Minimum Rating In The Uk?

G

Guest_

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
14,178
Location
Ireland
Long over due. It is of course only one step to improving British racing but it follows an article yesterday where the BHA were looking to prune the fixture list in future by around 20%. Finally something positive…if it is actually done.

From the Racing Post-

BRITAIN'S least talented Flathorses could next year be shown the red card after the BHA on Monday revealed that it is considering the removal from the sport of all animals rated under 40.

A decision on whether to ban Flat racing's basement performers will be taken by the BHA board in a matter of months and, if implemented, the new rule would come into force next year.

Based on the latest figures, 353 horses would be forced out of the sport.

Discussion had already taken place within racing's governing body about a ban even before the move was suggested in submissions to the strategic review that began last May.

Should the BHA board approve the imposition of a minimum rating, Britain would be following the lead of Ireland, which this year introduced an entry level of 45 for its Flat races.

Speaking on Monday, BHA spokesman Will Lambe said: “Nothing has been ruled in and nothing has been ruled out, but it's entirely natural that such a move would be considered as part of a thorough review.

“We have received a significant number of submissions asking for this proposal to be considered, although it was already in our thinking.

“Recommendations will be made in March and the BHA board will then take a view.”

Banning horses rated below 40 has already been discussed at regional meetings of the National Trainers' Federation, whose chief executive Rupert Arnold was on Monday largely positive about the proposal.

He said: “Inevitably, there are trainers who have a large proportion of low-rated horses, andone has to be mindful of that.

“But when this has been discussed trainers have consistently said that the industry should aim to encourage the best quality possible.

“I think this is the right approach, but we need to give people time to adjust, and so I think 40 is the right place to start. We can see what effect it has on the industry.”

Leading trainer Mark Johnston has no doubt what effect it will have.

“The sooner it happens the better,” he said.

“We should make the worst horses uneconomical, and it amazes me that it has taken so long for some to come to that view.”

Reaction from the Racehorse Owners' Association was slightly less enthusiastic, with its chief executive Michael Harris saying: “The ROA council views this as a very serious subject and approaches it cautiously and judiciously.”

Asked what would happen to those animals barred from racing, Lambe added: “Were it introduced, a lot of aspects would need thinking through, and this is one of the things that is being looked at.”
 
What happens to all those rated lower than 40? Do we send them hurdling, to the flapping tracks, put them all to sleep etc?
 
And what becomes of the horses so lowly rated once their reason for existence is taken away? Live transports to Europe and beyond perhaps?

The horses dont know they are not very good, and I am sure the people keeping them in training and owning them are happy for them to compete at their lowly level?
 
Those are genuine concerns….regarding what happens to horses so lowly rated.

But UK racing needs to do something rather than just staggering along and imo this is a good step.
 
If UK racing needs to do anything Galileo, first and foremost it needs to guarantee the welfare of the horses who will be forced into retirement - or worse still as Irish Stamp says sent over obstacles out of desperation on the part of the connections.

As I have said on here before, I do not see the problem with framing part of the programme around these animals, who bring just as much joy to a lot of their owners as the better graded horses.

Banded meetings addressed this but for some reason were withdrawn.

Why are these events so bad Galileo? Why do you think there is no place for horses rated below 40 - would you have them sent to the dog food factory?
 
“As I have said on here before, I do not see the problem with framing part of the programme around these animals, who bring just as much joy to a lot of their owners as the better graded horses.”

It has British racing in the mess it is…bankrupt. Too much racing and something has to give and unfortunately it has to come from the lower section.

”Why do you think there is no place for horses rated below 40 - would you have them sent to the dog food factory? “

Unfortunately that is where a lot of them will go unless something else is done to help. But it doesn’t take away from the reality that these removal of these horses from the horse in training ranks can only help racing.
 
It will be interesting to see how they intend to work this.

Horse is rated 40, should it be 39 ? Should it be 41 ? Thats now a bigger decision for one man to make than simply making one 50 instead of 49 or 51. Now a horse is to be taken out of training on one mans judgement of ratings.

Will a horse get one more run to prove itself better than 39 ?

Another point to make is that this will not result in less racing. The fixtures will still exist but the races contained within them will not be quite as poor.

The question of slippage will also need to be addressed.

Grey areas aplenty here.
 
i would imagine a fair few could go jumping. Having a flat rating of 39 would about equate to winning a Tote Gold Trophy or something similar :what:

where's Grassy?

seriously though, it's rough on people who own such horses..and the horses themselves.

but what is the alternative?
 
Messrs Coward and Roy want to reduce the number of meetings held, so there will be less racing, and about time too.

The bloated fixture list we have now is economically unsustainable. Putting on low-grade meetings in front of two men and a dog, simply for the benefit of off course betting outlets, is a road to nowhere, and is terrible PR for the sport.

