No disrespect at all Sirius as I am very grateful to anyone who volunteers their free time to help run this league but I agree 100% with Wannabe. After all last season we had a horse rated 140 and it won one of the group 1 handicaps of that mark. Giving all the maiden winners lower marks will make the top horses eligible for the handicaps and judging by the group 1 handicaps from last season they will win them. I just believe a slightly bigger spread of ratings is required from the maidens and conditions races.

You are absolutely right. I should have allowed for a consensus on that matter first. I tend to jump the gun a lot. But I made my displeasure known about the ratings issue not too long ago which led to this thread. I threw out my rough outline similar to the one here. I asked to be handicapper only if I could try out my system from the very beginning of this/or next league season. Flash forward a week and there is a immediate need for a handicapper because the seat became vacant. I took it. Dealing with the files is a pain but I like the handicapping part.

I can't work with the current setup and am only interested in doing the role if I can try this out my way. I've toiled for years now with horses rated too high off a first week maiden run. If I'm correct current maiden winners get a 110. What's the big deal about adjusting the level down some?

There is an astronomical difference in talent between the league obsessed, transfer pool breeding, stat obsessed horse breeding witch doctors and the casual love the game for what it is and "hey wouldn't it be fun to race against other players on the internet" type of league player. We need to cater more to the middle and lower classes.

I fall in the middle of the two groups above but I always race my horses in a game career up to 5 years of age. I also love mix and matching from the transfer pool but I suspect more than a few players find the transfer pool aspect confusing and boring.

Power trainers have every right for their weaker horses to run in handicaps. I like seeing a power trainers horse sitting at 110 in a 110 handicap - it gives my horse a weight break. It seems to be the only advantage I can get against them...

Rating the top five in maidens to be so high they are outside the handicaps is a bad idea. 3rd maybe the best horse from a non power trainer who is then screwed for the season.

Wouldn't it be better if Mark fixed this thing? It's the same problem back in SO4.

Imagine the next future leagues with the same problem of needing someone to manually do ratings.

A software side fix would help the league. A simple patch.

The man hours involved is insane. I'm truly grateful to the volunteers

Some stats after 2 weeks. Note - I have nothing against the top 5 and I envy their ability to get such good horses. The rest of us are stuck in their jet stream getting inflated marks.

The Top 5 Trainers

First - They won 68% of all 60 races run so far
Second - 57%
Third - 53%

All of their horses are a combined 84% in the money.

5 Trainers out of 42. 12% of 100.

They won $18,964,000
The rest won $2,798,000

A roughly 85% to 15% split.

I disagree, humans are better than any computer rating these races. Without someone doing it the league would not be where it is today.

I'd love to go through each horses form on TOM as I make ratings. If I'm still in the position I'm going to try to do that next week. The problem is time and amount of horses. I watched each race and then studied the form card and then made ratings. It's time consuming for sure. If I were to go through each horses form as the ratings are made I could get a better idea of what the trainer is doing. As it is I took the form card and the previous ratings at face value and worked with that.

What have these stats got to to do with handicaps?

Under your system, most of these horses would get a rating that would make them eligible to run in the bigger handicap races and I think if the better trainers enter their horses in handicap races, they would still sweep the board.





I have no problem with adjusting the level down for the lesser horses, but why adjust the better horses down too. I think that you will still have the same problem but at a lesser handicap level.


It sounds to me like you blackmailed Gray and Leon into allowing you to become the flat handicapper and in their desperation to get a handicapper, they agreed to your blackmailing terms and now things have to be done your way with NO comprimises and the rest of us can like it or lump it.


I have no wish to be a handicapper and good luck to anyone who takes on the job. I have always just accepted whatever handicap was given without complaint and just got on with the racing. In the long run, this will probably make no difference to me as I spend 90% of my time on my jumps team and 10% of my time on my flat team.

I'm Sorry Jim but u should take that back, u cant accuse people of blackmail. U have no evidence to back that up, that's one of the worst things ever said in here.

It's okay. He's right in a way. I have it now and I want it my way as change after playing in the league for so long. No offense taken. Gray just said take it and I did. I'm the one being a stick in the mud. Anyone want to take over? I still like doing it.

I'm flexible. This is better I hope? 140 is tops. I must have maidens at that level and adjust for ages.



