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Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2023 17:38 pm |
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Yesterday at the Curragh - Four Gr 1 races. Two of the Gr 1 races - both with only 4 runners. The other two Gr 1 races yesterday had 9 and 10 runners.
What a disaster. Irish racing is heading into big trouble.
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- TOPOFTHEHILL»Tue Sep 12, 2023 9:06 am
Its just the same over here, it may even be worse. But its so simple to put right, but when the architects of what is wrong are the same people that need to act to put it right you have an enormous problem. Its very easy! There is too much racing! especially too much Group racing. Far too may opportunities to run in high stakes with horses that are not really good enough. The number of G1 races needs to be cut by as much as half. It means loosing a lot of races. I am not as familiar with the Irish program but here in the UK it means cutting out about 60 group races. With fewer opportunities owners will have to target races for their top horses or they will simply never get a place at stud. The fields will be large, the races more competitive and meaningful, the form more reliable. My guess is that the big owners will end up with less horses but probably better ones. The reward for the smaller owner if he ever gets a horse good enough will be substantial. If you do nothing it will just turn people off the sport especially if they can't have a bet without all sorts of affordability nonsense. The audience is already declining significantly and very quickly soon even the TV companies will not want to broadcast racing as the commercial revenue will be worthless. It could go on for years, slowly declining until no one wants to buy a horse because its just not rewarding enough even if you get a good one. My hope was for it to go spectacularly bust and then we could start again and do it properly but I really can't see that happening. Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Tue Sep 12, 2023 10:42 am
I say it often , ‘there’s too much racing’ but the job of removing big races from the program is very difficult. Its probably the easiest thing in the world to do promoting a race to G1 status but once they have been absorbed into the calendar it’s a nightmare to get them out. Firstly it might be that the race is a tracks biggest day, it might be that it is a race with a very long history. What we are talking about now is survival for the sport, its much more important than all of that.
I just went through the current G1 races in the UK, there are I think 36 races. I started to try to trim the list and got down to 21 but could make that 20. This is the sort of restructuring that is absolutely necessary, but even for someone like me who clearly sees the problem and its solution it is so very difficult to cut out races that have become part of racing history.
Obviously the Classics have to be maintained although I could make a case for shortening the Derby and Oaks to 10 furlongs and the St Leger to 12 but for now lets keep it as it is.
It would require a lot of races to be re-mastered so where there are now races for 3yo and another for 4yo+ there would be one race which would be open. This would require monitoring so that if 3yo’s won the first 5 runnings the WFA allowance would need to be looked at.
There are races for colts and races for fillies some would have to be open and again the allowances looked at if it favoured one gender.
My G1 list then would be as follows
2000 Gns, 1000 Gns, Oaks, Derby, Open Age St James Palace, Prince of Wales, Gold Cup, Eclipse, July Cup, King George and QE2, Sussex, Nassau, International (York), Nunthorpe, St Leger, Sun Chariot, Dewhurst, Filly Equivalent, Champion Stakes, Futurity Gender open.
Many of the races to loose G1 status would become G2 races rather than simply disappear but some just need to go altogether.
Obviously the reduction in High Stakes Races would mean that festivals like Ascot and Goodwood would be cut back but that’s how they always used to be. Its a very ‘Brave New World’ approach and it’s a bit scary, but to do nothing about what’s happened in the past and play loose with the present is a sure fire way to miss out on the future. Reply
- Green Man»Wed Sep 13, 2023 7:18 am
Race sponsorship plays a huge part of Group races. If the number of Group races is reduced as you suggest TOTH - what do you think - would racing lose horrendous amounts of sponsorship money? Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Wed Sep 13, 2023 8:08 am
Its a serious question you ask GM and my reply is not meant to be flippant but I think the role of sponsorship is overstated. Most sponsors of racing these days are bookmakers, why would you expect anything else. I think when you actually investigate the amount of money sponsors bring in most of us would be underwhelmed. I believe that most of the money would remain in the sport but be repositioned so that instead of sponsoring a days racing sponsors would spend the same money on a big race. The races that remain will naturally become much more important events and should attract much higher levels of support from sponsors. I really don't have the answers but I am sure that to do nothing is going to further diminish the sport. A diminished sport will not attract sponsorship anyway. Its a bit like having a crap footy team, the management has been poor and the results are getting slightly worse season by season. Do you change it radically and risk it going wrong or keep going until you slip from the premiere league into the championship and then into league 1 and so on. A spectacular fail would in my opinion be better than a slow decline. But if it could be turned arround, and with racing I am not underestimating the task one little bit. I have been saying much the same for 20 years but no one was having any of it then, its only recently that people are starting to see how foolishly the sport has been run. Elite sport is big business. It needs to be administered in a sustainable business like way. Many of the stake holders are very wealthy people with massive commercial leverage and they have had the pants off the adminstrators and governments for years, its been too easy for them and they have become too powerful and even wealthier. We all know its wrong but do nothing about it. Reply
- Oreally»Tue Sep 12, 2023 11:02 am
What do the Bookmakers like best? Answer must be BIG FIELDS. Surely they are the one's who should be shouting about the disasterous small fields. Reply
- Reference Point»Wed Sep 13, 2023 11:58 am
I don't think feild size matters to bookies in these type of races. The big handicaps normally have plenty of runners. The entry system for big races is no good and too expensive to enter nearer to the race. For ll the talk of big/premiership racing, its the grass roots that are the most important. Too much top down nonsense not enough regional racing. Prizemoney is not as important as opportunities at the lower level and there should be more regional focus. The TV coverage is garbage and does not bring new people into the sport, in fact watching it would make you think that being a footballer or oil well owner is the only way in. Can't see anything changing. Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Wed Sep 13, 2023 13:16 pm
