CLASS!!! What is it??

[punter57]

The eternal question! I think it's average prizemoney won in the horses last three months RACING (exclude spells), with it's biggest payday deducted from the calculation.This tells you in one hit that the horse has been doing better than the others RECENTLY(or up until it spelled) and the numbers are not distorted by some fluke "big one". If that day was not a fluke then there were others to bolster the average.
The only proviso is that today's race must be a "suitable" distance and ......"suitable" prizemoney (ie at least it's average win amount). The reason for this is that we don't expect Makybe Diva to win at 1400 despite having an average far superior to the others. Likewise I don't expect a horse to be really "sent" to win a $25000 first prize when it's been cleaning up in million dollar races. That looks too much like "practice" to me and I'll wait 'til the trainer is serious.Cheers

[davez]

rightly or wrongly i rarely use prizemoney as a definitive guide when trying to establish the class of a field or a runner, perhaps this is so because the majority of my punting is on the provincial meets & then usually on the weaker events, the lowly class 1 to 4's, with the odd maiden or 2 thrown in for fun.

so is there a difference in class between a $8k c3 on a tuesday at kyneton and a $7k c3 at hamilton on a sunday? yes, usually & no, not always. do i need to know the prizemoney values to work this out? no.

as i have mentioned a few times before anyone tackling these types of races firstly needs to understand how racing is conducted within each state that the punter wants to bet on, watch the movement of horses & jockeys within that region, look for the improvers coming thru & the trainer that can actually do his job, that being to place his horses in the correct company.

so what is CLASS? i duno, perhaps it is a mostly unknowable element of racing that we as punters rely on others to identify for us - the "others" being the trainer who knows what he is doing & the handicapper who isnt to harsh.

[Chrome Prince]

Class is the prizemoney won taking the average of the race field.

Example:

10 runners
Add up the api of all runners and divide by 10
The horse that wins ths race gets that figure - not the advertised prizemoney.

This should give you a better guide and allows you to allocate your own prizemoney figure based on placing all the way down to the last runner!

[Privateer]

When someone says "so-and-so is the class horse in this race", they usually mean one of two things; (1) the horse has proven outstanding physical ability (recently displayed or not) which sets the horse apart from the others, or (2) the horse is the only one in the field that is dropping back in grade from its most recent start.

[shoto]

Interesting idea, CP, but doesn't that only give you a figure for the winner of the race? What about the placegetters, or what about a horse that ran 2 lengths 6th in a Group1 event contesting an open hcp next start?

[Chrome Prince]

Interesting idea, CP, but doesn't that only give you a figure for the winner of the race? What about the placegetters, or what about a horse that ran 2 lengths 6th in a Group1 event contesting an open hcp next start?

Hi shoto, it allows you to allocate your own prizemoney on whatever scale you choose according to the placings right up to last placing if you wish.

[mememe]

hi Chrome Prince,
I'd like to talk to you about your filemaker database
I need to set something up & it looks like you've already done all the work!

an you email me at winners@aanet.com.au and hopefully we can work something out

cheers, Mark

[punter57]

To Chrome Prince (or anyone else who can explain). What is "api" and what does your first reply MEAN??? Can you show me how to use your idea where the 10 horses each have,say an api (whatever it is) of 10000,9000,8000,7000,6000,5000,4000,3000,2000,1000 = 55000 (divided by 10 equals 5500). Now what? Do you use a CAREER averages (ie the horse won millions when it was 2 or 3) even if the horse has gone downhill of late? Anyway,hoping for a reply. Cheers

[La Mer]

To Chrome Prince (or anyone else who can explain). What is "api" and what does your first reply MEAN??? Can you show me how to use your idea where the 10 horses each have,say an api (whatever it is) of 10000,9000,8000,7000,6000,5000,4000,3000,2000,1000 = 55000 (divided by 10 equals 5500). Now what? Do you use a CAREER averages (ie the horse won millions when it was 2 or 3) even if the horse has gone downhill of late? Anyway,hoping for a reply. Cheers

API stands for Average Prizemoney Index, which derived by dividing a horse's prizemoney by its number of starts in a race. It can be very misleading, i.e a horse when younger in its career won a race with prizemoney that totalled $500,000 for first place. Even five years or more later that prizemoney would still be included in the horse's total prizemoney and could totally distort how the horse had performed over the last year or so as it could have not won a race during that time perod. Better still, but a little more difficult to determine, is to use only the prizemoney a horse has won in the last one ot two years (Personally, I use the last twelve months in most cases).

