• Hi Guest Just in case you were not aware I wanted to highlight that you can now get a free 7 day trial of Horseracebase here.
    We have a lot of members who are existing users of Horseracebase so help is always available if needed, as well as dedicated section of the fourm here.
    Best Wishes
    AR

Ones To Watch

Tomorrow’s Grp 3 Jersey Stakes has a couple of interesting runners outside the obvious market leaders.

MYSTERY POWER. My base time and ability rating at 9st is (109) same as the official rating. This figure was earned last year in a Grp 2 over 6f Btn 1.5 lengths by PIERRE LAPPIN (who is well fancied for the Commonwealth Cup. ) It’s last run as a 2 yr old was against PINATUBO in the Grp 1 Dewhurst but ran no race which I put down to the soft ground and maybe outclassed. It had won a Grp 2 at Newmarket over 7f earlier in the year. If it is anywhere near it’s runs last year it must have a fair chance here.
The other horse on equal rating with weight adjustments is FINAL SONG who I have as (103) . Official rating (107). She has been racing in some smart races in Meydan and equalled the win she had over there as far as my ratings are concerned in this years 1000gns where she ran 4th beaten 5.5lengths. Much better suited to 7f .

With weight allowances and penalty adjustments to the race conditions, they both come out as joint top on my ratings.

MYSTERY POWER (119)
FINAL SONG. (119)

I have them 7lbs clear of the field but of course all the runners being 3 yr olds there are going to be some rapid improvers KING LEONIDAS (107) probably being one of them.

I am just favouring MYSTERY POWER as his rating was gained as a 2 year old and R Hannon will have him fit. He is not a massive horse and may be just a good 2 year old but at 16/1 I am willing to find out if he has trained on but also think that his trainer wouldn’t run him if he hadn’t. I will have a saver on Final Song
Good luck
 
Last edited:
Just looking at the weather reports and the Jersey Stakes again, The Ratings I have done now include the French runner Celestin. This ran in the French Guineas Grp 1 June 1st Btn 2.5 lengths by Victor Lodorum trained by A Fabre and owned by Godolphin. I have rated this as (112) and last year it was won by Persian King (114) also for A Fabre.

Celestin earned a (106) MR and an OR (110). If there is a storm overnight or in the morning and the ground comes up very soft this horse would be in its element and on adjusted Ratings is bang up there in the Jersey on (119) MR. The trainer is 43% strike rate at the moment and the Jockey James Doyle is one of my Favourites. CELESTIN though has done its winning and most of its running at 8f and would be suited by a slog through the mud over 7f.

I am not going to desert MYSTERY POWER as I have already backed it at 16/1 but it’s always worth looking at the options.
 
Having seen FS in the 1000G putting horses rated as much as 16lb higher to bed on the day, then coming fourth on the day losing by some 51/2 lengths to LOVE but just a length behind the third who was rated at 114.

Giving the above & his mark or 98 looks below his true form, he steps down to group 3 for the Jersey goes in with 3lb better than the main guns but still has 2lb less than the 1000G. Buick gets the mount a plus in my eyes, looking at the TS RPR figures again there positive.


Kheleyf was the last winner for SBS in 2004 another USA horse, WB winning in 2016 gives me a little more confidence.

Drawn so high is a concern but in 2014 Mustajeeb won from 19

Given his progressive form and the USA breading links FINAL STORM should run a big a race here I feel.


Good luck with whatever you guys back.
 
Just a little add on to the Commonwealth Cup on Friday For some reason a few of the field didn’t show on my ratings page. MUMS TIPPLE My time and ability weight adjusted rating is (130) highly rated from last year, and is on a par with
Golden Horde (128) and Pierre Lappin (124). It is underestimated as there was an excuse when it ran in the Middle
Park Grp 1 last year against Earthlite where Golden Horde ran nk 2nd. Mums Tipple went lame during the race. It was 3/1 in the market and Golden Horde was 16/1. Mums Tipple has had a run this year in the Guineas and probably didn’t stay . It must have a fair chance of being up there on Friday at a pretty good price.
 
