There is probably more talk and discussion about the weight carried by Race Horses, than any other area of Horse Racing. With all the talk and discussion there are also a number of assumptions that are banded around as fact, as well as many facts that are dismissed as rumour! While Race Horses are handicapped the fervour will continue, and the betting public will be barraged with opinion dressed up as fact.
So it’s about time to have a close, statistical, look at weight; time to right those rumours and reinforce those facts. This is my third article in the Form Analysis Series, and this time I am lifting the lid on the weight debate.
Some interesting Statistics about Weight:
- In a Handicap race a horse going UP in the weights can have a POSITIVE advantage!
- 26% of Non-handicap races are won by horses carrying the same weight as its last outing.
- Horses dropping in weight can be at a bigger disadvantaged than horses going up in the weights.
Has the handicapper got it right? Want to know how to rate any Race Horse using Weight? Read the full article and you can work it out for yourself!
The full article is available by e-mailing me at admin@racinginfoservices.co.uk. There is no charge for this, the third in a series of articles looking at Race Horse Form Analysis once again trying to help you win more often and win more profitably!
Hi Chris:
A lot of info here, and always thanks for your efforts. I probably have far too many comments to put in a single piece so I will look at certain aspects separately (as always hoping to stimulate some debate).
Position in the weights (PinW) clearly indicates to me that weight is at best a minor factor (I know you will probably disagree). According to your figures there is an almost linear decrease in win % as you go down the PinW (I believe we can ignore the 2nd and 3rd position as a slight statistical anomaly – or at least I’m going to). As you state this indicates that the better-able, in-form horses are able to overcome the handicappers’ efforts to slow them down. Similarly, using your figures for non-handicaps and weight differences which also show a similar linear decrease it is evident that putting more weight on a horse is not a great burden (pardon the pun).
This is where I believe we have to be careful in how we phrase conclusions for this – and partly why there is such debate around this whole weight issue. Do we state (as I have in the past) that putting weight on to a horse will not reduce its chances of winning? Or are we in a position that the handicapper has got the lbs per length formula wrong and it is simply a matter of degrees?
To take the first assertion. We can have no proof that if a horse won carrying x lbs it would not have won carrying x + y lbs, likewise we cannot state with certainty (although it is more likely) that it would have won carrying x – y lbs.
What we can say is that if weight is a major factor then the handicapper has got the formula wrong – proven by the fact that if the formula was correct there would be no linear increase/decrease based on PinW.
This to me puts it in a nutshell, and we are no nearer solving the problem (although your figures have certainly helped to quantify the issue). Either weight has no effect or weight has an effect but no-one has managed to accurately codify the effect it has.
An interesting comment Mike, it has got me thinking.
I believe that weight isn’t such the great factor that many make it (that said there I have put forward evidence to suggest that it should not be ignored), and as you say the position in the weights and the almost linear relationship to the win %, does show that the handicapper isn’t quite as effective as some would have you believe. If he were then the position in the weights would show an even strike rate for all weights!
I do believe that for each horse there is a critical weight above which its performance is adversely affected. I have tried to come up with a method to gage this; however the number of factors involved makes it quite complicated. You could say that as the handicapper increases the weight for each good performance during a horse’s spell of good form, there will come a point when the weight hampers the horse, however the problem comes when trying to ascertain if the resulting poor performance is due to the increase in weight, or if it’s due to the natural end of a period of good form.
I really don’t believe that the great weight debate will ever be conclusively solved, but the article does show that the handicapper is a way off the mark!