Couldn't do it mate.............Look at Pendra eg............They could only get one run into him but his rating justified him getting in.
Irish Cavalier had been running on his merits beaten on a couple of lengths in 2 of his 3 races.
Thomas Crapper you could tar with the same brush.
No legitimit reason to eliminate those type of horses unless you want a riot on your hands
Then Pendra if good enough has the chance to win his one race. Alternatively if he can't get his win there are plenty of races elsewhere.
In the case of Irish Cavalier, who I backed incidentally so I'm not being selective, he'd not qualify as simple as that. The alternative is they find a race and win with him beforehand and have him fit enough do himself justice. And yes you could tar Thomas Crapper with a similar brush who was largely campaigned over distances too short to get his mark. Alternatively Tom George and Nick Gifford could have hiddent the marks of Stellar Notion and Generous Ransom and you'd have had a very different result because they're better horses. Instead they spent most of the season showing they had the best horses but not the best handicapped in the race.
I understand the basis of handicaps. The one that's best in wins most of the time but not always, as was the case with Monetaire who was seriously unlucky. But Mullins, Nicholls, Henderson, Pipe, and other stables with money and big strings are best able to lay one out because of their embarrassment of riches. And surprise, surprise they all did just that. Just like the Grade 1's, the handicaps are Being dominated by the same stables. You can't change it completely, but you can make it harder and force them to show their hand.
The bottom line though is that the handicaps are massively over subscribed and in most of them you could strike a line though more than half of them without any effort whatsoever. Maybe a win in the season is a step too far (I still don't think so personally), and maybe at least a place In a Grade 3 or above in the season would be satisfy the sceptics. But if the best handicapped horses get a run it's also harder for the big stables to dominate.
I still maintain that the Festival handicaps should attract the best possible 24 or so horses in the current season, and without a rule change they attract the best dozen or so including half that have spent the previous year hiding their true mark, with the rest being deadwood. Insisting on a win in the season is a reasonable step towards blocking out blatant but largely unenforceable handicap mark management.
I want to see the most competitive handicaps possible without a growing bias towards the big stables with their embarrassments of riches. Grade 1's are fair enough. Barring rare exceptions they will go to the big money stables but handicaps are a different matter particularly limited handicaps where the big stables can easily save 155 horses for 0-140's.
I accept there isn't a perfect solution, but just as basic standards have been put in place to avoid Fergus Wilson and co running no hopers in Championship races, steps should also be taken to remove the deadwood from the handicaps which has the side impact of making it harder for the big stables to easily dominate.
