Nigel Gray has served as the HKJC’s Head of Handicapping and Race Planning since 2006.


Nigel Gray and the HKJC handicapper’s team (including Walter Kwok, Patrick Kwan, and Ian Malpass) are doing an outstanding job in framing completive races in Hong Kong. This is evidenced by the winning margins of the winners of the races in the current season. As shown in the table below, 62% of the winners win by a length or less and less than 13% of the winners win by a big (in this case more than 2 lengths). This leads to nail-biting finishes and contributes to firmly cementing Hong Kong’s place as the world’s greatest horse racing destination.

Soon after the races are run, a Summary of Rating Changes is published on the HKJC website. Some runners are evaluated to be candidates for a drop in rating and have their ratings adjusted downwards by 1 to 3 rating points (roughly equivalent to pounds).

As per the Club’s handicapping policy -- “The maximum rating increase for horses placed second to fifth shall be 5 rating points in handicap races, and 10 rating points in non-handicap races. No rating increase will be made to horses finishing sixth or lower in any race.”

Winners are typically penalized from 5 to 7 rating points. Very impressive winners get their ratings increased by more (Voyage Warrior got a 14-point and a 12-point hike for his two wins and This is Class got an 11-point bump for his 3.5 length victory on Wednesday).

While these ‘big jumpers in rating’ may not appeal when they race again because of this stiffer increase in weight, there is some merit in looking at the statistics on how these ‘big jumpers in rating’ have performed over the last three seasons. The table below shows how Winners that get an increase of 10 points or more perform in their next start.

However, if we look at similar data for Winners that get an increase of 8 points or more, the win percent drops to about 29% and the ROI becomes negative.