Ratings - Cheltenham Festival

If you follow me on Twitter, you'll know that I produce ratings for National Hunt handicaps. Ratings are essentially a tool to bring a series of data points together to give a sense of a horse's ability. Some people use a range of factors and try and produce one overall figure for a horse. I adopt a slightly broader approach, which shows the key factors I think that it's possible to highlight to my understanding a race.

The ratings begin with a baseline figure: this is my estimated rating of the horse's best performance in the last few months. If a horse hasn't run in the last few months, it doesn't get a rating and therefore doesn't feature. This figure is adjusted for the weight the horse carries in today's race (excluding any claim a jockey might have). You can see an example below from the recent Betfair Hurdle at Newbury.




After the baseline figure, I assess the extent to which today's conditions might suit the horse based on past performance. A positive indicates it might, a negative indicates it might not, and a none indicates I don't have enough data to give an indication. Finally, a pace figure gives a sense of whether the horse might lead, be prominent, midfield or held up. 

My ratings aren't perfect. None are. I wouldn't use them in a systematic way: the top rated is unlikely to be profitable, because it doesn't include today's conditions in its thinking. The pace figures are helpful, but a bunch of front runners might mean backing the likely leader won't work either. Essentially, they're intended to make your own race reading easier and better. 

I'm going to produce them for Cheltenham (including the Graded races) and post them here. If you'd like to access them, you can simply check this page each day, or you can sign up here so you can receive them directly to your inbox. Each set of ratings will be published the evening before racing so you've time to have a proper look.

I'll make the ratings available for free, but include a "buy me a coffee" link if you want to send me a little thank you. 

DM me on Twitter if you have any questions or feedback. 

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