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Road to the 2022 Champion Hurdle

Tanlic said:
So why even mention an allowance if it has no significance?
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Because the allowance is significant, but it does not bestow an advantage. What it does do is remove a disadvantage and allow her to compete on a level playing field with the males.
 
barjon said:
Because the allowance is significant, but it does not bestow an advantage. What it does do is remove a disadvantage and allow her to compete on a level playing field with the males.
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So why when rating her does the hadicapper almost always take into consideration she was getting 7 lbs

Sharjah beaten 6 1/2 lengths by another male would have seen him being rated 170 so why not she?
 
The 7bs is supposed to be a leveller not an excuse to reduce ratings.

Don't you get it.2 mares in 89 year of the old allowance have won the race......So it is agreed supposidly by all in racing mares should get 7lbs

Then when she wins the handiacapper take the 7 lbs off her rating....It does not get any more stupid than that iMO
 
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Tanlic said:
The 7bs is supposed to be a leveller not an excuse to reduce ratings.

Don't you get it.2 mares in 89 year of the old allowance have won the race......So it is agreed supposidly by all in racing mares should get 7lbs

Then when she wins the handiacapper take the 7 lbs off her rating....It does not get any more stupid than that iMO
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The allowance is a leveller in terms of permitting Mares to compete on an equal footing against Geldings, but that has fu*ck-all to do with how they are rated.

Christ.
 
I'm reminded of a discussion I once had with a mature student about a simple issue in Spanish grammar.

He had a complete mental block about it and no amount of alternative explanations could chip away at the block.

I eventually tried to explain to him in a round about way that he should just ignore the whole thing because if it was the only mistake he made in an exam or in speaking Spanish to anyone it wouldn't cause him to fail or impact seriously on communication.

And that's pretty much how we left it.

But all the while inside my head I'm saying 'how obtuse can this guy get?'

Eventually he packed it in. He kept going back to it and it did his head in, I think.
 
To me I don't even look at the weights in a Champion Hurdle because by all intents and purposes they are all racing off level pegging male or female

That is until it comes to rating and the handicapper whips 7 lbs right off the mare.

So don't tell me it's got nothing to do with how he rates them.
 
Tanlic said:
To me I don't even look at the weights in a Champion Hurdle because by all intents and purposes they are all racing off level pegging male or female

That is until it comes to rating and the handicapper whips 7 lbs right off the mare.

So don't tell me it's got nothing to do with how he rates them.
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This is just more drivel. Give it up, FFS.
 
Tanlic said:
To me I don't even look at the weights in a Champion Hurdle because by all intents and purposes they are all racing off level pegging male or female

That is until it comes to rating and the handicapper whips 7 lbs right off the mare.

So don't tell me it's got nothing to do with how he rates them.
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“Fillies and mares do effectively get the allowance in handicaps, it's just built into their handicap rating, as opposed to being stated in the conditions.” That’s why the handicapper knocks it off.
 
Now for Honeysuckle is the RP website headline...........:blink: Tom Lacey has won nothing until now in 5 years and suddenly wires have sprouted out his head all the way to the moon.

Of course what choice will he have despite what he beat the handicapper will no doubt murder him...I think we just saw the end of a good career for the next few years today.
 
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I think we’re agreed she’s the best we’ve seen since the one and only Fly (Tanlic, don’t be using his Cheltenham performance to assess him when Leopardstown was his domain). Such horses don’t appear too often and need to be enjoyed.
 
Grey said:
I think we’re agreed she’s the best we’ve seen since the one and only Fly (Tanlic, don’t be using his Cheltenham performance to assess him when Leopardstown was his domain). Such horses don’t appear too often and need to be enjoyed.
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How on earth do you compare Champion Hurdle winners if you don't compare their Champion Hurdle performances? I think she's the best we have seen since Istabraq and wouldn't have seen Hurricane Fly in her way in a Champion Hurdle...you can run around Ireland all you want stating your the best but not until you cross the water and prove it at Cheltenham. Hurricane Fly did that not once but twice but it also provided us with enough evidence to suggest as far as Champion Hurdlers go he was nowhere near the best. Only Faughen would merit anyone challenging her on that score imvho
 
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One set of ratings I have often debated are the timeform Top-rated Thoroughbreds on hurdle and Chase courses

One I could never work out was how did Faugheen end up with a 171 and Hurricane Fly get a 173 and the only conclusion I can come to
is the horses the latter beat were rated higher than they should have been which has been aproblem with ratings since the day they were invented.

