Seeding Horses
 

No, not quite what you might think ;)

As Tennis seems to be on everyone's mind including my own, a spark was ignited.
Why not apply Tennis rankings or seedings to horses.

A Group1 might be a Grand Slam

Of course that's what ratings are, but not in the same way.
And there are no tournaments.

What I found of some interest were the round points and then bonus points allocated to beating a higher ranked opponent.
As I understand it, horses are awarded ratings for winning a race, but there are no bonus points for beating a higher ranked horse per se.
Points could be awarded on where there horse places in a race (tournament) and bonus points for beating a higher ranked horse.

Also what I found was all that matters is the ranking of the player you beat (horse). Therefore the quality of the race can be determined by the horse you beat, not by the prizemoney or advertised class.

A massively intensive exercise to have anything like a Tennis database for horses, but for example, one could just try it on Group 1 races as Grand Slams and work out prices from the points and have rankings already in place.
Of course it would have to be up to date and accurate, so you could generate the whole field and the points and rankings and prices for each meet when the final field was known.

It is interesting to note that for tour events, players get points for a win at each level but not for running second - getting beaten. The points the second placegetter gets are retrospective (they won the previous match, so those are there points) they get nothing for losing the final.


However, you get bonus points for the type of opponent beaten and a bonus for winning a Grand Slam.

What I guess I'm getting at, is to have each horse with points and points that are modified along the way, which is a rating and easily converted to price at declaration time.

I believe that Techform and some bookmakers use this type of method, just not the Grand Slam method ;)

I might look into this further - any ideas or comments?

The only problem I could see is the normal, one horse gets a easy run beats a better horse who has a harder run. Would take a lot of work I think.

It's a massive endeavour really.

2000

Testa Rossa 2275
Tie The Knot 1950
Fairway 1950
Sunline 1950
Coco Cobanna 1625
Miss Pennymoney 1300
Assertive Lad 1300
Voile D'Or 1300
Diatribe 1300
Oliver Twist 1300

Sky Heights 1219

There's your top 10 plus an emergency ;)

2001

Northerly 5720
Tie The Knot 3575
Sunline 2600
Viscount 2519
Assertive Lad 2519
Old Comrade 2225
Landsighting 2194
Universal Prince 1950
Juanmo 1950
Piavonic 1950
Mr. Murphy 1950
Magical Miss 1950

So far the top three are Northerly, Sunline, Tie The Knot

Think I'm pretty much on the right track here ;)

I give a rating to the winner and add a bonus to the winner judged by the horse it beat. Half the rating of the second horse is added to the winner's score.

P.S. Sports would be the emergency rated 1625

2002

Northerly 9458
Old Comrade 5735
Sunline 5119
Tie The Knot 4550
Lonhro 4510
Barkada 3510 (This is an example of Crackone's theory)
Universal Prince 2925
Falvelon 1950
Spinning Hill 1625
Defier 1625
Helenus 1625

Emergencies

Dash For Cash 1300
Carnegie Express 1300
Don Eduardo 1300
Victory Vein 1300
Lovely Jubly 1300
Royal Purler 1300
Rubitano 1300

2003

Lonhro 10279
Northerly 10108
Republic Lass 6354
Freemason 6354
Bush Padre 3827
Yell 2600
Helenus 2275
Spinning Hill 2275
Clangalang 1950
Mummify 1950

Emergency Hasna 1625

Will post final four years in the next few days - I need a break.

2004

Lonhro 12879
Mummify 4063
Grand Armee 3575
Elvstroem 3332
Private Steer 2600
Spark Of Life 2600
Special Harmony 2438
Makybe Diva 2438
Niello 1950
Dance Hero 1950

Emergency Savabeel 1788


Interesting that this method dispells some of the "Lonhro didn't beat much" myths.

In fact he beat better horses than Northerly.

LONHRO ;)