[punter57]

Thanks La Mer. It was the "Index" that stumped me. In my original posting the problem of long-gone "glory days" was what I was getting at when I suggested a limited time-span ( I thought 3 months of ACTUAL racing, but maybe that's too little ) for including winnings to be used for an average. I'm also wary of the single "Big Win" which also distorts the average so I drop the BIGGEST payday from the stats. For example some 2yo might have won $100000 in 5 races (ie 20000 average) and suddenly land 250000 for THIRD in the Golden Slipper at 100-1. Immediately it becomes a $60000 average horse, despite not being able to repeat that fluke performance again and theoretically being 3 times "classier" than it was the day before. Now ,can someone explain Chrome Prince's idea of allocating your own prizemoney,please?

[Chrome Prince]

One idea is to divide the career prizemoney by the number of career starts, which gives the API, then multiply this by the place strike rate. This means that if the horse won three good races in a row as a 2 year old, but has very average form recently, this equation drags down the API to a more reasonable level. Not perfect, but it's an idea.

[syllabus23]

It's what Elle MacPherson has and Kylie Minogue doesn't.It is defineable and at the same time a darned elusive quality to capture.It is that certain "something" that is there, but not tangible.

In racing it tends to manifest itself after the event.Class horses perform in quality events.A horse that has previously run in a class3 handicap and is running today in a class1 event does not make it "the" class runner.

Forget class,it will drive you crazy !!

[woof43]

Hi all,

AL ILLICH, once said:

"Horses of superior class defeat horses of inferior class because they have superior speed. Yes, speed and nothing but speed. Not necessarily speed as expressed in the final time of a race, but speed at the right time, speed when it is most needed. ...In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to understand the importance of the pace of the race, meaning the speed prevailing at different stages of a race."

a. CLASS IS MORE IMPORTANT IN LONGER RACES.
b. CLASS IS MORE IMPORTANT IN HIGHER Classes
c. EVEN HIGHER CLASS Horses START OUT IN MAIDEN RACES.

A Good Class Indicator should produce: a. The highest percentage of WINNERS in its HIGHEST RATED Horses, and the lowest percentage of WINNERS in its LOWEST RATED Horses; b. A higher percentage of WINNERS in HIGHER Classes, and its lowest percentage of WINNERS in the lower Classes; c. A higher average percentage of WINNERS in longer races than in shorter races; and d. A very high percentage of WINNERS in MAIDEN GRADE races.

In short, to me this can only be accomplished by analysisng past winners sectionals and finding where the "right" speed of the race is applied.

[punter57]

Good one Woof43, but keeping it as vague as possible doesn't clarify the problem all that much. We know that the fastest horse "on the day" has won the race after the fact: obviously, that horse had the speed at "the right time" since it WON. What we'd like to know is how you know IN ADVANCE that that nag that's always coming home "like a rocket" in every race is NOT going to do so today or, conversely that the 100-1 shot WILL (and be on it!!!!). We would like predict that "maybe" (as in the 2000 Olympic 1500m final) the world record holder,who hasn't lost in 4 years, is going to get nutted by a guy who's best time EVER is 5 seconds slower. What use can it possibly be (from a punting point of view) to sit there, only able to mutter "he had the speed AT THE RIGHT TIME"!!!! What next with this info,Woof??

