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Handicapping of Irish horses at Cheltenham

Montjeu said:
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.
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I think you raise some very good points with this and I think no horse advertises this better than Buveur D'Air in the Champion. I can't have Melon and Mick Jazz as close to him as they have actually ran on Tuesday and I think this comes down to the prep Buveur D'Air had. I am certain Nicky Henderson will change its racing program next year as I think they have got as close as they have due to the horse not having a serious racecourse blow out. Clearly the best horse in the field and it was not that far from getting turned over, even if some believe Melon to be very talented, I cant have Mick Jazz only 2L further back. I think they will almost certainly take in the Dublin festival on route next year, providing the horse is fit and well.
 
quevega said:
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.
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Yep agree with these comments too.Double Shuffle another obvious example. We all know its rating is hugely inflated now after the 2nd in King George.
 
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Westo97 said:
Yep agree with these comments too.Double Shuffle another obvious example. We all know its rating is hugely inflated now after the 2nd in King George.
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Not sure about DS, finished second in the King George to the Gold cup runner up, does that not frank the form? Could have been a fluke, but we take form lines through horses running against each other, so until DS runs again I would say the form looks fairly solid, if he flops next time out you can say it wasn't right, but difficult beforehand unless you discount the MB run at Christmas and look at the likes of Tea for two, but then again everything bar the first two struggled to go the pace in the ground
 
I don't know if it has already been factored in within this thread, but regardless of how well a horse is handicapped the ground for this years festival would have played into the strengths of the Irish contingent more so than the British lot, as that is the majority of what they have been racing on for a lot of their meetings in the build up to the festival.

Paul Nicholls, being one of the top British trainers, come out and said regarding his lot that most of them would have preferred 'better ground', so weight would have been irrelevant to a degree, if a horse doesn't act on the soft/heavy if wouldn't matter one bit IMO.

For this festival alone, to suggest the handicap is out I'd be taking with a pinch of salt. Happy to re-assess next season IF we get better ground.

Horses are not handicapped based on the 'going', yet it can have the biggest effect on a performance.
 
MrMcGoldrick said:
Not sure about DS, finished second in the King George to the Gold cup runner up, does that not frank the form? Could have been a fluke, but we take form lines through horses running against each other, so until DS runs again I would say the form looks fairly solid, if he flops next time out you can say it wasn't right, but difficult beforehand unless you discount the MB run at Christmas and look at the likes of Tea for two, but then again everything bar the first two struggled to go the pace in the ground
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Fair point in that it has not run since. Personally, I cannot see it running to anything like that mark again, possibly with the exception of around Kempton where it clearly shows its best.
Anywhere else, I suspect it will be 10-15lbs behind its official mark. However, i accept until proven either way its open to debate.
 
Better prize-money and moderate training fees were certainly part of my decision to go with Supreme. After 22 runs since the start of this NH season (none in handicaps!), 'my' horses have picked up prize-money of over £1000 on 17 occasions to a total in excess of £130k. While it's still hard to make a profit without spending big bucks (I think that my most expensive horse was £80k), it certainly helps that we have a sporting chance of at least winning race-day expenses.
 
I heard a proposal some years ago about closing half the UKs courses and having less, but better quality racing, with higher prize money.
I thought the idea had merit but when you consider the reliance local communities have on some of the smaller tracks you big to understand the chaos that would ensue if they were closed, just about every retail outlet relies on racing custom.

I personally think too much is made of the UK v Ireland battle at Cheltenham, as a racing fan I want to see the best horses compete and perform to the best of their ability and it doesn't really concern me where they're from, it's strange the 3 big championship races went to UK horses though....
 
Maybe its just a case of all the good irish horses get divided up between just 2 training operations ,mullins and Elliott, whilst in the uk there are dozens of top trainers...Henderson,Nicholls,Skelton,McCain,Hobbs,King,NTD,Mulholland,Tizzard,Greatrex,T George,Fry,F O'Briem Etc...If all of those yards were compressed into just two then i'm sure the shoe would be on the other foot...So many good irish trainers have been squeezed out recently, Swan, Colm, Sandra Hughes..it cant be healthy..
 
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