On the 15th of January, in the time honoured Telegraph Stakes at Trentham in Wellington in New Zealand, two horses named Levante and Roch ‘N’ Horse broke the world record time for 1200 metres when the pair – who were separated by just a nose – ran 1.06.19 seconds over the six furlong trip.
Many Australian form ‘experts’ laughed at the time, just like they have laughed at super quick times at Trentham for years, claiming that they run downhill there without understanding that all times are relative to those run before at the track, and that the fastest time ever run means that the horse – or in this case horses – who ran it were the fastest ever.
Those two horses were Levante and Roch ‘N’ Horse.
The Racing Victoria handicapper let them both into the Newmarket with flyweights.
In my view the handicapper totally ballsed the weights for this race up, so badly that it really should see him sacked.
I was talking about this issue with the champion pacer Copy That’s owner Merv Butterworth early last week, because Merv owns the yop class galloper Mascarpone who ran a 2.5kg third to the Kiwi pair in the Telegraph, and I told him that as a dual Group 1 winner and world record holder thrown in with 53.5kg, Levante was the best handicapped horse in the history of racing. I forgot to mention Loch ‘N’ Horse, but that’s only because I was using the mare as the benchmark.
He gave Levante a half kilo and less than Count Du Rupee, who had only ever raced once in Open class company, that being when he won the poor class, Peter V’Landys invented pop-up homage to his home town race the Gong run at the usually provincial Kembla Grange track.
How the hell did he work that out?
Levante had won two Listed races, a Group 2 and two Group 1’s, and had run 2nd and 3rd in Group 1’s and 2nd in a Group 2.
The Gong – which carries no black type, and shouldn’t, was Count Du Rupee’s only ever start outside of restricted or age restricted class. There was no way in the world he should have been given more weight than the Kiwi mare. In fact he should have carried 3 kilos less, even before any allowances were made for gender.
For all the big boom on the very well named Lost And Running, the facts are that the Sydney galloper had only won two black type races, a Listed and a Group 3, and the opposition that he beat in both were a long way from top class.
He copped a handicap of 56kg.
It was absolutely outrageous.
Home Affairs weight was too.
He had won two Group 1’s, the same as Levante., but only one of his was in all comers company (the Lightning), with the other one in an age restricted 3YO classic (the Coolmore). Levante’s wins were at WFA against the best of any age that NZ had to offer.
She got 1.5kg below WFA, Home Affairs carried a half-kilo above the scale.
How on earth can the handicapper justify that?
Masked Crusader had won a single Group 1, two Group 2’s and a Group 3, form very similar to Levante’s but one G1 under.
He carried 57 kg, meaning that he gave the better performed Kiwi mare 2kg more than he would have at WFA..
Huh? Please explain.
The best line of all though is through Snapdancer, who like Levante is a 5-year-old mare.
Snapdancer’s black type record is a single win in a weak as water mares restricted Group 3 run at handicaps in which she carried just 2 kilos over the minimum and got 2 kilos from Electric Girl, who wouldn’t even have made the field for the Newmarket.
Somehow in his unfathomably warped wisdom the handicapper gave her just a kilo less than Levante.
The world had gone mad, or at least David Hegan the VRC handicapper of Group 1 races had.
Hegan’s mistake was writ large in the results.
Up until 24 hours ago it had been 135 years since a Kiwi-trained horse had won the Group 1 Newmarket Handicap at Flemington.
Yesterday two of them did.
Roch ‘N’ Horse won the inside division dash and the race.
Levante won the outside sprint on her ear.
Only six jockeys elected to take their horses to the inside rail.
Three of the six ran 1-2-3, and a fourth ran 4th.
The placed horses on the inside were priced at $101, $61 and $26.
It is blindingly obvious that the inside was a half second faster than the outside.
What that means is that if Levante hadn’t missed the start by 2 lengths, and if jockey Michael Dee had elected to go inside rather than out, she would have won the race on her ear.
Not just because she is brilliant, but because the handicapper let her in too light.
By letting Levante into the race with 53.5kg, Hegan had to handicap Roch ‘N’ Horse with less weight, even though she had run a world record time in the Telegraph too.
And thus the Newmarket was won.
Twice.
I have three words to say to you Mr Handicapper Hegan.
You bloody idiot.