It's exceptionally rare for the handicapping department to make a glaring error, but the 26-pound weight hike for Electronic Zone following his success in the Ashley Stakes the weekend before last has to be seriously questioned.
The mathematics behind the rise are straightforward. The interpretation of the race upon which they are based, the fairness of the rise and the possible repercussions of the case are anything but.
The fact that the case has received so much publicity is itself a reflection of the otherwise scrupulously accurate job the handicappers do and is not a stick with which to beat them.
It's just that in this instance they appear to have erred. Electronic Zone beat Bumper Storm at level weights in the 1,400-metre Ashley Stakes by 1.25 lengths, despite being officially rated 23 pounds inferior to him.
A literal interpretation of that result thus calls for the 26-pound rise in the ratings, despite commonsense dictating otherwise.
Using Bumper Storm as the yardstick is almost certainly fundamentally flawed as he was blinkered for the first time and the overwhelming impression was that he raced freely in the blinkers and proved to be less effective at the 1,400-metre trip than he had over 1,200 metres.
