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Ratings should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt. If you take them literally, Limestone Lad is the equal of Constitution Hill and Flakey Dove is superior to Honeysuckle.
No rating system is perfect, and some of Timeform’s make the mind boggle.
My particular favourite was their awarding Douvan 180p after his novice chasing season. He was undoubtedly a horse of massive potential, but he had no actual form to merit that lofty assessment.
I’ve always had the impression Timeform is staffed by overexcited school boy anorak types who are forever simply gagging to hand out the sort of numbers given to the greats of the past.
I find the BHA OR altogether more sober and measured, generally speaking, but actually compile my own which are miserly and grudgingly acknowledge excellence when the evidence is overwhelming and it is manifestly folly to react any other way.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“simply gagging to hand out the sort of numbers given to the greats of the past.”
I’d say it’s the opposite. Arkle’s and Flyingbolt’s ratings are sacrosanct.
I can only give you a TRF rating of 1.5p for that posting, Gladders, sorry.
Told you I was mean.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"It is from 14 years ago but Greg Wood’s article about the ratings awarded to Arkle and Flyingbolt is still relevant:
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2009/dec/28/arkle-timeform-rating-phil-smith
The follow-up article is also interesting:
https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2010/may/24/handicapper-gives-up-arkle
Those one off performances that are not repeated often involve questions regarding how many of the opponents ran to form – in Harbinger’s case arguably none. Another rating I could not accept was that of Master Minded based on his Queen Mother performance. No way was he a better animal than the wonderful, fully proven,very top bracket Pearlyman.
Another point reg Timeform – their weight for age scale has often differed from the official one, and in the 60’s and 70’s considered the 3 year olds did not receive enough wfa from the older horses when most questioned whether they were in receipt of too much.
Had to chuckle at the bit in the Greg Wood about the rumor that the trainees at Timeform were given the task of allotting the ratings to the jumpers to prepare them for switching to the ‘real sport’ of flat racing. I could not remember Phil Bull owning a National Hunt animal then the name Angelo Salvini sprang to mind. However, memory plays tricks and have just checked this out – Phil Bull owned him when he was unraced with Barry Hills. But at the time when he was that exciting staying hurdler with Peter Easterby he was in he ownership of Jim Joel.
Just looked up Angelo Salvini’s career in my old Timeform annuals, as I definitely remember him running in the pink Bull colours over hurdles, and Joel bought him in November 1981, after the gelding had won a Phillip Cornes qualifier at Cheltenham.
Disagree with you on Master Minded: that first Champion Chase win was underrated, if anything. The third and fourth were both solid mid-150s performers and ran pretty much to the pound.
Like Badsworth Boy and Sprinter Sacre, Master Minded put up his best performance in his first Champion Chase and never matched that form subsequently. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Whilst I also think that Pearlyman was underrated, he would not have beaten Master Minded that day.
Have just read the essay now – I’d lazily speed read it earlier – yep, privately changed hands after a Philip Corners qualifier, was also sure I’d memories of him in the Bull colours. Still can’t think of any other jumpers in the Bull silks though in connection to Timeform Jim McGrath had one or two jumpers in his pink colours.
Yeah, will have to agree to disagree over the merits of Master Minded and Pearlyman – just feels comfortable seeing those same two solid horses filling the places behind Pearlyman though I’ve no doubt Dessie would have had him going R-H. Am probably a tad bias too as I attended both of his QM’s which were compelling viewing.
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