Remind me again about weight

[mardigras]

Here's race with an almost unheard of range in NZ/Oz of 10kgs allocated weight. 

I wonder what happened. 

[Dancing Show]

Not sure what you mean by "wonder what happened"  🙂  but if it refers to why the weights :  Rating 45 race - top weight, Lieutenant, who eventually won the race is rating 55, the bottom horse, Delta Rose is rating 34 and a mare.. the horses inbetween were weighted based on their ratings initially, and then whether gelding, filly or mare.   Only horses at 45 rating are horses 5 and 6.     Horses 7,2,5 filled the other placings.

Country meeting highweight perhaps 🙂 

Edited March 2, 2021 by Dancing Show

[mardigras]

8 hours ago, Dancing Show said:

Not sure what you mean by "wonder what happened"  🙂  but if it refers to why the weights :  Rating 45 race - top weight, Lieutenant, who eventually won the race is rating 55, the bottom horse, Delta Rose is rating 34 and a mare.. the horses inbetween were weighted based on their ratings initially, and then whether gelding, filly or mare.   Only horses at 45 rating are horses 5 and 6.     Horses 7,2,5 filled the other placings.

Country meeting highweight perhaps 🙂 

Thanks Dancing Show for your explanation of how the weights are arrived at. My point about 'wonder what happened' is in relation to my view that weight has very little impact on results. So as per the ratings, the 10kg total difference (8kgs after allowance), was not likely to make sufficient impact to that horse compared to the 'rated' ability of the horses. And this is the case in NZ/Oz handicap races generally. i.e you need much more than 0.5kg between rating points in general, to equalise chance (of course the variance is that the ratings aren't necessarily a reflection of ability, just someone's assessment of various races.).

Weight is about the only method we have to try and equalise chance. But the difference between levels of ability needs to have a greater weight difference than what it is.

The second part of my post is in relation to weight allocation. In NZ and Oz, the allocated top weight in most races is well below what it could and should be. In order to actually have a proper handicap race, top weights could easily be set to the 63 - 64kg mark for a horse at the benchmark level. If they are to persist with a ridiculous minimum weight to help jockeys, of around 54kg, then raise the top weights and remove some of the compression that occurs at the bottom due to the ratings of the horses entered. Compressing the weights simply further advantages the better horses and does less and less to equalise chance.

And this is highlighted in your own post whereby a horse racing out of its grade, should have been allocated 7.5kgs below benchmark weight (of 60kgs), but only received 5kgs below that due to the race carrying a minimum weight of 55kg. If the benchmark weight was 63, she could have been allocated 55.5, allowing for a greater spread of weight to reflect the spread of ratings - which is more and more common these days. And in that case, the top weight could have been allocated 68 (and carried 66kg after allowance, and likely still win).

In my view, with the spread of ratings for that race of 21 points, about 16.5kg would be the ideal weight spread (ignoring gender allowances which are a joke in handicap racing). So for that field, weights from around 70.5kg to 54kg would have made it a truer handicap reflecting the assessed (rated) abilities of the competitors. 

Instead we get what can only be described as joke handicap racing in NZ/Oz, although the joke suits me financially.