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Could affect how horses are campaigned.
The King George 5f G2 is now bizarrely worth more than the Nunthorpe and the 2yo races have also had their prizemoney increased significantly. You would have to think that the York Ebor meeting will be the one to suffer.
Plus, the Stewards Cup is now worth £250k – if you have a 95+ rated horse with Group potential at the start of the season, it could be worth keeping it in its box until Goodwood.
Alan is right though – the extra money will end up largely in the pockets of the existing big players who don’t need it.
Surprised this has attracted so much criticism.
Every firm on oddschecker will restrict different punters to different amounts on virtually every single event they trade.
…and it is the same for marketing led pricing offers (which this obviously is). Paddy Power’s Money back offer if Hurricane Fly wins is for a maximum refund of £100 per customer, for example, yet I get offered less than £20 if try to back anything. Not moaning about that particularly or singling them out – it is just the way it is.
Timeform have changed the methods to try to paper over the chasm like cracks, never replaced staff of the quality of Dick
and introduced daft things such a race standardisation which tends to give Listed class Derby winners (who never win again) ratings in the 120s instead of the 105’s.
Must admit I am highly sceptical of Race standardisation for this reason. Did Timeform gave Sole Power his rating after the Nunthorpe because they genuinely thought he was that good, or because ‘he had run in a race called the Nunthorpe and horse that usually finish 1st, 2nd , 3rd in the Nunthorpe are usually rated x,y,x…’?
RPRs and Timeform ratings are not directly comparable – so you aren’t comparing like for like.
I don’t agree re not being able to reproduce the rating against better horses either
If you go out in front and run a Timeform 136 speedfigure (or whatever – they aren’t the only ones who have the time as exceptional) and never see another horse, it doesn’t really matter what you are running against.
Imperious performance though it was, a horse that gets an unchallenged lead is often overrated (particularly by Timeform), and as with such as Hawk Wing and Cape Blanco, Frankel is unlikely ever to reproduce a similarly rated performance.
That’s not to say he isn’t a very high class colt, and he should win plenty more races, but whereas anything above a 135 was a very special achievement at one time, they now seem to conferred like confetti.Frankel’s lead was ‘unchallenged’
because none of the others were anywhere near good enough to get to him
.
The visual impression was sensational, the overall time was very very strong indeed and on this occasion, I think Timeform were fully justified in making Frankel a couple of lengths better than the result.
Unlike previous debates that have been had re Timeform overrating horses (Harbinger being the most obvious overreaction by Timeform imo), this horse has looked freakishly good on at least three occasions. As long as he stays sound, I think there is every chance we will see repeat performances in terms of sky high ratings and times.
There is a very simple solution.
The bookies need to agree that for each track there is a maximum overround (based on the number of runners) that is
allowed
to be returned for the Starting Price. This would probably be achieved via a formula like 100+x% + y% a runner.
So – let’s say the max overround at Wolves for a 6 runner race was 115% (still not particularly generous) – that would have meant that punters would have had to have seen a 10% improvement in overround on the other runners if the favourite was to be smashed into an artificially short price.
Agreed.
Performance of this site is
poor
I’m afraid – I get pop-ups, log outs, slow loading etc all the time…
A shame, but I feel this forum has really lost its way over the past couple of years.
I’m a NR unfortunately. Wanted to come but am out about 5 days in the next week – don’t think my liver could stand it…
Have a good one….
Well – that’s them finished then….
All I can hope is that this is a "line in the sand" from the BHA in terms of their treatment of horses who are clearly not trying in handicaps.
Given the harsh punishments that have been handed out here, it will be unacceptable, nay outrageous, if connections who land duck egg coups are allowed to carry on regardless.
I expect the BHA to treat them in exactly the same manner as these two have been treated.
It was a poor ride – but the horse is a thorough sh1t imo and the jockey hadn’t ridden a winner for half a decade.
I’d be much happier with this "let’s get tough on non triers" attitude if we didn’t have much higher profile connections blatantly laying horses out (i.e not trying for a sequence of runs) in order to land a touch.
That happens on a regular basis, yet I don’t see these people being pilloried by Timeform or banned from the sport by the BHA.
I’m just amazed that people seem to want to run more "championship" races at Ascot.
I would like to point out that I have already written my blog this week and that, when it appears, it is not intended to be having a pop at what this comment seems to imply.
Pop away Prufrock – I’m not precious…
In fairness, I have much more of a problem with races run on the straight course at Ascot, with normally reliable horses being beaten jumps distances in races over 7f etc.
Take the Jersey – it went straight in my bin as a guide to future form as soon as the race finished – and I’m glad it stayed there.
Let’s face it Ginge – the time was good, but bar that we are all just guessing and we could argue all day about what did and didn’t run to form at Ascot
Personally speaking, Duncan and Cape Blanco could finish 1-2 in the Arc ,10 lengths clear of the rest and I still wouldn’t be convinced Harbinger was the best horse I had ever seen.
Bottom line – Harbinger isn’t going to run again, so people will just have to agree to differ.
I’m just amazed that people seem to want to run more "championship" races at Ascot.
Rather than highlighting how good Harbinger was, Cape Blanco’s Irish Champion win only makes me more convinced that nothing behind the winner ran any sort of race in the King George.
Would second Prufrock’s comments re Sean’s blog – well worth a read – and not just for this article either…
Re the "right to bet" idea, it would be handy for racing if this concept was adopted across all sports.
I think there are one or two firms who are quite cynically almost using horse racing as a loss leader on their websites – offering unrealistic and unsustainable concessions to try to recruit and retain recreational punters (the logic being of course that these customers will then go on to bet on and lose on other sports or games).
In a world where you pay levy on racing profits but not on anything else, you can see the commercial logic, but it is obviously bad news for Racing.
Sean – I don’t quite get the "bad for betting operators, therefore good for punters" logic… If you put on a small tax on turnover, you can guarantee that it will be the punters paying for it in some form?
