A question for class handicappers

[Force of One]

How do you distinguish horses from seemingly similar classes, when there is an apples to oranges type comparison in the mix? For instance, generally speaking we could assume the average $25k claiming horse is superior to the average $10k claiming horse. But what about in cases where you might have a horse coming from a $10k open claiming vs. one from a $25k claiming N3L? Is there a general school of thought on the best way to do this?

I've heard of speed rating pars, but I would imagine that could be tough if you get a small sample size of certain odd conditions. Another idea I had was perhaps retroactively rating the race depending how some of the horses did next out ,although that kind of ignores form concerns.

I know there is tons of collective experience on this forum and was just curious to hear some of your ideas. Thanks.

[Dave Schwartz]

When I make par times, I do it "vertically" first. That is, I take what I know about the class levels and apply it to determine how fast the track is. This way, I can be sure that the "parallel time chart" (as it is often called) is correct.

The class levels are then re-computed horizontally across all the distances.

In other words, we work to verify that a $25k claimer is better than a $10k claimer by ?? lengths.

You cannot do this distance-by-distance. There may be distances where the $25k race was actually populated with (say) $20k or $32k horses.

(Note that all of the above work is done without any N2Ls or N3Ls.)

Now that we have the track pars in place, and the class levels determined), we look for the adjustments for N2L, N3L, state bred, female and 2yr old adjustments. Note these are one-dimensional adjustments.

It was truly astounding to me when I first looked at class this way, to find that at some tracks an N2L might be as much as 5 or 6 levels below open claiming!

[Robert Goren]

My rule of thumb is that a mdcl winner is competive in nw of 2L at about half the claiming price. The same is true with a nw of 2L winner going to nw of 3L and 3L go to open racing. A nw of 4L winner can run at same price. There tracks at certain times where this rule might hold, but it generally does. When looking at the nw of X L, I go back check to see at what claim price they broke through their last level.