If every race was made a handicap what would the point of the top trainers putting
all that time into making a team you can win handicap races in league with gamebreds
its been done many times before.

there has to be a happy medium for everyone

the league has come forward light years when i first got involved (Maybe 10 years ago) there were no handicaps
and it was riddled with cheating a fair play trainer like me never stood a chance and i left quickly
when i came back for the so5 leagues it had all changed just look at the league now its such a great thing
yes nothings perfect but bare this in mind no matter what you come up with someone somewhere is going to
be unhappy you cant please everyone

just talking personally if it became a handicap league i would stay involved but would just throw a team
together without thought or dedication I would not spend the ridiculous amount of time it takes now just to be competitive
thats my own thoughts and i have always been one that wants the league to get better and better even over my own success.

just a quick look we have had 17 individual winning trainers in jumps and 17 in flat and thats after 3 weeks
if you could look at the tables from 10 years ago i doubt anyone out of the top 3 or 4 trainers had won a race
im all for changes to make things better but you need to be careful not to damage something thats very good

I apologise, maybe "blackmail" was too strong a word and maybe we should give Sirius the chance to prove whether his system will work or not. If it works then we have a new system for following years and if not we can look at somethng else.

I guess I was just annoyed at being handed a fait accompli.

Hi there, you propably don't know me since im not really active on the forums, it's my first season im playing and i got only trash horses if you wanna know

Anyway i think Sirius idea could be a good one, so here's how i think it could be put in place.

Of course it's not the perfect system, im open to discussion of course

Before starting just know that im french so the weights might be wrong since im used to talk in kilos

Races

As Sirius i think only handicap races will be the way to go, but we have to keep some fairness in it.

For each level you'll have an "index rating" as reference, and race will be open to horses wich are -20/+20 rating, the index rating of the race is giving the reference weight : 120lbs, then depending on your rating you will get +1 lbs per +1 rating over the index and same the other way.

Group 1 : 120 [100 - 140]
Group 2 : 110 [90 - 130]
Group 3 : 100 [80 - 120]
Listed : 80 [60 - 100]
Class 1 : 60 [40 - 80]
Class 2 : 40 [20 - 60]
Class 3 : 20 [0 - 40]

As you can see it's meaning that whatever horse you got you'll have almost always two race categories to run in.

Example :

Jojo Mojito, 50 rated horse

If he gets in a Class 2 race, he is over the reference index by 10 so he'll weight 130lbs
If he gets in a Class 1 race, he is under the reference index by 10 so he'll weight 110lbs

The purpose of this is having multiple races to run so you still have some strategy in your nominations even at lower levels but keeping some challenges on graded race with lower differences in rating. The main idea is having your horse moving through the differents classes during the season to mix the field and encounter horses in different weight condition over the season.

Handicapping

Here's where things gets interesting, i understand the ones who are up for a fully "human" based handicapping system but since it's a game and horses don't evolve during the season i think handicapping is what makes races differ a bit each week, especially for low level horses :

To use as a reference i'll take the first horse of the pack in the end of the race and then handicap from there :

1/2L in front of it = +1 Rating
1/2L in it's back = -1 Rating

In addition for non-graded races :

Winning a race = +5 Rating
Placed (2/3) = +2 Rating

Example :




This race is W3R9 Qipco Handicap, let's imagine we have to handicap this racing following the rules :

In this race we can see that Breaking Glass is the pack leader at the end of the race, he wont get any weight change.

Volunteer won by 4L 3/4 from Breaking Glass so he will have 5+10 = +15 rating from this race
Double Wide finished second by 3L from Breaking Glass so he will have 2+6 = +8 rating from this race
Wings of Desire finished third by 2L 3/4 from Breaking Glass so he will have 2+6 = +8 rating from this race
Dogend Download and Kosovo Girl finished less than 1L behind Breaking Glass so they wont get any weight change
Danedream finished 1L 3/4 behind Breaking Glass so he will have -4 rating from this race
Drug Super finished 2L 1/2 behind Breaking Glass so he will have -5 rating from this race
Exceedance finished 5L 1/4 behind Breaking Glass so he will have -11 rating from this race
Simply Dreaming finished 7L behind Breaking Glass so he will have -14 rating from this race


By chance the field of this race is close from what could be a Listed race level on my system, let’s see what the changes are doing :


Volunteer: 87 -> 102.
He made a good run and won easily, and had a rating a little over the index from the race so it’s seems logical that he has to go run some graded race

Double Wide: 95 -> 102.
He made a good run and could have beaten Volunteer if they were at same weight but still well beaten the others. It’s seems logical too that he has to enter graded race now.

Wings Of Desire: 94 -> 101.
Same.

Breaking Glass: 95 -> 95.
Made a fair run could go to upper level but still have access to listed race and might do something better since the others wont be there next race

Dogend Download: 70 -> 70.
Made a fair run too, he seems competitive at this weight in Listed but could try to go as a heavy weight in Class 1 and do better.

Kosovo Girl: 88 -> 88
Finished in the pack too, too high for class 1 and probably unable to win at a higher level I would run another time in listed to see what happens

Danedream: 73 -> 69.
Can race again in Listed but would be better in Class 1.

Drug Super: 95 -> 90
Weight has been probably too much, will be better on listed or could try a lightweight nomination in a graded race if he has the talent.

Exceedance: 71 -> 60
Had no chance should go in a lower level race

Simply Dreaming: 84 -> 70
Completely beaten, will do better in lower level


This example isn’t perfect since handicap ratings aren’t calculated same and today a shitty horse will have a 60 rating but I think it shows pretty much what it could be like. For me it allows even shitty horses to be competitive in lower classes while allowing good horses to go to better races.
Since if your horse got well beaten you can lose a lot of rating and get competitive right away in another class and if you win depending how you rating will evolve to allow you to run again in the same class with higher weight or try to get in a upper class with a lower weight. Plus when your horse is getting too high he can go down pretty fast without waiting the whole season.

This way I think everyone will be pleased.

Few things to talk about

I didn’t included age in my system, so let’s talk about it and how to integrate it into it.

Do you think having a 40 rating gap between the lower and the higher rating horse is too much ?

Do we keep graded races as handicap ? If we want elite horses running big race without having any handicap let's make graded race accessible for 100+ rated horses ?

Thanks for the ones who took the time to read it

I think we need to be cautious here, that we do not go too far in the other direction, yes there needs to be more competition for more trainers, but we should not discourage the pursuit of that next great horse. Yes I feel for those who are last frequently, last year I was one of them, this year is better, I have in three weeks smashed my achievements for the whole of last season (week 5 joiner) merely due to the bar being set so high..... the medium we need to strike should not punish those who sit at the top of the table.

Cannot speak for what motivates them or what motivates everyone else, but for me, that they are better than me just xxxxxxxx me off, motivating me to be better, we should not lose that along the road to giving more folks a taste of the winners circle. Just my humble opinion.

I think all maidens winners in the first 2 weeks should be rated between 120-125. Forget the name they are group 1 races.

I agree John!

And for the few horses that win maidens because they got lucky (or unlucky) with a weaker field - if we get the handicapping right then they will come back down to handicaps hopefully by week 5.

I also think we shouldn't go fully handicap - I like the Group races at set weights. We need the best of the best to test themselves at set weights!

I totally agree with John and Doug. The maidens in the early weeks are in effect G1 races and all handicap races are not the way to go.

I don't want to see a week 1 maiden winner given a handicap of 105, then entering a 0-110 handicap and winning again. A horse of this calibre is too good to run in handicap races. Even a horse that finished 3rd in a week 1 maiden is probably too good for handicap races and under this new system it could be given a handicap of less than 100.

Maybe we could give the winner of a week 1 maiden a handicap of 125 and the horse that finishes last a handicap of 65 and work all the other handicaps from these two starting points.

Winning any race is a good feeling, but winning a group race against the big boys is a great feeling and is something to aspire to. That is why I feel we need group races in the league.

No swearing here please mate there are kids that see these forums

The League without Groups won't never happen full stop we can never go just a handicap league it's design is to copy real racing I wish we could include sellers and Claimers but that would be a step to far Or is it lol I think a Min and Max rating Conditions Race or Handicaps we need to look at again Maidens races are group races if we Move Winter Derby and Spring Cup into week 2 then have two Maidens over those Distances and treat them all has Group Races and I like the suggestion for a 125 Rating for winners 65 for last and work our way from that or maybe Min of 70.

Gray

Apologies for that, few too many Stella's when that was posted.

totally agree with this 125 is spot on i personally dont run in hcapps except week 13 but then i am 1 of the try hards!

we all know the opening 2 week maidens are G1s and should be handicapped this way

Been there, done that lol

I think the league just has to keep tinkering til it balances.

If we can agree or acknowledge that the maidens in the first 2 weeks (more so week 1) really are large 'clean skin' Group 1s then I think we can work out the handicapping easier.

Then it's just the method of working out how we rate from there.

Agreeing on that method will be the harder part.

im a try hard trainer who needs to flippin TRY HARDER