Tellytrack Presenters & The MR System

Justinv , this drivel of Nett MR drives me up the creek !! The conditions of the race dictate the WFA.... and when a 2 yr old turns 3 he goes up between 6 and 10 kg's in the weights without leaving the stable ?? Load of drivel in my opinion.Look through todays card for example...the WFA conditions are different for each race .... so depending on the distance, the division (yup, old term) he has a 'fluid' nett MR... cool.

magi its drivel cause u have no idea how it works..no offence..the conditions of plate races dictate the WFA yes.. but in handicaps the WFA allowance is determined by the WFA scale..and no a 2yr doesnt go up in the weights when it turns 3..horse doesnt have to leave the stable to grow and mature..thats what the WFA scale presumes..the amount of maturity being made over time..unfortunately not all horses mature at the same rate so this is where there can be problems..the net MR is the MR that the horse is weighted off in handicaps..how can it be drivel? surely that makes it very important..

look in race 5 today...supa alpha and aerofoil are both carrying 58..yet supa alpha is a 79 and aerofoil a 76..how can that be? because supa alpha is 3..the wfa allowance over 1200m in june is 3 pounds..so he gets 3 pounds off his mr of 79..making him a net 76 only..which is why he is carrying the same as a 76! hope that helps

Now if that exact race is run in August ...... how much will he carry ? And without having earned the 1.5kg's .... I maintain the MR is the MR is the MR. JustinV I KNOW exactly how it works... no problem there. All I know is that in August if the horse has NOT RUN he still has an MR of 78.... but the conditions of the race have him carrying 1.5kg's more. So his NETT MR is 78...why? When now it is a NETT 76 ?? ....

JustinV Wrote:

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> i couldnt agree more..i am the first to suggest
> that there should be more plate races to allow
> horses to win more races/prize money etc...but
> plate races dont attract full fields(usually) do
> they? and full fields are what the operators want
> to see...???
>

Justin, this does seem to be the case but what would happen if there were very few, if any, handicaps to enter? The horses would still have to run, and plate fields would fill, wouldn't they?

@magi the conditions of the race dont have him carrying 1.5kgs more...the wfa scale has him having made 1.5kgs improvement over the set time,so the horse has less wfa allowance therefore increasing its nett rating therefore increasing its weight..

@not sure sabre..i suppose they would...which might make happy punters i suppose...but very few horses will be competitive which will mean even less earnings for owners than now..if the same good horses keep placing and beating the same bad horses over and over

A compromise between the MR and a race figure might well work ...........true handicaps run off MR but condition races run with the old "penalty for win" basis,capped, but no reductions.
Better horses win more races which seems fair to me and when a horse has earned the stake relative to its ability it retires and leaves room for new graduates.
There is already not enough stakes for the amount of horses in training so to give horses "reborn" careers makes no sense to me.
I cannot see any justification for a 1 time winner ,who's earnings are ,say,R100,000 to date,losing out on its second win to a 7 yr old -10x winner who has had 25 points knocked off it's rating,but has earned R1m.
I don't know how anybody can favour a system like that................it's like giving Gary Player,Jack Nicklaus etc. a chance to win the masters by letting them go off the ladies tees............lol

Many people have excellent points. But the thing is that the system of handicapping isn't the problem. When MR replaced race figures, handicaps were only a small percentage of the types of races offered. In fact, most handicaps were ABOVE Graduation Plate level!

The fact is that the clever MR system made plated races look silly in comparison, because most runners would be better of in any given set weight race against a high rated horse IF the same race was magically changed to a handicap.

The solution is simple. Change the stakes so that runners are offered much more money in set-weight races than in handicaps.

Keep changing the ratio until people are torn between getting the weight in a crap handicap, or firing for the money in a set weight race which will always attract higher rated horses. Graduations OFTEN attract horses placed in features running. Pinnacle plates OFTEN have graded runners.

Very weak handicaps for very weak horse should pay poorly, and vice versa. As a breeding nation, and a progressive racing nation, we should try our best to separate the class of our racing to build up the strength of the better horses, instead of rewarding the worst at the expense of the good.

jack dash..i like

100% Jack.

A maiden plate in Jhb is currently worth 75k,a MR 68 Hcp 64K.The discrepancy between the two needs to be way bigger.The best horse deserves the most money imo,but we have a system whereby bad horses keep racing because they can earn enough in the current system to make it worthwhile keeping them in training.

As a starting point,the programmers should work out what the average maidens winning MR is.All races that have a rating less than this should be worth half of a maiden race stake.These bad horses need to make way for better horses.

Good idea, Jack. It's a compromise that could just work.

jack for phumelela ceo lol :)o