ORC +/-: how the handicapper has rated a race's runners since

The handicapper reassesses every horse after it runs. ORC +/- totals those moves for a whole field, so you can see whether a race has since been rated as better or worse than it looked.

When a race turns out to be strong, its runners go on to win and the handicapper puts their marks up. When it was weak, their marks come down. ORC +/- on a horse's history page adds all of that up for you, race by race.

What it measures

For each runner in that race, take its official mark today and subtract the mark it ran off that day. ORC +/- adds those moves together, in pounds.

• A positive figure, filled green: the handicapper has raised the field overall. The horses from that race have been rated up since, a sign it was a strong race.
• A negative figure, filled red: the field has been dropped overall, a sign the race was weaker than it looked.
• No fill: the rises and falls cancel out.

Like for like

Marks are compared code for code, because Flat, All-Weather, hurdles and chases are separate handicap ladders: a Flat race uses each runner's current Flat mark, a hurdle its hurdle mark, and so on. A runner that ran unrated that day, or has no mark in that code now, is left out. A bumper has no official marks, so it has no figure.

Only once the handicapper has looked again

A runner only counts once it has a new mark since that race: it has run again in that code, or the handicapper has published a fresh assessment of it. Straight after a race nobody has been reassessed, so the cell stays blank rather than showing a misleading 0, and it fills in as the field is re-marked. It also stays blank for old races whose runners have all retired.

Excl: the same figure without this horse

Next to it, ORC +/- (Excl) does the same sum with the horse whose history you're reading left out, so only the other runners' moves count. If this horse has gone on to win and shot up 15lb, the normal figure carries those pounds; the Excl figure shows whether the rest of the field has been rated up too. It stays blank until at least one of the other runners has a new mark.

In the example above, the race showing +3 has a blank (Excl) cell. The only runner from it the handicapper has reassessed so far is the horse itself, so the whole +3 is its own rise, not the field's.

Hover for every runner

Hover the cell for the full picture: the total in pounds, how many of the runners could be compared, and each runner with the mark it ran off, its mark now and the change. Hover an (Excl) cell for the same card without this horse.

Reading it with the other columns

ORC +/- is the handicapper's view of a race; Race Win SR and Race Place SR are the results. When both point the same way, a green ORC and a strong win rate, you can trust that the race has worked out. For how an individual horse's own mark has moved, see Official ratings and mark moves, and to see exactly who beat it in each race, Beaten By / Beating.