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<br>Corm,
Well consider an example like Iris’s Gift (I choose him simply because we all know him, not to suggest he’s flopped over fences).
He’s now rated 144 over fences and although he doesn’t have an official hurdle rating as he never ran in a handicap, as a Stayers Hurdle winner, we can assume he would have been off 170.
If he was entered in handicap hurdle, I reckon it would be perfectly reasonable to take account of his probable physical delcine after injury and reduce that by 10lbs or so to around 160 and for the handicapper to be prepared to make a significant further adjustment if he was then beaten off that mark.
Perhaps I should make clear that I don’t think Star De Mohaison should have been given the same mark over hurdles as his chase rating, only that his hurdle rating should have been increased to reflect his wins over fences to around 140, not the 127 he ran from on Saturday.
Inevitably these changes are a judgement call by the handicapper, but better that than the current inflexible approach. And it can’t be any harder than deciding what rating to award a Prescott 3-y-old entered for a 14F handicap after three tailed off runs over 5F at Wolverhampton!
AP
From a betting angle,I think you’re looking a gift horse in the mouth. The prize money and the size of the field that ensure it’s a better than price than it should be.
Heck, the owners of the other horses can pile in and make a few quid on the "good thing", too.
And those who fancied their nag to come second, can do it in a forecast.
In a manner of speaking, I live for bets like that. But maybe if I was an owner (or a poster on here…), I’d find my reasoning too simplistic.
I see Aston put in a nutshell and in a much more appropriately querulous and whingeing way:
"Are us mug punters not entitled to a horse "thrown in" once in a while?"<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 10:14 pm on Nov. 13, 2006)
Surely a major problem with the current system is that it’s discretionary i.e there are no hard and fast rules the handicapper must obey when weighing up horses who run over both hurdles and fences: he may take into account a chaser’s hurdle form, he may in part, he may ignore it. And vice-versa. It would make it clearer to all concerned – punters, owners, trainers – if there was a law ‘thou shalt rate chasers on chase form, hurdlers on hurdle form and nver the twain shall meet’.
I’d also be in favour of hurdlers who’ve earnt a mark in that code having to earn a new mark when sent chasing by running in Novice/Beginners/Maiden chases prior to being loosed off in handicaps, rather than the current system of hurdlers being allowed to debut in handicap chases off their hurdle mark. And vice versa again. Though admittedly that would be shooting my punting side in the foot as numerous betting opportunites have arisen when ‘chasing types’ appear in handicap chases after the learning curve of hurdling.
Cases such as Star De Mohaison in which a young hurdler shows dramatic improvement when sent chasing and is then allowed to run in a first handicap hurdle off it’s old putative hurdle rating is not an ideal scenario but are surely rare enough to not warrant a wholesale revision of the system. And as Cormack points out an SP of 6/4 hardly suggests the market regarded him as an aberrant ‘good thing of good things’.
It will always be possible to pick holes in any system by choosing atypical examples to illustrate its drawbacks/limitations.
As others have pointed out from a clinical punting perspective the current system allows the astute punter the more than occasional opportunity for a value fire-up: back and lay.
Quote: from Grimes
Heck, the owners of the other horses can pile in and make a few quid on the "good thing", too.
Grimes,
Not legitimately – backing another horse in a race in which you own a runner is the same as laying your own horse, and that’s a breach of the current rules.
AP<br>
Things not looking good for Star De Mohaison as is drifting right out on Betfair. Hope the market’s got it wrong :(
Better alert Ridley Holmes next door. It’s all a conspiracy… ;)
(Edited by Aragorn at 11:22 pm on Dec. 12, 2006)
He wouldn’t have won the Gold Cup anyway. Let’s be frank, under anything like an average ride, The Strangler would have beaten him on The Listener at Sandown anyway.
Confirmed on BBC Ceefax. It would of been nice to get a run for my money DJ as I backed it antepost @ 50/1.
It has been reported this morning that Star De Mohaison out for season with tendon injury. Its a blow to the stable and for Robert Ogden, but he is young enough to bounce back from this, he will have box rest for at least 3 months, then will be turned away till next summer and will be bought back for next season…He has had a scan and was found to have a strain on the tendon on his near-fore…this type of injury if caught early enough is not life/career threatening..
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I don’t wish to sound like a Jeremiah, but Nicky Henderson and Tom Taaffe were also making optimistic noises this time last year about the chances of Trabolgan and Kicking King returning to training during the current season.
Don’t think there’s such a thing as a "mild" tendon injury. You just can’t predict how the leg will react when the horse returns to training.
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