[woof43]

Hi Punter 57,
as i previously said,
"A Good Class Indicator should produce: a. The highest percentage of WINNERS in its HIGHEST RATED Horses, and the lowest percentage of WINNERS in its LOWEST RATED Horses;"

Using prizemoney doesn't achieve the above.

By using the appropriate Speed/Sectionals it WILL provide a smooth transition thru the rankings.
As I also previously said by analysing past winners sectionals you will find which sections or segments of the race are more predictive of the winner then others.


"We know that the fastest horse "on the day" has won the race after the fact: obviously, that horse had the speed at "the right time" since it WON. What we'd like to know is how you know IN ADVANCE that that nag that's always coming home "like a rocket" in every race is NOT going to do so today or, conversely that the 100-1 shot WILL (and be on it!!!!)."


The use of the Standard Deviation function comes in very handy in the above comments an in your 1500m Olympic Final example, it is also one of the most powerful functions to use in racing, if its used correctly you can develop a speed performance envelope for each runner based on its past performances

The performance envelope will be a Quick Time an a Slow Time, but before you do that you need to find the Standard Error in your sample size(each individual horses LTD Past Performances) which is STDev/Sqrt(Number of starts).
Once you have that figure you can then apply it firstly to find the Slow Time
you would use the following formula; Avg LTD Time+(1.96*STd Error figure) the reasoning for using 1.96 most performers running 1.96 STDev's slower then their avg LTD would lose.

Now to find a Horses Quick Time you basically do the same as above but you need to substitute the 1.96 with another figure, if you look at past quick times in a Horses previous form you will find a much lower figure then the 1.96 STDev's when a Horse has run its best performances.

The simplest thing to do once your achieved the above is to combine each Horses StDev with the above Times an run them thru a Monte Carlo simulator which will provide you with a good set of probabilities...

[punter57]

Morning Woof43. If you have time (I'll keep an eye on this thread) could you, perhaps give an actual example of how you would do that for tomorrow's race (any tomorrow!!). This is NOT a challenge or anything like that as I'm aware that nothing is INFALLIBLE. Whether it pans out the way it "should" on any individual race is not so important as the long term principle. I'd much appreciate it as you really seem to have a fine grasp of the maths/stats. Thanks

[anchor]

woof43,
as Vic. Provincials and most country tracks Aust. wide don't record sectionals what do you do there?

[La Mer]

Woof43 - In your example, how would you take into account the daily track variant? By that I mean that a track could be rated Good but could be running fast on the day (better side of good), or slow on the day (slower side of good and close to Dead). That's of course if the track condition is correct in the first place (and we know that a lot aren't). There are numerous occasions when a number of either track, race or class records are broken on the same day/same meeting, which is a clear indication of the daily track variant that is fast on the day and therefore the times have to be treated with caution.

[woof43]

Hi La Mer

The simplest way to calculate variants is to start by creating a set of average winning times for every distance(segments)/Class combination at a track. Then after each meeting is finished, take the actual winning time for every race on the card, and divide it by the average winning time for that distance(segments)/Class. Then I take the average of those numbers. That gives you the variant for the day. It should be a number very close to 1.000. If the number is below 1.000, it indicates the track was slower than average that day. If greater than 1.000, the track was fast. Then, you take the finish time(sectional) for every Horse that ran that day, and you multiply that finish time(sectional) by the daily variant.
Once this is applied to each runners LTD performances his average will have a lower standard deviation than an average of regular times without a Track Variant, if you've done everything correctly.

