Weight V Class

Put that book away.

Years out of date - and a work of fiction, promoted by the Letters page of the Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book... to sell copies of that publication, and the myth continued in perpetuity by the former Letters Editor of said publication - even into his long since retirement.

The current Race Class numerations were NOT in place in those days ....

- and his, and others, definitions of 'Class' are but only in the mind of the beholder.

One persons pronouncement of a 'top Class horse' because it always finishes 2nd or 3rd in Group 2 or Group 3 races (albeit it at one-pace) ...... is another person's idea of a 'dodgepot', to be avoided at all costs for Punting purposes.....
But the Trainer and Owner will think, and pronounce it as, a 'Class horse' - because they get the good 2nd and 3rd Place Prize-Monies  ... whereas the Punter 'does his dough'.

With regards to Handicap races ....

Your question is unanswerable  - Because the Handicapping methodology does NOT work like that

Forget about class for a minute. The weights carried are determined by each horse's official rating (or "handicap mark") with adjustments for age, sex, penalties and so on.

Now back to class. The class of a race depends on the ratings of the horses in it, and this is largely a factor of its entry conditions and prize money.

So to answer your question, no allowance is given for a horse stepping up in class.

VDW (iirc) used prize money to measure class of races. A more accurate measure would involve looking at the ratings of all of the runners in all of the races, which is clearly a lot of work, hence using prize money as an easy class marker. An even easier one now, which was not available in VDW's day, is the official BHA race class.

be wary of class mr-man, the top-rated horse in a class 3 (for example) will not necessarily have a better OR than the top-rated horse in a class 4.

thanks guys for your advice , still think VDW was a master at picking winners ... 29 winners out of 32 races !!!!

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Surely as a general rule, the higher the prize money the stronger the form?

I'm trying to work out if a horse steps up in class in a handicap what weight allowance should he recieve from the other horses in that class

What if they are all stepping up in class?

The mistake here is that people are trying to find winners purely using ratings.

If you want to learn what to look for when trying to find winners, you have to start somewhere, and VDW gave out plenty of pointers.  They're there all right, particularly in his later articles and who ever wrote them knew their stuff.

What the knockers of VDW rarely do is submit anything of value themselves.

over 600 pages on this subject here

http://uk-betting-tips.co.uk/showthread.
php/10415-Van-der-Wheil

Flat
5f:         3lbs per length
6f:         2.5lbs per length
7f-8f:        2lbs per length
9-10f:        1.75lbs per length
11-13f:        1.5lbs per length
14f:        1.25lbs per length
15f+:        1lb per length

Jump
1lb per length is used in most instances except over very long distances or on very testing ground.

Hope this helps!

^ NO - It WON'T

An AWFUL scale.

Without collateral form you may choose to use between 2-3 lenths per class with use of above chart. i use 3 lenths  for a guide only.

onlooker This is official!

There is also the theory that weight cannot be factored in a as a significant variable in the calculation of race horse velocity.

Weight has got to matter, the racing authorities have been at it long enough to know what they're doing by now regarding that. The whole racing structure revolves around weight.
Nevertheless I believe trainers fear a rise in class for their horses more than them giving weight away in their own grade.

Weight can be overcome, but it's not so easy to win in a higher grade.

re: Weight has got to matter, the racing authorities have been at it long enough to know what they're doing by now regarding that. The whole racing structure revolves around weight.
Nevertheless I believe trainers fear a rise in class for their horses more than them giving weight away in their own grade.


well said Dr Crippen.  It's not as simple as +/- weight, in hcaps it's about +/- relative to the weight carried by the rest of the runners... (not forgetting OR changes)... and that's where the hard work starts
.

the importante of weigt carried in horseracing is vastly overstated in my opinion

Tell that to Luca!

Weight matters. This was proved by Sir Isaac Newton. HTH.

class outweighs weight,the balance of the time imo, every horse judged according to the variables of form.

re: class outweighs weight,the balance of the time imo, every horse judged according to the variables of form.

