THE ORIGINAL & OFFICIAL KIMMYPOPSRACING. Est. 2006.

« Admiral Rous by John in Brasil »

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Jul 29, 2010, 1:53am

THE ORIGINAL & OFFICIAL KIMMYPOPSRACING. Est. 2006. :: THE ORIGINAL & OFFICIAL KIMMYPOPSRACING. Est. 2006. :: Van Der Wheil & Oldtimers Reviews. :: VDW Reference Library and more... :: Admiral Rous by John in Brasil

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Admiral Rous by John in Brasil
« Thread Started Today at 1:52am »

I was on another forum tonight, (WHAT forum, I hear you cry), and it got me to thinking about this post by JIB. His article on...

"Admiral Rous"

john in brasil
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Posted October 22, 2008 12:00 AM

"A horses current OR is the handicappers opinion of his FORM not class."

AC,

You are a 100% wrong.

EC,

I am currently intrigued not by deteriorating class, something at which I am now having first hand experience , but by improvement at the start of career.

All,

Here's somethng I was posting on another forum before I had to interupt to come back to the UK. I will complete it shortly;

"The RP speedfigs factor in weight which I now regard as a seriously misleading complication, as whilst big increases in weight will eventually slow a horse, a few lbs on a half ton animal makes about the same diffence as a pair of bicycle clips when you go out for a ride. Furthermore, the idea that taking weight off a horse will speed it up is nothing less than infantile.

I much prefer to stick to the finishing distances from competitive races. I define competitive as those races where there were more than just a handful of runners in a non slower than standard time.

Weight in racing is all about class and not about speed.

To understand the handicapping of horses it is wise to study its inventor Admiral Henry John Rous.

Besides his distinguished naval career Admiral Rous was a keen horseman whose family home was at Newmarket, (his father won the 1815 2000gns with Tigris). At that time the roguery in Racing was so bad that Admiral Rous felt obliged to make the sport more honest by devising the same table of weight for age and sex that is still used today almost 200 years since its inception.

Admiral Rous made racing fair by using weight to level ability in developing racehorses. He did not use staggered starts, nor did he opt for starting horses at different times. Why did he use weight? I believe he did because he was a gunner.

Since the middle of the 17th century, by a method invented by Samuel Pepys, the quality of His Majestys warships was rated, not by their speed, or by their weight of displacement, but by the number of cannon the vessel could bring to bear in an engagement. As the ships got bigger with two and then three decks, the lower cannon got bigger so a further refinement was to calculate the weight of shot that was fired in a double broadside.

All being equal, a ship that could fire 4000lbs of iron every 15s would inevitably beat into a pulp a ship that could only muster 3800lbs with each discharge. The navy used the concept of weight (in this case its weaponary) as class. Having been below decks since he was a boy Henry John Rous would have lived and breathed weight as class. Being intimate with racehorses it was his genius to see the same principle at work in the two great loves of his life.

In flat racing a G1 winner is rated about 135 and the worst sort of maiden plater rates only 35. Within those 100lbs of ability a multi-billion industry that employs thousands exists and divides up its wealth.

Some might argue that the best horse in the race is the fastest one, so as class is all about speed, they insist that the best horse has to be the fastest one.

You could make a case in favour of that for v short distances where the horses run flat out after a short period of initial acceleration, but even 5f sprints are not always run flat out from the start.

If we have two horses, A and B, who can maintain the same cruising speed for most of the race then both accelerate at the same rate to reach the same finishing speed you might think these horses have the same ability or class. That would be true if both held the finishing speed for the same length of time. But if horse A can hold his finishing speed for one second longer than horse B, and the jockey on horse A knows his business then Horse A will win the race because it has more ability. He is able to accelerate earlier and maintain his maximum effort for longer.

The class of a horse depends on its ability to maintain its best cruising and finishing speeds.

