Tiered racing

[mardigras]

I recently did a quick check on some info for curious. I went further and as I would always have expected, the horses running in lower stake BM 72 - 75 races are performing on average to a superior level than the winners of high stake BM 65 races. (That's the average of ALL BM72-75 runners, not just the winners).

If I had a higher rated horse, I would either continue racing in high stake events, or lose a few points and go and pick up a higher stake BM 65 race, rather than race in a low stake race at my current grade.

It's effectively easier to win a $30k BM 65 race than a $15k BM72-75 race. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by mardigras

[mardigras]

I'll add that this is pretty useless information from a punting perspective - but more from a training perspective in relation to think about and placing your horse to the best advantage.

[curious]

I'm still trying to work this out. Why would winners of BM65s suddenly become superior when they graduate to BM72? Or is it because the dropback horses in BM72s raise the performance requirements significantly in those races?

[mardigras]

11 minutes ago, curious said:

I'm still trying to work this out. Why would winners of BM65s suddenly become superior when they graduate to BM72? Or is it because the dropback horses in BM72s raise the performance requirements significantly in those races?

I don't think they do become superior. But maybe the overall mix of those horses able to race in that grade are superior to BM 65 horses - some of which will be recent BM65 winning horses, and some might have been racing well beyond that. I'd expect a BM65 winner to drop back to that grade pretty quickly if uncompetitive at a higher level.

I'd expect a horse that is able to perform at the higher level (say 75 level) would find it easier to win against horses that largely haven't performed to that level (most 65 horses), than they would against horses that are performing at and around their own level. and in NZ, you can do that by racing for more money at a lower expected performance level. But to plan for that, you'd have to understand your horse's performance as to whether it is actually up at the higher level.

[mardigras]

Where I was going with this was that I'd expect 'generally' a horse racing to the level of a higher grade would find it easier to win in a lower level. But in most jurisdictions, you wouldn't expect to be able to do that and race for more money at the lower level.

[curious]

Would this at least be partly due to the screwed up handicapping system weight spread issue? You are always far better off at the top of the handicap in a rating band. So, you win a high stake R65 and go to R74 where you are not competitive because you don't get sufficient weight discount from the horses at the top of those handicaps. You need to drop back to the top of the handicap in R65 to win again where the lower rated horses don't have sufficient weight discount to be competitive. I take your point that if it is significantly harder to win an R74 industry day race (12k) than an R65 feature or better race (30-50k) why would you bother cf running down the track a few times to get back to R65 grade?

Edited August 19, 2021 by curious