"It is ruining racing. You can't simply jump horses up 10lb or 12lb a run, which is what is happening too often."
Darkness is set to have his first outing since finishing down the field in the Grand National in April and is a 25-1 chance with the Tote for the £200,000 3m 2f Grade 3 feature.
The 10-year-old, who is named after a glam rock band, is lightly raced as a tendon injury kept him off the track for almost three years.
Old Etonian Egerton is adept at getting horses fit from long lay-offs. He saddled Mely Moss to finish second to Papillon in the 2000 Grand National on his first run after over a year off, but while being realistic about Darkness's chance off a mark of 151 - he thinks top weight Denman has it all to do on Saturday.
He said: "Denman is favourite and he is there to be shot at. There are not too many horses who come back to their best when they have a dickie heart, but to be honest there are at least half a dozen horses who are much better handicapped.
"The trouble is we have civil servants doing the handicapping, not horsemen. Phil Smith is massaging his ego rating these horses higher than they should be rated.
"I suppose it is more fun being a handicapper than it is being a schoolmaster, but there are quite decent horses left in no-man's land, while ordinary horses rated around 100 or 115 who are winning more money.
"But you can't tell them, they won't listen. These handicappers are never wrong."
Smith, who could not be reached by the BHA yesterday, was unavailable for comment.
