Handicapping thoughts.

[mikeynz]

We all agree there are some aspects of the present system has some failings but what would one change or implement.

[Brodie]

1 hour ago, mikeynz said:

We all agree there are some aspects of the present system has some failings but what would one change or implement.

Needs to go back to number if wins

current system just not fair when 15 win horses race maiden winners 

[JTeaz]

2 hours ago, mikeynz said:

We all agree there are some aspects of the present system has some failings but what would one change or implement.

Remove and flush the entire handicapping department and start again. Hire sensibly.

[Brodie]

33 minutes ago, JTeaz said:

Remove and flush the entire handicapping department and start again. Hire sensibly.

Why stop at the handicapping department?

Unfortunately when the industry needs people with a  background with business success, we sadly haven’t got it!

I believe that what should’ve been an opportunity to keep the harness industry going has been badly managed!

the reality is that those that still think that Entain is the White Knight for racing in NZ are going to be sadly disappointed,  but then again the opportunity for anyone to dispute this are most welcome to respond here?

 

[Gammalite]

46 minutes ago, JTeaz said:

Remove and flush the entire handicapping department and start again. Hire sensibly.

are you talking about the people, the horses or the trainers ? lol. 

or just burn down the building . There's seems to be no one in New Zealand that can do anything right . lol . 

1 hour ago, Brodie said:

Needs to go back to number if wins

current system just not fair when 15 win horses race maiden winners 

Com'on Brodster . How could that archaic system ever work ? it never really did. I could give you bucketloads of examples of horses 'Reaching their Mark ' within a couple of starts and just being sold off to Aus. even from when I was in NZ.   

Lets look at Rangiora for example . Most of the races have been handicapped beautifully by the Handicapper and the races have contestants that are close on Ratings points . 35-40 , 41-50 etc.  Jason wants to sack and burn HRNZ though , just a BOAY forum normal thing these days it seems ? 🤣😅😋😂

EXAMPLE  The trot has Sods Law (15 wins ) off the front as a 38 rated horse. Rachmaninov   (also 15 wins ) is off 30m as a 53 rated horse. Brilliant !!  the great rating system ALLOWS the OUT of FORM horses to drop back in grade when they're out of form . AND there ARE PLENTY of Out of Form Horses around All the time. 

So you'd have those 2 old time trotters unable to race because of a tight DINOSAUR life time win handicap???  ,and  they would be FFAer's and taking on Muscle Mountain at every start.  That's just a joke mate. 

LIfetime wins????? . not really an option 

EXAMPLE 2 . we just had our SLOW Horse race day at Redcliffe today. As we do every Thursday to GIVE ALL horses in training a hope of a race win .

2 of the Maiden class rated races . Thats 30 - 40 rated  (the lowest rating you can get)  were won by a lifetime  9 win horse and John Mc's own horse Crime Time (currently rated 31 after a long run out of outs ) won race 5 . his 25th lifetime wins from 300 starts. The old bugger is closing in on $200,000 earned. and won today in 1.59.5. the absolute fastest he can go.

the 2 winners in next class up today (41-47 rating ) have 19 career wins each. How good is the Ratings ?? fantastic. 

The  STUPID Lifetime wins idea would have him having to take on Leap To Fame . instead of Beginners grade and just above, and winning today lol.🤣

LONG LIVE the Genius who made the Current Rating system. More brilliant Ingenuity for harness racing.

 

 

   

[JTeaz]

57 minutes ago, Brodie said:

Why stop at the handicapping department?

Unfortunately when the industry needs people with a  background with business success, we sadly haven’t got it!

I believe that what should’ve been an opportunity to keep the harness industry going has been badly managed!

the reality is that those that still think that Entain is the White Knight for racing in NZ are going to be sadly disappointed,  but then again the opportunity for anyone to dispute this are most welcome to respond here?

