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A horse's handicap mark going into a race is history; it's the level of form they showed when producing the actual time being rated that's important. You wouldn't want to depress the ratings across a card because you're keying off the old OR of some Mark Prescott yoke who got his mark running over the wrong distance, would you?

Given that its in the official handicapper's interest not to under-rate horses, especially in handicaps, using their new mark is actually more likely to inflate the time ratings of other races. For example, when a horse wins a handicap easily and the handicapper rates the bare form, and then adds a few pounds on top of the winner's rating. However, with close inspection of the new ratings given to the placed horses (who usually go up by a pound or two also) you can usually figure out how the official handicapper rated the bare form, and go with that instead.

Really? I'd bet the Racing Post use the form ratings (RPRs) achieved in the race itself as a starting point for their Topspeed ratings, rather than whatever they had the winner's rated at before the race.