Constitution Hill raised 7lb.

Handicap ratings are a crock of ****
Back in 1999 Henry Cecil ran Killer Instinct in the St James Palace Stakes (G1) and the horse was 4th, never in the race with a chance.
Killer Instinct's rating got a big jump (was it to 111?) because he was slammed by highly rated horses.
Instead of reducing the ratings of the top horses (unforgivable and would upset many important people) they raise the ratings of the duds.

An interesting feature of French flat racing is as far as I can see they do not raise the rating of a beaten horse.
My horse (sold last week) was 2nd, beaten one centimeter.
The winner was raised 5.5 pounds, my horse was unchanged.
When my horse won twice earlier he was raised 9 pounds and 8 pounds.
He was 3rd five times, earning fair money each time, and was once raised two pounds, nothing the other four times.
I think this is a good betting angle in French handicaps, horses that place many times and are not penalised.

....handicappers, politicians...........much of a muchness.

Congrats on your sale and the horse who beat him in that race ran with great credit in a group next time.

Nicky had already stated it was a race he could not win and the purpose was to get a mark qualifying him to run in Heritage Handicaps, his new mark may even be lower than it could have been as he was not given a hard time and certainly would improve fitness wise, perhaps the handicapper has used common sense by ignoring these facts?

As for the French system, how does it make sense not to re-assess a horse who is beaten by a whisker?

CagliariG
As for the French system, how does it make sense not to re-assess a horse who is beaten by a whisker?

As I said above
Handicap ratings are a crock of ****

Horse ratings are diplomacy trying to satisfy (1) people who want their horses to carry small weights (2) people who want their horses highly rated.
I compared 159,200 rated horses against the inbreeding trying to find the connection (I did).
The strange thing to me was there were few horses rated 99 and many horses rated 100. Why? Vanity?
If correctly rated there should be slightly more rated 99 than rated 100 (i.e. closer to the mean).

(Fwiw Nick Mordin proved that below 8-5 horses do not run faster. There is a limit to how fast a horse can run.)

I thought a horse rated 100 was a horse that ran standard time on good going carrying 9 stone 0 pounds.
A horse rated above 100 should beat standard time on good going.
It seems not to be the case.

It seems that a horse rated, say 105, is a horse that beat a horse rated 100 or so, even if the 100 rating had no substance.
It is a house of cards.


Every time Frankel ran his rating increased but as far as I remember he beat standard time twice in 14 races (one of those by about 0.2 seconds).
It could never be the case that Frankel was only a good horse and the three horses he beat almost every race (Excalebration; Farhh; Bullet Train) were moderate? Could it?

When Dancing Brave ran his final rating was 141.
It was said the official handicapper was retiring and they wanted him to go out on a big horse.

It is all about money.
If you can find a weak Group 3 and win it with a filly she will by worth a million plus.
The race might be as weak as a moderate handicap.

Kincsem, clearly all about your own opinion which is fine but without realising that ground described as good per se is not an exact science between all the tracks. Neither are standard times derived from horses with a certain rating, the handicapper give his opinion based on multiple factors but it is still just a personal opinion.

Most can form their own opinion whether to use ORs and what lies behind them without surveying a million horses, fwiw I am a sceptic on handicappers being any more informed than punters who use form analysis, a bit like data and stats.

Does that mean he can run in The Melbourne Cup?

He could acey but seems they have decided against it and 105 handicaps are out of the window with the new rating, NH talking about going on turf and possibly non handicap route.

Fair enough Glen.

Fair enough Glen.

Nicky apparently thought the horse would get a drop in his handicap mark after the race..

Sep 8, 2026 -- 11:17AM, CagliariG wrote:

Nicky had already stated it was a race he could not win and the purpose was to get a mark qualifying him to run in Heritage Handicaps, his new mark may even be lower than it could have been as he was not given a hard time and certainly would improve fitness wise, perhaps the handicapper has used common sense by ignoring these facts?As for the French system, how does it make sense not to re-assess a horse who is beaten by a whisker?

Rubbish. Handicappers are supposed to handicap on what they have just seen, not on what they want to see OR WHAT THEY MIGHT SEE IN THE FUTURE!

As for the 'to get a mark' nonsense, they could have run him in another novice race to get a mark and I very much doubt he would now be 108.

And on top of all that Nicky has now come out and said because of his stupidly high mark he now won't be running in handicaps, so that blows your 'to get a mark' excuse out of the water because the mark he has now got is too high. And that is because, as I said above and before the race in the September Stakes thread, THEY RAN HIM IN THE WRONG RACE!!!

