers? it gets rid of this how slow or quick the horses were when they were passing the line that you mentioned near the start of your reply. The only hardship is that you have to know whether the BHA is using 4, 5 or 6 lengths per second, depending on the code (flat or jump) and the going. It doesn’t matter to us as handicappers whether the lengths are real lengths or not, and for people who are creating speed ratings it is an absolute godsend.
I know I can reverse engineer the scale that the RP uses, just by finding distances of 10 lengths say and seeing how many pounds are allocated for it, I was just playing dumb to see if someone would furnish me with further information.
By the way, do you know in what situations the BHA uses 4, 5 or 6 or can I easily look up the info on the BHA website?
Luckily, I ain’t interested in Fibresand. Polytrack & Equitrack maybeYou can, however, come up with a reasonable assessment of how pounds-per-length should be in terms relative to itself through empirical enquiry. I am sceptical of using reopposing horses (which you mentioned) here, as, besides anything, there is a well-documented tendency for better horses not to beat lesser horses by as much as they can. However, if you take a standard type of race in which the differing abilities of the horses have been theoretically "normalised" – handicaps of particular field sizes and on particular types of surfaces, for instance – then the average margins between horses in those races show a clear correlation for distance and time. 1/average margin for such races tells you a great deal about the relative poundage that should be used
I think I am beginning to understand this passage. You’re saying that if I take say the distance between the 4th and 14th horse in a variety of big h’caps over a variety of distances and goings, the proportions between the distances should mimic the proportions of the pound per length scale? That’s clever.
No, not between 4th and 14th, maybe 3rd and 7th. They’d have begun easing up too much further back, distorting the figures.
Yes, just don’t take such an extreme case as the 14th-placed horse. "Also-rans" tend not to be so reliable as horses that have got involved to some degree, for the simple reason that they may have performed badly in an unrepresentative way and/or been eased.
Will attempt to answer your other query when I am next around. The thing about fiddling with lengths-per-second is that all handicappers then have to adjust what they were doing before, assuming their methodology was "correct" previously.
I said "I have used a slightly higher poundage allowance than you have", but as it happens I have not been handicapping UK racing since the adjustment to official margins was made, so that may not still be the case.
I haven’t handicapped for the past five years either. I can find out the BHA length thing myself, I don’t know why I asked you to do it for me, I’m usually self-reliant. Thanks for all your help Prufrock, Gerald
Does the handicapper take note of the sex of the horse or in a handicap is it a case of just being based on performance? I remember reading some statistic that the male horses are statistically more likely to win consecutive races than female.
Just performance.
You’re right about the consistency thing as well.
One controversial, ridiculous thing that I don’t know still happens is this:-
A new type of race was introduced called the Limited Stakes. Now a particular Limited Stakes might have been restricted to horses rated 75 and below, say. Any horse rated 75 or below could enter the race. All the horses would carry the same weight, apart from a Weight For Age allowance (3yos and sometimes 4yos get different amounts of weights from older, mature horses, depending upon the time of year and the distance of the race). Now here is the ridiculous thing: fillies and mares would also get a sex allowance. A filly rated 75 is just as good as a colt rated 75. But the filly is having another 5lbs or 3lbs taken off her back. I think there was a campaign to end this, but the BHB stuck to their guns, probably using in their justification the statistic you mentioned.
Sorry for being a bit vague: I used to get the Racing Post everyday, but that hasn’t been the case for a few years, so I am not up to speed with all the politics and structure of horseracing.
Actually, come to think of it, I don’t know why we get so het up about the Limited Stakes issue. We don’t complain when a filly and a colt both rated 126 run in a Group 1 race, and the filly receives a sex allowance.
One pound per length as a rough guide, but I’d be suspiscious of distances greater than 20 lengths behind, and stretch it to one pound for two lengths over extended distances in the mud.
Looking at yesterday’s 3m 5f chase at Ayr, I’m not sure I would have allowed much more than 5lbs for the fourteen lengths covering the four finishers. In such circumstances it was more down to ability to last the slog than pounds per length …. or lengths per pound!
Rob
Hi everyone.
So as not to have two threads on the same topic, I’d like to discontinue this thread, and to have any new contributions posted on the
newbie i need help to understand thread.
https://theracingforum.co.uk/forum/v … hp?t=76420
Gerald
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