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- Total Posts 17716
…today said Mark Johnston wants to get rid of handicaps. WHAT!!!
Surefire way to end the sport as far as I am concerned. I have only ever won serious money from gambling in handicaps and that goes for most punters I know.I saw that letter too, Johnston can’t be serious can he? As for his idea of divorcing betting and racing, crazy or what
Unfortunately, Johnston has a vision for racing but it doesn’t extend beyond his own backyard.
I would do away with handicaps if I was in charge of the BHA. They encourage non triers, and penalise those who run their horses on their merits.
Personally I don’t do too well on handicaps, and usually stick to the high quality jumps/flat. However, I do see the need for them for many horses, owners and trainers so hope he isn’t serious about getting rid of handicaps.
…today said Mark Johnston wants to get rid of handicaps. WHAT!!!
Surefire way to end the sport as far as I am concerned. I have only ever won serious money from gambling in handicaps and that goes for most punters I know.It must be because he’s ‘always trying’
The issue was discussed on here a few months ago, I see no disadvantage to replacing the vast majority of handicaps with graded races.
The top Premier handicaps would be left alone.
Graded races would if anything be more competitive than handicaps as you wouldn’t get a handicap good thing with a penalty running in them, they would have to move up the grades.
Bookies would like them and so would punters who like handicaps.- Total Posts 17716
Eddie, that’s a great summary of Mark Johnson’s graded "league table" theory. As to what evidence he can bring to bear to show that his idea would be workable, or increase either revenue or integrity … well, I haven’t seen him produce any. And it’s about as likely a reality as finding Shergar running a mining colony on Jupiter.
Pinza,
I’m not sure what evidence you could bring to the table other than having thought about it and consider it could be a better system.
What evidence did the BHA bring to the table regards reversing the draw at a lot of our tracks?
Integrity is a seperate issue that I can’t see being negatively affected by the change.
The benefit as I see regards graded racing as opposed to handicaps is the further up the pyramid you go the better the prize money you run for. For example a 75 rated horse would have to run for less against horses rated similar rather than more against horses rated 20 lbs or so superior.
Of course they would still get an opportunity in Heritage handicaps but as you know they are becoming more and more compressed anyway.- Total Posts 17716
Eddie, there’s no evidence that the majority of trainers would want to change the current mixture of handicaps, conditions races, claimers and sellers lock-stock-and-barrel. And although I agree that MJ’s scheme sounds highly attractive in theory, I suspect that the practise might prove a different matter.
You’ll have more "twilight" horses, though now around the bottom end of each and every grade instead of just at the very top of the handicap tree (as now).
You’ll therefore have a hugely increased incentive not to run horses on their merits, over their best distances and/or in their best running style, in order to get them dropped down to the grade below for betting purposes.
This prospect (unless of course everyone is "always trying"!) would be a logistical nightmare for the BHA security team, let alone the mass of punters.
Whether you replace handicaps as they are currently with a grading system similar to what they use in greyhounds still won’t eliminate the main problem with the system. You’ll still get connections attempting to disguise a horse’s ability to allow him to compete in a lower grade initially than his natural ability with a horse eventually bound for class 4 but starting in class 8.
- Total Posts 17716
Much as I love handicaps and am not particularly fond of Mark Johnson, I’d have to agree that the priority should be
the sport
, not the betting. What is the point of competing to find the the strongest, the quickest, or the fittest, when they aren’t on equal terms to begin with?
Greyhound racing and amateur golf apart, sport is decided on merit, and if grading means the cream rising to the top (at whatever level), and horseracing returning to primarily a sport, then I’d be all for it.- Total Posts 17716
Much as I love handicaps and am not particularly fond of Mark Johnson, I’d have to agree that the priority should be
the sport
, not the betting. What is the point of competing to find the the strongest, the quickest, or the fittest, when they aren’t on equal terms to begin with?
This is too simple. Pure
"equal terms"
can never be found in Horse Racing, where you have to have allowances for fillies and mares – the sport’s breeding industry needs those – and for differences in age; whilst all of these need to be differentiated according to the distance being covered.
Furthermore, some horses are physically and constitutionally more capable of carrying large amounts of lead in their saddles than others. It makes more sense to breed from stallions who’ve shown they can get stronger rather than weaker offspring. Handicaps are a great way to test the thoroughbred, here as well as in the USA.
All of these factors are part of strengthening the breed, and therefore the sport. There are many others. Parades, for example, are a vital part of the sport too: their recent removal from many Group 1 races has resulted in a considerable quantity of fashionable stock proving too highly-strung to race effectively.
But the handicap is a vital tool, without which the Sport would most likely founder.
- Total Posts 17716
It is simple, Pinza. The ladies are kept separate; just as they are in many races already – and in any other sport where physiological makeup is a factor.
The object of the sport being to identify the best; which is exactly as it should be.I completely agree with him.
Racing will not more forward whilst it remains so tied to betting and bookmakers, because;
a) the bookmaker/levy/exchange/tote quagmire is not producing sufficient funding for the future of racing
b) it encourages the implication that racing is only enjoyable if you win at the bettingHandicaps encourage non-triers, encourage running a horse at the wrong distance/ground/when unfit so it runs poorly to get a good mark for next time, encourage not trying for the place if the race is lost. Handicaps produce horses that win 3 races then come nowhere, produce horses that come nowhere for several races then win. How does the novice racegoer reconcile this, especially in the light of (b) above?
There’s an eight race card at one of the major French tracks every day this week bar Tuesday, Maisons Lafitte, Saint Cloud, Chantilly and Longchamp etc.
Five of those six meetings include two handicaps, just one has three handicaps.
And it’s the same at their provincial tracks – e.g Toulouse tomorrow has just one handicap from eight races.
French racing seems to manage pretty well on this diet limited diet of handicaps ……
AP
The US seems to manage alright too don’t they?
Anyway, I don’t see replacing handicaps with graded races as anything other than replacing a system where a few people at the BHA decide how good or not a horse is with one where you can see the horses prove it themselves.
The current system of handicapping is akin to giving every team that plays Wolverhampton Wanderers a two goal start until they’ve all beaten Wolves then it might go down to a one goal start. And all because they beat Manchester United once.
That’s my opinion anyway.
Also, why do you need to completely replace one with the other? Why not trial it with a few races & see what trainers/owners/punters/none betting racegoers think?
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