The maiden rating is the average. Say an impressive winner debuts I'd go as high as 110. For a weak race as low as 100.

I see maiden 2yo's were given ratings near 115 for wins. I can't adjust around that and be fair to horses who already have a rating based on that. No worries about maiden ratings because I have to stick to the previous formula for fairness sake. Handicaps are where I'll hopefully adjust things.

Lets Calm down Jim has got a point we can't have Group Horses which more Maiden winners are in the first two weeks running in the Lincoln in week 2 I believe we left it to the race kit a few seasons back and had group horses running off 85.

The game itself can't do the ratings in the game until its fixed in the game it wont be fixed in the race kit so we have to have manual Handicapper the discussion should be should Maiden winners have a 105
and go from their most trainers myself would say know they are Group Horses agreed some other trainers horses might get overrated if its a Mid field Maiden so we have to have a discussion I offered Sirius the Job because I was doing both Flat And Jumps and am still doing the jumps so Jim he didn't Blackmail anyone maybe some wording in earlier posts seemed like he was it wasn't.

Lets Calm down let see what happens Sirius will have to work from this week with the ratings I did in the first two weeks so nothing can really change to affect the horse's this season this should be treated like a learning process for Sirius for him to learn from this season then he might try and implement something in the Future League.

Gray

Yep, the maidens really are 0 to 140 races.

I'm not sure there is a silver bullet that will make the game 100% fair to everyone.

"A 3up Maiden winner gets a rating around 105 depending on how impressive the performance is. A 3yo only Maiden a 100. A 2yo Maiden a 95."
How do we judge "Impressive?" - I am led to believe from other posts I read recently that race times are not accurate because each computer determines the speed on the computers ability. (ie - an old pc will run slower races than a new you beaut pc) Is this correct?

If we could get standard/average times for each distance at each track that is used in the league (especially in the first 3 weeks) then we could rate 'impressive' and handicap according to the margin from the winner after rating the winner from it's winning time.

If this can't be done (for now at least) then there has to be a 'blanket rating' where the winner and any horses within X amount of lengths from the winner get a set high rating - in doing this we just have to accept that there will be 'friendly fire' where some horses just got lucky on the day finishing close to the winner due to draw and luck in running OR got unlucky winning an easier maiden. These horses will just have to miss a few weeks of handicaps til their ratings drop from poor performances in the Group races.

So wrapping up - If we can get accurate (consistent may be the better word) - race times from the race runners kit, then we can put in place a fair handicapping system based on race times from the tracks used in the first two or three weeks.
If this can't be done then we have to use a blanket system that the majority agree with.

EXAMPLE
Winner plus any horses finishing within a length of the winner get the full maiden rating. (not just the winner)
Then any horse that finishes no closer than a length to the winner but no further than 2 lengths from the winner gets a lower rating.
Then any horse that finishes no closer than 2 lengths to the winner but no further than 3 lengths gets a lower rating again than the previous and so forth til say 10 lengths from the winner - then after that a blanket low rating?

ALSO - Maybe the maiden rating should be on par with a Group 3 rating? - The winner plus all horses within a length are rated as Group 3 - then the next length back are rated as listed then the next length back as highest handicap and so forth back to the lowest rated runners?

If every race was made a handicap what would the point of the top trainers putting
all that time into making a team you can win handicap races in league with gamebreds
its been done many times before.

there has to be a happy medium for everyone

the league has come forward light years when i first got involved (Maybe 10 years ago) there were no handicaps
and it was riddled with cheating a fair play trainer like me never stood a chance and i left quickly
when i came back for the so5 leagues it had all changed just look at the league now its such a great thing
yes nothings perfect but bare this in mind no matter what you come up with someone somewhere is going to
be unhappy you cant please everyone

just talking personally if it became a handicap league i would stay involved but would just throw a team
together without thought or dedication I would not spend the ridiculous amount of time it takes now just to be competitive
thats my own thoughts and i have always been one that wants the league to get better and better even over my own success.

just a quick look we have had 17 individual winning trainers in jumps and 17 in flat and thats after 3 weeks
if you could look at the tables from 10 years ago i doubt anyone out of the top 3 or 4 trainers had won a race
im all for changes to make things better but you need to be careful not to damage something thats very good