Ratings--Boon or Bane--A nice article found on Net

RATINGS Boon or Bane?
- by Anil Mukhi
JUNE - JULY 2009
Every racing system in the world necessarily requires classification of its horse population. Horses vary greatly in ability and there would be a gross mismatch unless horses of relatively similar ability are made to race together. Unlike the USA and Canada, where the tool used to achieve this objective is the claiming race, in India (as in Britain or Hong Kong) the historically preferred method has been the handicap.      Whether this technique actually works is a topic for another day – the fact is that handicap races constitute the bulk of racing in India. In the current 2008-2009 season, of the first 1400 races run all over India, 1056 (or 75%) were handicaps. Handicapping Handicapping is defined as the art or science of bringing horses together by making them carry differing weights relative to their ability, as perceived by the handicapper. This is what makes fields competitive and increases wagering turnover. If one horse is allowed to clearly “stand out”, the race is robbed of its competitive element. With such an obvious winner being backed down to “odds-on”, the temptation for malpractice increases and the image of racing suffers.       Forty or fifty years ago, the ability of a horse measured in, say, pounds or kilograms, was a secret known only by the handicappers of the various turf clubs in India. Punters eagerly awaited the publication of handicaps, to see what increase (or decrease) was mandated by the handicapper based on past form. Everything depended on the genius of the handicapper, how he was able to assess whether a particular runner was improving, stagnating or deteriorating. Ratings  With growing enlightenment, the race clubs in India began revealing the merit of individual horses by allotting them published ratings.       What is the essential feature of a rating? It is the measure of a horse’s ability, based on past form, expressed numerically in points. While an individual rating may be subjective, in theory horses of identical rating have similar ability, while those rated higher are supposed to be better and those rated lower are adjudged to be worse. As horses improve or deteriorate, the rating varies. Sometimes horses run far below their current rating, particularly when faced with unfamiliar conditions.       Initially, each club in India had its own rating system – the Hyderabad Race Club rated horses in half-kilos, but started the base of the scale at 75; the RWITC and RCTC also rated horses in half-kilos, starting from zero, while the Bangalore Turf Club rated them in kilos.       Fortunately these four turf authorities saw the illogic of having different systems for the same Thoroughbred breed consisting virtually without exception of Indian-breds, and over a period of time adopted the half-kilo ratings, with a basic scale of 0 (the most useless horse) to 130 (the best horse) that exists today. Under such a system a horse rated at, say, 60 points, would be set to carry 5 kgs. more than a rival rated at 50 points (10 points x 0.5 kgs.). Needless to say there have been exceptions to the 0-130 scale in India, with horses rated below zero in some instances, and occasionally above 130 – these are dealt with later in this piece.       The Madras Race Club chose not to adopt a rating system and remains the only one of the five turf authorities in the country without such a scheme. The ways of the handicapper at that centre remain inscrutable to the general public, because they are clearly different to those employed elsewhere, since they allow runners campaigned under M.R.C. Rules of Racing to notch up huge numbers of victories. Only ten horses in the past twenty years in the whole of India have won thirty or more races, and of these nine (or 90%), headed by Future Fame (55 wins) and Great Occasion (38 wins), have recorded the bulk of their starts – and wins – under M.R.C. rules. International Ratings Systems  One of the earliest attempts at establishing “a mathematical link to a horse’s performance based on its speed” was undertaken by that mastermind of the turf, Phil Bull, who founded the Timeform organization in 1948 and published the first Racehorses annual that year. Initially restricted to horses that ran only in Great Britain, the coverage in each annual has been expanded to include all the best horses in the world. The latest edition has ratings (and commentaries) on the likes of Curlin (USA) and Weekend Hussler (Australia).       As stated by the organization, “Timeform ratings express in terms of pounds the level of form a horse has shown”, a slight change from the original method. Since care has been taken to “keep the level of Timeform ratings consistent from one season to the next”, a comparison of the ability of horses from different generations can be made. The highest rated racehorse of all time is Sea Bird, allotted a mark of 145, and only ten horses over the past fifty years – out of hundreds of thousands – have merited a rating of 140 or higher.       That invaluable publication, Racing Post,
