2018 Gold Cuppin'

How many times, the tactics were wrong at Newbury. I've never seen a horse receive such flak both here and on twitter and it's really ******* me off.
 
All handicappers rate horses by their best conditions(pace of the race, ground, opposition quality, etc.) so why should his performance be downgraded just because he had his ideal conditions...
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I think there is a particular problem rating wide margin wins with normal handicapping techniques which award 1lb for one length. As I said above, once the margin stretches to a point where the elastic snaps and the opposition are no longer in contention the additional lengths added to a winning margin are not equivalent.

I think a sliding scale is needed so that lengths gained after a horse has already gone clear are not worth the same. How to put it in quantifiable terms is another matter, but normally when a horse has won by 20L and is given a 20lb higher rating in consequence I would mark it down by 5 or 6 lbs. And for every additional 10L I would take another 5lbs off. By that type of reckoning I would have BDM's Saturday rating around the high 160s.
 
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I'm pretty sure RPRs went 180++ for Master Oats when he won the Welsh National by a mile in hock-deep ground.

I doubted the rating at the time and I know someone who has never forgiven me for talking him out of backing it for the Gold Cup at 40/1 on the back of the run.

I don't actually think RPRs award 1lb per length at staying trips. I certainly don't and would seriously question any rating system which did.
 
Mea culpa DO, it was the Rehearsal Chase he ran to 159. The Welsh National was run at Newbury and he ran to 175.
 
I also don't know the exact methodology employed by RP, but official handicappers and TF I know for sure that both distance, ground and race time does matter in determining pounds per length and usually on 3m+ heavy ground they go around 0.5l just like they do over GN trip in good ground.

There's 100% reason to believe all the horses in behind BDM underperformed but that doesn't take away the fact they are rated from 153 to 168 so the performance is amazing doing that to those caliber of horses. I'd say the truth in somewhere in between RP and TF, I think that was an around 180 performance similar to Don Cossack at Aintree the season before winning the GC.

If BDM can perform a stone below that on different surfaces/tracks and he has shown he can in the Charlie Hall, then the GC will be very competitive. I don't care that he has 15 races already, he's at the right age for improving after a summer break. Dodging Bullets was the same in the season when beating Sprinter twice and eventually winning the CC.
 
Grey said:
Bristol won by 57L. His RPR for Saturday is 185 and Cue Card's is 128, exactly 57 lbs less.
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That genuinely does surprise me.

I have to say, it does nothing for RPRs' credibility. I'll check through a few more staying chases and see if it happens a lot but I know I gave up on 1lb per length many years ago.
 
Desert Orchid said:
That genuinely does surprise me.

I have to say, it does nothing for RPRs' credibility. I'll check through a few more staying chases and see if it happens a lot but I know I gave up on 1lb per length many years ago.
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Presumably they have a reason for it but there is an inconsistency in their staying races. I've checked a few races from the last few weeks in heavy ground and some appear calculated to 1lb per length others not.

I operate on a sliding scale depending on the trip but I also make further allowances for the going. So where I might allow 1lb per length at, say, 2m2f normally, I'll go less than that the softer the ground. If it's extremely heavy I might go down to 0.5lbs per length.
 
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Diamond Geezer said:
Mea culpa DO, it was the Rehearsal Chase he ran to 159. The Welsh National was run at Newbury and he ran to 175.
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You're right, DG. I've just checked the book and 159# and 175# are the marks given, where the # is the then indication of 'better than the rating', now annotated with a + sign.

These are the end of season figure published once all the ratings were reviewed for the Form Book annual. In those days I was a weekly subscriber and remain convinced the rating in the weekly document was 180##. It's a figure I remember seeing because it kind of beggared belief to me at the time and appeared after my telephone slanging match with my brother who had told me he'd just seen the Gold Cup winner. I phoned him back after getting the form book instalment to tell him about the rating and that maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all but I'd already dampened his enthusiasm. I reckon it gets a mention at least once a month nowadays...