Bertie123 said:
Thanks for your response. I wouldn’t be interested in trying to use time ratings with or without weight in jump racing. It’s more about stamina and the ability to jump than speed. Also because the whole system of ratings has been based on weight doesn’t necessarily mean it is the right way to go with a speed rating. There is no evidence whatsoever that 3 lbs over 6f will slow a horse 1 length. In fact horses who carry top weights in handicaps between 5 and 8 furlongs and are giving away lumps of weight win much more often than they should.
Thank you though for taking the time to respond. It’s really interesting to have other viewpoints. In America I dont believe any of their Speed Ratings are calculated by weight. I agree it is a different kind of racing out there but we too have similar tracks now with the AW So maybe weight free Speed Figures would work better on our AW tracks.
As far as successful punting is concerned watching the closing stages of races and seeing how winners win is more important and more effective than either weight or speed. Horses can win with a double handful but the time might be comparably slow. However that horse has proved it has the ability to run “fast enough” to beat other horses using less energy. It has Class but you try and quantify that in a figure. Almost impossible apart from the obvious OR who’s rating is only a Class figure in terms of the grade in which a horse can run. It’s not though the inherent Class a horse has which gives it the ability to beat its rival either in a fast run race or very easily in a slowly run race.
One to watch in terms of pure speed is THE LIR JET. I would think this will be Ascot bound. Whether it has the inherent CLASS only Time will tell. Pardon the Pun !👍
Click to expand...
B Bertie123 ever since your reply on the compiling speed figures thread, I’ve been giving this whole question of weight and class a bit of thought , it doesn’t make sense to me that you wouldn’t account for weight in ratings horses BUT after reading what you said and reading some of the expert analysis from mlmrob mlmrob who refers often to class and the fact that Chesham Chesham must feel it is a vital factor judging by the fact he chose class as the factor for the Chesham Class Ratings. I feel I dismissed this too quickly.
It still seems the objective to find the best handicapped horse in a race and many times this could on figures be one of the lowest ranked in the field in receipt of weight, however there is the hard to quantify class barrier that clearly is a problem , the horse may be well weighted but has it got the class to cope with better horses carrying more weight.
I had a quick look back over some results and it’s well known that top weights have a better record than lower weighted horses in handicaps and it seems from the quick research a surprising amount of races are won by the best horse on the day, what I mean by this is if you look say at the RPRs or any performance ratings for any result nearly all races are won by the horse with the highest RPR not many are won by horses that have lower RPR than a beaten horse in the race but won because of weight received. So it seems to me that trying to identify the best horse might be just as valid as trying to identify the best handicapped horse. Class seems to prevail more than anything.I don’t have the answers but I’m going to be more open minded and experiment a bit with class and not be so obsessed with weights and measures in flat racing.
Well done on your recent winners on this thread guys.
 
3.50 newm
Looking at the form of both AL AASY and CIGOLI demonstrates the problem "handicappers" have in trying to rate horses.

CIGOLI cost over a million but produced a poor first effort in finishing 3rd btn 11L by PUNCTATION over 12f kemp.

AL AASY followed up on his debut 3rd behind TOM COLLINS by trying his luck in a listed race over 10f newm and finished 5th btn 10L behind MISHRIF with PUNCTUATION another 12L back in 6th.

So using PUNC we can see that AL is about 22L superior to CIG, can we take those numbers at face value ? Maybe not but it is a point of reference like any piece of form can be.

AL AASY is rated 91 which is just about right given such little evidence.

CIGOLI doesn't have a rating yet but on that run i would guess about 69, so 22lbs below AL

Betting with 365 has AL @ 4/7 and CIG @ 11/4 but if you were to accept those numbers then 4/7 is a big price imo.

Final problem is godolphin have another horse in the race unraced ARABIC WELCOME who is out of SHAMARDAL so could be anything.
 
O Outlander Firstly your humility is to be admired. None of us has the answer as this rating business is subjective apart from time which I guess is the absolute. I experimented with my Raw time figures but a raw time figure doesn't tell you anything more than how fast the race was run, which in itself lacks that very important factor : class. I have gone back to my time and ability ratings and they are now showing positive returns.
As I said, I rarely bet in handicaps as finding one "well in" doesn't happen all that often as the Official Handicapper who I have the greatest respect for, don't usually make many mistakes. Its difficult for them to assess whether a horse has run to its ability or waiting for another day. This doesn't happen too much in non handicap races but might do if a trainer is looking for a lowly mark. They run it over the wrong trip, unsuitable going etc. Did I say Sir Mark Prescott? Well, you know what I mean. Handicap genius?

By confining my betting to mainly non handicaps the weight ranges are negligible and the race is usually won by the horse with the best ability. If I can tie in an ability rating with a time figure it gives me a good basis from which to start.

So. As you quite rightly say, Weight is a factor, but I look at it like this. If a horse is rated say 80, it will be assessed by the official handicapper as an 80 rated horse no matter what race it competes in. Its weight will be allocated by the conditions of the race. Higher class, lower weight and vice versa. In a handicap , when its mark is re-assesed it will be re handicapped from that figure of 80 and NOT the weight it was carrying. The weights may have been raised overnight by 7lbs but the horse is still an 80 rated horse. If it won well by say 2 lengths in a 6f race it might be raised say 6 or 7 lbs. so its new rating would be 86. But if it carried 9:10 it's rating wouldn't be 96 , which is what speed handicappers have to do when using weight in their ratings as they are usually working to a base of a horse rated 100 carrying 9stone. The official handicapper will then rate the rest of the field behind the winner with weight adjustments from the winners new rating and subjective opinion from the handicapper. I am sure you are aware of this but it leads me on to my reasoning behind my ratings.

