Handicapping, in sport and games, is the practice of assigning advantage through scoring compensation or other advantage given to different contestants to equalize the chances of winning. The word also applies to the various methods by which the advantage is calculated. In principle, a more experienced player is disadvantaged in order to make it possible for a less experienced player to participate in the game or sport whilst maintaining fairness. Handicapping also refers to the various methods by which spectators can predict and quantify the results of a sporting match.

The term handicap derives from hand-in-cap, a popular seventeenth-century lottery game, where players placed their bets in a cap. Handicapping is used in scoring many games and competitive sports, including Go, chess, golf, bowling, polo, yacht racing, and track and field events. It also serves to foster wagering on horse racing events. Often, races, contests or tournaments where this practice is competitively employed are known as Handicaps.

The term is also applied to the practice of predicting the result of a competition, such as for purposes of betting against the point spread. A favored team that wins by less than the point spread still wins the game, but bets on that team lose.

The practice in action

Horse racing

An impost is the weight that must be carried by a horse in a race. Horses carry lead weights during the course of a race as a form of handicap. Such a race is also sometimes termed a “handicap.” These weights supplement a jockey’s weight to give a horse his assigned impost. The jockeys use saddle pads with pockets called lead pads to hold the lead weights.

These riding weights are assigned by the racing secretary based on factors such as performances, distance so as to equalize the chances of the competitors.

The weight for age scale was introduced by Admiral Rous, a steward of the Jockey Club. In 1855 he was appointed public handicapper. In that role he introduced the weight-for-age scale.

Predicting the Outcome of Races

Thoroughbred handicapping is the art of predicting horses who have the greatest chance of winning a race, and profiting from these predictions at the horse races. The Daily Racing Form (DRF), a newspaper-style publication, is the most important tool of the handicapper or horseplayer. The DRF details statistical information about each horse entered in a race, including detailed past performance results, lifetime records, amount of money earned, odds for the particular horse in each past race, and a myriad of other information available for casual or serious study.

The handicapping process can be simple or complex but usually includes the following elements prior to the race:

1) Study of the Daily Racing Form

2) Observing the horses’ body language and behaviour in the paddock and/or post parade

3) Watching the tote board for the changing odds of each horse and thus for clues about how the betting public views a horse’s chances of winning the upcoming race

“Trip Handicapping” takes place during the race and involves watching the horses (usually with binoculars) and noting relevant information about how a horse runs during that race.

Handicapping theory is possibly one of the most enigmatic theories in all of sports. Generally speaking, horseplayers consider the following elements when handicapping a horse race:

Speed Those horses who run the fastest, win the most races. The DRF lists times at certain call points of each race, and the lengths back from the at each call point. Speed handicappers compare race times to help ascertain which horses will most likely win the race. The DRF now contains a numerical summation of the speed that each horse ran in every race, called a Beyer speed figure. This number is generated through a method developed by Andrew Beyer, and described in his 1975 book Picking Winners. The Beyer speed figures takes into account the individual class of a race as well as how the racetrack was playing on a particular day to create an aggregate number for each horse. The basic error behind this approach is that the sample size each day which is used to create the track variant for the speed figure is very small, and hence subject to massive errors in standard deviation. For example, there may be only one turf (grass) race on a given day, and the Beyer system has to extract a variant for that race from a sample of one.

Pace Pace is probably the single most important factor in determining the outcome of a race. Pace handicappers classify each horse’s running style (i.e. front runner, stalker, presser, closer) and then find contenders based on the predicted pace of today’s race. The difficulty is that the jockey has control over where a horse is placed in a race and how fast that race goes in the early stages. This takes the prediction of pace for a given race out of the realm of mathematics and into the realm of mere speculation.

Form Those horses who looked “sharp” in their past race or past few races, win the most races. A sharp horse could have finished strongly, stayed among the leaders, finished “in the money” (1st, 2nd or 3rd) or recovered from a bad racing trip. Likewise, a horse showed dull form if it gave up, looked sluggish or chased the pack. Horses with sharp form have the lowest odds and hence return the least money per bet. Also, often horses will race off a “layoff.” A layoff is a rest varying in length from usually two months to a year or more. In this case, workouts, horse appearance, and trainer patterns are the best guides to whether the horse is ready to run after a rest.

Class Horse races occur at different levels of competition. Generally, high caliber horses are entered in races with other high caliber horses and slower horses are entered in races with other slower horses. But a horse can move up or down in class, depending on where the trainer decided to enter the horse based on the results of its last race. Note that the strength of the same class of race, such as a Maiden Special Weight race, will vary greatly from track to track, as well as from race to race at the same track, making this too an inexact determinant of class.

