Class Strength and Equivalence

CLASS STRENGTH AND EQUIVALENCY
Class	Purse	Strength	Class	Purse	Strength
Grade 1	250000	100	CLM-50	42000	42
Grade 2	150000	95	CLM-40	37000	37
Grade 3	100000	90	MCL-100	32000	32
HCP-125	125000	90	MCL-75	29000	29
HCP-100	100000	90	CLM-32	28000	28
HCP-70	70000	70	MCL-50	27000	27
AOC-125	63000	63	CLM-25	25000	25
ALW-63	63000	63	SALW-40	25000	25
AOC-80	57000	57	CLM-20	21000	21
ALW-56	56000	56	MCL-40	21000	21
ALW-53	53000	53	SALW-12.5	20000	20
ALW-52	52000	53	MCL-32	19000	19
ALW-52	52000	53	CLM-16	19000	19
ALW-48	48000	48	MCL-32	18000	18
AOC-40	48000	48	CLM-12.5	16000	16
AOC-32	48000	48	MCL-25	16000	16
AOC-25	48000	48	CLM-12.5	15000	15
CLM-62.5	46000	46	CLM-10	13000	13
MSW	46000	46

You are handicapping the card trying to figure out who has been running against what level of competition - but they
have been in $50K claiming races, $52K allowance races, and $80K allowance optional claimers, so which is "worth
more"? Like all things horse racing it is far too complex and has to do with the owners and trainers rather than the
handicapper (customer). But there is a point of commonality in this mess of class designations that can give us a
good idea of the relative strength of the class and where it fits on the class continuum, and that is the purse size.
Trainers will almost always default to the easiest race with the largest purse - makes sense, we want the lowest level
of competition with the maximum reward. Some have deceiving titles, for instance starter allowances are listed as
Starter Allowance $40,000 - but that is not the purse like in standard allowance, it is actually a condition - that to
qualify for the race you must have broken your maiden in a $40K maiden claimer or less. So here are the difference
classes, their purse size (which will vary a couple of thousand in the middle ranks) and the relative strength of each: