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"He’s as fit as I can get him at home". Some might see that statement meaning the horse is 100% fit, ie can not be made fitter without racing. But it could also be seen as meaning exactly the same as saying "He’s 80% fit" (ie not quite at his very best).
Under the conditions above Joe, in percentage terms what would be the way you’d describe the fitness?
Value Is EverythingGinger,
My point is that it doesn’t matter what fitness level horses are at, so long as there is a structure within the rules which at least makes an attempt at letting punters know that fitness level, in the view of the trainer.
What measurement is used to define the amount Joe? May be instead of a percentage figure (which is impossible to define, 90% is another man’s 80%)…
The only way I can see what you’re asking for possibly working is having poundge expected below its best. That way trainers know what they’re trying to measure. However, still lends itself to corruption. If a trainer were to say "he’s expected to be 7 lb below best" and then wins, putting up a career best effort… It will look as if he’s put punters away, whether he has or not. Even more so if the owner likes a bet.
Value Is EverythingGinger, I wouldn’t have the faintest idea as to how to describe the fitness level of any horse I had nothing to do with.
But if I trained a horse and knew what he was like at 100%, I could give you a very close estimate within 2 or 3 % of where he was in his fitness ‘campaign’.
When Nicky Henderson is able to watch a single piece of work and say "Sprinter’s work over 10 furlongs was all right, and with any other horse you’d think it was fine, but Sprinter is not showing the same brilliance as last season; he is just 10% short of that."
I’ve also read numerous times trainers say, ‘He won’t run. We’re just a week short. We ran out of time.’
These guys know exactly what stage a horse is at in its prep. Why else would A King be able boast of his RPR record? Why else would Mullins and Henderson and Nicholls dominate Cheltenham above all else (OK, they have superior firepower; but I’m talking about the prepping and the trainer’s deep knowledge of each individual).
But to return to an earlier point you made, echoing the title of this thread…no new rule is actually required, only the enforcement of the current one. But it is not being enforced. The BHA need to stand by it or change it.
If a trainer does not have the facilities to get every ‘normal’ horse 100% fit at home, perhaps no licence should be granted. I accept that there are ‘gross’ horses and there lazy horses who might not put it all in at home – but shouldn’t that be the trainers’ problem, rather than the punters’? Jumpers Bumper type races are perhaps the answer for these horses – much as many seem to dislike such races. Field sizes suggest that trainers love them.
Very few top trainers begin their careers with top facilities, only able to improve facilities with money/success. "Gross or lazy horses" can be allowed for in the price a punter is willing to take.
Don’t see why jumpers bumpers should be any different than any other type of race. No race should have lesser rules than any other. Reason why they are loved by trainers is purely to get a run in to horses who don’t like heavy ground.
Value Is EverythingReason why they are loved by trainers is purely to get a run in to horses who don’t like heavy ground.
In other words, to condition them. But at least we’d all know that’s what they are for and – like most do anyway – avoid betting on them.
So IF YOU TRAINED THE HORSE Joe…
"He’s as fit as YOU can get him at home". Would you describe it as "100% fit" or not?
Some trainers might describe such a horse as "100%", ie can not be made any fitter without a race. Others may describe it as 99% or 90% or 80%, ie short of it’s very best.
If you are going to encourage trainers to describe horses as a percentage fit, then they must know how they are measuring. I am damn sure YOU’d know in YOUR own mind where a horse was in its "fitness campaign"… And YOU’d know exactly what YOU’d mean by saying "90% fit". But the point is that EXACT POINT in THAT horse’s "fitness campaign" could easily be described by ANOTHER trainer as "80% fit" or "95% fit"…
Am sure Henderson knows what he means by Sprinter Sacre being just "10% short" of his very best. But that "10%" might be called something completely different by other trainers. Indeed, in my way of looking at things Sprinter Sacre must be a lot more than what I’d call "10% short", because 10% short would mean
TO ME
he’d still be good enough to win the QM in a cantre.
Percentges need to be measured in something tangible to mean something.Therefore, the punter does not know any more than if the trainer used other language without a percentage (in the way they do now).
