Class is the result of numerous factors. A horse may appear to be the class horse in the field based on his past performances, but if he cannot use that class in today’s race because he is not in the right condition to do so or has one or more factors working against him, then will not win Yet therein lies the glorious uncertainty of racing. A horse with class can overcome many factors that will put ordinary horses down the track, while a horse with many things going for him may find that his lack of class will work against him.
Even the great horses of the past like Phar Lap, Bone Crusher and Sun Line were beaten. Phar lap was beaten in the 1931 Melbourne Cup after carrying a huge weight and was beaten by a horse to which he allowed weight. As the adage says “weight can stop a train”.
Horses tend to show the greatest improvement at three and four years of age. This natural improvement is reflected in the weight-for-age scale where, early in the season, three-year-olds receive a huge weight concession over their rivals. It also shows how much improvement in the class a three-year-old can make over the course of the season.
Fillies and mares are given a breed-of-age weight allowance, reflecting the fact that females are not as strong as males and this allowance is usually higher during the first half of the season.
It is an indisputable fact that most horse race winners are those who compete in the same class as their last race or below. In other words, race winners who competed in a higher category than their previous race are in the majority. Depending on where one gets a set of statistics this percentage ranges from 75% or more in favor of those horses that are not moving up in class. The best yardstick to use when comparing the last level of the horse’s last race to today’s race is to use the prize money as a guide. It is believed that the higher the prize money, the stronger the class of the race will be. The flip side of this is if a horse is going down in level. Sure, he can avoid a lot of losing bets by taking class into account, but this is just one factor out of many.
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