Handicapping of Irish horses at Cheltenham

[redandwhite]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were changes before next year. Irish trained horses won 50% of the handicaps with less than 25% of the runners. There was a similar bias last year. Some examples are:
1st and 2nd in the Pertemps with 5 of the 23 runners
1st in the Brown Advisory Plate with 2 of the 22 runners
2nd and 3rd in the Kim Muir with 3 of the 20 runners
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Martin Pipe with 9 of the 23 runners

 

[Kevloaf]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were changes before next year. Irish trained horses won 50% of the handicaps with less than 25% of the runners. There was a similar bias last year. Some examples are:
1st and 2nd in the Pertemps with 5 of the 23 runners
1st in the Brown Advisory Plate with 2 of the 22 runners
2nd and 3rd in the Kim Muir with 3 of the 20 runners
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Martin Pipe with 9 of the 23 runners

Do you think that is just reflective of the fact the Irish have better horses though?

They probably had a similar win % in graded races? As they have better horses?

I'm not sure what could be done other than give a blanket rating of 3lbs to start with on every horse and then add on from there...

If that happened, they'd be less inclined to bring them over and the game would lose out as a whole?


Interesting stats though, certainly paying to focus on the Irish horses most of the time!

 

[Scooby91]

I wouldn't be surprised if there were changes before next year. Irish trained horses won 50% of the handicaps with less than 25% of the runners. There was a similar bias last year. Some examples are:
1st and 2nd in the Pertemps with 5 of the 23 runners
1st in the Brown Advisory Plate with 2 of the 22 runners
2nd and 3rd in the Kim Muir with 3 of the 20 runners
1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the Martin Pipe with 9 of the 23

runners

I think it's as much the mind set of trainers. There were plenty of well handicapped English horses that went for the graded novice races. The likes of vision des flos.
if he was under Gordon elliot. Instead of winning his listed race losing his very lenient mark and going for the ballymore he'd have been kept fresh and gone straight for the county.

 

[somer1]

The late David Johnson came to the jump game as he couldnt afford to keep up with the price of flat horses.Is it a case of the Irish buying better horses?

 

[Istabraq]

I hold the view that Irish trainers are masters at hiding a horses true ability, I used to think that the Irish handicapper was incompetent but if trainers are deliberately running horses in unsuitable ground and/or over unsuitable distances it's difficult for him to get the mark right....

 

[redandwhite]

"Do you think that is just reflective of the fact the Irish have better horses though?"

I think you're missing the point of handicapping. On average, if you have a quarter of the runners in handicaps you would expect to win a quarter of the races if the handicapping is fair, not half the races.

 

[Scooby91]

The late David Johnson came to the jump game as he couldnt afford to keep up with the price of flat horses.Is it a case of the Irish buying better horses?

Not the case money wise as Venetian Williams spends fortunes in France.
Jonjo spends fortunes on ptp horses. You'd be very suprised if you looked through the registrations and sales.

Willie mullins Harold kirk and Pierre boullard have an exceptional relationship with venders however And will be recommended horses.

 

[Johar]

I think it's as much the mind set of trainers. There were plenty of well handicapped English horses that went for the graded novice races. The likes of vision des flos.
if he was under Gordon elliot. Instead of winning his listed race losing his very lenient mark and going for the ballymore he'd have been kept fresh and gone straight for the county.

I agree, but I think it also may be due to the fact that Mullins and Elliott just have so many of the good horses. Using The Storyteller as an example, if any other trainer had it I'm sure they'd have aimed him at one of the graded novice chases as he was good enough to contest them. However, as Elliott already had other graded level novice chasers it may have pushed him into thinking where else he could run...

Obviously there's nothing to stop English trainers doing that, but the sheer amount of Cheltenham-quality horses both Mullins and Elliot have probably pushes them to look for other opportunities for all their horses.

 

[Folski]

"Do you think that is just reflective of the fact the Irish have better horses though?"

I think you're missing the point of handicapping. On average, if you have a quarter of the runners in handicaps you would expect to win a quarter of the races if the handicapping is fair, not half the races.

In theory of course but in practice?

Unexposed horses/younger horses tend to win handicaps, exposed horses do not tend to.

 

[redandwhite]

Also, you have to take into account the Irish handicapper may be lenient to the better horses. It needs looking into. Ireland may have the better horses but that seems a bit simplistic when British trained horses won the three best races.

 

[redandwhite]

Maybe the Irish stewards are too lenient with non-triers and horses not running to gain the best possible placing. I can see there are legitimate ways to deceive the handicapper (wrong trip, unsuitable ground) but I don't believe Irish trainers would be better at exploiting that than British trainers. I think that would be an insult to their intelligence. This is clearly a complex issue but the figures show it needs to be investigated.

