WikiRacing
RacingRatings & form
Official ratings, rating bands, form figures and reading the form book (form lines, splits, the log).
Every racing horse carries an official rating (OR), the handicapper’s mark of how good it is, from 0 to 140. It moves after every rated race, decides which races your horse may enter, and appears next to its name on the racecard along with its recent form.
The official rating
Every horse starts on 40, whatever its breeding. After each race it is compared with every other runner in the field: finishing ahead of a horse rated above you earns more than beating one rated below, and losing to a lower-rated horse costs more than losing to a higher-rated one. Over a few races, the rating settles where the horse really belongs.
- A gap of 25 rating points means the higher-rated horse is expected to finish ahead about ten times in eleven.
- For its first 5 rated runs a horse is provisional and its rating moves 2 times as fast, so newcomers find their level quickly.
- One race can lift a rating by at most 10 and drop it by at most 7.
- The gains and losses in a race roughly cancel out, so ratings don’t creep up over time: they only rise by beating other horses.
- Live races and Story races are rated. The Daily Cup is not.
By the numbers live from the rules
- Rating scale
- 0–140
- First rating
- 40
- Provisional for
- 5 rated runs
- Most gained in one race
- +10
- Most lost in one race
- −7
- Band checks look this far below the peak
- 10
Here is a real eight-runner race scored by the game’s own rating rules:
| Finish | Horse | OR before | Change | OR after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Copper Lark | 58 | +3 | 61 |
| 2 | Velvet Echo | 64 | +1 | 65 |
| 3 | First Timer (provisional) | 40 | +8 | 48 |
| 4 | Harbour Tide | 55 | +1 | 56 |
| 5 | Quiet Banner | 61 | -1 | 60 |
| 6 | Paper Comet | 50 | 0 | 50 |
| 7 | Iron Sonnet | 66 | -4 | 62 |
| 8 | Lucky Willow (provisional) | 52 | -6 | 46 |
Rating bands
Classes on the Live card are open to horses in a rating band. The Handicap bands overlap, so a horse on the boundary can choose. Maidens and Novices also limit how many races a horse has won.
| Race | Rating | Wins |
|---|---|---|
| Listed Stakes | 85+ | any |
| Maiden Stakes | up to 60 | none yet |
| Handicap (0-55) | 0–55 | any |
| Novice Stakes | up to 70 | at most 2 |
| Handicap (50-75) | 50–75 | any |
| Handicap (70-95) | 70–95 | any |
| Qualifier (middle) | any | any |
| Claiming Stakes (50-75) | 50–75 | any |
| Claiming Stakes (70-95) | 70–95 | any |
The peak rating
To stop anyone losing on purpose to drop into an easier band, the top of a band is checked against more than today’s rating. The check uses the highest of three numbers: the current rating, the horse’s peak rating less 10, and a floor from its current running ability. A horse that has truly faded with age is let back down; one that is only losing on purpose is not.
| Rating today | Peak rating | Checked against the band at |
|---|---|---|
| 52 | 52 | 52 |
| 52 | 60 | 52 |
| 52 | 68 | 58 |
| 70 | 74 | 70 |
Where a newcomer belongs
Because every horse starts on 40, a strong newcomer could beat up the lowest bands until its rating caught up. The ability floor stops that: the game works out the rating a horse of its current ability would settle at (its ability mark), and checks the band against that too, give or take 5.
| Running ability (speed, stamina, burst) | Settles at about | Belongs in |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | 17 | Handicap (0-55) |
| 400 | 30 | Handicap (0-55) |
| 500 | 41 | Handicap (0-55) |
| 600 | 48 | Handicap (0-55) |
| 700 | 57 | Handicap (50-75) |
| 800 | 68 | Handicap (50-75) |
| 900 | 92 | Listed |
Foundation horses, with no breeding behind them, settle low. These real ones are in their prime:
A well-bred horse is a different story: its ability mark can rule it out of the low bands from its very first start. If you try a band it is too strong for, the entry sheet points you to a better one, or to Novice races while its rating catches up. Good breeding is how you get there: Genetics & inheritance.
Form figures
The Form column on the racecard shows a horse’s last three finishes, oldest first, separated by dashes. A 0 means it finished outside the first nine. A dash on its own means it hasn’t run yet. Form counts every settled race, Live or Story, run before this one.
| Last finishes (newest first) | Printed on the card |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2, 4, 1 | 1-4-2 |
| 11, 3, 3, 6 | 3-3-0 |
| No runs yet | – |
Reading the form book
Every horse page carries the full form lines: one row per start with the date, course and race, trip, surface and going, how many ran and the draw (gate), the tactic and jockey, the weight carried in a Live handicap, the finishing position, how far it was beaten, its time and the winner’s, the official rating before and after, and the purse won. Its owner also sees the ride intensity, the race-day extras and how fresh it was at the off. On a phone a row shows the key facts; tap it for the rest. A race still to run shows Declared, one being run shows Running: the result appears only once the race has finished and settled.
By the numbers live from the rules
- Beaten distance
- the margins of every horse ahead added up, in lengths of 2.4 m (to the nearest quarter); short ones read nose, short head (s.hd), head (hd), neck (nk)
- Time
- the horse's own time and, in the detail, how far behind the winner's it was
- Rating
- the official rating it ran off, then where the race left it
Splits
Under the form lines, the form book splits every settled run by the conditions it was run under and counts wins, seconds and thirds (W-2-3), runs and the average distance beaten (a win counts as 0). The same view covers your whole stable on My races, and a stallion’s page shows his offspring’s splits as a sire line.
| Split | Buckets |
|---|---|
| Going | Firm, Good, Soft, Heavy |
| Trip | Sprint up to 1,250 m, Mile 1,300–1,700 m, Middle 1,750–2,250 m, Long 2,300+ m |
| Surface, course, tactic | as run |
| Jockey | the jockey booked (apprentice, journeyman, top jockey) |
| Draw | the gate's third of the field: in a 10-runner race gates 1–4 are low, 5–7 middle, 8–10 high |
| Rest | days since the horse's previous run: same day, 1–2, 3–6, 7+ (its first run in the book stands apart) |
A bucket with fewer than 3 runs is greyed: too few to read much into. The best and worst conditions are picked only from buckets with at least 3 runs, and only where two of them can be compared. The smaller average beaten distance wins; ties go to the higher win rate, then the higher place rate, then the bigger sample. Here is a real filly’s going split, worked out by the game’s own rules:
| Going | W-2-3 | Runs | Beaten (average) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firm (small sample) | 0-1-0 | 1 | 0.5 L |
| Good | 2-1-0 | 3 | 0.1 L |
| Soft | 0-0-1 | 3 | 3.7 L |
The horse’s log
The Log tab on your own horses keeps everything else in one timeline, newest first: each training session with what it gained per stat and its fatigue before and after, care days, every race with its replay and rating change, injuries and the vet, quirks revealed, an improver’s step up (only once it has happened), covers and foals, sales, claims and lease periods. Training and care are explained on Training and Care & condition.
Ratings decide the classes; the classes and their purses are on Race types. A horse’s ability rises and falls over its career too: see The racing career.