Nothing new but I just need to say it

[barjon]

By a similar token, desert, I think handicappers sometimes over-rate the top races because they take account of the historic rating average for the race in question. That means that you occasionally see a lower class horse that has chanced its arm in the big race earning a rating that it never gets anywhere near again back down in class.

 

[Desert Orchid]

By a similar token, desert, I think handicappers sometimes over-rate the top races because they take account of the historic rating average for the race in question. That means that you occasionally see a lower class horse that has chanced its arm in the big race earning a rating that it never gets anywhere near again back down in class.

Yes, this reminds me of a verbal spat I had with a very senior person at one of the places I worked. I had enough confidence in my own management skills to trust my staff to do certain things a certain way that suited their personalities but the people at the top questioned it and said something along the lines of 'that's not the way we do things, we have systems in place for doing things.'

Almost without thinking I snapped back, 'Are we masters of our systems or slaves to them?'

That shut them up and they left me alone at that point.

I think I've mentioned more than once that the handicappers appear [to me] to be slaves to their systems and that's how they came up with inflated ratings for the likes of Oath etc. They were allowing the historical ratings for the Derby to dictate what Oath should be rated, whereas it was an obviously duff renewal beforehand and that was borne out subsequently.

People who do their own figures are free to exercise their own judgment and to have faith in it. I don't mind when subsequent events prove me wrong. It's all part of the learning process.

(But I do mind being cheated.)

I think there's a difference between the big group races and the big handicaps, though. The former is where standardisation tends to be applied more often, rightly or wrongly.