Handicaps - are they worth it?

hibernia Wrote:

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> Racing without handicaps would not be worth having

Not completely true. SA had a system which offered a greater range of races than now.

When the merit rating was introduced, we had a strong plated race culture (novice graduation progress) and a strong handicap culture where A and B division horses were a strong category of good horses that campaigned just below graded races.

An example is a 1970 race card I found with a A Div sprint where the youngest horse was a 6 year old and the field were all 7x winners+. You had to be a good horse to be in the A division and you had earned plenty.

I think I preffered racing where to get into handicaps you had to get through more than just a maiden plate and therefore having a handicap and a horse who was a "handicapper" was a good thing. There is so much that could be better, but i really cant be bothered. I am officially old by definition now when I say it was better the way they did it when I was young!!

The "old" way was also easier for the Punter,less c/overs= more winners
I remember juvenile h/caps where you could often beat favs
Progress races were some of the best betting options
I believe this current system also steered seasoned punters around the bend [to sports betting]

Now this is just my opinion,so please don't shoot:D

agree that the "older " way was better but only because handicapping does NOT work for SA racing, horses in sa are trained differently to anywhere else in the world


1: In the UK a horse is given 3 runs and then get a handicap mark, the trainer then in most cases goes handicapping with it.
In SA a horse has 3 runs and also gets a handicap mark BUT those 3 runs were training runs and prep runs and getting it fit

2: In the UK its common to have maiden races where the WHOLE field are unraced , this happens well into the season this is because a trainer with a horse rated 60 just wont bother he will go down the handicap route
In SA its rare to have a maiden race with >90% of the field unraced this is because of horses run so often that there are not many "unraced " maidens left over. Even horse that turn out to be higher rated handicappers/listed horses run more times than over here in the uk.

3: In the UK the pressure to run 2 year olds is less than in SA, so certain yards have very few 2 year old runners and let horses mature into 3 year olds and then step them out
In sa us owners want to see our horses run asap and therefore horse have run many times before they reach 3

I am not saying 1 country is better than the other, what i am saying is handicapping does not work for SA. In the UK in october there is a HIT sale with well over 2000 horses for sale. I knwo the numbers are not the same in SA but there really is no sale like this where ALL stables stick horses on a sale. Of course this lets some of the smaller yeards pick up horses with a niggle or 2 that need TLC.This also allows big stables to get in the new blood