It wasn't unknown for a number of ratings to be different from during the season as they constantly reviewed. I believe they amended the ratings in their ongoing database but obviously anything already committed to print in the weekly instalments couldn't be changed. In those days I annotated the weekly instalments with my own figures and then transferred them across to the annual when it arrived (free with the next season's subscription), at which point I could bin the more cumbersome weekly stuff.

I'll get back later today with a figure for Bristol De Mai.
 
Desert Orchid said:
I'll get back later today with a figure for Bristol De Mai.
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I've a few more in-depth studies to undertake but my initial figure for BDM is 185+, Cue Card 150+, Outlander 144+.

The + for BDM is because he won easing down. For the others it's because we know they weren't at their best.

Once the other in-depth studies are done the ratings might change but not by much.

I had Desert Orchid hitting 187 at his best.

I should maybe add that BDM's figure is 14lbs higher than for his impressive win last season. If he runs 14lbs better in the Gold Cup than in March he would be the equivalent of finishing a length or so in front of Sizing John.

In other words, he could run over a stone below his Haydock best and win a Gold Cup...
 
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Grasshopper said:
Where would your 185+ put him on your scale, DO?

Better or worse than Denman's second Hennessy?
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Notwithstanding the dangers of comparing handicap form and non-handicap form, it should also be remembered that Denman got to run in the Hennessy off 174 having previously been rated 182 so he was arguably entitled to run very well, nevertheless I have him on 183+? for the race. The annotation is because I usually get a sense of whether the form might be better than I'm rating it.

It certainly puts him in that kind of ball park. Of course, Denman could run to that kind of mark at Cheltenham or elsewhere.
 
I know it not apples for apples but even you compare BDM with Chase The Spud in the latter handicap over same distance ,ground and weight. Assuming CTS has run to at least his rating I still have BDM on a 180 plus rating. As said on here it could be just the conditions and the track but it was one hell of a performance .
 
I've been scratching my head over this for a few days, and whilst I can make a case for an unusually high rating if I rate BDM through Cue Card, Outlander, and T4T, I just can't do that. The rating makes no sense, and I suspect we have the unusual situation where the remainder of the field have run some considerable way below their best. In fact it's not difficult to make that case. Cue Card is clearly in decline, has become a serial faller, and wasn't ridden in to his fences at all. In fact he showed no zest or sparkle at all.

The alternative is to rate BDM through the time achieved on heavy ground at Haydock. The problem with that is I can't trust any distance that Kirkland Tellwrong gives, and the I can't make a direct comparison to previous renewals because of the distance change.

Ultimately I'd say it's impossible to put an accurate figure on BDM's performance on Saturday. Visually it was mightily impressive, but the overall time if I take it as accurate for the conditions and distance, even if I'm being generous, doesn't back it up. And I have to conclude anyone going for monstrous figures for BDM is either guessing, or looking through rose tinted spectacles. There is no satisfactory basis that I can find to give him a rating that is off the charts. Particularly as we would need to believe he has produced a performance so far beyond the ability he has shown before or is likely to show again, even if it is at his favourite track under favourable conditions.

The bottom line for me is I'm not prepared to believe he has put up a performance beyond 170 unless anyone can find me hard evidence to back it up, that doesn't include Cue Card running to an imaginary mark. He's never done it before after multiple attempts, including at his favourite course under his favoured conditions.

I should add that I say this as a supporter of the horse and have no axe to grind. I thoroughly enjoyed watching his demolition job, but realistic enough to know it was in a very specific context, against opposition who just didn't perform at all on the day.
 
A rating is a difference in quality between horses, that includes all the conditions of the race(ground, pace, trip, etc.). The fact that a horse performs the best on certain conditions, doesn't mean the differential between himself and his peers should be written off and dropped under an arbitrary figure just so it doesn't hurt our feelings regarding horses in the past that obtained their highest ratings on race conditions that best suited them which were also calculated by the quality differential between horses on that race day.

You must first deduce how much all those 4 horses that finished the race between 57 and 67 lengths and are rated 153-168, how much they under-performed. Then objectively come up to a figure, not the other way around saying there's no way my BDM is better than X in the past so he couldn't ran to Y lbs better than he would normally which he did already twice to 170 on the RP scale.
 
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