 

Whoever decided it was fair to give my battling 1 win trotter 40m, off the same mark as a 9 win horse. He got lapped both days and will now be another statistic because the owners got rheemed this week. I wont say anymore as i waa fined previously for sticking up for myself and no one is allowed an opinion. 1 day soon when i finally stop the torture to myself and leave this awful industry i will deliver a state of the game few have ever seen

Edited 15 hours ago by JTeaz

[Brodie]

1 hour ago, JTeaz said:

Whoever decided it was fair to give my battling 1 win trotter 40m, off the same mark as a 9 win horse. He got lapped both days and will now be another statistic because the owners got rheemed this week. I wont say anymore as i waa fined previously for sticking up for myself and no one is allowed an opinion. 1 day soon when i finally stop the torture to myself and leave this awful industry i will deliver a state of the game few have ever seen

Jason, dont agree that harness racing is an awful industry?

Yes it has certainly fallen from grace compared to the hay days when courses were full and it was semi affordable for many!

There certainly has been some shocking business decisions made over the past decade or so and I believe that HRNZ stopped promoting the harness racing industry.

Things are competitive in everything nowadays but personally believe that things are going to become very dire for harness racing industry 2 years or so due to very poor financial handling of things.

The frustrating thing is that those making the decisions at the moment are not looking at the overall picture of what they are doing to the harness racing future.

They have lost the plot and when things are shown up for what they actually are there will be heads to roll!

[Gammalite]

2 hours ago, JTeaz said:

Whoever decided it was fair to give my battling 1 win trotter 40m, off the same mark as a 9 win horse. He got lapped both days and will now be another statistic because the owners got rheemed this week. I wont say anymore as i waa fined previously for sticking up for myself and no one is allowed an opinion. 1 day soon when i finally stop the torture to myself and leave this awful industry i will deliver a state of the game few have ever seen

you're a good trainer of trotters.  so keep at it. 

Victoria is really taking off with trotters . In fact 8 of the 9 races at Melton on Saturday night are trots. something they have a lot of in Victoria to cater for all classes of trotters. The Group 1 is a Keayang Zahara benefit race though lol 🤣

A few good kiwi trotters trainers made the change to Victoria so well worth considering if you wanted to really enjoy your craft, and win some TROTS. Young Tristan Larsen still driving for ex-pat Brent Lilley , who has several group 1 wins training ,  and also ran 2nd in the TAB trot last year Cambridge with his star horse. they surprisingly only have 2 in on Sat.  

and another kiwi Kiwi Trotter trainer Richard Brosnan has done well. None in this Saturday though.  Richard and Son Emmett winning the Interdominion trot Final 3-4  years ago with Maori Law and win trot races all the time in Vic.

Another disgruntled kiwi trainer Kyle Marshall from Cambridge arrived a couple of years ago and does well. He has the favourite in race 2 . Alas the prizemoney in Victoria is very low these days , as not a lot of betting on them these days. Kyle's horse picks up just 3-4 thousand per win from it's 4 wins so you have to get used to that with the state of the economy. so has about $20,000 earned . but it's just a sport , and a wins a win  .

Auckland has several great trotter trainers like BarryP , the Dickies, Balle , Hacketts ,McGowans, Herlihy, Mark with OscarB, Chilcott , Dr Chin should retire (but whatever) and several more even  . What they should do is Double the prizemoney , Double the trot races number . and that would double the number of trotters competing . and get them off correct rating races too .  Dunn's even sent some there for a while like 'Bounce and Beyond' and 'BraveheartHighlander' so they would support the trotting too no doubt.

send all the Pacers to the South Island and have the North exclusively trotters and greater than Sweden . 😅  🏆

And MAKE AUCKLAND the Trotting Mecca OF the World for trotters . Bigger and better than Sweden even. Run the richest trots in the world .  NZ has had world class trotters (and trotter trainers)  for decades.  they should still try and prosper from such. The upcoming 'TAB trot' has made the Aussies look good so far  , so has lifted the Aussie game. Look what GUS did in NZ. and QLD is Not even a Trotting state lol. So things are Possible if you aim Big.  

[JTeaz]

3 hours ago, Brodie said:

Jason, dont agree that harness racing is an awful industry?