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publishes its own ratings, which are more often than not within a point or two of the Timeform Rating for the same horse, and therefore frequently considered interchangeable. Unless one is a subscriber, the Timeform Rating that is the most readily available is the annual figure published in the Racehorses annual, which represents the best performance of a horse. The Racing Post Ratings (presently free to access) have the advantage of being obtainable for each and every start made by a horse in England and Ireland.       Using the latter site, one can determine the consistency (or lack thereof) of a particular runner. As an example, the recently imported Phoenix Tower(USA), who stands at the Manjri Horse Breeders Farm, had RPRs of 117, 119, 121, 122 and 126 at his last five starts, an admirable record. Racehorses of 2008 allotted him an annual rating of 125 (which incidentally is the joint highest, with Ace[IRE], of all current stallions which commenced their stud careers in India).       In North America, with hundreds of tracks and about 100,000 racehorses in training, it is virtually impossible for subjective ratings to be determined. Taking advantage of the relative uniformity of American racetracks (mainly 1-1/16 mile ovals, all level and anti-clockwise), Andrew Beyer of the Washington Post developed the Beyer Speed Ratings. Similarly Bloodstock Information Research Services (BRIS) formulated its own speed ratings based on complex algorithms. Recently a correlation between RPR/Timeform type ratings and Beyer/BRIS type ratings has been published, with 12-15 points having to be added to the latter to enable them to be compared to the former.       The International Federation of Horse Racing Authorities publishes the “World Thoroughbred Rankings” every six months or so. The edition ending November 4, 2008, has Curlin at the top of the rankings, with a rating of 130. These ratings are also called official ratings, and are the consensus figures produced by the official handicappers in each racing jurisdiction. Unfortunately, Indian horses have not hitherto appeared in the rankings of leading horses in the world. Principles of allotting ratings After running in a race, a horse has to be assessed at what mark it has run to.      Handicappers (and stewards) in India do not seemed to have divined this principle behind a rating (of the Timeform/ RPR type). Rather, in India, a “penalty” – say 12 points, for example – is added to the previous rating of the winner, the second goes up 3 or 4 points, the third by 1 or 2 points, and the fourth stays where it is. A few of the runners further back in the field have their rating dropped. This is an incorrect approach and has led to significant anomalies.       As the National Horse Racing Authority of South Africa says: “The aim of rating adjustments is to ‘level the playing field’, a winner must still remain competitive, and the beaten horses must have rating adjustments where necessary to make them more competitive”       Incidentally, this should not be construed to mean that the rating of a horse should be dropped drastically after just one bad run. What it means is that the handicapper must assess which horses have run to form and which have run below form – and if possible why this has happened – and then make adjustments.       The Racing Post says that Mystical ran to 113 (on its scale) in the second of his two wins in Dubai in March 2007, but dropped to 86 in the Dubai Duty Free; here he had justification for doing so – he had suffered what turned out to be a career-ending injury during the race. Had he run to 113, he would have been placed fourth to Admire Moon in this rich Group 1 event.      As experience with the few Indian-breds that have campaigned in foreign jurisdictions shows, Indian ratings for the best horses are significantly higher than the ratings given to the same horses abroad. The difference could be as much as 20-30 points. This however does not affect the principle behind ratings, and is merely a matter of having varied yardsticks to account for the differences in quality between Indian horses and international horses.       In this writer’s opinion, high-class horses in India, whom the passage of time reveals to be classic calibre individuals, often run to an Indian rating of 80 to 90 on debut. After three races, the best of such horses (for example, Set Alight) would be rated above 115 (my own rating of Set Alight at that stage was 118); however, the official ratings of such runners in India would be no more than a mere 70 or 75. Notice that Set Alight started the 2008 Bangalore Summer meeting off an official rating of only 72, even though she had already displayed merit consistent with a rating of 118.       Contrast this with Timeform’s rating of the unbeaten Zarkava at 2 years of age (after only two starts) of 117. Racing Post gave her 85 after her debut victory and 115 after 2 starts. In fairness to official handicappers in India, it must be pointed out that giving a horse a Class 1 rating here after 1 or 2 starts leads to complaints from connections that their horse has been harshly treated. Yet falsely rating the horse too low (in Class 3 or Class 4) is certainly not the remedy! The horse has to be rated at what it has actually run to.      Stewards really ought not to be laying down handicapping ‘rules’ or mandatory ‘penalties’; either they trust their handicappers, or they don’t (in which case they should replace them). No handicapper should alter ratings based on directives (such as “keep the fourth placed horse where it is”; “increase the weights of those in front”). Rather, he needs to keep those that ran to form where they were and adjust the others so that the races are kept competitive!       Noted South African writer Karel Miedema put it succinctly in an article in the Sporting Post, which he edits:       We assume that when a horse wins a race it automatically must have its merit Rating increased, be penalised. Wrong. IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE KEY HORSE. The winning horse could well have won easily and run below his rating, in which case it would be wrong to increase its rating. If a penalty for winning was given automatically, then it could be that several of the beaten horses might also have to go up, because of their lengths-behind-the-winner relationship. In handicapping there’s no such thing as a penalty. Reassessment to achieve optimum competitiveness – that’s the name of the game.      When top international racehorses, such
