Tuffers,
The handicap mark used to qualify a horse to enter a race, and the mark he actually runs off don’t have to be the same.
This is already the case where a horse earns a penalty, and the possibility of a horse being reassessed to a higher mark is incorporated in the conditions of all classified races.
Here’s what it says in the conditions for a classified race :
NOTE: For horses reassessed since the publication of the
qualifying rating list for entry, the excess in any rating above
the rating band shall be added to the weights stated above
It’s not as if there’s a shortage of handicappers, and if they stopped wasting their time changing the rating of horses below the minimum permitted level in handicaps on the flat (i.e those below 45) and the hours devoted to providing ratings for horses that will never run in a handicap, like Kauto Star, there should be no problem implementing a more timely service.
AP