You are a genius like so many on here Coneygree and know better than the trainer. Had you kept up you would know he ran at Kempton as the trainer wanted to know where they stood in the bigger picture and they would learn something they would not have by running in another Novice!! hth

rated 101 its beaten 5 3/4L by a OR 114.. beaten 2 3/4L by a OR 111

that entitles it to be rated 1.05 ish imo..108 hash.

Excelebration and Farrh moderate ?  They won 5 Group Ones between them.  It would have been 11 if Frankel wasn't around.

Frankel "just a good horse" ?  Good horses in any era do not win Group Ones routinely by 5, 6, 7 and even 11 lengths do they ?
You have to be exceptional to do that.

That's why a lot of owners are reluctant to run their horses in G2 and G3 races because you get hammered afterwards if you finish in the same parish as the winner.


Thought it ran well until the button was pushed but I suppose a 164 day break is going to leave some sort of mark.

Yes I'm not convinced at all that the two Kempton efforts matched Southwell. That was a real turn of foot, backed up by the clock. Who knows if Southwell is as good as it's going to get. I'm pretty sure he is capable of doing better, but the indications are that he wasn't felt to need to race on Saturday. However that's exactly how it looked.

it won 2 micky mouse novices on the snaf..big step up to a gr3.

He left Square Necker for dust and he is a horse not far off 100. Yes there was a lot of old boats in the Southwell race, making up the numbers, but that line of form, and the time suggests it wasn't a micky mouse performance. With OM barely nudging him out. Technically, as in rating wise people could make Saturday's run superior. Not for me it wasn't.

DixieDean
Excelebration and Farrh moderate ?  They won 5 Group Ones between them.  It would have been 11 if Frankel wasn't around.

Frankel "just a good horse" ?  Good horses in any era do not win Group Ones routinely by 5, 6, 7 and even 11 lengths do they ?
You have to be exceptional to do that.

Frankel did not run good times and he beat the same horses in most of his races.

By chance I looked at who Excelebration beat and the first race I looked at was the Gladness Stakes (G3) at The Curragh.
In that race Excelebration beat Criosultan.
Then Croisultan ran 4th/4; 10th/10; 10th/11; was then sold for 15,000 pounds, the ran for his new trainer unplaced; unplaced; 8th/8; unplaced; unplaced; unplaced; unplaced.

Excelebration beat Cityscape twice in Group 1s (he won three).
Cityscape was a Group 3 horse who won a Group 1 in Meydan with the dodgy 2/1 fav Ambitious Dragon in 7th (I never heard of him and that fav never won again in 5 races)

Farhh won his last two races (G1s) and retired to stud - the placed opposition (111, 110, 108) in the first, and then a neck ahead of Cirrus des Aigles.
His other wins were a maiden and two handicaps.

the time suggests it wasn't a micky mouse performance

i said the race was micky mouse yfdsc..not its performance.

The deadwood that took part is therefore irrelevant. He beat a progressive 4yo virtually 10 lengths only nudged out, and that 4yo is now rated 97. I personally feel that was a much stronger performance than Saturday, but the handicapper only rates on what has happened. He obviously raced much higher rated horses on Saturday, hence the rating hike. But for me, Southwell was a superior run. The open question is will that ever be replicated. Clearly, the next step is turf and well away from Kempton.

kincsem - you have a different take to that of Timeform, the RP, the BHA Handicapper and the majority of racing experts .

HRAC himself, a man not prone to hyperbole, said he had never seen a better racehorse.

Do you not think Frankel could have put up better times in just about every one of his races ? How often was he all out ?

So he often came up against the same horses, who'd a thought it? IF you are a Group performer you will regularly come up against horses you have already raced against.

There's only so many top level races at each distance each year. Any superstar of the past could have holes picked in their form if you look hard enough. Sometimes you just have to believe the evidence of your own eyes rather than stats.

You can only beat the opposition you are up against. In virtually every one of those races Frankel mullered the opposition.

Farhh was a very good horse - only touched off in the Eclipse & Moulin as well as his two Group 1 victories. He went straight to Group 1 from handicaps, not many can do that (Halling being a notable exception ). Excelebration was a top horse as well, he won his Group 1's very comfortably .

His times in his Guineas, Queen Anne and Juddmonte were very fast.

CH rating of 108 after 3 runs on the AW is a fair rating, the handicapper knows as we all do that CH on turf on the right ground/distance is still likely to be a 110 plus rated horse.

sq necker ran to no where near 97 6 mth ago.