Other Factors Other factors affecting the outcome of a race are track condition, weather, weight that the horses have to carry, daily bias of the racing surface, and many more factors that the handicapper cannot know. (I know of a horse who ran poorly because of a noisy party that kept it awake the night before a race).

Notes

1. ^ Wood, Greg, “End of an era as Jockey Club falls on own sword“, The Guardian, Monday April 3, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-04-17.

References

Beyer, Andrew (Reissue edition (May 6, 1994)). Picking Winners : A Horseplayer’s Guide. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395701325.

Links

• Thoroughbred Horse Racing and Handicapping
• United States Golf Association Handicap System

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Horse racing is an equestrian sport which has been practiced over the centuries; the chariot races of Roman times are an early example, as is the contest of the steeds of the god Odin and the giant Hrungnir in Norse mythology. It is often inextricably associated with gambling.

Forms of horse racing

One of the principal forms of horse racing, which is popular in many parts of the world, is thoroughbred racing. Harness racing is also popular in the eastern United States and more popular than thoroughbred racing in the United Kingdom and Canada. Quarter horse and Arabian racing are also popular in the western United States.

The breeding, training and racing of horses in many countries is now a significant economic activity as, to a greater extent, is the gambling industry which is largely supported by it. Exceptional horses can win millions of dollars and make millions more by providing stud services, such as horse breeding.

Horse racing in North America

Monmouth Racetrack in New Jersey in May 2005.

The style of racing, the distances and the type of events varies very much by the country in which the race is occurring, and many countries offer different types of horse races.

In the United States, races can occur on flat surfaces of either dirt or grass, generally thoroughbred racing; other tracks offer quarter horse racing and harness racing, or combinations of these three types of racing. Racing with other breeds, such as Arabian horse racing, is found on a limited basis. American thoroughbred races are run at a wide variety of distances, most commonly from 4.5 furlongs (905 m) to 1½ miles (2414 m); with this in mind, breeders of thoroughbred race horses are able to breed horses to excel at a particular distance.

The high point of US horse racing has traditionally been the Kentucky Derby which, together with the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes, form the Triple Crown for three-year-olds. However, in recent years the Breeders’ Cup races, held at the end of the year, have been challenging the Triple Crown events, held early in the year, as determiners of the three-year-old champion. They also have an important effect on the selection of other annual champions. The corresponding standard-bred event is the Breeders’ Crown. There are also a Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Pacers and a Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Trotters.

American betting on horse racing is sanctioned and regulated by state governments, almost always through legalized parimutuel gambling. Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States has its own Hall of Fame for horses, jockeys, and trainers.

The most famous horses from Canada are Northern Dancer, who after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness went on to become the most successful Thoroughbred sire ever, and his son Nijinsky II. In Canada, however, harness racing is more popular than Thoroughbred racing. Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, home of the Queen’s Plate, Canada’s premier thoroughbred stakes race, and the North America Cup, Canada’s premier standard-bred stakes race, is the only race track in North America which stages Thoroughbred and Standard-bred (harness) meetings on the same day. The North America Cup has the largest purse of any Canadian horse race.

Horse racing in Australia

Racing in Australasia has enjoyed great success with races such as the world famous Melbourne Cup, the so-called race that stops a nation, which has recently attracted many international entries. In Australia, the most famous horse was Phar Lap, who raced from 1928-1932 (though originally bred in New Zealand). In 2003-2005 Makybe Diva became the first and only horse to ever win the Melbourne Cup three times. In harness racing, Paleface Adios became a household name during the 1970s, while Cardigan Bay, a pacing horse from New Zealand, enjoyed great success at the highest levels of American harness racing in the 1960s.

Horse racing in Europe

In the United Kingdom, there are races which involve obstacles (either hurdles or fences) called National Hunt racing and those which are unobstructed races over a given distance (flat racing). The UK has provided many of the sport’s greatest ever jockeys, most notably Gordon Richards. See also United Kingdom horse-racing.

In Ireland, noted for its racing history, the Derby-winning thoroughbred Shergar was kidnapped on February 8, 1983. He has never been found. The multiple Gold Cup winner Best Mate also hails from Ireland, while the great Red Rum was bred there, before moving across the Irish Sea to be trained.

Pedigree

While the attention of horse racing fans and the media is focused almost exclusively on the horse’s performance on the racetrack, or for male horses possibly its success as a sire, little publicity is given to brood mares. Such is the case of La Troienne, one of the most important mares of the 20th century to whom many of the greatest thoroughbred champions, and dams of champions, can be traced.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.