[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Kasept

This is almost certainly Rick Porter shoving Jones in front of the question. WTF? The filly drags Larry's 185 pound cowboy azz around in the mornings... you telling us 126-130 is going to burden her? Ridiculous. If they weren't prepared to face the handicap that comes with what she accomplished, then they shouldn't have come back.

I agree with part of this. The fact that owners and trainers cry over what really isn't a lot of weight is sad and disappointing. You have 2yo fillies carrying more weight in maiden races than the reigning HOY carried in her seasonal debut. That's stupid. In days past, this weight thing wouldn't be an issue. She's get what she deserved and run where they planned. But in today's game, it's different. There is so much competition between the tracks to get the star horses that you are able to hold out from a spot if you don't like what you are given because you know some other racing sec will give you what you want.

There's also another issue at play here where I sort of agree with Porter and Jones. I don't know if the issue is necessarily how much HDG would get but rather how much she'd have to give to the others. I think if they were all carrying 140, we wouldn't be hearing about the issue. But since we still do handicap racing here, the spread will continue to be the issue. Say HDG and Royal Delta met up. I think we'd hear the same complaints from them whether the weights were 110-106 or 140-136. I do understand where they are coming from with this. To most people, they'll look at it and say that four pounds doesn't make a difference. They might be right. Would six pounds make a difference? What about 10 or 20 pounds? The point I'm trying to make is that at some point, it does make a difference and I don't think that it hits all of a sudden (ie, four pounds no difference but five pounds equals a length). I wish they'd end handicap racing period and just run them all as weight for age/sex stakes.