First off thanks to Paul, Leon and the rest of the team for running a very successful league season. Leon especially for his countless hours troubleshooting TOM (think how much faster he could go if he didn't have to split his time!) and Paul for his weekly UKRA newsletters deserve special mentions in my book.

With regard to the season just gone, here are a few thoughts.

Handicapping . Joe did a great job this season handicapping for the flat. I'll toss this in the ring because I think it needs consideration as to how this is handled for the future and I am not sure Joe took this into account for his ratings. BTW this isn't a dig at anyone who has used this setup but certainly it's very possible to get a very well handicapped horse by setting race instructions to race handy and challenge early at your horses best distance. This will mean that in most races where you're running normal weights i.e. in a maiden your horse will run out of stamina early and will garner a low handicap mark. However when running off 7st 10 the horse has plenty enough stamina to do this from start to finish and unless all trainers are setting up to do this then that horse is going to win pretty much everytime .

Group races. There are 65 G1 races, 37 G2 races and 26 G3 races in the schedule. Somehow this looks a little strange to me. I imagine that in real life the ratio would be the other way around with more G2/3 races than G1. Maybe this could be tweaked? Certainly more G2/3 races is one way to allow trainers not challenging for G1s the glory of aiming for other races than handicaps. Having run some of my G1 winners in G2/3 races subsequently, the 3/6/9lbs extra they carry is more than enough to offset their better ability (they didn't win!) and is another way to maintain interest for those not winning G1 races. I'd probably reduce the numbers to something like 50 of each race but that's just off the top of my head.

Weights in races. There have been small errors I've picked up throughout the season. Not many and most after the switch of servers midway where there was some corruption of horse records but this is something that needs to be tightened up though I suspect the changes Leon is making to TOM may improve this.

Otherwise it's been a great season and thanks to all the team for putting in the hours week after week and here's to the next season when it starts!

The flat schedule does need to be tweaked a bit and with the extra week ( league will be 13 weeks next season ) some of the races need to be moved around. But as the schedule was a totally revamped one I think Matt did a great job in providing a good schedule for the season. A lot of errors are much easier to spot in retrospect so next season will be a vast improvement on this season. There needs to be more maidens in the weeks after the new uploads

The handicap rules worked well ( only one altercation this season where as in the past it caused endless issues ) but I do think the rules for long distances need to be changed. The spread needs to be wider for horses competing in races over 2 miles. It can be done quite easily as its only a minor adjustment to the code.

Any feedback on improvements to Tom would be welcome. Obvious errors like the database issues will be fixed, and changes to display form for horses and trainers, top trainer logs, top horse logs are all in the pipeline. Things like silks for trainers will also be added.

Cheers Andy enjoyed doing it

Been a great season been great to be involved
really pleased how the grand finals worked out
i think these are a good addition

the season ran alot smoother than i thought
as Leon Mentioned just 1 issue with the distance rules

I think the flat schedule was good but here are a few suggestions i know Leon & Andy has mentioned a few of these already

1 adding an extra week
2 adding more Maidens after the window maybe 15 - 20 maidens on week 7 and 5-10 week 8
3 keeping the breeders cup and grand finals separate BC on week 12 GF in week 13
4 Adding to the grand finals having 0-90 Grand finals at 6f 1mile 1m2f 1m4f and 2miles so there would be 15 GF
(This is only a basic idea so it gives every trainer at every level a chance to win a G1 and to keep interest throughout the season)
5 minimum runs to enter Grand Finals
(Andy mentioned this maybe a setting minimum runs to be allowed to enter GF so example a horse has to have at least 2 or 3 runs
to be allowed to enter GF)
6 wider distance margin for long distance horses
(Leon)

these are just some idea's all open for discussion

Oh the other thing was there were more than 16 runners in G1s sometimes. Was this intentional? I seem to remember a 16 runner limit which would go some way to mitigating starting positions.

I think the Grand Finals are great but I really do think a 2 run minimum where one MUST be a handicap run (say for horse with a rating less than 100) prior to the final so that Joe can have the right weights for horses that are setup with race handy/challenge early instructions and they don't get very well handicapped. Otherwise you get situations where top trainers can easily sweep these.

Agree

I could have given Ama Seeing 3 runs and still won the Melbourne Cup off a low mark. Acca Pulco had several runs in handicaps and still won two G1 handicaps. However I do agree we should increase the entry rules for the G1 handicaps. Im not sure about the handy horses getting low marks. Acca Pulco is even paced and Ama Seeing is set to make all. I dont really want to give away how I got them low marks.


The schedule was ok. It was hard work putting it together and agree that it is G1 heavy. The last few tweaks I did was to add more G2/3 and listed races but there still wasn't enough in comparison to the G1's. An extra week could be ok, but I think 12 weeks is long enough. What races do you want to add? I dont think we need 0-90 grand finals either.


Well done to everyone for running the league so well. It was good to see so many trainers winning races and also some newbies winning G1's and other big races.

This is useful for the schedule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Br ... orse_races

I wanted to find every tracks main meeting but found it hard. If someone knows an easy way of doing this then I think those meetings should be in the schedule. It was also my intention to use most of the flat tracks but forgot to change Musselburgh and Redcar to other tracks.

Perhaps . But the key is to make sure that any horse rated less than 100 in a G1H has run a handicap race. There will still be a chance of a bad race and having a low rating but it makes it less likely. At least it's something for Joe to be aware off as I suspect he might have rated Ama Seeing higher. I'm not saying it would have made a difference . It's one thing to see horses winning by 2/3 lengths in a G1 race but in a G1H race if the winning margin is more than a length then I think you have to say the handicap mark is wrong.

sounds intriguing

ya supposed to be able to throw a blanket over them in handicaps but this happens in real life too

He bought Joe some 50 year old single malt?

Yes and that's even worse . At least this is just a game.. in real life it's for megabucks.

I knew Ama Seeing would be rated low after the one run and agree this is not a good thing for the league or we could have lots of trainers trying the same thing. But I maintain I could have run 3-5 times and still got a mark in the 90's. Running in two maidens and several top handicaps didn't stop Acca Pulco.

Yup.. he's a great horse (Acca Pulco) and to win the 2nd G1 after the weight hike was very impressive. And you have the best long distance horses anyway so Ama Seeing would have been favorite no matter what. I'm simply making a point for next season.

Sorry Matt so you are now saying this is not good for the Lge after you have done it that is a wee bit contradictory
a bit puzzled by that

you broke no rules

was it fair play thats not for me to decide but to come out and say its not good
is like Lee Harvey Oswald saying no one else should shoot an american president

No what im saying is that we dont want loads of trainers giving horses one run and then keeping those horses for the G1 handicaps. I did that because I targeted the richest races to have any chance of beating Andy in the money list, it was my only chance. Thats the only reason I did it. I didn't break any rules and raced Ama Seeing and Acca Pulco at their best distances, 2m and 1m6. Ama Seeing would have got beaten in plenty of other 2m races off 87. Im sure people will find that hard to believe but look at Acca Pulco's other handicaps runs.


Oswald didn't shoot JFK btw.