The problem, IMO, with this is that it focuses too much on just the winner of the race. Denis of Cork could go on to win the TC but that wouldn't mean that the Southwest was that much of a race. Would you also then rank the allowance race that Denis won before this? You'd have to look at the accomplishments of the entire field and you might have to wait a year or two before finalizing that ranking. Smarty beat Borrego in Arkansas in 2004. It wasn't until the summer and fall of 2005 when Borrego finally broke through and took the Pacific Classic and JCGC.

I think that there has to be a grade on a race before the race. There has to be something for people to point to. Otherwise, what's to stop Street Sense from going in the Travers, Hard Spun to the WV Derby, Curlin to the Penn Derby.......and all of them making the claim that their horse is the best horse and therefore their race is the biggest race and the others are ducking them?

Not true. The race rating would not go down because of bad horses, it can only go up with good horses.

If we put Secretariat and Forego in the gate with 11 $5k claimers, it would still be a grade one.

Obviously there are some kinks to be worked-out. However, you'll never convince me that giving a race a rating before having horses for it makes even remote sense. It's like saying the 2009 Super Bowl will be the greatest two teams to play in history. It's cart before the horse.

The other horses to hit the board, or run 4th or 5th would help the quality of the race, too. It's not just the winner.

In terms of pointing towards races...

You can just reference the past year's race, or its historical trend. For example, the Travers will likely be a grade one every year. So that works.

Let's use the Super Derby.. earlier this decade the rating might be a tad low. But with Lawyer Ron running second, and then getting all those big wins the following year, the rating would go up. Grasshopper is also helping the "rating" as well. So trainers/owners/breeders this year would say, "The Super Derby is now a high grade two versus a low grade two it was four years ago."

Races would continually update with each passing day. When Monba runs on Sunday, he might help the rating of the CashCall Futurity if he runs well.

Like I said, there are some kinks. But I think if this were hashed-out, and sadly, I have a few pages of notes on this, it could work.

But what do you do with the rating if Monba gets beat really bad and then Colonel John comes back to smash the Sham in his next race? We've seen Into Mischief come back and lose a couple. What about if next year Colonel John is HOY but Into Mischief is running in $50k claimers? If you say that the other horses in the race would help qualify it, that's very dangerous. Look at the Super Derby. Sure, Lawyer Ron went on to have a nice year the next year and Grasshopper appears ready to have one this year. But what about Going Ballistic, Past the Point, and Louisberg? What they do counts too and they could do more to drag the race down than Lawyer Ron and Grasshopper can do to raise it. Look at the 2004 Arkansas Derby. It appeared that Smarty had defeated a below average field at the time. It took until the summer of 2005 before Borrego started doing things. Do you wait over a year before you make the final grade of the race? Do you upgrade it each time Borrego wins and then turn around and downgrade it when he goes to Bay Meadows or Golden Gate and loses to a nobody? What about past races that Lava Man and Evening Attire were in? These horses are still racing so should their results today effect the grade of a race in 2004 or 2005? How far do you go back? How far ahead do you look?

Sniper is absolutely correct. If he were to go in the Suburban, it's very likely that no good ones would go to take him on. They might opt for the Foster and make that a tougher race depth wise. It would be like 2003. Mineshaft went to all of the big races and faced nobody while Medaglia d'Oro was facing Candy Ride in the Pacific Classic, Congaree was facing Perfect Drift in Kentucky and Pleasantly Perfect in California, they all were facing each other in the BC. If you were to look at the top six or seven ranked older males in 2003, Mineshaft only faced one of them. He only faced that one horse one time. And he lost to that horse. Other than that, he faced allowance quality fields and ended up as HOY. Was it his fault? No. When it was pretty clear that he was becoming really good and was moving to the leadership of the division, nobody went to face him. If they were grading those races after the fact, Mineshaft doesn't have any grade one wins and doesn't get horse of the year. But the truth is that we know that he was running in the best races and that others were ducking him. We know this because we know which races are supposed to be for the best before they run them. Doing it after the fact opens the door to too many people to duck and dodge and make claims that their race was the best and the other horses should have come to face them.

there are plenty of races that aren't on par with others in the same grade, whether a 1,2 or 3.
but if the fla derby can be a gr 1, then the ark derby should be as well, especially considering the type of horses who have been running there the last few years. certainly has left more of a mark recently then the bluegrass.

Why not just go with size of the purse? Presumably the bigger purses should attract the best horses and presumably the best horses would win the biggest pots...

THey had this problem in chess, and finally they asked Kasparov "isnt the tournament with the most money the most important one?" "Yeah, basically that's it.." something like that.

Bad analogy. I know, but there's a pt in there..

Oh?