To have good results with the variant-adjusted times, you must be a bit careful with your distance(sectional)/Class averages, and your database maintenance. It's important to create a good set of standard averages. If you ever change your standard average winning times, you must re-process your entire database and recalculate the daily variants and re-apply the new variants to every single past performance line in your database. Many people mess things up by changing their standard averages and not reprocessing all of their historic data.
Testing your procedure for creating variant-adjusted times is very easy. Pick out about 20 Horses at random from your database, each of which has at least 20 past performance lines. Calculate the standard deviation of each Horses raw times, and of their adjusted times. If a strong majority of your 20 Horses (say 15 of them) have a lower standard deviation on the adjusted times than the raw times, then you are probably doing things okay. If 10 or less of the Horses have a smaller standard deviation on the variant-adjusted times, you probably have a problem.
This is one procedure where it's not possible to "over-fit" the back data. The better you minimize the standard deviation, the better your handicapping results will be.
If your thinking of using any times other then winners times, i have completed numerous studies on placgetters etc The standard deviation for Class X winners was .151951 seconds. The standard deviation for Class X second-place finishers was .157107 seconds, which is about .005 seconds greater than for the winners. So this analysis confirms for me that putting place finishers into a variant adjustment will increase the resulting runners standard deviations versus using only winners and thats not our goal.

The other issue of track degradation does have some effect but it can work in both directions, The above variant as it been described is quite good at removing daily variations in the racing surface. But if you want it to be even better, you could apply a secondary variant. Take the average of the averages, and then adjust each race for the difference between the average for that race number (over a long time period) and the average of the variants. That would give you a daily variant that was adjusted for track degradation as well.

[La Mer]

Woof43 - Thanks very much for your explanation. although it looks like a lot of hard yards, but probably well worth the effort. I wish you well in your endeavours in this area.

[shoto]

Woof43,
How do you account for field strength in these calculations? If you had a stronger/weaker field running within a certain class, then by the process you outlined the difference between winning time/par time would be attributed to track speed, when a component of the difference would/could be due to the relative field strength of the class in question.

[punter57]

Here we all are again. The horses are machines and follow a certain "precise" set of mathematical laws, scientifically calculatable (??) which makes even a Swiss clock look "haphazard" by comparison!!! Past performance, as has been pointed out (not least, by every Fund Manager/New Stock Float PDS in the world!!) is not a guarantee of FUTURE performance. Yesterday is only a "rough" guide fellas,at best:an approximation only able to tell us WHAT IT TELLS US: that if these horse from Melbourne, Wangaratta,Kyneton and Murtoa had met, at Geelong, over 1500m YESTERDAY, when it was pouring, we could've made a killing!! In fact we could've got the "first fifteen" no sweat. Average times? Perfect so long as no horse IMPROVES!! Nor ONE blunders and messes the others up. Nor the "best" horse has been kept awake by howling cats next to the stables all night. I see something "unexpected" in nearly every race I watch,yet there appears to be no place anywhere in YOUR calculations for such surprises.

This is simply a rehash of the idea that the fastest horse,from yesterday, ("the right time", in Woofspeak) wins. Who should we have backed in the Olympic men's 100m final last year? We all knew the best times for each runner AND there was nothing like "pace" or interference or "the bend" or Barrier Draw or "going" to worry about. The bookies had the odds at just about "perfect", statistically. Pity they couldn't pick the winner!! As Ron Clarke once noted (most ironically, when you think of it) after losing AGAIN in a big 5000m Final "But he (Keino) had to set a world record to do it!!" Or when Roger Moens was nutted by Peter Snell in the 1960 800m: "who is he???" By the way, Snell is the quintessential problem for "statistical" analysts such as you Woofy. He was (in retrospect) both totally predictable AND totally unpredictable: he NEVER lost at the Olympics or Commonwealth Games where "statistically" he was most vulnerable {on times,only marginally superior or,sometimes, inferior to his opponents) In smaller races where he was FAR BETTER on times (and "performance" to boot) he often didn't "get there". We know that NOW!! Just as we know that a "slow",class 2 performer from the boondocks COULD win the Group 1 S.A. Derby this year. Just as we know that the fastest 800m runner (Coe) of his, and most generations, never DID win the 800m at a Major championship, despite "the clock" telling us what SHOULD have been. Both his 1500s at the Olympics were, "statistically seen", the WRONG races, (try telling that to the beaten brigade!!),though NOT "psychologically seen".
Why do I mention all this? Because horseracing is FAR MORE uncertain than human racing, and since we can't even begin to have them "pegged" (the humans, I mean) what folly it is to waste braincells on quantifying that which is not quantifiable (the horse) to the LAST SPLIT OF THE HAIR