He could do no more than beat the shít out of Square Necker so it's inconsequential
what he does in future...except to relatively maintain his mark.

I think there's more in the tank once he gets his conditions...which we're yet to see
and maybe a seemingly harsh 7ib rise mightn't be harsh enough.

DixieDean

Yes, Henry Cecil would say he never saw a better horse. He trained it.
You might notice every spring Aidan O'Brien says he never saw a faster horse.
And most years his "fastest horse ever" is moderate.

Back to Frankel.
Hypewrbole is the word that comes to mind.
The commentator in the 2000 Guineas called him 15 lengths in front, surely a massive overreach.
We still get back to the fact Frankel only once ran fast against standard time.
Ok, the ground may not have always have been good, but you still expect a few good times from a horse rated the best Thoroughbred to have ever raced anywhere at any time.
He never ran abroad, ran at only six racecourses, just beat the same opposition at home, running 4 times at Ascot, 3 times at Newmarket.
A few years ago for my own interest I listed all the horses that ran against Frankel. Try it. The same moderate horses every time.

I gave a few example of the racing merit of Farhh (what Farhh beat) and you came back and said he was a "very good horse".

I said: Farhh won his last two races (G1s) and retired to stud - the placed opposition (111, 110, 108) in the first, and then a neck ahead of Cirrus des Aigles.
His other wins were a maiden and two handicaps.
He was also 2nd in a four runner Group 1 in France, beaten by a filly.

Excelebration beat Cityscape twice (finished 2nd) to win two Group 1s.  I gave an indication of Cityscape's merit, a Group 3 horse in my opinion.
Excelebration won the German 2000 Guineas (G2) by 7 lengths. Unfortunately, the horse he beat won 2 from 21, and lost his next 10 races after his defeat to Excelebration.

Back to the times Frankel ran. Enlighten me.
Towards the end of his career he beat Excelebration three times and Farhh twice in a run of five races and his rating jumped to 135, 136, 138, 140, 140.

Look at the races
QE II (8 ran) ... beat Excelebration, Dubawi Gold, Bullet Train and others.
Lockinge (6 ran) ... beat Excelebration, Dubawi Gold, Bullet Train and others.
Queen Anne (11 ran) ... beat Excelebration, Bullet Train and others.
Sussex Stakes (4 ran) ... beat Farhh, Bullet Train and others.
International (9 ran) ... beat Farhh, Bullet Train and others.

He is marketed as a top sire and has a very expensive stud fee.
I analysed 598 of his offspring, runner ratings against pedigrees.
He has been most successful with mares by the American sire Empire Maker (and Empire Maker's brother Chester House).
Of his top 20 offspring by ratings Attraction was the only Group 1 winning mare he served that produced a horse rated 120+.

We could discuss this ad infinitum but please list all the horses Frankel beat and the number of times each ran against him.
It will give you an idea he repeated the same performance many times, but did not travel to France, Ireland, or the USA to meet others.

if frankel had only ran in 10 class 2 h/caps against 90 ish rated horses and won each race at an average of 30L what OR would you give him?

My guess is it would be an impossibility for a horse to win ten consecutive handicaps and stay in that class.
He would move to class 1 handicap, to Listed, and upwards.

Najidi Storm (sired by Frankel) set a record yesterday.
The shortest priced beaten favourite in horseracing history, 1/33.
Another record for Frankel.

Why do people on here, and on most media outlets, keep going on about C Hill running in the Melbourne Cup?

Because the Australians are so stringent about the medical condition of the horses that are allowed to run in the race, it seems to me almost certain that C Hill would fail his X-Rays for the race. As an older horse who was a hurdler and who has suffered a fair few setbacks, his X-Rays would almost certainly show somethiog somewhere which would mean he was barred from the race.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that even Aidan O'Brien has had horses barred from the race due to 'shadows' on their x-rays. So, very unlikely that an ex-hurdler would pass the entry tests!!

Also, those who criticise ther handicaps system show they do not understand it. Of course, every week horses show their marks to be either too high or too low, but OVERALL and across the passge of time, the handicap system in pretty accurate. Sadly, though people find one horse from the past that was clearly handicaped wrongly and take that as an example how the whole system is flawed.

Lastly, Nicky Henderson must know more about horses and training than me, but he seems to have lost his marbles about C Hill. The horse ran reasonably close to Group horses last Saturday (and much better than I thought it would) so it was raised in the weights accordingly.

Henderson seems to have a real blind spot with this horse. If it runs quite well in a Group race after six months off, what does he expect the handcapper to do?

