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BLOGS
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THIS WEEK'S FEATURE BLOG
MOCKING THE HANDICAPPING SYSTEM? I THINK NOT!
BHA Head of Handicapping Phil Smith responds to recent scrutiny of the Handicapping system
20th May 2010
After fifteen years as a Handicapper I have become used to criticism from trainers and owners for a) putting their horses up too much and b) not dropping them enough. Over the last few years we have even had to get used to a new complaint, “you haven’t put my horse up enough” usually to try and get a run in a race, but sometimes when connections are trying to export the horse.
However, I never expected us to be criticised for dropping horses too much. Sure enough after the victories of Savaronola, Agapanthus and Jeu De Roseau, that was the tone of the article in Wednesday’s Racing Post by their occasional tipster Eddie 'The Shoe' Fremantle. "I find it remarkable that the horses he has been landing these gambles on are dropped so readily by the Handicappers." he opined.
So were they dropped so readily, and if so, were the drops justified?
Savaronola
A five year old who had never won after 11 attempts on the flat and over hurdles. He came to Britain from Ireland and ran in his first handicap in January 2009 at Southwell off a mark of 65. He finished 5th of 7 beaten around 8 lengths performing to 55 and we dropped him to 59.
In April 2009 he finished 8th of 14 off 59 beaten 16 lengths and performing 43. He was then off the course until this winter when he ran poorly in two hurdle races. When he won last week we had dropped him to 55. Thus he has been beaten a total of 24 lengths and had come down 10lbs. over 16 months. Is that too much? Is it excessive?
This week I have dropped Peter Tchaikovsky 8lbs for a poor run at York. After his previous poor run eleven days earlier he was dropped 5lbs. A total of 13lbs for two poor runs in less than a fortnight. Is this too much? Surely, if a horse is out of form, we should drop it to try and get it competitive.
Classic Punch ran his second poor race of the season this week and I dropped him another 5lbs on top of the 6lbs I dropped him last time. That makes eleven pounds for two poor runs. More than we dropped Savaronola.
Are we right to do this? I suspect the trainers think we are, but Mr.Fremantle perhaps does not. Or maybe he just thinks we should drop certain trainers' horses and not others. Or maybe it is fine to drop a horse a large amount as long as they don’t then win.
Agapanthus
Had won off 65 at Yarmouth in April 2009 and had been raised to 72. He was then off the course for over two months and ran in a race I dealt with and finished last on good to soft ground.
As his win was on good ground I took the view that it wasn’t weight that had beaten him but possibly the ground or a lack of fitness and as a result I left him on 72.
He next ran at Leicester in July and finished next to last beaten over 57 lengths. My colleague dropped him by one pound.
He was then off the course for three months, before finishing eighth beaten 14 lengths at Leicester. He was dropped by 3 pounds to 68.
Thus after three poor runs he had come down 4lbs. After a win that would be par for the course for any horse in Britain if it had subsequently run poorly, yet something we are often criticised for by trainers- "You put them up quickly but drop them slowly".
Quite right too as we have to uphold the integrity of British racing. So should we have dropped Agapanthus at all? If Mr Fremantle is suggesting that we should not have done then we would have to do that to all winners. I hope he will be available in my office on a Monday to take the complaining phone calls.
Agapanthus next finished last of eleven runners at Doncaster and was dropped from 68 to 66, certainly not an excessively large amount. He ended the 2009 season by finishing sixth of thirteen beaten 10 lengths at Nottingham and was dropped from 66 to 63.
Yes there were some awful runs in his c.v. which were nothing to do with the weight he carried but there were also a number of outings when he ran respectably but was beaten far enough to make us feel a drop was needed.
He often ran on ground with some give in it so should we have refused to drop him until he ran on his favoured good ground again? If we adopted that as a long term policy we would be consigning a mass of horses to be uncompetitive in a typical British summer.
So after five runs Agapanthus had come down a total of 9lbs. Is this a handicap system that has, to quote Eddie Fremantle, been "made a mockery of"? Or is it pretty much what we would have done to any horse in those circumstances?
Jeu De Roseau
A maiden came from Ireland with a British hurdle rating of 108. He ran in three Novice hurdles in 2007, beating a total of 2 horses and we dropped him to 100. Is this a system where horses “are dropped so readily by the Handicappers”? In Eddie Fremantle’s handicap system these "horses who are not competitive shouldn’t be running." That is for others to decide but for us Handicappers our job is to try and make them competitive.
He next ran in March 2008 at Towcester off 100 and again finished last and was dropped to 95. We had hardly been very generous to a horse that was blatantly struggling, for whatever reason. Again at Towcester in April, Jeu De Roseau managed to beat one horse home and we dropped him from 95 to 90. As he did not then run for over a year he was deleted from our files.
In April this year, over two years since his last run, we were contacted to give Jeu De Roseau a rating as he was now with a new trainer. His best performance figure since arriving in Britain was 79. We dropped him to 82. It would be standard practice with a horse that had shown nothing and then was off for two years. Our experience tells us that most horses find it difficult to be competitive after a lengthy absence off their original rating and need some help.
Only this week Coasting, who had good form when he was last running, won after an absence of 3 years. We had dropped him 7lbs for his time off and the horse was well backed into 15/2 and won by half a length. No mention of the Handicapper having dropped him too much just a compliment in the Racing Post for an excellent piece of training.
So where have we been over generous? Where is the mockery of the Handicap system? Everything we have done has actually been in moderation and in accordance with what we would do for any trainer. The question is, should we do it for every trainer? Eddie Fremantle evidently feels that we should discriminate between trainers, which in our view a very dangerous policy.
If we had dropped these horses “too much”, why was it not mentioned in the Racing Post in the morning before their races? The ratings had been in the public domain for weeks, if not months, and everybody, professionals and punters alike, had been given the opportunity to take them into account before they decided to run in or bet on these races.
I really do not believe that we dropped these horses too much and I am confident that we would have acted in the same way with any trainer. We pride ourselves on our consistency and our impartiality.
However in racing there always has to be somebody to blame, so in this case why not blame the Handicappers? However, the Racing Post didn’t spot our “error” before racing and some might say that Eddie Fremantle’s article was a classic case of after-timing.
The reality is that nobody ever complains when we drop a horse by however large an amount unless it wins, unless it is gambled on and unless it is trained by someone of whom they are suspicious.
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