[shoto]

A case of "I can't make it work, therefore it can't be done", perhaps?
Various ways of determining relative ability within a race-field can't be used to profitable outcomes?
Fine, tell that to my bank balance. :)

[woof43]

Hi Punter,
Maybe you must have misunderstood the intent of this thread, what i described in my posts were how I went about identifying the Class runners in each race.
My Class analysis provides only one of 4 crosshairs in the overall ability matrix.
Sorry i didnt explain, this isnt my Speed nor Pace method.

Shoto, what you have mentioned is so important, the method i outlined earlier measures the combined Class strength an the physical Track configuration which means its messy.

I turned to greyhound racing for some answers, as greyhounds perform more often than horses an go backward an forward from track to track.I built a large database of performances, what i was interested in was in quantifying the track to track adjustments then the grade to grade adjustments from track to track.

I built a whole set of Grade Par Times based on Grades, then i looked at Track to Track adjustments based on Track records an using a combination of MPS, linear regression an centripetal forces based on the physical layouts
.
Then i did a number of tests based on looking at greyhounds performances based on track to track avg's, single performance figures track to track (that is dogs only racing once at one of the tracks), performances that occured in 7 days , 14 days right up to 200 days between each performance, then looking at a 3rd performance or a return visit to the first track raced, then age analysis, as age degradation also impacts on greyhounds but in a shorter time span and finally Male an female comparrisons.

With that done if one was to look at the two major dog tracks in Vic the Class component from one track to the other is around .06 of a total of say .19 and this is where the Best of the best race from the state.

No need to say its valuable to know the class strenghts from track to track apart from the measuring the physical component of the track to track.

[shoto]

Fascinating Woof, and obviously a very thorough approach. I trust you are duly rewarded. Through different means I aim at a similar outcome with the GG's, where the class (ie Grade) system has become so diluted that the official Class of the race is quite often meaningless, and one must find other ways of determining the real field strength.

[Chrome Prince]

Yes, but punter57 does bring up a point which I have found very valid.

One cannot really quantify unknown potential, increased performance, interference nor anticipate that a horse will perform as expected. This is where many ratings systems fall apart a little.

Not saying it doesn't work and definitely not poo pooing anyone's methods, just throwing an electricians spanner in the works.

Consider this....

Horses rising in class have a better strike rate than horses dropping in class.

Horses rising in weight have a better strike rate than horses dropping in weight.

Horses running very fast race times and very fast sectionals do not reproduce this as often as expected. Some horses put in an enormous run and never reproduce this in their career again.

How do we get around all this?

[woof43]

Hi Chrome,

If you rate each horses individual performance an make no adjustments for trouble or whatever and then find the Standard Deviation of its performances then do this for hundreds of horses from the Best to the Worst the youngest to the oldest you will find the answers your seeking.

If you use the Probability function within Excel an try manipulating the Stdev an check the effect it has on the probabilities I'm sure you will agree the importance isn't on the avg rating figure but its to be found within the stdev figure.

The main focus of ones attention should be on how to tighten or widen each horses Stdev.
Then find Variables/Factors that allow you to make minor adjustments to the Stdev based on either the individuals past performances or by analysis of all runners for that same Factor eg Horses starting from say inside barriers over X distance may have a very tight Stdev based just on those past performances, so a Horse starting from that position today may need to have slight adjustment to its Stdev based on this analysis, or say horses returning from a very lenghty spell may have a bigger/wider stdev so we might make that adjustment then to that same horse.
You can also use it to isolate races which have a tighter overall average stdev which means a more stable result, an this is what in fact will happen. A step further is to find in those above races where your top horses have a bigger advantage over its rivals, then your Golden

[Chrome Prince]

Hi woof43,

My questions are not meant to put down what you and others do, you clearly have a really good grasp on how you go about it. I must say I'm impressed by many of your posts, as you give detailed info. As a stats punter, I'm trying to come to grips with a lot of your stuff. At this point I'm far from anywhere near your level, but have made some amazing dscoveries along the way.

