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Arkle

Tanlic said:
Looking at Arkle's and Buona Notte's the rating are where they peaked. There was 26lbs between them in the MF there its 10lbs more but Buona Notte died before reaching his full potential.

I reckon you'd be doubting every horse there not just Arkle. Kauto having to give Pendil 13lbs round Kempton eg. I wouldn't fancy his chances.

The point is they are lined up like little tin soldiers between Dessie and Best Mate and it's pretty obvious in reality that's just not possible.

In a real race something would give and something would finish first and something would finish last probably with 20 lengths between all 6

As far as Arkle goes 12st10lbs in a field like that.I would honestly lay him he never faced horses of that calibre after Mill House had his back problems
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Yes, if ratings were infallible the game would be dead easy. Would I fancy Arkle to give Desert Orchid 25lbs? At Cheltenham, yes. At Kempton, I wouldn't be too sure.

The other point about your weights-allotted race is that it is not to argue that Arkle would win that race. The idea is that they would all dead-heat. But if you set any store by Timeform's ratings (I don't but a lot of people do: trainers, bookies, jockeys, racing journos and, dare I say it, a lot of people on here) then you have to take their assessment of him seriously.

We all know ratings are subjective. They are no more than the numerical expression of one person's opinion. Maybe in some cases (Timeform?) there's some debate among a group of assessors to arrive at a figure. If you compile ratings - as I do - then there's no point in doing them unless you have faith in them. I win or lose money on the basis of my belief in my own ability to assess form, which is often ridiculed on here. I'm not sure how people can accept some Timeform end-of-season ratings and not others. Surely any anomalies along the way will even themselves out over the years.

Timeform themselves claim their ratings allow comparisons across generations. We had similar arguments on the Flat in Frankel's day. By the time he retired I reckoned there was enough evidence to argue that he may, after all, been better than Sea Bird, Brigadier Gerard and Mill Reef (the latter pair two of my all-time favourites, especially the Brigadier) but prior to that people were trying to argue that Sea The Stars deserved to be up there, and a generation before that Dancing Brave as well as several in-between.

The day will probably come when something comes out and puts up a 212 performance (hopefully more than one to confirm the figure) and we'll happily say it was 20lbs or whatever better than Kauto Star and genuinely worthy of comparison with Arkle (unlike Best Mate whose place in the Timeform table looks about right yet he was being put on the same pedestal as Himself after his third Gold Cup).
 
Would be totally unfair to many of those mentioned to run at Kempton.......Ayr, Newbury or Donnie would be a better choice you think???
 
Does the Irish handicapping system work in the same was as the UK one?

If so, the trainer needs to answer why he entered the horse in the race. It looks (without seeing the entry conditions for the race) that it's a 0-120 handicap with the top weight set at 12-7 so if the horse is rated 129 he would be set 13-2.

Technically he could have a proper gripe and enter the horse for a 0-110 race and whinge about being set 13-12 :)
 
Is there not an appeal in place against a Weld horse running in and winning a 50-75 handicap off 79 in Galway this summer ?
I remember Pigeon's Nest running in a hurdle with 12-10 or 13 stone back in the early 80s, running with a mandatory penalty from a win two days before;at Tipperary (Limerick Junction as it was then ) also i believe. Brian Nolan claimed 5 or 7 lbs off and finished second.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Does the Irish handicapping system work in the same was as the UK one?

If so, the trainer needs to answer why he entered the horse in the race. It looks (without seeing the entry conditions for the race) that it's a 0-120 handicap with the top weight set at 12-7 so if the horse is rated 129 he would be set 13-2.

Technically he could have a proper gripe and enter the horse for a 0-110 race and whinge about being set 13-12 :)
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Have have a look at the conditions-would love to know who wrote them.Can remember a 2yo old race at an ordinary Goodwood meeting about 30 years ago where the sponsors horse started at crazy short odds because of favourable race conditions.
 
LUKE said:
Can remember a 2yo old race at an ordinary Goodwood meeting about 30 years ago where the sponsors horse started at crazy short odds because of favourable race conditions.
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Wasn't there a race like that not long ago (last season?), maybe over the jumps?
 
There are some handicaps where the conditions have a rating limitation (eg 80 to 110) but there are others where the conditions state, '109 = 11-10'. I'm guessing that this gives the handicapper more leeway to rate a horse on 111 without getting the flak for having the horse ruled out of opportunities for the sake of a pound. This programme summary gives you an idea:
http://www.hri-ras.ie/uploadedFiles/RÁS/RAS/Race_Planning/2016OctDecNHProvSummary.pdf
 
Get on subject ........Douvan will break 200 but how close he gets to Arkle's fairy story remains to be see.............BTW...Wikileaks are investigating
 

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