Hi, I've tried to rank each race for this first week before putting marks in. Basically if Josh, Jim an Myself have a runner, the winner tends to start with a higher mark than any maidens without us in. The highest so far was 115 for a winner, but I think lowest mark for a winner was 95. I think this will suit the current league better than treating all maidens as 'top' races. Of course there'll be a few handicap blots in there, but I'm not sure anyone minds these in the early weeks for the lower handicaps. Any 1l gap in distances has also been treated with quite a jump in marks too. I'm finding this is helping in getting some lower marks early on in the season. Which should be about right I think.

I hope they look ok, but if anyone has any issues just put in the forum, happy to adjust anything I may have got wrong

Hi Vinny

Your system sounds good.

However, I think you may have been quite generous with some of my day 2 runners.

The three longer distance horses whose names start with "Lexicon" are probably handicapped about right, they are not very good but Classic Crusade, Druid Temple and maybe Island Surfer all ran weird races.
I am probably one of the few trainers who do this but every league horse is exported with specific race instructions to suit their best running style. None of the three horses mentioned above ran to their race instructions. I could be wrong but I think they are better than their h'caps.
Perhaps after they run next week they might give a better indication of their true h'cap.

I have still to watch the day 3 races but any of my horses that run on dirt will probably under perform so you might consider that with their h'caps.

Jim

Cheers Jim. I'll look out for them in week 2. The Dubai stuff will all be rated high anyway. Although none of the maidens have really been rated as group1 standard so far, bar maybe 1 or 2. Any runner in the Dubai races will be pretty hefty regardless of the run unfortunately. No other way to do these as it's likely everyones very best

Have a word!

14lb hike for a handicap win ?????

Cornish R38 cant be penalised like that just coz it started with a good mark from last season ?

Stu u have 1 point in the group championship so u now a big trainer, so u will be h'caped accordingly

Afraid so, 6L clear of the 4th horse Druids Temple, who was the horse I used to measure the race, an didn't change his mark of 84. It was a huge winning margin for 1st an then 2nd to 3rd too. Have to react if the winner wins comfortably, but if the 2nd is also miles clear of the rest, it's a double whammy sorry, especially with a slight change of distance from previous runnings

Cant agree with you here mate, disappointing.

Vinny used my horse Druids Temple as the benchmark.

He is not one of my better horses so far this season but I don't think any of my middle distance horses are duds. Taking the weights into consideration, beating one of my horses by such a big distance is an achievement.


Vinny put one of my horses up 40lbs from a poor week 1 race to winning a maiden in week 2. Maybe I need a stewards enquiry.

Jim

Some of us would just like a winner 0

As long as they go up and down then it shouldn't be a problem. It's when they go up and don't come down.

Maidens, I understand as those marks are there to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Just think its a lot of a jump for whatever reasoning is used, but it is, what it is and I dont have to agree

Vinny, I have never seen a flat horse rated at 133 before. I am not complaining, Druid Surfer has been magnificent so far. The h'cap doesn't make much difference to him as he will never be entered into h'cap races and if he goes into G2 or G3 races I think the weight penalty is a fixed one.

Yeah my thinking was this, never gonna run in H'cap, so the big graded horses I'll still try an put up as required. Carrying a penalty an beating horses rated in the 120s warrants it I think. Adds a bit more fun if we don't max out what the very best horses can get, an see what they achieve, rather than just leaving them on 130

I had a look and my Coigach got 138 , I'm mad she didn't get 140 . Bloody poor hcapper

lol i was temted John Thar was the best stayer ever seen.

Wish Martin stopped moaning about staying races lol old Git he's getting.

U were tough, she couldn't do any more than go unbeaten in 4 seasons.

She goes against Jims motto of only sending u best horses to the league. I put her in as a 7yo to try and win a 3rd Gold Cup but she was a long way behind my best Sergeyvich who beat her probably every time in my trials but when it mattered the most in the gold cup she beat him. She had the JuJu