Ratings Based Handicap Racing

From today, December 1, 2006, Ratings Based Handicap races are being introduced on a trial basis in NSW and Victoria. Basically this means, every horse will be allocated a rating after every run and will be able to be entered into RB races that their rating is included.

What it means is, an older horse that is out of form, will lose ratings points and go down in grades to give him an opportunity to win another race. An overview of this can be seen at the following URL:-


http://www.risa.com.au/Rating_Based_Info.htm


You can also obtain specific information about both NSW and Victorian RB programming from this web page.


So, what does it all mean. Especially for the poor punter who is always trying to find that elusive winner. To be perfectly frank, I am not too sure, and will have to watch races very closely over the next few months to ascertain if a distinct pattern or change in performances is occurring. We will give a few thoughts here for readers to ponder.

The main reason for this change, is to increase field sizes, and thus increasing TAB betting turnover. More TAB betting turnover means more money for the race clubs, and I certainly do not begrudge them that. I do however question the motivation that the only reason for change is to increase betting turnover.

What will hapen in these races, is you will see an older open class handicapper, racing against young up & coming lower class horses. What also may happen, is if a certain horse has reached his mark, he cannot get out of his current grade because he is just not good enough. So the trainer will hope the horse gets beaten by big margins to hopefully decrease his rating so he can get him into a more suitable race. Maybe the horse will be encouraged not to perform on his merits in the hope his ratings will be decreased.

So the washup of this will be that some beaten margins as published in form guides, will show a horse was beaten, say 10 lengths at his most recent start, when the beaten margin probably should have been 3 lengths. Now this is going to turn upside down ratings and form predictability for punters. It will also provide form reversals that are totally unpredictable. And what punters want is integrity & predictability so they can back winners. Successful punters are successful because they are able to predict with regular accuracy the result of the race. If they don't have accurate facts before the race, predicting the outcome will be a far more difficult task.

Attempting to predict form reversals is fraut with danger. Punters who back horses with form 000 in the vain hope they back a 100/1 winner are just giving away money. Most punters prefer to assess form and line each runner's form up and reach an accurate conclusion as to the result. Hong Kong use a ratings based handicap system for race programming, and the form reversals there are nothing short of sensational. We have grave fears NSW & Victorian racing may head in a similar direction.

Field sizes have always been an issue of ours when trying to predict a result. To state the obvious, it is much easier to predit a result of a horse race with 6 runners, as opposed to a horse race with 18 runners. Obviously because, barriers will play a far lesser role, as will luck in running and the jockeys ability to secure the bets run. So with larger field sizes, it would be fair to say right now, PASS will be having less bets than before. Especially in the embryonic stages of this new system while we assess the races in question. And if field sizes do increase and remain consistently larger, then we will be having far less bets in the long term.

Another major point is how accurate are the ratings that are being given to each horse by the relevant authorities? There are hundreds of organisations selling ratings for horse racing. I have access to a few, although I don't use all of them as a base for my selections. On one race, 3 or 4 different ratings services can all come up a different result. Now I am knocking them, but which one do you believe? And why is the racing authorities ratings going to be more accurate than others?

And what about skull duggery? A trainer giving a horse a few "dead" runs to get it down in the ratings. A jockey easing up on a horse at the 200m so it gets beaten by a big margin to assist it geting down in the ratings. Authorities giving a trainer a favourable hearing and decreasing a horses ratings, or authorities taking a set against another trianer because of a past misdemeanor and increasing his horses ratings to make it hard for him. There are hundreds of similar situations if you think about it. Oh, sorry, none of that actually happens in the real world, does it?

At PASS, we are professional punters. We attempt to predict the outcome of horse races to make a profit, and we try to assist our members to achieve this. It is possible to consistently predict the outcome of races, and show a profit. But to do this you need to know as many facts as you can get your hands on to make these assessments as accurate as humanly possible. And combining all the rlevant facts will assist you to successfully predict the outcome of a horse race. This new system looks like it will not only make it more difficult to predict results, but with larger fields sizes make it more difficult for horse to win the right race.

We will watch with great interest over the coming months how this progresses and report back here. I urge all members and readers to watch video replays of as many races as possible, keep a close track on results to see if a lot of long price winners salute in these races, or the favourites win, or well supported horse that have been set up for the race win. There will be a pattern.

However with so many unknowns, it is envisaged PASS members will be having fewer bets. And that is not what the authorities wanted when they first devised this new programming system. They want increased turnover, not decreased.

Don't forget, if you would like to become a part of the successful membership team here at PASS, drop us an email to profselections@austarnet.com.au and we will help you to obtain all the information required to become a winning punter.

Good luck and profitable punting.