Faugheen did at the end of the day end up rated higher but despite him clocking an exceptional time of 3m 50.90s compared to Hurricane Fly's
who's best performance which was on good ground clocked 3m 53.71s

Mabe TIME form forgot their pocket watch that day.:whistle:

This is why I have problems with ratings.

for example a Horse wins the Arkle so he must be a 162 horse, never mind he beat a bunch of trash,
Along comes another horse and beats him by 10 lengths and suddenly he's a 168 horse but in reality the first horse was never a 162 horse to begin with

It's just all too much robotized IMO it's not all "Arkle winners" are equal but lets just bump them all up anyway.

I was never that big a fan of Hurricane Fly and if you ever have the time playback his second win in the Champion Hurdle
it took him 4 seconds longer than it took Honeysuckle to cover exactly the same distance from the 2nd last and the time of the supreme winners back up that the ground was not that different
That is the equivilant of 16 lengths so please excuse me if I don't agree shes the best since a horse who was never the best cateegory in the first place

I know I am repeating myself but no one has come forward to contest these facts but some seem to disagree with me just for the sake of it
 
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HawkWing said:
Espoir d'allen best since hurricane fly?

Just to put cat among pigeons
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If there was such a thing as soft/heavy ground it was that day and despite a slow time overall

Espoir D'Allen covered the last 2 to the winning post in a remarakably fast time of 42 seconds despite ground best reserved for tractors.

Sadly we will never know how good he could have turned out to be but he certainly deserves the praise as one of the best CH hurdle winners over the last 10 years.
 
Tanlic said:
I know I am repeating myself but no one has come forward to contest these facts but some seem to disagree with me just for the sake of it
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Your application of the clock appears to be as rudimentary and flawed as your understanding of how ratings are derived. That being the case, there is little point in trying to ‘contest’ anything with you.

Insofar as your argument against Hurricane Fly is concerned, and the level of competition he faced, he beat something in the order of 18 different horses who had all won a Grade 1 hurdle over 2miles; including four other Champion Hurdlers. Contrast that with Honeysuckle, who has beaten 6 other winners of Grade 1 races over 2m (one of whom was a Champion Hurdler - Eptante).

If you’d like a slightly different comparison, the open Grade 1 scores are currently HF = 19, Honeysuckle = 8, though I have no doubt Honeysuckle will increase that number before she retires.

I don’t mention any of this to run-down Honeysuckle, but rather to show the emptinesses of an argument promoted by someone who in one breath questions the quality of horses Hurricane Fly beat in his illustrious career, and in the next, speaks of Honeysuckle’s “greatness” in comparison.

I am a bit of a fundamentalist when it comes to Hurricane Fly, I freely concede…..but part of the reason for that, is my need to defend a truly great hurdler, from the erroneous opinion of clowns with axes to grind.
 
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Tanlic said:
I was never that big a fan of Hurricane Fly and if you ever have the time playback his second win in the Champion Hurdle
it took him 4 seconds longer than it took Honeysuckle to cover exactly the same distance from the 2nd last and the time of the supreme winners back up that the ground was not that different
That is the equivilant of 16 lengths so please excuse me if I don't agree shes the best since a horse who was never the best category in the first place
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Such considerations are odious, unless pace is taken account of. All that 4 seconds demonstrates is there was stronger pace earlier in the HF race.
 
reet hard said:
Such considerations are odious, unless pace is taken account of. All that 4 seconds demonstrates is there was stronger pace earlier in the HF race.
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You assume Reet but it clearly you did not check the facts. I don't mean to offend but way too many people just assume and don't check the facts.

It clearly was not the case as Hurricane Fly clocked a time of 3m 59.35s while Champagne Fever clock at time almost 4 seconds faster an hour earlier 3m 55.60s in the Supreme.

From the 2nd last Champagne Fever hit the line in 38 Seconds Hurricane Fly hit the line in 41 seconds so cleraly Hurrcane Fly matched strides with those in the Supreme but just didn't have the toe to go with them in the latter stage of the races.
 
Grasshopper said:
Faugheen is the best Champion Hurdler since Hurricane Fly, and it’s not even close.
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I can't be arsed checking through the RP form - I can't look back through my old annotated form books as I binned them all in the house move - but I think we should clarify what we're discussing.

Are we talking about which is/was the best on overall form?

Which was the best winning performance in a Cheltenham/Irish(/Scottish :p) Champion Hurdle?

Which was the best overall but which also ran (without necessarily winning) in a Champion Hurdle?

Thank God we're not going back beyond Hurricane Fly :)
 

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