But with the handicapping team under Nigel Gray having given Deferential a rating of 94, which made him top weight for Sunday's Chanchun Handicap with 130 pounds, we have to ask: do they understand the sort of task they are demanding of the youngster?

On our speed-rating figures, a four-year-old with 130 pounds needs to rate the equivalent of an international 109 to win this Class Two handicap, where the rating band was set at 95-75. But Deferential is not four. He's a southern hemisphere three-year-old, and with a foaling date of August 27, this race was just three weeks after his third birthday.

According to the weight-for-age scale, adjusted a few years ago to make sure it remained relevant, a three-year-old racing at 1,200 metres in September is 6.5 kilograms, or 15 pounds, inferior to his four-year-old counterpart.

So if a four-year-old had to rate 109 pounds to win an average Class Two handicap, then a southern hemisphere three-year-old like Deferential (with 130 pounds to carry) would have had to rate 124 (109 + 15) - and 124 is the proper international Group One performance. No wonder Deferential didn't win or place.

Those who liked his work couldn't believe his big price, initially HK$180, and he firmed in to HK$150 at one stage before easing again as the smart players avoided him in droves.

The handicappers should know what a task they set Deferential. Two seasons back, Absolute Champion arrived having won the same Rosehill Group Two race, and finished fourth in the Group One AJC Sires' Produce Stakes (Gr 1). He was marked on a 95 rating and won at his fourth local start. But that was March, when the weight-for-age scale credits a three-year-old with having improved nine pounds since September.

It turned out, of course, that Absolute Champion became the record-breaking winner of last year's Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Sprint, and the world's top-rated sprinter for 2006. But even he couldn't win as an early-season three-year-old in Class Two on a 95 rating.

In the same race on Sunday, Win A Dozen made his debut for the Manfred Man Trainer Syndicate. He's also a three-year-old, having had two juvenile starts in New Zealand in 2006, and he scored over 1,000 metres at Te Rapa in a Listed race at his second start.

If Win A Dozen had come to Hong Kong unraced, and won on debut in Class Four, he'd have remained in Class Four for his second start. But instead, for beating two-year-olds of dubious ability in New Zealand, he gets a rating of 82 and arrives here against Class Two opposition.

The market again told the handicappers what they thought - he was the rank outsider at more than 100-1. And the fact he pulled up with a veterinary issue does not change the fact that everyone else, bar the handicapping department, knew the horse would be completely uncompetitive.

The market, you see, is not foolish. It knows when horses will be uncompetitive and the betting is a direct barometer of the collective wisdom of all players. That's why close to 30 per cent of favourites win, while the 100-1 chances win maybe one race a year out of 700-plus.

If these quality PP's are going out at inflated tote prices, then they are not doing anything for betting turnover, and bad performances on the track mean no returns for the big-spending owners.

You might think the club is trying to discourage owners from buying young horses, but we can assure you that's definitely not the case.

So if they actually want owners buying good young horses, and they want to encourage betting turnover, what would be wrong with allowing these horses to enter on a mark where they can actually win? Once owners had a win, and some money in the bank, they would cop their rating boost with good grace.

At present, in sharp contrast, most of them are doomed to running nice young horses in races where they simply can't win. Their expensive imports are getting bashed around on excessively hard tracks, start after start, just hoping they may still be sound when they get down to a handicap mark they can actually cope with.