2020 Betfair Hurdle Newbury Saturday February 8th

Slim said:
Do you think it's the hardest handicap to win at the festival? Or what would be your top 3 hardest.
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Apologies for the delay in replying, Slim. Totally slipped my mind.

I'll maybe have to sit on the fence for now. I'm not in a position to work through the form for past years.

Off the top of my head, I think it varies from year to year. It might also depend on how you define 'hard to win'.

Sometimes my rating for the winner will be 12lbs (seldom less) more than its OR, sometimes 20lbs. I could probably cite examples of winners of the Coral Cup that followed the same pattern.

The Close Brothers must be deemed hard to win as the qualifying ratings band tends to be very narrow so getting into it requires careful planning. I think it's fair to say nowadays only Graded horses masquerading as handicappers win the race. The problem is that just about all of them fall into that category!

The Pertemps is arguably no longer the minefield it once was. Qualifying rules have been tightened up so people pretty much now need to give the handicapper a sneaky peak at what cards they're holding rather than slyly drawing a fifth ace from up their sleeve but it's still a big-field rough old race.

If I can turn the question around and say which handicaps give me the most joy in solving correctly, I'd probably say the Ultima, County and Coral Cup, in that order.
 
Desert Orchid said:
... masquerading as handicappers!
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Nothing new there, Floyd, Rooster Booster, Spirit Leader, Sporazene, Thousand Stars, Wicklow Brave, Arctic Fire, Ch'tibello, all hit marks of 160 plus, all had a touch of class.



The interesting thing about the above, and for most of the winners; they all have the stamina for 2m 4f!
 
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Desert Orchid said:
The Pertemps is arguably no longer the minefield it once was. Qualifying rules have been tightened up so people pretty much now need to give the handicapper a sneaky peak at what cards they're holding rather than slyly drawing a fifth ace from up their sleeve but it's still a big-field rough old race.
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There's enough qualifiers to make this a first 4 placing to get in the final.
 
Is it not already effectively win and you're in?

(I presume you're referring to qualifying races?)

How likely is it that a winner of a qualifier wouldn't make the cut?
 
Desert Orchid said:
Is it not already effectively win and you're in?

(I presume you're referring to qualifying races?)

How likely is it that a winner of a qualifier wouldn't make the cut?
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It can happen. Win off a mark in the 120s and you'll struggle to get in.
 
Yes. I already typed something earlier off the top of my head to that effect but then thought about it and reckoned if the top weight was on, say, 150 then 122 was feasible for 10-0 and I'd have thought any winner would probably already hit that kind of rating but, as I say, it was all off the top of my head and right now I have no easy way of substantiating it so I deleted it.

I imagine sheer dint of numbers would make it difficult for 122 to make the cut rather than the 10-0 mark.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Yes. I already typed something earlier off the top of my head to that effect but then thought about it and reckoned if the top weight was on, say, 150 then 122 was feasible for 10-0 and I'd have thought any winner would probably already hit that kind of rating but, as I say, it was all off the top of my head and right now I have no easy way of substantiating it so I deleted it.

I imagine sheer dint of numbers would make it difficult for 122 to make the cut rather than the 10-0 mark.
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It's more a case that the number of horses 134/135+ is just higher and with maximum fields horses in the 120s and even low 130s running at the festival is a thing of the past. . Ruby Walsh is off the opinion that ratings have become inflated over the years.
 
I honestly don't buy the idea of inflated ratings.

I've heard it mentioned a few times in recent years but I'm not convinced there's any evidence.

I think it's probably more a case of there being more horses in training and improved training and sports science pushing horses to achieve more and that's reflected in the ratings.

I won't forget the interview last year or so with Michael Dickinson. He was talking about why his mother's (and then his) horses were winning so much and he talked about inviting a sports scientist to watch the hoses being trained and asking for advice.

After they did their morning work the sports scientist asked what they did now. Dickinson said that was it until their next workout in a day or two. The sports scientist said that's not even a warm-up never mind a work out, and told him the horses needed to be worked harder and more often.

Then there was Pipe getting them hard fit at home and picking up easy money in weak races but clocking very fast times.

Now we also have lots of very astute trainers who have been copying and adapting the methods.

And if ratings are inflated nowadays, how would we explain Arkle's 212 50-odd years ago before all these sophisticated methods. Would he be on 250 nowadays?

Personal opinion - I've concluded that a lot of the 'greats' of the 1960s-70s were probably doped to the gills with stuff that was just undetectable at the time but that's for another thread.
 
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