Some ? from a novice

[swagman]

Hello all, hope to get some help from some experienced heads on here re: horse racing stats - in particular those found at the Racing Post. Been thinking for awhile about getting stuck into the horses and today thought I'd do a bit of reading up/acclimatisation. As a few people have recommended the Racing Post I thought I'd give it a visit today but was a bit disappointed that some of the stats are not better explained [although I realise they'll be no problem to anyone with at least a modicum of experience]. In particular I'm refering to the "Adjusted RPR","topspeed" and "BHA" ratings - I'll take each in turn to clarify any confusions. "Adj RPR" - I think I have this sorted but would like some verification. I realised that every point difference is 1lb in weight, this led me to the erroneous notion that [for example] if horse A was rated 70 and had weight 8 stone and horse B was rated 65 and weight 7 stone then horse B would have an advantage as is was only 5 rating points less but 14 lbs in weight less. In reality the weight carried is already taken into account in the rating and the rating difference is a measure of how far ahead the higher rated horse should finish [a sliding scale where 3lb = 1 length over 5f and 1lb = 1 length over 2m and upwards] - is this correct? "TS" - this better refer to Top Speed , if not I'll give up right now. I was making the same mistake with this as with the above rating but hopefully have this sorted now as well. The official "BHA" rating - the one causing me the most problems. I'm OK with the notion that in non handicaps the rating can be used just like the RPR. In handicaps i realise the highest rated should carry the most weight but it states that "in handicaps the weight adjusted official rating for each horse will be the same" which got me to assuming that for every point between 2 horses there would be a corresponding difference of 1lb in weight - I realise this is wrong on my part, so could someone please please clarify for me. Another thing with the official rating is the "fut" column - am I right in assuming that , for example, if -6 this means that the official rating would be 6 less that it is [eg if 56 for this race would be 50] if the race had not come along so quickly ? I hope the above makes sense and that someone can clarify things for me :hope

[BillyHills]

Re: Some ? from a novice Swagman, Hi, some points that may help; Handicap marks (BHA) and Ratings although revolve around the horses weight and ability are not totally the same thing. The handicapper does give the horse an official rating and its true that the make up of a handicap is determined by this Officail Rating, so a horse rated 70 will carry 2lbs more weight than a horse rated 68 and so on. The thing that may not be working out when looking at a race is the weight for age scale, the handicapper allows a certain number of lbs to younger horses at different times of the year (see the table in the second link) This can be confusing when looking at the OR in the Racing Post. Also when a horse has won and runs within a week it will have to carry a penalty, sometimes 6lbs or 7lbs, that is where you get the minus figure in the Post, what its saying is its Official Rating is actually 6lbs lower than what it is carrying today, more often than not by the time the next set of adjusments are published that horse has actually gone up more than the penalty, hence thats why they run them so quickly to try and take advantage of the handicapper. When working ratings out the sliding scale you mentioned does come into play, the distance of the race is critical here, as you rightly said over 5f its counted as more than 1lb for 1 length, over 1m6f its about like for like. If a horse is beaten 6lengths over 5f the handicapper is not going to drop his OR 6lbs, he may just drop it 2 for instance, if a horse is only beaten a length it will usually remain the same, its up to the official handicapper. Speed Ratings are a different animal all together because they take into account going and tracks against the Racing Post standard time. The Speed figures are usually what that horse has produced on optimum conditions, you just have to decide whether the horse is likely to reproduce them on that day? There are some sites that you could search for but its a science in itself. Have a look at the BHA site, the two links look at Handicapping and Ratings and have tables for the weight for age scale. Handicapping http://www.britishhorseracing.com/inside_horseracing/about/whatwedo/handicapping.asp Ratings http://www.britishhorseracing.com/inside_horseracing/media/ratings.asp