A horse can actually be able to achieve higher speeds than another but still be lower class to this other slower horse when run over even the shortest distances in British racing, because it is the ability to maintain the best speed for the longest period that provides the quickest time.

The difference of class between horses is demonstrated at the end of the race. It is at the finishing pole that racing reveals its secrets.

I use an equation,

Finishing dist in lengths x 15 / race dist in furlongs = lbs in class,

in true run races to measure the difference in class between runners.

One of the greatest problems people have with history is that they think it is out of date. To affirm that a seaman from the Napoleonic war is the answer to winner finding is likely to invite more mirth than to uphold the claims of a Dutchman from Market Harborough!

Nevertheless the genius of Henry John Rous was to see weight as a live potent force, not a life extinguishing imposition that could be applied by any dull-witted brute.

Admiral Rous' weight for age table shows us that as horses grow and get heavier they get stronger. Their weight is going up because it consists of bone and muscle, and their ability to run faster and longer corresponds. His idea of lumping dead weight on them was to give the stronger ones more to do than the weaker, younger ones in a measure so that no one age would have an advantage over another because of their relative growth. However the advantages between their natural ability remained untouched, thus preserving the true nature of racings secret.

By the second half of July (it is assumed that all racehorses are born on Jan 1st) a 4yo is deemed to have reached maturity and Admiral Rous no longer allows it to claim a lighter burden than its older peers. If the horse has had more than a handful of races by this time its natural ability will be known and will decide its career.

Until recently very few hcps had a weight range of less than two stones. This ample range of saddleweights allowed horses to run against other horses where large differences in weight would be likely to affect relative performances.

For example if we have a dozen 77-83 rated horses all of which are fit and on ideal conditions the weight differences between them are so small that the eventual winner is more likely to have been blessed by luck than to boast any determining factor.

If we then take eleven 77-83 rated horses and a 65 rated horse who either by accident or design is really also an 80 horse with a falsely low rating, then this lowly rated animal has a distinct advantage, about a stone less in saddleweight, and rather than need good luck to win, will need to suffer misfortune to be denied.

Nowadays the weight range in most handicaps is half of what it was when I first started. It is now far harder for a trainer to engineer a big weight advantage for an underrated horse. 4 or 5lbs will not significantly alter the chance of winning the way 15 or 20lbs will.

If small weight differences are not significant, and big weight differences are increasingly hard to organize, then the modern trainer has no option but to engineer significant class advantages.

The horseracing industry is based on the class of horse that runs in its races.

To unify the industry and divide its benefits in a fair and trustworthy manner the HRB has adopted the use of a standard measure of class, the Official Rating (OR), or more simply referred to as a horse's mark.

After winning or, if no win is achieved in its first three runs, three races on one of either the Flat or National Hunt versions of racing, every racehorse in the UK is awarded an Official Rating.

For a trainer to arrange a class advantage for his horse he has two possible situations, the highly unlikely one where he finds a race for his charge where the opposition all have markedly inflated ratings compared to their ability, or the more obtainable situation of getting a distinctly undervalued rating for his animal, and subsequently racing it against horses of lesser ability but similar or superior ratings.

We are all now familiar with the tactics of running a horse down the field in unsuitable races to get its mark reduced. The Official Handicapper is also aware of this approach and employs the strategy of 'swift to punish but slow to pardon' to make the process of mark devaluation both laborious and uncertain.

The downward massaging of horse’s OR is the only remaining tactic once a horse has been exposed and its class recognized. However there is a wonderful opportunity at the beginning of a racehorse’s career, for those so inclined, to set it on its way with what can be at times an absurdly low initial OR.....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: john in brasil, October 22, 2008 12:26 AM
Posts: 5407 | Registered: February 10, 2002

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Consistent Form + Ability + Capability + Probability + Hard Work = Winners
"Some stick out like a SORE THUMB and it is these which should have support"
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"It is also helpful to see which horse can't lose rather than which can win. The first doubt should be enough to leave well alone". UWF20

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