I know Time handicappers who are way more experienced than me say that speed figures and official figures are not comparable as obviously speed figures are based on time. But then if thats the case why do they use say 3.5lbs per length for 5 furlongs, 3lbs for 6f etc. They should be calculating their ratings on lengths per second and weight shouldn't have anything to do with it. Admittedly there needs to be some adjustment on the lengths per second as a horse can't run 5 f speed for 8f. But there are many ways of calculating this. Some Speed handicappers adjust everything to 8f and some to 5f which I believe Timeform do.

Now, if you rate a race purely on time it is misleading, as I have found out to my cost, as this 80 rated horse may well run within a few fifths of a second to standard, in a very poor race, but its final time doesn't reflect the Class of the race. So do you take that at face value? I did for years without success. Class is of course extremely important. So I always wanted to be able to calculate a rating that was comparable to the OR if I could. I could then look at my figures and see if a horse was improving or running to its Official Rating

A few years ago I read an article somewhere by a previous employee of Timeform who stated that pure time figures by themselves were really of limited use and it was very important and essential to have an ability/form rating which would reflect "class". (Hence Time-Form)

I could have subscribed to Timeform, but where's the fun in that !

So I set about trying to come up with something of my own that would give me this combination. It is a very simple formula and no doubt the purists will think it doesn't make sense but it works for me. My base rating is not 100 but an ability rating I use based on "form" and "class". This is not the Official Rating . My speed rating is based purely on lengths per second with adjustments for different distances , GA, and deducted or added to my ability rating depending if the time the horse ran either was fast or slow. The figure for the winner is put into My Ratings page and calculated automatically although I change the lbs per length to coincide with the official scale. I do not make any adjustment for weight from the winner once I have my rating. It is what it is, whether it carried 9 stone or 10 stone. I understand that there will be a lot of disagreement suggesting it is illogical and doesn't make sense and has to be weight adjusted but I am only doing what the Official Handicapper does. Initialy. The rest of the field are rated with weight adjustment from the winners RATING and weight carried. There will be little weight adjustment as the races are all non handicaps.

I also only rate up to 8f and do not bother with NH. To me any race over 8f is more about stamina and ability rather than "time". I don't get involved with NH for various reasons, and of course you are going to get fast times at big meetings like Cheltenham but egg and spoon races at somewhere like Market Rasen are a waste of time for Speed rating assessment, but thats only my opinion and I am sure there are many speed handicappers who love NH.

I am pretty confident now that if I rate a horse to be 75 it won't be too far away from the OR. If the OR for that same horse is 69. it will be certainly worth looking at for betting purposes. I have a pure speed figure adjusted for distance plus a good ability rating. I hope you enjoy the read but of course this is only my way of rating a race. There are countless others, many better and lots worse.
 
Last edited:
tacker said:
3.50 newm
Looking at the form of both AL AASY and CIGOLI demonstrates the problem "handicappers" have in trying to rate horses.

CIGOLI cost over a million but produced a poor first effort in finishing 3rd btn 11L by PUNCTATION over 12f kemp.

AL AASY followed up on his debut 3rd behind TOM COLLINS by trying his luck in a listed race over 10f newm and finished 5th btn 10L behind MISHRIF with PUNCTUATION another 12L back in 6th.

So using PUNC we can see that AL is about 22L superior to CIG, can we take those numbers at face value ? Maybe not but it is a point of reference like any piece of form can be.

AL AASY is rated 91 which is just about right given such little evidence.

CIGOLI doesn't have a rating yet but on that run i would guess about 69, so 22lbs below AL

Betting with 365 has AL @ 4/7 and CIG @ 11/4 but if you were to accept those numbers then 4/7 is a big price imo.

Final problem is godolphin have another horse in the race unraced ARABIC WELCOME who is out of SHAMARDAL so could be anything.
Click to expand...
I take it that you are not betting in this race.

Interesting one to watch. Both Al Aasy and cigoli have Urban Sea the dam of both sires

Going soft today and Cigoli looks on Breeding to have more stamina.

Jim Cowley (Jock of Al Aasy for his two runs, is riding for the Owner at Ascot)

Pedigree Cigoli
5358B5A9-66EB-4F54-ADFE-60FC0E6CB069.jpeg

Good race to watch for future clues but not back in.
 
Some excellent thoughts shared above. Mine applied to hcaps are that often weight can prevent the win regardless of positive ratings. I think objection to weight can play a part and in this respect proven and relevant weight carrying ability is a need for myself prior to risking my wedge in these situations.
 
Top weight just won the 1st at Ascot 20/1. The clue was there though as it ran 4.5 lengths behind PINATUBO at Ascot last year. Its breeding would give encourage for the trip.
But to be honest, unless you have contacts at the stable you couldn’t have backed it with confidence and neither could the stable as it won at 20/1. But it just proves again that class will tell, and on soft ground too.
 
No excuses in the Jersey for my selection for Mystery Power who looked magnificent but the ground scuppered his chances as I think it will for a lot of runners today. Keep an eye out for him though
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top