Why Horses Travelling Interstate Can Show Misleading Time Ratings

Recorded August 2025 for The Grind Ep 4. Any figures mentioned are from that time.

When I analyse ratings, one of the things that keeps catching my eye is horses coming in from another jurisdiction with a high rating attached to them. On paper they look like the best runner in the race. In reality the number is doing a lot of work that the horse never did. The classic case is a horse going from New South Wales up to Queensland with a big New South Wales rating next to its name, even though it ran poorly in those races. That is a trap, and it is worth understanding before you back one of them.

Why the rating travels when the form does not

Class time ratings lean on generic class figures. A provincial race in one state gets treated as a certain class, and a provincial race in another state gets treated as another. So a horse moving from New South Wales provincials to Queensland provincials is being credited for running in a perceived higher class, regardless of how it actually went in those races. That is the problem. The horse might have been running seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth. It still comes away with a higher class time rating than the locals, because the rating is partly about where it ran, not just how it ran.

On top of that, a lot of these horses have changed stables. There is usually a reason a horse is sent interstate and put with a new trainer. It might be out of form. It might have an injury. The old trainer might have run out of ideas with it. None of that shows up in the rating. All that shows up is the number it carried out of its last jurisdiction.

What the market does with them

Because the number looks good and the form guide shows races that read as stronger, these horses often start short. Punters see the class edge and take it. Then the horse gets rolled, because it is going no good and nothing about the move has fixed that. You end up backing a short price on a rating that was built on races the horse was beaten badly in.

How I deal with it in the algorithm

The algorithm I built was designed to take those horses out. If an interstate arrival ranked one on the raw numbers but a local horse ranked two, the local horse moved up to number one and the interstate horse was not ranked at all. It simply came out of the pool. Then, once that horse had a start in its new jurisdiction, the algorithm would focus on that one local run next time instead of the imported numbers. You let the horse show you what it is now, rather than trusting what it was rated as somewhere else. Over the testing, rank one under that approach produced a profit of three per cent, which is historical and not something to lean on as a given.

So when you see a horse that has crossed the border and sits on top of the ratings, check where that rating came from. If the races it earned it in were races it was well beaten in, and the stable has changed, be careful. Look for the local horse underneath it instead.

Every race on the card, rated, with Kingsley's selections and the speed maps behind them. Your first day is free, no card needed.

More from Kingsley

• What Sectionals Tell You About a Genuinely Classy Horse
• How to Read a Horse's Last 200 Metres Against Its Last 600
• "How Do You Spot a One-Off Peak Rating in a Horse's Form?"

From the full video: The Grind Ep 4 | Turning Ratings Into Profits – Real Betting Analysis & Mindset in Action

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