Does it though RR46?  You can have two previous races a class apart where the top-rated horse in those races may well have the same OR.  If the horses you're comparing today ran in those races but one carried top-weight and the other bottom-weight...

class certainly doesn't outweigh weight in that case.

you just confused yourself,surely if they have the same rating, then carrying the same weight.
thought it was weight v class, just answered his post.goodluck works for me.

no rr46, not confused, because the bottom-weight/OR could be only one lower than the top-rated OR, or -20 lower (no limit if you're looking at long handicaps).

That's why hcaps are so difficult - because even the -20 OR horse, could in theory, be the second top-rated horse in the race. I admit it's unlikely, but it's not impossible.

yes yeayeawhatever

example of where weight comes into play

9-Jan-2013, Ludlow, 1:20
Horses:
o'callaghan
last shot

LTO they ran in same race and finished 2nd & 3rd (only a nk apart though). Same OR today, no claims this time or LTO, but today they finish 2nd and 5th....

I never claimed weight doesnt matter,just said class outweighs weight in the big picture,
talking about 20 runner fields at the big meetings, then you get 3year olds with low weights
who are open to improvement thus outperforming their mark. every race has its on variables,
that's mainly the horses running.nobody knows how well a horse will perform,all you got is
the formbook and your judgement.

yeahyeahwhatever sometimes it goes like that and sometimes it goes the other way, a lot of other variables are way more important than weight carried

k02:  I know the result went against the odds (6.5 did better than 3.75F), but I thought it should have worked out as it did.

take real Madrid they thrashed valencia tonight,now they play again at the same venue in 3 days time
against the same opponents,in your opinion will they beat them again ?

Footy Forum ...... < to your Left

re:take real Madrid they thrashed valencia tonight,now they play again at the same venue in 3 days time
against the same opponents,in your opinion will they beat them again ?


well, I don't do football - but I'll have a bash - if you can answer the following:

Is it the same type of match (friendly, non-friendly etc)?
Have there been any injuries?
Are the teams exactly the same?
Is the going the same? ***
Were all the goals scored in the "proper" way and not through extraTime/penalties/people falling over/being in the wrong corner/ownGoals etc?

if the answers are yes - then I would expect the same result


*** ha ha

got yourself a bet then. goodluck

In reply to Dr Crippen:

In a laboratory conditions weight will play it's part, however in the environment of racing a few pounds is not a real significant factor in changing  the out come of a race.   Nor is process of assigning lbs to lengths an accurate measurement, as the impact will vary significantly from one horse to the next.

More importantly, the industry is more obsessed with what the animal carries, than what the horse weights.

Is a 6lb rise going to stop a horse weighing 1,400 pounds running the same performance on Friday as it did on the previous Tuesday if it is in the exact same condition?

it never is the same condition, there are no two races the same.

Of course that`s true Front- runner

But if the horse was in the same condition does the extra 6lb actually effect it`s performance?

If you ran the same race again against the same horses it had beaten 2L and put another 6lb on to the horse. Would you expect the 6lb to make a difference to the result if the horse was in the same fettle?

Does the 6lb affect performance? Take three bags of sugar to the next grand prix and ask Lewis Hamilton if he'd mind sticking them in his car.

He'd refuse of course, because the F1 teams have measured precisely how much a car is slowed by every ounce of petrol.

Weight counts. Other things matter too, but that does not mean weight has no effect.

Does the 6lb affect performance? Take three bags of sugar to the next grand prix and ask Lewis Hamilton if he'd mind sticking them in his car.

He'd refuse of course, because the F1 teams have measured precisely how much a car is slowed by every ounce of petrol.

Weight counts. Other things matter too, but that does not mean weight has no effect.

Yes in hypothetical terms if the identical conditions could be replicated,  the weight will have an impact. But  range of impact varies massively from one horse to the next, that is,  no two horses are identical. So to assign a universal value to weight for all  is mathematically and scientifically flawed.

In practical day to day  application for  the prediction of race results, the loss or gain of a few  pounds is  an underlay in my book ! 

Yes in hypothetical terms if the identical conditions could be replicated,  the weight will have an impact. But  range of impact varies massively from one horse to the next, that is,  no two horses are identical. So to assign a universal value to weight for all  is mathematically and scientifically flawed.

In practical day to day  application for  the prediction of race results, the loss or gain of a few  pounds is  an underlay in my book ! 

Not sure what happened there to cause the double post.