Many of my systems just don't provide enough action and hence the profit is not enough to employ a large amount of time on it. Having said that, my systems continue to produce profitable results.

I'm really looking to rate races to come up with some more profitable action.

Thanks for your input.

[zorro]

Shoto,
In reply to your question about excepionally fast or slow times effecting the daily track variant the method I use is to simply ignore any unsually fast or slow times on a particular day.
In this way a horse that has run a particularly fast time on a (say) 'slow' day will be rewarded when it's adjusted time is calculated.

to Punter69
We all acknowledge that there is no way to calculate all the variables in any one race but if you choose to ignore times, beaten margins, etc just how do YOU select the best horse in the race??????

[punter57]

Morning Zorro.I've got almost 15 minutes to my first possible bet of the day (AR1) so I'll have to be brief. in selecting the bettable nags I'm looking for the psychological factor. That is.... the trainer's plans /motivations, and am always asking myself NOT which is the "best" horse but WHY each horse has been PLACED in such and such a race.
I don't bother with the favoured horses (near the jump) as they ARE probably rated (by the money) as good things and need no further analysis. It's the runners over 20-1 who have me intrigued, as I can't understand why a trainer would even bother turning up if his/her horse is as "hopeless" as 20 or 50 or 100 to one suggests. Right this minute I'm considering Number 8 (about 50-1)> This one did very poorly at Mildura last time but the trainer has brought him all the way from Normanville for a MUCH harder race. Why? Let's see!!
P.S. I'm Punter 57 NOT P69: only my BEST FRIENDS can call me that!!!

[punter57]

Zorro. Hi again! You may have seen/heard #3 just winning race 3 in Adelaide. This was only at about $13,after being over $22 a few minutes earlier. At either price, the odds were underestimating both the horse AND the trainer (K.Sweeney). Since he (Sweeney) already had the FAVOURITE (#1) in this race, why would he (or ANYONE) add another, much longer priced, conveyance to the mix?? By my reading this kind of move should be more "respected" than theoretical notions of "class" or the like. Let the trainer's moves be your guide to the horse's ability!!! Cheers once more
P.S. just as I'm signing off #17 has got 3rd in B4 at around $23 the PLACE. This is another classic. I'm on him (but only to win,alas) as a you'd have to wonder what the MUSWELLBROOK trainer saw that prompted the trip to Brisbane. This is the same trainer who won the Grand Prix last week (at 40s) with Spuruson. Yet another one who SHOULDN'T have been "in it" on the "class ratings"!!!!

[kenchar]

punter57,

I LIKE YOUR STYLE,

Look for other reasons other than just form.

Cheers

[punter57]

Thanks Kenchar. After hearing,for the thousandth time that "you can forget studying the form after that shock result!!", I finally took the "flabbergasted" racecallers advice and DID!! When I look at the formguide now, it's only to get a feel for the trainer's tricks and intentions. When I see something "suspicious" I glance at the guide ONLY to confirm or repudiate. This means,for example, if a trainer has two horses in the same race and one is seriously unfancied I will look at this "outsider's" preferred distance range ONLY. If, for instance, today it's 1500m and the horse in question is well-performed at 2400/3200, chances are it is NOT FOR REAL (today). On the other hand, if the distance IS right,well....who cares about current form or "class"?
Before I hear from Fellow Forum Followers (FFFs) that it all depends on the ABILITY of the trainer, in placing his/her horses correctly,let me add this. I saw Curata Storm win (at over $90) in a Group 1 at Rosehill in April 2001 as the stablemate of the $4 favourite (which came 2nd). Since both "the Storm" and Freemason were from J.Hawkes establishment it could NOT have been a case of "the trainer doesn't have a clue".(Does Australia's leading trainer NOT know his stuff?)that sent him out at 90s. Rather it was the punters who blundered, misled by class and ratings etc.
The winner was up 12 grades from a Class1 Hawkesbury win (13 lengths!!) On ratings it was a "no contest" and yet.......!! Hope this gets a few of my FFFs thinking a little further about how slippery "Class" really is. Bye for now.
P.S. Curata Storm never won again, even at 2-1!!!

