How do you define Class

CLASS

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Another useful indicator is where a horse would have been the winner last time out but for a useful sort that beat him. If 3 or 4 horses that ran behind this winner, go on to win a race in the next 90 days – it is not improbable that your horse too will win the same sort of race in the next 90 days. The horse must have finished close up to this champion though. That is not more than 6 lengths behind for every mile – equating to about 3 lengths at 1000m , 4 lengths at 1400m, etc. You cannot credit a horse with class , if he only manged to finish 18 lengths behind a champion.

Another indicator of class is a horse that fights to win – sticking it’s nose down on a line of horses spread across the track, or just getting the better of a rival after an extended ding dong battle someway along the stretch. Horses that overcome obstacles and get up to win, horses that force their way through gaps – horses that look beaten some way out – but get up to win – these are more champion spirits than the horse that breezes lengths clear of it’s opposition with ease. Some trainers are able to spot their horses in weak competition , making this horse look like a superstar when it wins – but when subjected to pressure, they may falter. Not so with the champion at heart – the horse that is up for the fight and wins ugly.

Personally, class for me, as you said is a horse that wants to win. Certain horses have the courage to tough it out and get up when it matters. The good ones tend to get their nose down when it matters and cliché as it sounds, it holds true most of the time.

My yardstick though for a classy horse is if it has won a feature race. graded or listed winners are classy in my book and I would not ignore them. Whether the field was weak etc is a whole other matter.

MasterOfMyFate wrote: Personally, class for me, as you said is a horse that wants to win. Certain horses have the courage to tough it out and get up when it matters. The good ones tend to get their nose down when it matters and cliché as it sounds, it holds true most of the time.

My yardstick though for a classy horse is if it has won a feature race. graded or listed winners are classy in my book and I would not ignore them. Whether the field was weak etc is a whole other matter.

Great Stuff - I will add that to my bucket list -- winning a feature race is no mean feat -- if it's a weak field, that just demonstrates the quality of the current crop, and being better than it's peers is class. Thank you.

Class is he is right up there in a non-handicap Gr1 early in his career or, he has been right up there in at least two non-handicap Gr1’s. Right up there = 2 lengths over 1600m. My sixpence.


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I finding that anyone tipping more than 20% in America and more than 10% in the rest of the world to be rather classy

I think you need to define the criteria for the word class, and once that has been determined, those horses will pick themselves.

A horse's 'class' is an umbrella term used to refer (justifiably in my view) to any number of things, many of which have been mentioned above. In its purest form, though, class is a horse's ability to accelerate relative to its opposition.

The pure dictionary definition that would be most applicable to equine ability would be:

excellence; exceptional merit:

Another term that could apply in a different sense is:

of high quality, integrity, status, or style:

Some synonyms:

group, categorize, type, rank, rate.

The first three would probably incorporate the idea of Grade , etc - while the last two might relate to something like earnings rank, Merit ratings.

This is consistent with my concept of:

Ranking horses by earnings ability

and the idea raised above by ranking horses of the class that have won Graded races or feature races.

However does this mean that a graded race winner only attains class once he wins a graded race, and that he thus cannot be said to possess class prior to that ---

I have found that class horses tend to display an above average earnings potential throughout their careers , relative to the group of horses it races against. A class horse will ordinarily earn higher per race , than it's competitors - a top grade one winner for instance might start off with a maiden debut win - for R60,0000 per race earnings - or perhaps win at 2nd time of asking for around R20,000 per race earnings. The average maiiden would be in the region of R7,000 per race earnings. Thus when you find a maiden runner with R19,000 per race earnings, that is potentially a class horse moving through the ranks.

At last count Big Bear was on R625,000 per race earnings - that is about the highest the top horses on our charts tend to reach year in and year out.

On the basis of this ranking method - When Zen Arcade contested a maiden race, after the sales race and started his maiden somewhere in the region of R100,000 per race - this was such an anomaly in the maiden ranks that the horses should have started at about 1/10 and you could have still bet your house on it to win. The probability of a horse with that sort of per race earnings running more than once in the maiden ranks was so small as to make it as close to a sure thing as you could ever get in horse racing.

I think there has got to be some sort of benchmark to what you trying to achieve, otherwise you could end up with about 25% of horses in training deemed to have class, and that is certainly not correct.

If the benchmark is fairly stringent, then you will find very, very few class(y) horses, a sprinkling of good horses capable of winning Graded races with the odd Grade 1 or Grade 1 placed, slightly more handicappers who are capable of winning Listed races and the odd Graded race.

Try and think of the really classy sorts in SA, over the last 20 years e.g. Horse Chestnut, Pocket Power, Empress Club, the type of animal that consistently won Grade 1 races. That's where you separate the wheat from the chaff in my opinion.

bayern wrote: I think there has got to be some sort of benchmark to what you trying to achieve, otherwise you could end up with about 25% of horses in training deemed to have class, and that is certainly not correct.

If the benchmark is fairly stringent, then you will find very, very few class(y) horses, a sprinkling of good horses capable of winning Graded races with the odd Grade 1 or Grade 1 placed, slightly more handicappers who are capable of winning Listed races and the odd Graded race.

Try and think of the really classy sorts in SA, over the last 20 years e.g. Horse Chestnut, Pocket Power, Empress Club, the type of animal that consistently won Grade 1 races. That's where you separate the wheat from the chaff in my opinion.

Now that would meet the purest definition of class:

excellence; exceptional merit: - the few horses who make it into the history books , Winx, Black Caviar, Frankels and ilk, and the local champions with exceptional merit.


The trouble with that imo is that they are so few and far between , that this would not assist much as a punting indicator. For punting one needs indicators that identify class horses at all grades of racing - before they achieve cult status - once they have achieved cult status very little punting value can be derived thereafter

Based on my Assessment - here is the latest list of top 20 horses (including those overseas) that have raced in SA over the last two seasons.

1 WILLIAM LONGSWORD b.c 3y 2013
2 WHISKY BARON (AUS) b.g 4y 2012
3 MISS KATALIN b.f 3y 2014
4 LEGAL EAGLE b.g 5y 2011
5 ALWAYS IN CHARGE b.c 3y 2013
6 LIVE LIFE b.f 3y 2013
7 AL SAHEM b.c 3y 2013
8 BIG BEAR b.c 3y 2014
9 LIEGE b.g 5y 2012
10 MARINARESCO b.g 4y 2012
11 DEO JUVENTE b.g 5y 2011
12 MUSTAAQEEM (AUS) b.c 2y 2014
13 HAT PUNTANO (ARG) br.c 4y 2013
14 LEGEND b.g 3y 2013
15 HEAVENLY BLUE (AUS) gr.c 3y 2013
16 BRAVE MARY b.f 3y 2014
17 BULL VALLEY b.g 4y 2012
18 SAND AND SEA b.c 2y 2014
19 CAPTAIN AMERICA b.g 6y 2010
20 EDICT OF NANTES b.c 3y 2013

If I discounted the Hats first run I would have him ranked 4th, so there is the potential to make money on an under-rated horse.

I have heard a few presenters refer to a 2 time winner from maybe 30 starts that is maybe a MR 75 as having a 'a touch of class about her' .. When I hear the term class used as an adjective on Monday Flamingo then I really get confused - I would think Class is when a horse has earned black type -