My opinion is that a horse winning in a particular class against the same standard of animals is more likely to have more to give and the increase in weight is not as significant as the increase in class( ratings not just grade)

Using a computer and working on the principle of lengths your question I had to tackle straight away
as you have to make allowances for class and weight of course.

My findings are slightly different to the mainstream concepts in that I find that testing for the best settings
to find more winners over thousands of races gives me the following results on the flat.

5 pound a length is correct but for 12 furlongs and not a mile so it would be less for any lesser distance
such that for a sprint it might be much less of a problem with weight not effecting the result, thus
many top weights win sprints and the handicap system has little effect.

For class I take or add 2 lengths for drops and raises in class which seems alot but class makes more difference
according to my research than does weight.

using logic ask yourself this question, why do you see more horses running at different weights but rarely do they
attempt a big drop in class of say 2 levels?

Horses that do try taking on higher class racing espically over the sticks end up as tail end charlies on average
and come up sometime 30 lengths or 150 pound out

actually if it were say 24 furlongs then its 2 lengths for every 5 pound thus if a horse
was raised 2 levels of class it would be (4 lengths x 2 )= 8 lengths out on class plus what ever
on weights .

I adjust the class also on the 12 furlong principle and indeed the majority of thouroughbred
breeding centres around middle distance bloodlines which is 12 furlongs.

Heres another clue to class poundage that I quickly conceived....

Fact one
Flat offical marks start at say 50 and go all the way up to 140 plus for the fastest horses as we know
thus the range is say 90 points of variation.

Fact 2
We have 7 levels of class from sellers to group one racing, this gives us 6 levels of movement possible up or down.

Fact 3

At 12 fulongs we get a length for every 5 pound of allowance or rating.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion 1

90 points of variation in class in officail ratings divided by 6 possible movements in level
gives 90 diveded by 6 equals 15 points or 15 pound or 3 lengths per class move.

Conclusion 2

Though we can estimate 3 lenghts per class drop this figure is a little bit big and in fairness
the lowest marked horses will probably fail to win even a seller and the top marked horses like
Frankel are unbeatable in any class, thus inline with my personal test a figure between 2 and 3
lenghts is more accurate for class drops and I personally set it to 2 lengths so as not to create too much
variance in estimates.

The fact that the racing authorities have settled on a set of weights or penalties after years of studying the issue, shows that they think that the current penalties are doing their job.
If not surely they would increase them?

A couple of decades or so ago it was decided by the jockey club and by some race rating compilers that the allowances that three year olds were receiving against the older horses was too generous - so they reduced them. These people know what they're doing.

On occasions I've heard trainers mention how difficult it is to win a novice hurdle with a horse who's carrying a penalty.
Note the number of novices that can only manage to win once in that grade, although there can be other reasons as well. ( There's a lot to think about there.)

Allotting weight for lengths is obviously flawed, but how else can they do it?

Good point Dr Crippen, the biggest problem with weights is that horses all manage differently to carry
different weights and also when a horse is running at its highest weight, any extra weight has a much grosser
effect than it would if it were on a lower weight.

Also when horses are running on a genoriuesly low mark it doesnt always meann they have a bigger advantage
as they probalbly might not even win without the weight of the jockey as they might not have the legs to win

Weight stops trains.

so also can a few leaves

Hahaha! CORRECT!

also when a horse is running at its highest weight, any extra weight has a much grosser
effect than it would if it were on a lower weight.

I certainly agree with that bf_fanatic.

No account of the logarithmic effect of weight carrying is ever mentioned officially
and it is treated as a linear measurement...

In reference to individual horses limits and abilites its a case of how long
is a piece of string but simple research teaches us that it is very difficult for horses
to win at weights higher than it has placed or won at before thus it is certainly a major factor to consider.

Its a horses rating the trainer is most concerned with.
He can cherry pick the weight & opposition using the different class bands.

Natural body weight of the racehorse is of great  importance,many are smaller and may struggle when near top of the weights,it is hoped one day we manage to have a natural weight printed on are form sheets,it is all relevant,we could see natural growth patterns, and with 2yrlds  ofcourse punters with no visual view  of the horse a  guide too maturity. (beats any time mechanism with jockeys holdind up most of the while)