Did form for those races the other day for a mate who loves his Cup doubles, so thought I'd share it with you all. Posted this in another thread, thought I'd put it here too for people to see if they want to take doubles.

Good luck all:

On the ********************.com figures, this is what I found for the horses I liked:

Accumulate - will peak at 119, has 50 both Cups. I like it over the 3200, I reckon at this point it looks very hard to beat. Rated 114 the other day, that was a stayers run for SURE. Trainer knows something about the big race too....

Confectioner - peak probably 122, very well in Caulfield Cup with 52.5. If he does 122 in Caul (rated 117 1st up winning, natural 122 peak then on the 5 point theory), if he does 122 in Caul with 52.5, he wins it.

Vouvray - will peak at 118, has 51.5 both Cups. Keen on her in Caulfield too. 118 will go very, very close with 51.5. Obviously set for it, goes well there.

Dizelle - will peak at 119, has 51.5 both Cups, better suited the Melbourne Cup, pretty sure she'll do 119 there, however gives Accumulate 1.5 kgs.

M.Diva - 126, but with 58 kgs I reckon she'll get beat. In fact, I don't reckon she'll run in the melbourne. If she does, I think they've stopped her. However, she's almost over the line in the Cox. There's only one horse that can beat her: Super Kid from Hong Kong. On the ******************** ratings he has rated solid 120's over there and has once gone 125. That's massive. Makye Diva is the best in Aus with 126, the next best currently racing is only about 123 or less. Might even be 120 now with Grand Armee retired.

Lotteria - has a 120 coming someday. That puts her in most Cox plates very nicely (54.5 kgs WFA 4yo mare), however this year's could rate very high and her 120 might still get beat!

That's my thoughts.

Cheers.

At first glance, I'm not keen on Accumulate's form & think he's not classy enough for the Cups. St Leger form is generally iffy, & had no real form around quality opps before that. Personally I wouldnt project its ratings to 119 just yet. Point taken about the trainer though, if it starts stringing together 114's in the lead-up the Cup....you never know.

At the moment I'm a Vouvray fan & also Wild Iris. Both these two have been given plenty of time to mature. Look at Vouvray's WFA form, only 2 to 4 lengths of the nations very best. Did a faster final 200m in the CC last year than Diva. Personally I think the MC is a better target for her.

Ditto Wild Iris. I was quite taken with her 3yo form. Huge finishing sprint & will get 3200m easy. Touch wood she seems to have come back well & Walter is just flying atm. Some rain wouldnt hurt either

How about Xcellent, you have any kiwi figures? Made up huge ground first-up in a race where the leaders kept going strong to line. Forget his Derby run altogether.

Interesting to here about Super Kid's quality....consistently in the 120's??? Experience on Strathayre too.

Yep do have Xcellent form - that rating was a 114 the other day, suggesting he has a 119 coming. Certainly a good rating but I do think there's plenty of 119 horses in the mix with less weight than him. I know he's only got 53 or 54 or whatever it is but Vouvray will peak at 118 (has 51.5), Dizelle will peak at 119 (has 51.5), Confectioner has a peak between 119 and 122 (hard to gage given he's now a Hayes horse, may therefore be a 122, would've been a 119 if still McEvoy) and he has 52.5. Xcellent is an excellent horse (boom boom!) but people are going overboard calling him a champion etc already. Starcraft came out of the same race last year and didn't win the Cox plate. I know Starcraft won overseas etc but point is it's easy to beat moderate horses well. 119 is an excellent rating (boom boom again!) and will win Group 1's though, but whether it wins the elite group 1's is another matter. I think not myself with the weight he has.

Super Kid, super horse!! He rated 120 behind Barely A Moment, first up in Australia, that says something on it's own, and pretty much proves the HK ratings right.

Agree with your prognosis of Wild Iris and Vouvray. Wild Iris certainly has the ability too, however she only rated 112 winning her Oaks which means the has a 117 coming. She has hit around 112 a couple of times since too, what weight does she have in the Cups? She wouldn't want to have more than Vouvray because on ********************'s ratings Vouvray looks a point superior.

