David Thiselton

A new type of race called a Conditional Graduation appears on the Hollywoodbets Greyville meeting on Sunday October 25 and the intention is to attract more runners.

Graduation Plates in their pure form advantage good one or two-time winners and give a virtually impossible task to lesser horses. 

Consequently, a lot of these events in the past have had to be scrapped due to a lack of acceptors. 

However, the Conditional Graduation makes it a touch harder for the higher merit rated horses so should attract bigger fields.

In a normal Graduation Plate the one-time winners simply receive weight from the two-time winners and there is an allowance for females and sometimes for young horses.

However, the Conditional Graduation allocates weight to both the two-time winners and one-time winners according to respective nett merit rated bands. There is a female allowance on top of that too.

The race is thus similar to a Pinnacle Stakes event except that there are two weight structures within it, one for the two-time winners and another for the one-time winners.

In the 1800m race on October 25 the two-time winner structure starts at 61kg, which will be carried by horses nett merit rated on a five point spread off the top horse. The top band example given in the program is from nett merit rating 93 to 98. The second top band and downward all have a three point spread. So, two-time winners nett merit rated from 89 to 92, as per the example given, will carry 60kg. Two-time winners nett merit rated from 85 to 88, as per the example given, will carry 59k. Each band from then on downward will also have a three point spread and the weight carried will decrease accordingly by 1kg down to 55kg.

The one-time winner structure starts at 58kg and is allocated to horses nett merit rated on a five point spread that is three points lower than the two-timer winners’ top band. So, as per the example given in the program, it is for horses nett merit rated from 90 to 95. Each band from then on downward will have a three point spread and the weight carried will decrease accordingly by 1kg down to 52kg.

The females will be given an allowance of 1,5kg subject to a minimum weight of 50kg.

The October 25 Conditional Graduation is already closed and there were 32 entries and so far only one scratching. 

Share Holder became a two-time winner on Sunday and will likely have an unchanged merit rating of 99, which as a four-year-old over this trip gives him a nett merit rating of 97. 

He is the top merit rated horse in the race and will have to give up to 9kg away. The lowest gross rated horse in the race is King’s Cove on a 56 merit rating.

Gold Circle will be hoping a full field goes to post so will be monitoring this field closely to see whether the format has worked.