As for what is going to happen to the "unraceable" racehorses, "I don't know" is the answer at the moment. What has happened in Ireland? In any case, it is not a duty of British racing to supply sufficient racing opportunities for the ever-increasing number of poor specimens that breeders, particularly in Ireland, are churning out.
 
I've written on here before about Banded racing and how it COULD have been made to work better with some thought and a little effort but let's start by putting some facts into the mix:

Class 7 events (aka Banded racing) is for horses rated 0-45. A considerable number of those eligible are actually rated between 41-45 and I see no reason why there couldn't be handicaps or events for these horses in the future.

As the RP states, there are currently 353 horses rated 40 or below. In the old days of Banded racing they set up Class B, C and D races. B was for 0-40, C was for 0-35 and D was for 0-30. There were, to my knowledge, very few D races ever run but there were a few Class C events (I remember REDOUBTABLE winning one at Lingfield one day).

What are the solutions - one obvious option (and I think this has been explored already) is to bring these horses into the Arabian Racing meetings so they can compete with the Arab horses. I think there were plans to introduce mixed events but I don't know if anything ever happened.

Possibly the flapping circuit will get a fillip from them I don't know. The third option which I imagine no one will go for would be to re-introduce Banded meetings for 0-40 animals (perhaps two a month). The races would only be worth around £1k each and would not count toward any championship. My view is that they should be used by conditionals and amateurs.

I would be interested to know what happens in Ireland with poorly-rated Flat horses as they don't seem to finish up at Dundalk but some of them come to the UK AW tracks.
 
The sub-40 rated horses will need to be taken care of by their owners.

If their owners are unable to do so, they will need to arrange to have them re-homed.

If they are unable to, and all other avenues are exhausted, they will need to arrange to have the horse humanely destroyed.

The possibility of having to do this is part and parcel of being an owner. Surely more than 353 horses have been retired due to injury over the last few years? What's happened to them?
 
Galileo, how do you conclude UK Racing is bankrupt?

If the authorities have there way these horses WILL go to the dog food factory. No question. At least if something is done to accomodate these horses within the current programme something will be done.

Why did they get rid of banded racing? Too many Mark Johnston's being listened to. Its alright him lording it around the higher end of the ratings band but what about the trainer who's string is largely the less able animals? Does he have to give up as well so Mark Johnston and his type can get even fatter off the proceeds of the sport?

There isn't a more arrogant self opinionated person who could have spoken on this subject than Johnston.

He doesn't mind at the same token being the servant of the Maktoum's who are one of the problems here, in terms over over productions of the breed. Why doesn't he speak out against that? Oh, I know, in case the next consignment of Darley and Gainsborough two year olds gets diverted to Newmarket.
 
one of the problems with lowly rated horses is they get that used to seeing other horses arses that often that they lose the will to win

as said on this thread.. banded racing didn't have enough of the lowest rating races.

if they had a fair few 0-35 races for a period there would be some horse that win these and maybe even improve due to the fact they "learn" to actually win rather than just follow.

I know it's not the answer but we do have a lot of horses...amongst those 300 odd...possiblt... that may just need to get a win of some kind to maybe move them forward and so go up the ratings.

probably talking silly
 
Fair points there, GF.

I know I've banged on about this before, but why couldn't we have Picnic Racing in this country, like they do in Australia? These seem to work very well for low grade horses and their owners. Maybe they could be conducted in the same way as point-to-points? Much better than empty tracks.

Here's a link to a site which tells you what Picnic Racing is all about...

http://www.picnicracing.com.au/AboutPicnicRacing.html
 
I'm all for it.

One thing that everyone so far has overlooked (bar stodge who nearly touched on it) is that if owners of animals rated below 40 want to carry on - they can. Open Arab races are now open to flat horses rated below 40, jumpers below 75, and unraced horses aged 7 or over. They are putting on more of these races open to the TBs as they proved so popular last year - so in effect Arab racing can become a type of point to point on the flat, similar to the picnic racing (or whatever it's called!) that exists in Australia.

Obviously the main problem is that theses horses that are effectively chucked out of racing don't cease to exist so something must be done about that but I'm entirely with Gareth - it is completely the responsibility of the owner to find a suitable home for their horse after it has finished racing.

In fact I'm all for fining owners silly amounts (around £1k at least I think is right) if they are all for washing their hands of their horses. I find it incredible that part of the fee for a jockey's licence (and part of the cost of an entry fee for every race) goes towards "racehorse rehabilitation". Why? As a responsible owner who will make sure all my horses will find a home somehow, why do I have to pay for those who can't be bothered to think about their horse's future? Why should jockeys pay for irresponsible owners who don't give a flying feck what their darling neddy gets up to or where it goes after it has finished racing, so long as they don't have to pay for it?

