Barry’s National Hunt Rating Method

A few weeks ago Barry very kindly sent in a ratings method that he has used for a long time and asked me to see what I thought of it and adjust it as I saw fit. I haven’t made many adjustments just some things that didn’t make sense to me.

The ratings are split into two sections, National Hunt and Flat. In today’s post we shall begin by looking at the National Hunt section. First of all we create a race based rating which can be given to all the runners and this is then adjusted for each runner based on certain criteria.

Creating the National Hunt race based rating

Look at the prize money for the winner and allocate points based on the table below.

If the prize money to the winner was £15500 then you would start with a rating of 89 points.

Next we adjust this base rating depending on the type of race.

If our race was a Conditional Handicap then we would add 3 points to the 89 we already have, giving us a total of 72 points. However if it was a Novice Chase race then we would subtract 7 points from the 89 to give us a total of 82 points. Any conditions that are not shown also receive a 0 and so have no change.

This completes the basic rating for the race. Every runner will receive this rating and we now begin to adjust this for each runner.

In each horses last race, for every pound it carried above 154 pounds you should add 1 point to its rating, for every pound it carried below 154 you should subtract 1 point from its rating.

In the race you are rating for every pound that a horse is carrying above 154 pounds you subtract 1 point and for every pound it is carrying below 154 pounds you add 1 point.

If a horse’s last race had 7 or less runners then you deduct the relevant amount of points from their score using the above table. In the rare cases of a 2 runner race do not use them and move on.

If a horse has not raced for 30 days or more then you deduct the relevant amount of points from their score using the above table.

Finally we add points to the rating for those runners who won their last race.

We award extra points based on how much they won the race by, either 2 points per length or 1 point per length. These points can be divided up, e.g. at 1 point per length a half-length would be 0.5 points.

Once you have done that then you will have rated your horses. I thought that it looked like it may take a while to rate a race and so I put together a handy spreadsheet that will do it for you. Let’s take a look at how we rate a race.

The above image is what you will see when you first open the spreadsheet. You only need to enter information in the areas that I have surrounded in red. Please note that the formulas entered have not been protected so that should you wish to change them you can, this also means that you can delete them by mistake.

First of all enter the Prize Money that is given to the winner in the relevant field and underneath this put the type of Race. I have put a reminder of the race types on the top right hand side of the page. You must type them in exactly as they are written in this list otherwise the spreadsheet will not be able to find their appropriate rating. If the conditions do not match any on the list then leave this field blank.

You will see a rating appear to the right (highlighted in green) of the Type of Race field and then underneath, also highlighted in green, will be the basic rating. This basic rating is copied for every horse name that you enter. There is a maximum of twenty runners that the spreadsheet can calculate for but you can extend this if you wish.

For each runner you then need to fill in their Weight LTO in pounds, their Weight in this race in pounds, the number of runners last time out, the number of days since the horse last ran (DSLR). All of these fields will find the appropriate rating adjustment automatically from the Data sheet.

The only manual work that you will need to do is to work out the number of points awarded to horses who won in their last race. I have put a reference on the right hand side of the page to remind you how many points per length is awarded to a horse who won their last race. Enter this figure in the Won LTO column when required.

The final rating for each horse will then be displayed in the Final Rating column.

Using this spreadsheet you should be able to use Barry’s National Hunt rating method quickly and easily. A big thank you to Barry for sharing this with the readers of the Race Advisor.

You can download this spreadsheet here.