RP the regional aspect is much less important in Ireland and in the UK when you have trainers sending horses from North Yorks to Brighton to run in a race worth 4K you have to wonder if it can improve the situation. The TV coverage is IMO central. For some reason my box did not record Saturdays racing. Now I normally record ALL the racing then sit down about 2 hours after the start and watch the races without the crap. On Saturday by the time I noticed it was not recording I had lost a bout an hour and a half so I went straight to ITV+1 and started to watch it 'live'. Well I lost the will after about 3 races. I couldn't stand the coverage and went out into the yard and did some work. That's how bad it is. It is dumbed down so much that if someone like me won't watch it what chance anyone who knows nothing. I missed the Sprint Cup but recorded the Irish races and watched them in the evening. ITV racing started quite well but it has morphed in to the old Channel4 format with lesser presenters. They say such stupid things, rarely tip a winner and never ever question the cock ups like over watering or stating stalls not opening, or runners that persistently play up at the start or jockeys that ride a bad race. If the Big races were cut back there would be more grass roots racing. How about some serious breeding presenter too, these days they never even mention how a winner is bred. Reply
- Reference Point»Wed Sep 13, 2023 14:24 pm
Thats my point TOTH. There should be more regional races for the lower grade horses. Its madness travelling hundreds of miles to with 3/4k. I say cut the prize money and have more races that would encourage permit holders and small trainers to keep an odd horse themselves. I people in Newmarket and London are completely out of touch with the rest of the sport. There are huge numbers of semi professional trainers doing a great job of giving failed Newmarket horses a career in the north and Scotland. It's the continuous cycle of buying/selling, throwing away what isn't up to standard after the shortest of periods that is creating a lot of the problems. I just heard they have put 50k into some event restricted to thoroughbreds that have raced. Not a bad idea but put money into grassroots racing as well which will effectively do the same job. Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Thu Sep 14, 2023 8:17 am
I got the point RP, I just chose to ignore it! Actually my model would mean increasing prize money so that it might still be worth sending a horse from Yorkshire to Brighton and if you win making a profit. Part of that model would require some sort of monitoring of the less talented runners and (now I am going to get very unpopular) taking them out of competition. Again I am in no way underestimating the difficulties but we can all see what taking the easy route achieves. Its what we have got now, a dysfunctional sport that is unsustainable in the long term. Keep going the way we are going and no one will benefit, not grass roots or the elite. I am not at all hopeful for the future, I rather think its too late. Reply
- Reference Point»Thu Sep 14, 2023 9:43 am
Very good TOTH! In my opinion if you start reducing low grade horses you reduce the ability for owners who buy decent horses to move them on when they don't work out for them. All the re-homing stuff is great...until it isn't. The minute you start telling middle class owners that you can't sell their horse and you can't rehome it so the only way to get rid of it is the bullet you may find it very hard to get them to buy another one. It truly amazes that people who know horses and racing don't understand that for every good horse there are many many more not so good (or even not very good at all). Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Thu Sep 14, 2023 11:07 am
Thats where I don't really agree RP. For me its reasonable to say that very good horses are very rare. We are talking the top 1% of any generation, and that may even be a gross exaggeration. If that is the case then the really bad ones will probably be about the same proportion of each generation. Also a lot of these escape the bullet especially the fillies as they go to stud. While not a big fan of useless fillies entering studs my research tells me its not a disaster for the breed as it is relatively easy to improve on them. The biggest problem in all this is the ones who are neither good nor bad. A massive expansion of opportunity for these horses is what is needed. Its bookmaker fodder and there would need to be a lot of innovation in how to structure this sort of racing but it should be possible to come up with say regional heats that qualify horses for a bigger race (non regional) with a bigger prize. It is absolutely fundamental that new owners are given the opportunity to buy or breed a horse and make it pay. Reply
- Reference Point»Thu Sep 14, 2023 13:24 pm
Fillies won't be going to stud as no one in their right mind will be buying out of modest/poor fillies if the lower end of the sport is crashed. The irony of dismissing the lower grade horses (0-55) is that no matter what you do to improve the breed there will always be the bottom grade. You may move average up from 65 (or whatever it is) to 80 but the bottom grade will now be 0-70. Then these will be dismissed as useless/dross/rubbish or what ever other derogatory terminology people can think of. We need to understand that the racehorse population is a result of production which is governed by the breeding industry and unless its decided to restrict the numbers of horses bred then opportunities should be availed for all racehorses to be economically viable. That should be the key priority for the BHA nothing else. Reply
- TOPOFTHEHILL»Thu Sep 14, 2023 14:55 pm
RP its a perfectly valid and creditable point that you make, just now I don't happen to agree with it, but you are right to make your case. My research clearly points to the fact that you do not need a top quality mare to produce a good or even elite racehorse. Its fair to say its probably an easier place to start from but the easiest option is not always the best one. The really low grade performer is blameless and shouldn't be dismissed in any derogatory way but no matter how moderate they are, if they are owned by someone with enough disposable income, and the inclination they will be bred from. Not for the commercial market perhaps but for their owner to race. Its how I started over 50 years ago. I just think its so much more difficult now. I was given my first mare (she was to be shot if she couldn't find a home). I have always been a soft touch. She was getting on, had at least 8 or 9 foals not one winner. My first horse bred won 6 races was rated about 90 and won at both Newmarket tracks, Lingfield and a couple of Yorkshire tracks. We had some huge paydays when we backed him big. I was a lot less 'careful' in those days. Reply
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