[woof43]

Hi,
The purpose of one's handicapping is to get to a situation whereas the assigned probs for each entrant and the actual result show the least amount of variance and Once you have done this there is no more amount of work to be done in the handicapping arena, its then a matter of seeing the imbalances within the pools. As you so rightly have pointed out the further you get from the Fav the worse JP goes in assigning the right probabilities, we just take different routes to find this Golden spot

[punter57]

We may have to agree to disagree on some things Mr Woof!! But what about this one; I was at Doomben one time when B. McLachlan had 3 horses (a class 5, I think)in the same race. One was the favourite. I spotted Bruce at the mounting yard and then up with the owners. Anyway, his 20-1 shot got up, and what do you know? It was THOSE owners he was sitting with!!!! It looked like they (trainer and owners) knew in advance which horse was which, BUT WE DIDN'T. The trainers are often giving pretty good clues and signals that something is "on".WE have to know HOW to read these signals. Cheers

[KennyVictor]

Interesting stuff P57!!!
I love to hear the different ways people are beating the system. Absolutely poles apart from the way I choose to work and the more fascinating because of it. I knew Kenchar would be impressed :-).
I wouldn't be so crass as to introduce terms involving three letters and rhyming with snot but when you have these hunches or insights or whatever you might call them how often do they come off and how often do you say "Well, I read that one wrong"? Presumably you get it right often enough to come out ahead.

KV

[Mark]

Before I hear from Fellow Forum Followers (FFFs) that it all depends on the ABILITY of the trainer, in placing his/her horses correctly,let me add this. I saw Curata Storm win (at over $90) in a Group 1 at Rosehill in April 2001 as the stablemate of the $4 favourite (which came 2nd). Since both "the Storm" and Freemason were from J.Hawkes establishment it could NOT have been a case of "the trainer doesn't have a clue".(Does Australia's leading trainer NOT know his stuff?)that sent him out at 90s. Rather it was the punters who blundered, misled by class and ratings etc.
The winner was up 12 grades from a Class1 Hawkesbury win (13 lengths!!) On ratings it was a "no contest" and yet.......!! Hope this gets a few of my FFFs thinking a little further about how slippery "Class" really is. Bye for now.
P.S. Curata Storm never won again, even at 2-1!!!


HI punter

If my memory serves me well, I think you'll find that Tie the Knot was the short priced favourite, with Sky Heights the only other horse in the market.

[punter57]

You may be right, Mark, as I only note my BETS and have to rely on memory for the rest. I thought it was Freemason but, whatever, there definitely WAS another Hawkes runner in the mix. Anyhow, the same type of thing happened, only yesterday, at Morphettville, with a much less celebrated trainer: one who I know nothing about, except that it was HIS $30 winner who brought my "Holiday Monday" to a satisfying conclusion!!. Cheers

[La Mer]

You may be right, Mark, as I only note my BETS and have to rely on memory for the rest. I thought it was Freemason but, whatever, there definitely WAS another Hawkes runner in the mix. Anyhow, the same type of thing happened, only yesterday, at Morphettville, with a much less celebrated trainer: one who I know nothing about, except that it was HIS $30 winner who brought my "Holiday Monday" to a satisfying conclusion!!. Cheers

Mark/Punter57 - Actually you are both right. Curata Storm & Freemason were both trained by John Hawkes, Curata Storm was 100/1 SP while Freemason was 20/1 SP. The two runners under 10/1 in the betting were Tie The Knot @ 4/7 SP & Sky Heights @ 5/1 SP.