HANDICAPPERS

It is with great pleasure I read about three appeals that were succesfully upheld this last few weeks against high ratings given to a couple of winners. This sort of thing (appeals) seems to become the norm nowadays and I have no problem with that. I also have been subject to some shocking handicapping in recent times and it begs the question - have our handicappers gone mad with some of their decisions? I for one say yes - we tend to kill good horses and even worse, kill average horses. Our 2yo's and 3yo's are treated badly and it takes a long time for their ratings to be adjusted to a competitive mark. Maybe it is time for a re-look at the 'great' system....

superb system and they cannot and will not always be right...unfortunately the biggest flaw in the system is the limits and caps that are imposed on them also we must remember that they are not responsible for the race programme so the complaint of there are no races for my horse is not their indaba..i have phoned them on a numbr of occassions and find them extremely helpful and understanding which i cannot say for other sectors of this industry...roger smith in particular is a pleasure to deal with..

Wrong Pirates - They are part and parcel of the Programming Committee. Roger sits in on all of these meetings. In the past they got very little wrong from a handicapping point of few, but lately it seems they are getting it all wrong. Yes, they are friendly and helpful but to me it seems they are using the guidelines a bit too much - remember it is only a guideline. You do not have to a give a horse 6 points winning a Graduation Plate by 0.75 points when the highest rated horse is a MR 80 - and that is a 3yo with WFA.

like i said they will get things wrong but on the whole they get things right imo...its their opinion and this for me is what makes it such a fascinating sport as its yours against theirs when you assess a race...they havent got the chance to be retrospective hcappers and we have remember....as far as sitting on the programming commitee is that just for phum racing or is it for gc racing as well?and furthermore they can sit in but how much influence do they have on the programme?it is very disturbing to hear races put on for certain trainers ie charles laird ...

They have a lot of say - they are the only people who knows our horse population and even in more detail - how many horses run over which distance in a racing district. As for putting on races for trainers such as you mentioned Charles Laird - not true. I think this comes from hearsay and individual opinion. I know Charles very well and he complains a lot about the race programming but lives with it as it is. It there are eight MR 88 horses in Dbn and 6 comes from his stable it is not his fault if a race is put on to cater for these horses.

homer lets just say we agree to dsagree

Homer, you are not correct about the errors that you allege the handicappers make when you say "they are getting it all wrong".

The situation for them, or anyone handicapping races for that matter, is that one of three conditions tend to arise:
1 a clear and obvious result
2 a complete nonsensical result, where you have to just have to draw a line thru
3 a t-junction result where you have to do one thing or another and the truth could be either.

Option 3 generates appeals and generally the appeal panel will face the same dilemma and then choose one or the other over again. Normally, someone will suffer because an easier alternative did not exist.

For most races the result actually makes sense, and in racing world wide we find a universal statistic that favourites win 33% of races. Theoretically, all handicaps should finish with the field dead-heating, but we know that the variables of live horses will scupper that. Generally, the better the field, the truer the outcome.

That very good horses like Jet Master, Freemyheart, Winter Solstice, Flaming Rock, Pocket Power could rack up so many Grade 1 1600m WFA races is a testament to how handicapping changes results in handicaps which is the desired effect of a handicap. Once you job description as a handicapper IS to change the result, on what basis can you say that they are getting all wrong?

It is a rude assumption for you to think that on the difficult or impossible calls you would be right and they are wrong. That goes for the appeal panel too.