CONNECTIONS of Irish-trained horses entered in the 10 Cheltenham Festival handicaps learned their fate with regard to their allotted marks, which were released on Wednesday.

There was a general muted reaction which suggested most were satisfied with the assessment of the British handicapping team, who keep separate ratings for Irish-trained horses.

Some cases were called into question on various social media platforms, notably the hurdles ratings of both The Storyteller and Ivanovich Gorbatov, up 14lbs and 8lbs respectively, but senior Irish National Hunt handicapper Andrew Shaw explained that ratings will always be subjective, especially within two different systems.

“The main discrepancies you’ll see are the difference between hurdles and chase marks. The British system takes into account hurdles ratings when assessing chasers and vice versa,” Shaw explained.

“That’s why The Storyteller went up 14lbs. On the face of it, you’d say how could they do that because he hasn’t run over hurdles in two years but the British system takes into account his chase rating. Total Recall winning at the Dublin Racing Festival off a hurdles mark of 125 last year is a good example – he wouldn’t have been able to race off that mark in a handicap hurdle in Britain.”

“The British system tends to look for the horse’s best piece of form, as it happens in the Anglo-Irish classification at the end of the season. So with regards to Ivanovich Gorbatov they will have been looking at his second to Lakemilan in Killarney in August and working off that.

“The way I see it, we’re happy with all our ratings and when you go race in another jurisdiction, you have to go by their system. Also it is essentially a subjective practice so there will likely always be discrepancies.”

RECORD ENTRY

This year saw a record entry of Irish-trained horses and they head the betting for seven of the 10 handicaps. Uradel had already been made favourite for the Coral Cup and has been given just a 4lb higher mark for the race. That may seem lenient to some but it could prove problematic in getting the Willie Mullins-trained runner into the race, given the Coral Cup received the most amount of entries out of all the handicaps and Uradel is 88 on the list. However his mark of 137 would have got him into the race last season.

Its All Guesswork, prominent in the betting for the Kim Muir , is another whose connections (Philip Reynolds and Gordon Elliott) will face an anxious wait.

Band Of Outlaws is 8/1 favourite for the Boodles Juvenile Handicap Hurdle (Fred Winter) and will race off a mark of 139 (5lbs higher than his Irish mark) if taking his chance. Connections of Wonder Laish, favourite for the County Hurdle, may well be content with just a 4lb higher assessment, a rating of 148 would see him carry 11st in the two-mile race. Dallas Des Pictons, favourite to give Gordon Elliott a third win in a row in the Martin Pipe Conditional Jockeys’ Hurdle, also came away relatively unscathed – allotted a 3lb higher rating on 140.

There were a few hard luck stories notably for the connections of Blow By Blow, Some Neck and Whisperinthebreeze, who all had entries in one or both of the Close Brothers Novices’ Handicap Chase and the Kim Muir, but were given ratings higher than the 145 ceiling rating for both of those races.

Senior handicapper Martin Greenwood said Noel Meade’s De Name Escapes Me was the hardest Irish horse to assess. The J.P. McManus-owned gelding has a hurdles rating of 132 and a chase rating of 143, and received a 7lb higher mark on both counts.

Likely required rating to get in (according to BHA)

Ultima: 137

Close Brothers: 137

Coral Cup: 135/136

Boodles (Fred Winter): 130

Pertemps: 135

Brown Advisory: 137

Kim Muir: low 130s

Grand Annual: 137/138

County Hurdle: 133

Martin Pipe: 134