Yes it has certainly fallen from grace compared to the hay days when courses were full and it was semi affordable for many!

There certainly has been some shocking business decisions made over the past decade or so and I believe that HRNZ stopped promoting the harness racing industry.

Things are competitive in everything nowadays but personally believe that things are going to become very dire for harness racing industry 2 years or so due to very poor financial handling of things.

The frustrating thing is that those making the decisions at the moment are not looking at the overall picture of what they are doing to the harness racing future.

They have lost the plot and when things are shown up for what they actually are there will be heads to roll!

you don't agree huh. try lacing my boots

[pete cook]

There is no perfect handicapping system, never has been, never will be. If you set it up to advantage one group of horses, you disadvantage another group. The answer is in innovative programming, which can be done under any system, including the current one.

[Brodie]

6 hours ago, JTeaz said:

you don't agree huh. try lacing my boots

Jason, na I wouldnt have the patience and discipline that training harness requires!

I do have total respect for what trainers do and for the financial returns!

it is disappointing what is going to happen!

[Withadream2]

Some of this latest discussion may have been prompted by The Laz Effect & Jumal racing horses as low as 52.  It’s certainly not ideal but it’s not the fault of the system, it’s the fault of too few horses in their grade.  No system can overcome that problem.  The choice is to tighten the rating range for that race but then you deny TLZ & Jumal a start.  The only solution I can come up with is we get some clever engineering person to develop a mobile start vehicle where you can handicap horses off a mark. 

[Spatchcock]

Big hoopla over The Laz Effect and Jumal this week but the same thing happened last week at Auckland when a Miracle Mile placegetter and New Zealand Cup placegetter were in the same field as a rating 50. 
It happens every week in the north - fields selected from top down and the middle grade gets cannibalised and the horses sold, rinse and repeat.
 

[Withadream2]

Looking at this again, the problem has really come about because most of the horses around the R70 grade are in Southland this weekend. Perhaps TLZ & Jumal should have gone there if they really wanted to start this weekend and leave the their Addington race as a up to 60 rating. 

[the galah]

7 hours ago, pete cook said:

There is no perfect handicapping system, never has been, never will be. If you set it up to advantage one group of horses, you disadvantage another group. The answer is in innovative programming, which can be done under any system, including the current one.

personally i think you hit the nail on the head.

the current system,if applied properly could work much better than it currently does.

I've always thought the handicappers for many years simply haven't done a good job.

theres always been groups prioritised over others and theres also been inconsistencies in how they treat everyone over the years. Not just recently,but it goes back for quite some time.

Why don't they run more  races where not only ratings,but money won in the last 6 starts,or money won in the last 12 months,or a combination of that and the number of wins,etc.

if HRNZ were to do that they would spread the money won and races won out over a greater % of horses and their connections and that incentivises people to keep going. .

Currenly  the big winners are the horses who in the past would have been in about the 4 win grade. They simply win,get driven quietly for 3 runs,drop back to about r 39,put a claiming junior on,win,then 3 or 4 more quiet runs,then they are back in the same r39 grade they had won in, so they quickly win again and the whole cycle just carries on.

and of course the 2 and 3 year old winners have always been advantaged.

HRNZ's focus on the juniors is another example of prioritsing one group over another..

its hrnz doing what they always do,looking at a problem,saying well we don't have enough of this group or that group. Just as they do with the 2 year old racing,their solution is to introduce systems that prioritise  one group over another.

and thats what they have done with the juniors. They give them free gear ,free this and that ,licence fees,concession wins,more penalty free wins ,blah ,blah blah,chnage the criteria for being a junior to include people much older than there used to be,blah,blah,blah.

the people cross subsidising the juniors include the small time licence holders who train and race their own horses who are battling to keep going already.Like duh..

When people think they are being undervalued and the system is stacked against them,they recognise that and it contributes to how they see the industry and whether they have better things they should be spending their time and money on.Its not rocket science to recognise that although currently those in charge seem even less aware of that factor than in the past.

Edited 9 minutes ago by the galah