Posted on 8/24/2007 8:34:01 PM

Horseracing Betting - The Fleeting Dream

By Brian Mulligan

Class in a racehorse is a little like chasing a fleeting dream. One minute it is there and the next minute it vanishes like an apparition. If you want to make winning bets in this game, you have to be able to accurately assess what it means. Class tells, class shows, and the class of the field are phrases one hears daily at every racetrack in the country - but class can prove elusive.

These days, horse bettors have to make instant judgments about class and what it means on today’s changing scenery - the synthetic age. A runner may show his top class on a conventional dirt track, but under achieve on the Cushion or Polytrack. Pundits, players, horsemen and fans have reviewed the concept of class for centuries and the term has evolved but still remains mysterious.

Let’s get back to basics. Since the conditions of each and every race describe the horses eligible, that is where the discussion of class must start.

If a horse has accomplished so much on the racetrack that he barely qualifies for the conditions of a particular race, he has to be designated as the class in the field.

An edge must be awarded to a horse that has beaten or run close to better animals that the ones he is facing today. Horses that drop drastically in class are almost always hammered at the windows and they win their fair share of races. But there is where it gets tricky.

To make a blanket statement that since a horse has proven himself at a certain level, he is the class of this particular field, can be a misnomer. Consistency has long been a staple of the so-called class handicapper. But as we all know, there are plenty of horses that are consistent, and some of them consistently run third or fourth, hardly the criteria for a class animal.

Nobody is giving away their horses on the backstretches of the American racing scene. And since the general public is so enamored with horses dropping in class, astute players need to take a contrasting approach and look for sharp horses that are going up the class ladder.

Class and speed are intertwined like full brothers but they are not interchangeable.

The fastest horses get to the wire first and evolve in class, but not all fast horses are classy.

Total earnings or average earnings per start are one way of attempting to clarify the class issue. But it is harder than just pure figures will reflect. As a horse progresses through his career and the years go on, earnings can become misconstrued. The runner may have been on a particular roll during the late portion of his sophomore year but eventually went into a long losing streak, losing his form and his present-day class.

His total earnings, or earnings per start, will be heavily weighted to when he was going well, not to his present state of racing today.

Novice fans, and experienced ones too, make assumptions daily on class horses. Not all of them are correct, especially in the day to day, bread and butter stock that make up the majority of cards in this country, the claimers.

Just because a horse won a race in a $10,000 claimer, doesn’t necessarily make him the class of the field when he faces runners offered for $6,500. If the $10,000 field he beat was restricted to non-winners of 2 races, or non-winners of 2 races at a certain distance, the cast is likely inferior to a group of $6,500 claimers that have knocked around the circuit in open company - winning umpteen races at a lower level.

Remember, class can be the grit, determination of a champion. It can be the speed horse, which clearly outclasses his rivals or it can be the true class horse, which has won on a certain level consistently.

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