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as the great Bold Ruler, run exactly to their form, say by winning a handicap by a nose carrying 134 lbs. (as he did in the Suburban Handicap in July 1958), they remain at 134 lbs. in their next race (as he was allotted in the Monmouth Handicap later the same month) – no artificial penalty is given to make the horse lose! Anomalies Galore There are anomalies galore in India. Take the most recent McDowell Indian Derby – Antonios went from 72 to 123 after the race, Set Alight remained at 117. Horses that have already run six times cannot improve 51 points in one race – either Antonios was rated too low earlier, or he is too high now. Interestingly the stewards of the RWITC Ltd. took the opposing view, namely that Set Alight had run below form due to injudicious riding (and hence fined Mallesh Narredu Rs.10,000). Further, third-placed Icebreaker went up from 108 to 111, while fifth-placed Autonomy stayed at 115, despite finishing behind fourth-placed Dancing Dynamite, who also remained unchanged at 113. This is all completely irrational!       Back in 1988, the unfortunate Whopper was forced to race with 78.5 kgs. on its back in the Southern Command Trophy (run that year as a handicap) at Pune, because of all the “penalties” he had theoretically earned by previous victories and placings – and finished last. To put this weight into perspective, it may be recalled that the highest weight ever carried in a Melbourne Cup (also a handicap) is 68 kgs. (by the great Phar Lap – and he finished eighth).       The fact that no horse had ever won a regular flat race at Pune with 78.5 kgs. on his back (the equivalent of 12 stone 4 pounds) appeared to have been lost on the then handicapper! In what manner was he adhering to the RWITC Ltd.’s Rules of Racing which unambiguously define a handicap as “a race in which the weights to be carried are adjusted by the Handicapper for the purpose of equalizing their chances of winning”?       Another glaring example of incorrect rating was the case of Rosmini. This horse was rated 82 prior to the N. H. Dhunjibhoy Sprint Championship at Pune in October 2003, as against 133 for Tide Of Fortune, despite the fact that he ought to have been rated at some 40 points higher on the bare result of his third-placed effort in the Times Of India Fourth Estate Gold Trophy the previous month.       Following Rosmini’s victory in the Championship, the handicapper now had the onerous task of raising him almost 60 points! As it happened, that official avoided the issue by giving Rosmini a rating of merely 115 after that race, 18 points less than the runner-up, for giving Tide Of Fortune 2 kgs. more than the sex allowance and a beating of 1-1/2 lengths. This is plainly absurd.       Allotting negative ratings is another peculiar feature of the Indian racing landscape. How can a horse be more useless than the most untalented horse, who by definition is rated at zero?? The most respected handicapper in India told me that this was his way of “getting rid” of useless performers at his centre. A laudable objective, no doubt, but one which could have been achieved in a different manner – for example, by implementing a rule which stated that horses rated zero which could not place 1, 2 or 3 in five consecutive starts would become ineligible to race at that centre, or by framing the lowest class as 5-30 (instead of 0-30).       At the other end of the scale, it is indeed possible to go beyond the theoretical upper limit of 130 on the rare occasions on which there is an exceptional horse e.g. Elusive Pimpernel could have been rated at, say, 140, and this would still have been consistent with a general scale of 0-130. It would have been an acknowledgement of extraordinary ability. Finally, giving a rating to a horse which is unraced, as is done by some of the race clubs in India, requires singular clairvoyance! Realistically, all horses ought to start their racing careers at level weights in maiden events, so that their level of ability becomes apparent from their efforts. Framing more such maiden events even for 4-year-olds and over (there are several such horses in training) is the correct approach, rather than artificially ranking them without evidence. Solutions For healthier racing in India, more accurate and consistent assessment is vital. Handicappers must rate horses on their actual performances, and not on some arbitrary formula. As it is, far too many handicap races have wide margin winners, or end up with the field strung out like a string of pearls – the concluding race of the 2008-2009 season at Mahalakshmi had ten runners with some 25 lengths between first and last…..       A central rating system is essential – and in this “connected” age is not difficult, with video replays and accurate timings readily available. Individual handicappers at the different turf authorities can form a collegium and jointly rate the runners (on the basis that two heads are better than one). This will enable a consistent rating system across different centres and over a period of years.       The class system should be restructured with races framed for, say, 0-30, 20-50, 40-70, 60-90 and 80+, with top weight not exceeding 60 kgs. in the bottom four classes and 62.5 kgs. in the highest class. In all cases, the highest-rated horse in the field should carry the published top weight, and if the lower weighted horses are squeezed out, so be it – there is no reason to encourage mediocrity or to burden the more talented horses unnecessarily – why risk breaking down the few quality runners that there are?       Finally, running as many as 75% of the races as handicaps devalues the breed, and it is vital to introduce more fixed weight condition races – and perhaps even claiming races – for the progress of Indian Thoroughbred racing and breeding.