RACING FORUM

Posted: **Thu Sep 13, 2012 5:17 am**

Its relatively simple to find out which is the better horse when both are still in training. Run one against the other a few times and see which one comes out on top more often than not.

To discover how much better one horse is than the other you need to develop some sort of mathematical ranking based on how much further one horse beats the other and in some way incorporate the time they cover the specifies distance. This is again relatively simple at level weights.

A well used and reasonably well respected table of weight for age and weight for distance has been developed to make it possible to compare horses with form that might never have been matched together. This is the simple essence of Timeform. As many variables as possible are taken into consideration and rankings are made.

Although this is a subject of much debate and controversy it should be possible to use the ranking to ‘grade’ the horses from different generations. It is an exercise without an absolute conclusion and a wholly satisfactory outcome but is probably the best way we have of placing horses in a historical list of merit. The flaw is that whatever the individual performance its merit is to a certain extent a judgement call by an individual.

In an attempt to reduce the level of ‘interference’ by individuals it should be possible retrospectively to re assess the merit of a horse by establishing the quality of its race opposition by aggregation of the timeform ratings of the opposition in the subject horses best 4 races.

A criticism of the method was voiced that you should not rank a horse by its opposition and while I am not entirely sure that I agree I have decided to include each subjects highest ranking in the aggregation, to achieve the ranking of the race, and will adjust by winning distance from the aggregated score which represents the general quality of each individual race.

It is obvious that the dominance of any horse in any race is wholly dependent on the quality of the opposition. A top handicapper will beat a modest handicapper (at level weights) quite easily but might find the task more difficult against another top handicapper. Similarly the modest handicapper would beat a field of selling platers by a similar margin. We therefore know that the top handicapper will finish well clear of the field of selling platers.

This is a personal analysis and I am therefore going to include in my list of All Time Greats (ATG’s) horses that I rate at the very top of the historical tree.

Ribot
Mill Reef
Brigadier Gerrard
Sea The Stars
Frankel
Dancing Brave
Nijinsky

It may cause some consternation but I have not included Sea Bird because although his Derby win may be one of the best single performances on a track he did not show that level of form enough for my analysis. My reasons for not including Tudor Minstrel and Abernant are simply because I cannot assign accurate timeform ratings for the opposition in their prime races.

There are many others that may be considered (they can be added later) but lack of time dictates that this analysis would at least place Frankel in a historical context with the other ATG’s that I have selected.

The rankings are as follows:
1. Brigader Gerard
2. Frankel
3. Mill Reef
4. = Sea The Stars, Dancing Brave, Ribot
5. Nijinsky

It has been a truly illuminating exercise and one which I might refine and re-visit when time allows. I have re watched some of the most fantastic races over and over again. It is remarkable that Nijinsky who comes out 5th on my rankings actually beat 2 Derby winners, an Oaks winner, a Coronation Cup winner and a winner of the Washington International at Ascot in the King George & Queen Elizabeth.

It would need to be remembered too that although beaten by Roberto at York Brigadier Gerard probably ran a time which would have beaten the existing record.