Hey by the way - been meaning to post this - Xcellent went 114 in that race 1st up, Starcraft the year before went 117, so comparisons are unfair, Starcraft is clearly the superior horse. Starcraft also went 117 a number of times in Aus, including in the AJC Derby, I would suggest he's going 122's over there at the moment, including tonight where he just won the QEII.

So, again, Xcellent's 114 doesn't really compare to Starcraft's 117 same race prev year.

I am personally not a HUGE supporter of ratings, but definitely understand and respect their usefulness. Legitimate ratings, like these seem to be, can save a handicapper lots of time if they choose to use them. They are basically a consensus of a horses abilities in any particular race. The Beyer ratings here in the US had to gain credibility before becoming a standard part of the Daily RAcing Form's PP's. I remember the time when I wouldn't even look at the Beyer's and they were only available for certain tracks. It seems like these ratings in AUS are just going through the same kind of growing pains.

Yeah Andy Beyer is an interesting guy, read a fair bit about him and read his books. I used to be a huge fan of time ratings. When I was younger I built up bases and standards and rated them on time and did the form and loved it.... and lost.

Andy himself came out to Australia with the intention of conquering the races here using time ratings. He tried, but lost badly and went home having done a serious amount of cash.

Times work in the States, but they don't work here. There are many reasons why this is the case, I don't have the time to outline it all here now but trust me, they don't work overall. In SOME cases, time can be a guide, but that's all. Two important exceptions are - early 2yo's (like blue diamond preludes for colts / fillies at Caulfield) and when assessing the ability of a maiden. If a maiden runs much faster time than other races over that trip (see Rewaaya recently), it could be a good horse, especially if it wins by many lengths. However, maidens who run a slow time may still be very good horses.

Here's an example of the unreliability of time:

July 29 this year, Preakness and Shovoluck both won maidens at Tamworth over 1000m. That's basically the shortest trip in Australia for maidens. Sprinters trip. Times, if anywhere to be reliable, should be reliable there. This day, with the same weight, Preakness ran 0.36 seconds faster than Shovoluck. You'd think, all being equal, that Preakness' run was better, on times it was 2 lengths better after all. On the expert-form ratings however, Shovoluck rated 95 and Preakness 93, which is roughly 1 length superior, with a slower time.

Next start, they raced against each other. Perfect time to test the theory. It was 1 week later, at Gunnedah over 1000m. They both had to carry 54.5 kilos. If you're a time fan, you'd expect Preakness to beat Shovoluck by 2 lengths. Let me tell you, I watched this race with GREAT INTEREST.

In the run, they both got their chance. Preakness box seated, 3rd on the fence, Shovoluck sat just on his outside. In the straight, the run came for Preakness and Shovoluck switched out to the middle to make his run. The result?

This is it, with the expert form ratings included:

finpos Horse Weight Margin rating
1 GAHELA BEAU 54 0.4 95
2 SHOVOLUCK 54.5 0.4 95
3 STRAWBERRY BAR 56 1.4 95
4 CABBAGE 51 1.6 91
5 PREAKNESS 54.5 1.9 93
6 MAGIC JAZZ BAND 54 2.7 91
7 BROAD SPECTRUM 56 3.7 91
8 ITSNOSECRET 54.5 5 88
9 DUE WEST 54 8.5 83
10 LITTLE RASCAL 55 10.3 81
11 SUNGARI 52 11.5 77
12 RONS RACQUET 54 16 71



I've done a heap of work on times, and here they just don't stack up. I know in the States they do and I wish they did here, because it'd make it so much easier, but they don't. What works is comparing horse against horse, weight against weight.

Cheers.

Clown

Yosman
Yosman, I see you rated all your selections in the 'Yosman's Best Bets' thread yesterday. Congratulations on coming out of the closet.

Wun

yozman must have had a bad day on the punt, or maybe he's a st george supporter , THERE ALL WINGERS

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