I cannot see how the horse is ever going to win again - unless Henderson finds a terrble listed race over 14f or more on soft or the AW. It will not win in higher than that and will have no chance off big weights in really good handicaps. It cannot jump again, so please RETIRE the horse!!!

It is sad to see the connections clinging on to what the horse was 3 years ago over hurdles. It is ten in four months time, so enough is enough with it....

Said it back in February The Knight. Should have been retired then. Nothing to gain on the flat with an ex 9 year old hurdler. The Melbourne cup was never happening. An utter impossibility.

Maddy Playle RP
"Sea Pigeon was a remarkable athlete but he did not have anything like the career arc of Constitution Hill"   


PMSL    Ebor under 10st. Two Chester Cups Two Champion hurdles.

someone on rtv said CH had passed x rays, apparently comfortably. They didn't say who passed them, or if it was just replicating Oz in advance of the real testing.

The horse is able to compete at a high level on the flat and already earned £33K prizemoney. Plenty of yards will never get one that good. To me it would seem utterly daft to retire him as a racehorse. At the very least he should get a couple of spins on the turf, trying out a couple of distances.

Kincsem - waffling a load of mainly meaningless stats means nowt.

Frankel won 14 races , 10 of them Group Ones. In all but two of them he hammered the opposition. Without being extended.

Your comment about HRAC says a lot about you. Quite pathetic. I never heard him say any of his previous stars (and there were so many) were the best ever.
Quite why you compare him in that respect to AOB is mind boggling, yes AOB is always saying such things but HRAC simply never did.  If he said he had never seen a better horse than Frankel then he damn well meant it (and note the use of the word SEEN)

He could easily have put up much better times if his jockey had been harder on him, something that seems to have escaped you.

He won his races by margins such as 5,6,7,10 and 11 lengths - how many others can you name that CONSISTENTLY did that (not the odd performance like Harbinger for example).

I repeat, Timeform, the RP, the BHA Handicapper - ALL rated Frankel a superstar. I'd rather take their collective view over yours any day.

As for your latest comment about Najidi Storm , just grow up will you.  It's obvious you have an agenda, let's leave it there.


But one little addendum if i may to show up your Najidi Storm comment, which sire does the following stat (we know you love stats ) apply to i wonder ?

Sired 100 Group/Graded winners in a record time of 3144 days, ahead of Danehill, Deep Impact, Galileo and Dubawi

To complain about his mark seems funny as he’s finished upsides a 10 year old who won a G2 last year and a G3 this year.
He was in receipt of 3lbs all easy for the handicapper through Dubai Future.

- - - -

Being top rated as Frankel was doesn’t make him the best horse for me, as said he never travelled and faced an aging  Cirrus Des Aigles.

Goldikova achieved a lot more for me and took on all comers from different generations on different continents.

To take in the Queen Anne and still be in condition to run and win 3 Breeders Cups takes some doing and training.

...I reckon Ouija Board was a good'un as well.

I've been following horse racing since the mid 60's.  Anyone that doesn't think Frankel is the best mile/10f  horse since then needs a new hobby...or at least stop coming on forums and talking sh1te.

kincsem 09 Sep 26 09:51 
My guess is it would be an impossibility for a horse to win ten consecutive handicaps and stay in that class.
He would move to class 1 handicap, to Listed, and upwards.


ewe khan still ansa a hypothetical question surely?

..Sir Henry said, quote..." Frankel was the best racehorse I've ever SEEN in my LIFETIME.......and he saw, and trained plenty of superstars

what else cud it do bar beat those in his races?

We may as well not bother considering rankings/ratings then Dela eh ?

btw Cirrus was only 6 when Frankel beat him in 2012 and he raced on for two more full seasons after that, winning several Group One's including the 2014 Coronation Cup.

After Frankel retired, Cirrus was the highest rated horse in the world at that time.

Secretariat beat nowt in the Belmont..but it was good viewing

KIncsem - people readily underestimate just how good Excelebration was - he would've been champion miler in MOST years
as he was superior to your 'average' champion! That's a strange oxymoron but I'm sure you get the point

The Knight - I don't believe the Melbourne Cup was EVER gonna be a realistic target and said so last February after he
won at Southwell for reasons you mention - we've been strung along with this circus...with bull-rings through our noses

I also disagree with your pessimistic assessment of his future as there's plenty of life left in the old dog yet, so for once...I agree with Henderson!