I digress slightly with that I realise - but it's nice to get it out and say it!!!!
 
im no fan of low grade racing but is there anywhere a real analysis of whether its pays its way or not? Maybe not easy to determine, beause there is no guarantee that cash not bet on this racing would go on other UK racing, but somewhere this must have been looked at

Galileo, how do you conclude UK Racing is bankrupt?
Click to expand...

It isnt. Simple as that
 
They have I believe an agreement when taking out a license to own a greyhound that you will rehome it when it's racing days are over - something similar for horse racing maybe?

Hawick etc. stage flapping meetings with some of the currently banned jockeys riding their - think Robbie Fitzpatrick is one of them and there was the case of Chestnut Charlie who was beaten in a race at Dingle over in Ireland prior to him winning a couple of bumpers last year. Where do the flapping meetings get horses from? Surely some of these could run their, though I don't see what are effectively unregulated meetings are going to either benefit racing in the long-run or make the sport any straighter.
 
First, thanks for the information on Arab racing, SL. I entirely agree with you but I have no idea the extent to which the option has been taken up so far. I'm not sure how well the ARO advertises its races and events - I've had trouble trying to get the date for one of their Lingfield meetings.

The other point is that this proposal will not of course lead to the loss of a single meeting. Class 7 events (0-45 NOT 0-40) are races put on existing cards and could easily be 41-45 events and remain.

The "20% proposal" means in effect losing some 300 fixtures or roughly six meetings per week. I'm sure we've all got suggestions as to which courses will take "the hit" (step forward Lingfield, Southwell, Wolverhampton and Kempton). I can't speak for the others but in the case of Lingfield a 20% loss would reduce the fixtures from around 95 to say 76. Now, that could be done quite easily - one meeting a month in the summer, two in the winter months. It might not work so well for other tracks.

Another option is to close or mothball a number of tracks which no doubt would cause riots, insurrection, civil war etc, etc.

The optimum solution is probably somewhere in the middle - reductions at some tracks and the mothballing of maybe five venues (picking them wouldn't be that easy).

Unfortunately, I simply don't believe it's going to happen until or unless there is a severe economic downturn which would severely reduce horse ownership and/or the disposable income people have to bet and/or go racing and would effectively produce a cull of horses, owners, trainers, jockeys and racecourses.
 
I'm not so sure about the reliability of ARO either, Stodge!!! That goes back a few years for me though and is down to boring political reasons, most of which I can't even remember any more! The Open races were very popular last season though, I know that much (there was an article on it in the RP recently) and ARO are to open up more races for this purpose from this season onwards.

I don't think that pruning the fixture list is a bad thing, in all honesty. Inevitably that would more than likely lead to the loss of several AW meetings and possibly some lower grade jumps meetings but in the case of the AW, love it or hate it, that won't be a massive loss. At least the lower grade jumps meetings still tend to put on cards full of big fields which the AW just cannot seem to any more. In recent years the problem has been getting horses into these lowly rated races; there were simply more races than there were horses and you'd struggle to even get a run into your horse as there were high likelihoods that they'd get balloted. However with the advent of 2 or 3 Kempton meetings a week as well as several Lingfields, Wolverhamptons and the re-opening of Southwell it has now become the norm to see AW cards with very small fields.

Once Great Leighs opens it can surely only get worse - Kempton currently has ridiculously tiny attendances and produces many cards with maybe one or two 10 runner races and up to even three or four races with just the 4 or 5 runners. Of course the other thing about this is that it means that the betting markets from Kempton especially are exceptionally weak and somewhat false to an extent as you often only have 5 or 6 bookmakers even bother turning up - either one or two in the ring and three or four on the rails. There are no punters out there having a bet and prices are tumbling quickly when little or nothing has been laid on said horses. I think there will be a lot of questioning over the viability of these markets in the near future in the industry.
 
Not much I can disagree with there, SL :)

One thing I would mention is that Great Leighs fixtures have been part of the racing calendar for over a year. The fixtures allocated to the course have mostly been shared out among the other AW venues - we had three or four at Lingfield for example.

The fall off in fields has been particularly noticeable since the New Year - the November and December AW meetings are always helped by 2-y-o races but there just aren't the number of early 3-y-o to fill races. As you say, attendances are poor, markets very weak and we have seen a number of short-priced favs turned over.

There was always an argument that AW racing in the winter was needed to support the NH fixtures in the event of bad weather but with the coming of improved drainage and frost covers meetings which would have been lost five years ago are surviving. The problem for me is or are the evening fixtures.
 
Absolutely - it's the evening meetings that are deserted. I predict 2 books in the ring and 3 on the rails for tomorrow evening's fixture at Kempton!

I realise that the Great Leighs fixtures have been allocated elsewhere for the last year; the danger in my eyes is that your Kemptons/Lingfields in particular are then going to ask for an increase in fixtures to compensate for the loss of the GL fixtures! :laughing:
 
Back
Top