Noel O’Brien Interview - Ireland's senior national hunt handicapper

Noel O’Brien is the Irish senior national hunt handicapper, responsible for rating every horse that runs under NH rules. It makes him one of the most influential people in the sport.

Q: If you were to explain handicapping to the uninitiated, how would you do so?

A: At its very basic, it’s about equalising all horses’ chances of winning. The job of the handicapper is to make an assessment of a race and the horses in it relative to each other, so that the horse who finishes last and or the horse who finishes first would theoretically have an equal chance of winning were they to next meet in a handicap race.