RATINGS ARE NOT EASYAs someone who has been rating horses for public consideration for more than thirty years, I feel I can speak with some experience on the subject. Let me tell you, if you haven't guessed, that it is not easy.Every race differs. If the races were predictable repeaters, we'd be able to forecast more accurately how any horses that had met previously might go. However, all sorts of factors come into play. Of course there's the state of the track (and which track it is) and then t
RATINGS ARE NOT EASY
As someone who has been rating horses for public consideration for more than thirty years, I feel I can speak with some experience on the subject. Let me tell you, if you haven't guessed, that it is not easy.
Every race differs. If the races were predictable repeaters, we'd be able to forecast more accurately how any horses that had met previously might go. However, all sorts of factors come into play. Of course there's the state of the track (and which track it is) and then the barrier draws, the weights, the riders, etc etc... on and on with the variables.
My ratings are generic, as readers of PPM are aware, but they are an intended guide. I'm hoping for some insights from Roman that will assist me - as well as you- because there are always so many influences on my final assessments. I learnt the hard way, before computers. My teacher was the great, perhaps the greatest, of rating experts, Dick Whitford. He rated horses for The Sporting Life in Britain and besides having to make his assessments on every major meeting, he provided his disciples with a small annual handbook for one pound. It was an invaluable source of information and I still have mine.
I agree with Roman that the easiest and probably the safest way of providing a raw rating is to make it weight effective: so that the weight to be carried today is merely deducted from the rating figure, and the highest figure for the race is the nominated best chance. I focus mine so that I can be pretty sure we will be amongst the very best horses in weight for age and classic handicap/set weight races.
Yes, it seems to me that this is a very important project and one that will benefit all of us. On a personal level, I thought I might see how closely Roman and I agree on the ratings, and how far we differ. We can never have too many experienced opinions on something like this, so I'll keep watching and, like you, learning.