As everyone knows the game will do the handicapping for this season. The only issue the game has is the first week Maidens winners aren't rated high enough. The rest of the handicapping is ok enough

Typically a winner will go to 85 maybe a bit higher.

However there is a solution to this and that is to run all the maidens in week 1 and 2 ( NH and flat ) on non - uk courses. Winning maidens will then be in the 95 to 98 bracket for the flat which is much more acceptable for the league.

Any objections to this and if not can I get some suggestions for course swaps . A lot of foreign courses have no draw bias like Longchamp so that would be ok but post suggestions below for both NH and flat so I can swap all the maidens

Australian courses are probably a no go as draw bias is too pronounced. Japan Ireland and France are probably best for this ( possibly Germany as well )

NH would be Irish and French courses

I think Longchamp is a dog of a track. Use the Curragh a lot, all horses get a chance and u can run 30 plus there and everyone is equal. All US tracks are out, I've turned Newcastle AW into a US dirt track and run all my trials there. I'm sure king of courses Gray could turn Newmarket into a foreign track and that way everyone is equal. I'm not sure there are any French jump courses that could be used to run big fields. Most overseas courses can't handle big fields, the turns are normally to sharp.

I am dreading having no handicapper you can see Group Horses running in Lincoln, all the big handicap Royal Ascot meetings etc.

Gray

Solution someone Handicapping first two weeks ?

Gray

It will be very hard with new ai system in pace for manual handicapping to happen. League ran for years without handicapping. Non uk courses pushes up rating dramatically 20 points or more for winning a maiden should make a difference

Would it make any difference if you didn't run them as maidens but ran them as conditions races instead, or how about a handicap with all horses starting on the same mark. Mark to be determined by running a few test races. Could be 75, could be 85 or even 90 depending on how much it moves them after.

best is no uk courses because winners go up 20 rating points. So we can only set to 75 80 or 90 At 90 ( winners are 110 ) but bottom horses stay around 90 ( they will drop when on non uk courses )

80 winner goes to round 100 top 6 all in 90s bottom horses stay 80 ( will drop when in uk maidens etc )


NH Ireland courses work well start rating 120 is best

Winner goes to 140 placed horse in 130s

bottom horse drop close to 110

My suggestion is flat start 80 (08 changes all horses to 80 ) Nh start 120 (12 ) changes all horses to 120 )

Game handicapping is ok, but it always felt quite slow to move ratings so I would think whatever we do there will be accessible handicaps for those who should not be in them, least for the first few weeks. Could just tell the AI to punish the usual suspect by x number for week one.

But there will always be the odd slip, I had an eventual g1 winner running handicaps for the first few weeks last season.

The only thing that can be done is to put in place rules that u can't run in hcaps until a certain week if u got placed say top 4 in maiden's.

The test races I ran gives a 30 point spread between winner and last horse if run on a non uk course as opposed to about a 12 point spread on a uk course . The 30 point spread should be good enough to a help stop maiden winners winning in handicaps easily and secondly give last pace finishes a much better chance than the 12 point spread you get in uk races ( sometimes this is only 8 points which is laughable in the league 30 points is much better but requires changing all maidens in week 1 NH and flat to most likely mainly Irish courses ( I will remove all draw bias from these courses )

If I can get suggestions for courses I will change all the maidens in week 1 and 2 to non uk courses