Howard - these kids/journlists should stay in their lane with their airbags ready to deploy as they cannot
seriously try to educate us about anything from before 2000 - they're embarrassingly out of their depth!

It's just like those football fans who only quote stats since the Premier's inception.

.

Cirrus wasn’t the best of his generation, (nor was Goldikova) Vision DeTat was the better horse, Cirrus benefited from being kept in training and racing against bad older horses.

As did the likes of the Duke of Marmalade.

Whilst Cirrus was doing not a lot, Vision won the POW and went to Hong Kong and took the Vase, very few horses go there and beat them.

And Dixie I might mention them but ratings aren’t the be all and end all for me, racing is on a world stage nowdays and the best for me should travel, as Black Cav  did.

Cirrus and Vision could hardly have met as three year olds could they given Cirrus was born a year later.

And there's a very good reason why Cirrus could not prove himself "the best of his generation" by winning the likes of a Guineas, Derby or even Arc.....

Vision raced against plenty of poor rivals as well and although he won some top races he was stuffed in a number of others.

That’s right they were a year apart but Cirrus was exposed and not the best of his age group.

Won no races as a 2 year old

6 from 17 at 3 and was put in his place by Vision when they met,

The great Frankel beat him, was fairly exposed by the age of 6.


PRIX GONTAUT-BIRON HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB

1 VISION D'ETAT

2    BUDAI

3    CIRRUS DES AIGLES

Vision was just one example of horses that toyed with Cirrus and people didn’t even rate him highly ratings wise.

The fastest horse ever (that is what Timeform rated Frankel) was this fast

Sussex Stakes - 16th fastest time
2000 Guineas - 31st fastest (excusable as into a headwind)
St James Palace Stakes - 18th fastest
Lockinge Stakes - 27th fastest
QE II - 8th fastest
Queen Anne - 9th fastest
Champion Stakes - 10th fastest in the 15 years at Accot

Was he always running on soft/heavy or leading a procession of low-grade horses?



Excelebration a champion in any other year?

Prix du Moulin - 24th fastest time
Prix Jacques le Marois - 9th fastest time (41 races)
Queen Elizabeth II - 34th fastest time

He could easily have put up much better times if his jockey had been harder on him, something that seems to have escaped you.


Prove it. You can't can you? You can have an opinion that you think is nailed on (so can 99% of the population) but thats it. If only he had raced once out of his comfort zone and done it then there would be little debate, he didn't so he we are.

Beat st Nick over 10f and Natahaniel

Re Frankel, you don't have to pour over endless statistics and times you just have to watch what happened when Queally pressed the button in the Queen Anne 2012, that tells you all you need to know about what you were witnessing.

I remember when he asked him in the St James and did push him out, Cecil had a brick.

Well managed and great training but he beat little and never took himself out of the comfort zone.

slaughtered ev gr1 miler there was for 2yrs .

One of the worst 2000 Guineas fields I’ve ever seen

Wasn’t a deep year for 3 year old milers was it?!

slaughtered ev gr1 miler there was for 2yrs .

kincsem - you seem to be confused as to how Timeform ratings are achieved. They assess everything to do with a horse's form, not times.
Nobody has said Frankel was the FASTEST ever have they ? That would doubtless be a sprinter who would hold that accolade. Although he did clock 42mph in the last furlong of his jaw dropping Queen Anne win .


Why should Frankel have to have gone abroad to race ?

If Frankel was only beating second raters then why didn't the world's so called greatest milers want to come over here and lower the colours of the wonder horse ?
Answer -because they knew he was unbeatable.

As duffy states, trust the evidence of your own eyes. That Queen Anne performance was his best of a series of scintillating wins.
Only the very best can win like that race after race.

spyker - all the proof you need is to look at his races, how many times was he all out ?

As duffy states, trust the evidence of your own eyes. That Queen Anne performance was his best of a series of scintillating wins.

Against?

List who he beat.

If Frankel was only beating second raters then why didn't the world's so called greatest milers want to come over here and lower the colours of the wonder horse ?
Answer -because they knew he was unbeatable.

The best were scared?

Come on, they were scared every day with this horse, this bit, that bit, change that, settle him…

Get a handle JP Plencer was riding Excellebration!

List who he beat ?

Every
Horse
That 
Lined
Up
Against
Him
HTH

Rico-Dangleflaps 09 Sep 26 09:37 
if frankel had only ran in 10 class 2 h/caps against 90 ish rated horses and won each race at an average of 30L what OR would you give him?

30 x 1.5 = 135OR.

As Tina sang Frankel was simply the best.