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What is meant by the term ‘out of the handicap’
I must be missing something as horses out of the handicap carry less weight, to me this is an advantage??? <!– s:?: –>
<!– s:?: –>The weights for a handicap are framed based on the highest rated horse in the race.
He automatically carries the highest weight allocated in that race. A horse who is running from "out of the handicap" is carrying the lowest possible weight available but if the handicapper had his way he’d be carrying even less.
Horses running from out the handicap should be carrying less than what they are.
Handicap weights are all relative – a horse could carry 11-5 today and go up 10lbs and carry only 10-7 next time out as he’s racing better horses.
Handicap weights are allocated according to a horses Official Rating – the higher the rating the better class of race the horse has to compete in.
Sorry – that’s a terrible explaination
In the 12.25 at Musselburgh King’s Envoy had to carry 10.00 less his riders claim.If there was no minimium to carry he would be on 8.11 less the claim,so he was running with 17lb more than the handicapper has given him.
If you go to back a certainty always buy a return ticket.
Carrying less weight isn’t necessarily an advantage in the first place. The whole point about a handicap is that the weights are based upon previous performances and are arranged so that the horses ought to finish in a deadheat.
The handicapper would give Irish Stamp 11-12 and me 9-4 so as to make us level. However, in a jump race the minimum weight is 10-0 and I have to carry this instead of 9-4, and so I am carrying 10lbs more than I should – I am thus 10lbs out of the handicap, and 10lbs at a disadvantage compared to our previous form.
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.
Theoretically, horses with low weights will do well in soft or heavy ground, as the top weighted horses have to carry the weight around for a longer period of time. Merigo’s race at Doncaster yesterday is a good example, though he probably won because he has only been racing for a year and is still progressing and developing.
Big, strong horses are good at carrying lots of weights in a lesser grade. Gildoran from several years ago is a good example of this. Damn, his form isn’t on the racingpost website, can someone think of a more recent example?
A little, weak horse might be ok carrying little weight in a stronger event, but then struggle if it was dropped in class and had to carry lots of weight against inferior rivals.Theoretically, horses with low weights will do well in soft or heavy ground, as the top weighted horses have to carry the weight around for a longer period of time.
This is the wrong explanation.
Sorry about carrying on this string after you already know what out of the handicap means, but I think it is interesting (and important from a betting point of view) to discuss some of the issues involved in horses near the top of the handicap, versus those near the bottom of it (not that I’ve ever taken much notice of it
)In soft or heavy ground I think that what is happening is that all of the horses are finding it more difficult, but it affects the ones at the top of the handicap most because it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Rather than carry on that explanation, I’d like to contrast it with a situation in which a race is run on good ground at a slow pace, and then there is a sprint near the end. This ought to benefit the top weights.
Suppose you are fairly fit and you run a race against Usain Bolt over 800 metres, except he is carrying, I don’t know, 40kg on his back. You are fairly likely to win.
Now say the pair of you walk together for the first 700 metres, and then sprint the last 100 metres. Usain is likely to win, despite him carrying another 40kg on his back.
So in a small field handicap with no pace, the horses near the top of the handicap should benefit. (God, I hope the stats bear me out on this one.)There is a big elephant in the room that no one has mentioned yet, and that is trainer manipulation and hoodwinking of the handicapper so that the horse carries less weight than it should. I’m not going to go into that either, as it will divert me from my last two points, and I don’t want to make this too long.
In the Gildoran situation, what the trainer should do is run the horse in the higher class race. Then switch it to the lower class race, where it wins. But if the horse carries on being campaigned in the lower grade races, eventually the handicapper will catch up with the horse. So after 1 maybe 2 races in the lower grade, we switch back to the higher grade. Previously when we were in that grade, we were at the right weight for that grade, but now the handicapper has raised us a few pounds for our recent victory. We are uncompetitive. Just by racing a few times in the higher grade, hopefully the handicapper will eventually reduce us back to where we were. We then pounce in the lower grade again. The trainer hasn’t done anything wrong.
[edit: The Gildoran I am talking about is a fictional Gildoran. The real Gildoran won a lot of his races by running in Amateur Riders races, in which the extra weight burden hindered his opponents more than it did him.]
Take the Welsh National. This has got a strong trend of going to young horses carrying less than 11 stone. Now say a horse’s forte is going to be running in marathon races. When it is a novice chaser, it isn’t given opportunities to run in marathons. It is learning to jump, and it is running over 2.5 maybe 3 miles. We will avoid running the horse over 3 miles in soft ground, because he is still young and developing and we do not want to over-exert it.
Now, when the horse is given the opportunity to run over a marathon distance in its second season, the horse is finally allowed to show what it can do. As it is a young horse it has probably only crept into the bottom of the handicap (maybe it is even "out of the handicap"). The Welsh National is traditionally (some might say notoriously) run on Soft ground, which we already know favours the bottom weights. Hence the strong trend.
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