 

[Kevloaf]

"Do you think that is just reflective of the fact the Irish have better horses though?"

I think you're missing the point of handicapping. On average, if you have a quarter of the runners in handicaps you would expect to win a quarter of the races if the handicapping is fair, not half the races.

I'm not missing the point of handicapping at all.

The sample size of ten races is no where near enough to justify the "bias"

You couldn't have 2.5 horses win this year.

On average British handicappers win more flat sprint handicaps in Ireland as a percentage ... should that be addressed?



"The figures show it needs to be investigated"

Really? The figures based on 10 or 20 handicaps one week a year?
I think you're over analysing it

Not to mention if you believe there is a bias doesn't it narrow the field for you and make punting easier?

 

[Kevloaf]

The Irish have less races to choose from too. So running them in the 'right races' could be harder? Less options ...

Will certainly be an element of hiding a mark but they still have to be high enough to get in.


Also, the British didn't have enough to fill the Ultima. A 3 mile handicap chase... maybe the problem ous that the British handicapper is rating the British horses too highly :highly_amused:

 

[MrMcGoldrick]

One problem is that very few British horses travel to Ireland but plenty go the other way. If more British trainers sent horses to key meetings over there in between running them in the UK it would give the handicapper more opportunity to assess the relative form.

 

[Hurricane fly]

One problem is that very few British horses travel to Ireland but plenty go the other way. If more British trainers sent horses to key meetings over there in between running them in the UK it would give the handicapper more opportunity to assess the relative form.

Totally agree.

I think it’s a monumental shame that Nicholls, Henderson etc. Don’t send more over to the festivals in Ireland. It would have been great to see more at the Dublin’s festival or travel over to Punchestown to end the year.

 

[archie]

A pound or two makes no difference either way and has less effect than a single poor jump.

 

[Liammet]

Willie Mullins and Gordon Elliott are the best trainers around
Huge amount of English based owners flocking to them for that reason
Wylie,Ricci,o Sullivan,bloom,Bradley,Potts,Munir and others
Can't see anything changing in near future
The volume of horses they have lends itself to running graded horses in handicaps
There is nothing new in Irish trainers hiding a horses mark for a handicap plot
It has always been the case
As long as the top owners have their horses housed here these two will dominate cheltenham festival races for years to come

 

[cwright23]

From a punting point of view if it gives us an edge then why not? Next year when we pick apart the handicaps start with the Irish and if they only have a small % of the field won’t take as long.. I saw a post earlier about the fact English trainers never send horses over for the Irish festivals which amazes me.. surely nicholls and hendo could land some big prizes over there.. I wonder if the trainers championship on home soil may be in there mind set

 

[Montjeu]

I think the sheer volume of races in Britain is detrimental to their chances. Trainers have far more options with regards to where they run their horses compared to trainers in Ireland. This leads to British horses running in less competitive races throughout the year, resulting in a large number of inflated marks.

Irish trainers on the other hand have far less options available to them, forcing them to run their horses in more competitive affairs. This results in horses getting lenient marks for finishing down the field in high quality races. The Storyteller running in the Flogas being the perfect example. Mall Dini (I know he didn't win) running against Presenting Percy and Invitation Only another good example. Those runs should have been marked up purely because of the quality of the opposition.

The whole thing results in a large number of English horses running off inflated marks that they probably did not deserve, and a much smaller number of Irish horses running off high marks that only serves to hide the true ability of the horses that ran in behind them.

 

[Quevega]

The overriding factor has been stated by many on here. The Irish have (on the whole) the best owners, trainers, jockeys and Horses.

The way a novice chaser in the UK effectively begins it's career on the same mark as it's hurdle rating is one factor where I believe the Irish have an edge (as the Irish novice chasers start officially from scratch (kind of)). If you assume that the last hurdle rating for an improving hurdler is going to be it's highest more often than not. It is easy to see how the better novice chasers in the UK can end up on relatively high marks.

But as some others have said on here already, I think that the British Handicapper has slowly edged up the ratings somehow and the vast majority of British horses are a little bit inflated.
It's no coincidence that more and more novices (especially over hurdles) are winning the big handicaps these days. As the handicapper has not had it's chance to put it above 150 into the needs to be graded class levels.

I think one area I've seen in recent times is where a lower graded horse runs relatively well against a higher rated horse and end up getting penalised heavily, when a more realistic upgrade would seem fairer. An example of this would be Speredek going up 19lbs (135 to 154) for finishing 7l behind Un de Sceaux 162, but beating Kylemore Lough 154 by 14l, San Benedeto 157 40l and Brain Power 157 Fell.

That race is as good an example as any, as apart from Un De Sceaux, it's hard to argue any of the others are much above 150 based on overall form.