The 2024 Cheltenham Festival played host to many interesting stories – not least the miraculous resurrection of two of Dan Skelton’s horses.
Since winning the Coral Cup in 2023, Langer Dan had finished sixth out of seven, ninth out of eleven, 14th out of 19 and been pulled up at Sandown in his subsequent four outings.
So you can forgive the bookies for being pessimistic about the horse’s chances in its title defence, but Langer Dan kicked such concerns to the kerb by being prominent throughout in the 2024 edition before powering home to win by more than three lengths.
He carried a handicap of 11st 8lb – four pounds up on 2023, but down on the 12st he’d laboured with for much of the 2024 season.
And wouldn’t you just know it, later that afternoon Skelton had another handicap winner. Since November, Unexpected Party hadn’t finished any higher than fourth in a series of Grade 2 and Premier Handicap renewals – come Cheltenham, he was eating up the ground to win the Grand Annual Challenge Cup.
The horse had carried weights ranging from 10-12 to 11-09 (as well as 11-07 in a Grade 1 outing) during that fruitless portion of the season – by the time the Festival rolled around, the handicapper had downgraded him to just 10-10.
There’s no insinuation that Skelton has acted fraudulently – horse racing is an unpredictable sport, and many horses have shown a specific aptitude for Cheltenham over the years while enjoying little success elsewhere.
But the question remains: how reliable are the handicap ratings in racing?
The Ratings Game
Richard Hughes, a trainer with career prize money to his name to the tune of £4 million, has said what many suspect to be true: some trainers in racing are cheating the handicap system.
“The main problem with the way we handicap horses in Britain and Ireland is the system encourages people to cheat,” Hughes has written. “That’s what it does and I think most people can see that’s what it does.”
Getting a horse’s rating down, with a view to entering it into big races of a lower grade down the line, is not uncommon – with plenty of tactics available to those wishing to play the system.
“There are ways of getting down to the sort of rating you want,” Hughes confirms. “One might be that a horse goes to the race after spending more time on a walker than on the gallops. That horse therefore arrives at the races a little like me – bigger around the belly than he should be and short of peak fitness.
“People can easily play the system. They might be staying within the rules but outside of the spirit of the rules.”
One trainer who didn’t stay within the rules was Ronan McNally, who was found guilty of stopping his horses from running to their best in order to secure a lower handicap rating in the future.
The Irishman was banned for 12 years for not running his horses to their true merit, with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board alleging that associates of McNally would then financially benefit by betting on these horses in subsequent handicap races.
Sir Mark Prescott, the Newmarket-based trainer, has been forced on numerous occasions to deny that he cheats the handicap system – despite a number of his runners winning while unfancied, based on previous form, over the years.
A Sir Mark Prescott masterclass! ????
True Legend had form figures of 650 in novice races last year but, up in trip and into handicaps this term he’s now won two on the spin.@Luke_Morris88 took this race by the scruff of the neck a long way out.@salisburyraces pic.twitter.com/cO94tpYyPI
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) May 18, 2023
There are, it has to be said, benefits for a trainer and owner to deliberately downplaying the abilities of their horses. The handicap races at the Cheltenham Festival are some of the most lucrative in the National Hunt calendar – arriving there with as lenient a mark as possible gives the best chance of scooping a handsome prize; even placing in a Festival handicap is more financially rewarding than winning lower-grade fare elsewhere.
There’s also trainer/owner partnerships that want to create a slice of history – they might under-run their horses during the season to try and get a low weight in the Grand National, while sneering their runners do just enough to qualify for such a prestigious renewal.
How to Bet on Handicap Races
Betting on horse racing successfully is hard enough at the best of times, without nefarious trainers and owners getting in on the act.
That makes the job of the handicapper more difficult too, who must rate horses based upon what they’ve seen – not the suspicions they have or the Chinese whispers that they’ve heard.
As punters, the task is to take a more holistic view when backing horses in handicap races. Form should be considered a guide only, with many other variables to ponder.
One of those is pedigree, which can sometimes help to unearth when a horse is being under-run or where they are being entered into races that are unsuitable for them. Let’s say that a sire was a quality operator in sprint races – if their progeny is then sent off campaigning at two miles or more, they are either genetically improbable or, possibly, being deliberately hampered in a bid to secure a low handicap rating.
The challenge is that the handicapping system can up a horse’s weight if they enter a Grade 1 renewal and finish as low as, say, sixth – without necessarily being a true reflection of their ability.
Other trainers might ensure their horse has a mediocre training regimen, enters them into low-grade, humdrum handicaps, gets the low finish they want and the rating to go with it.
As Hughes has written: “I hate to see the frustration and disappointment felt by countless owners whose horses continually run well and are continually punished for doing exactly that.
“It is incredibly disheartening for them when their horses are sometimes beaten by rivals who were not previously campaigned with integrity.”
It’s pretty disheartening for punters too, so the advice when betting on handicap renewals is to consider the bigger picture – and not just the official rating.