Handicappers in class struggle

Nice to see one of our favourites from recent seasons out bright and early, with the so-called Class One contest at Happy Valley tonight.

It was always going to take something exceptional from the powers that be to muddy up a class rating system in Hong Kong which has always shone as a beacon of clarity through the fog that typifies classing racehorses in most jurisdictions. Class Two is below Class One but higher than Class Three, which is higher than Class Four and so on.

Since the Jockey Club started perverting the rating bands for races, that has frequently gone out the window and there isn't even a solid pattern to the perversion. A spanking here is a whip and chains collar somewhere else.

Extend the top of a Class Four to a 65 rating topweight and what often turns up is a Class Three, with most if not all of the runners huddled around the 60-65 ratings and reducing handicap events almost to terms conditions.

And then you have the twisted race descriptions that have a Class Four extended to a 65 rating still called a Class Four. A Class Three extended to a top rating of 85 is still called a Class Three. But extend the top of a Class Two from 100 to 105 and suddenly it is called a Class One. Which plays merry hell with the simplicity of the up-in-class, down-in-class arrows and indicators in the form guides, designed to make newcomers to racing comfortable with whether horses are rising or dropping in grade.

Tonight's Hong Kong Country Club Challenge Cup is a Class Two field - only one horse is outside the usual 100 upper rating band for Class Two, and only by one point, and the weights are therefore structured as a Class Two.

But you won't get that from looking at the official description of the race, which is actually based on the prize-money level (which is also why those International Sale races, which seem to have gone by the board, were listed as Class Ones when they were in fact Class Three races.)