Value Is EverythingReason why they are loved by trainers is purely to get a run in to horses who don’t like heavy ground.
In other words, to condition them. But at least we’d all know that’s what they are for and – like most do anyway – avoid betting on them.
I’d prefer to call it "to keep them fit".
Value Is EverythingSteeplechasing
I totally agree with you. Unless the horse is fit to win the trainer should be pulled in.
Martin Pipe made his career and fortune out of having his horses fit as fiddles every time they ran and that’s why he was so succesful as it took other trainers quite a while to latch on.All this well he is 80% 90% fit makes my blood boil.
Still until something is done and I doubt it will then we have to lump it as we punters always do.
- Total Posts 764
It’s a tricky point, but I’m with Joe on this one, purely because it’s quite simply incredibly unfair on punters when they put their money on horses that (unknown to them) won’t be able to run to their true ability due to not being fit enough, which is usually due to the horse having a ‘target’ race sometime in the near future.
I’d propose something like ‘warm-up’ races where horses who aren’t 100% fit are entered and given a go round the racecourse before the big Saturday meetings. It’d be easy to have these as no-betting races.
At the end of the day it shouldn’t be up to us lot to come up with the solution, the BHA should be on the case already and have an alternative on their minds.
The only reason I can think of for a trainer not wanting to admit that their horse isn’t 100% is because they want to put big money on it themselves (or the owner does) and thus want the odds for their selected ‘target race’ to remain high, under the illusion that their horses were running to the best of their ability in previous outings.
The whole point of this debate is to stop punters being misled and losing their money on horses who don’t have as good a chance at winning a said race as they’re being led to believe, surely that’s not too much to ask.
The whole point of this debate is to stop punters being misled and losing their money on horses who don’t have as good a chance at winning a said race as they’re being led to believe, surely that’s not too much to ask.
It is too much to ask Ben, because it is impossible to do.
Even if you had races (that were not betting races) for the non-100%-fit… It would not stop trainers running unfit horses in proper races. You’d just not be told when they were unfit. So punters would be in a worse position than they are now.
You’d also drastically reduce the horse pool available for Classic Trials etc. Many more horses going to the Derby without a prep. Just a wizz around a racecourse where they don’t even need to "try". Surely it is best to have a Derby where we can make our own judgement how fit horses were for trials, rather than having no form to go on at all?
I don’t like horses being unfit either, everyone wishes it could be stopped, but there is no way of doing so. All we can do is hope they are fit enough to do themselves justice and that connections tell us at the time. There are also simple, worth while things punters can do to limit the effects. Studying trainers and horses that do particularly well/badly after a break. And Trainers in form are more likely to have fit horses than trainers out of form. And Keeping an eye on horses with more relevent targets. If punters do all these things it really isn’t as big a problem as you’d think.
Value Is Everything- Total Posts 764
The whole point of this debate is to stop punters being misled and losing their money on horses who don’t have as good a chance at winning a said race as they’re being led to believe, surely that’s not too much to ask.
It is too much to ask Ben, because it is impossible to do.
Even if you had races (that were not betting races) for the non-100%-fit… It would not stop trainers running unfit horses in proper races. You’d just not be told when they were unfit. So punters would be in a worse position than they are now.
You’d also drastically reduce the horse pool available for Classic Trials etc. Many more horses going to the Derby without a prep. Just a wizz around a racecourse where they don’t even need to "try". Surely it is best to have a Derby where we can make our own judgement how fit horses were for trials, rather than having no form to go on at all?
I don’t like horses being unfit either, everyone wishes it could be stopped, but there is no way of doing so. All we can do is hope they are fit enough to do themselves justice and that connections tell us at the time. There are also simple, worth while things punters can do to limit the effects. Studying trainers and horses that do particularly well/badly after a break. And Trainers in form are more likely to have fit horses than trainers out of form. And Keeping an eye on horses with more relevent targets. If punters do all these things it really isn’t as big a problem as you’d think.
Then we go to Joe’s point, trainers should be more open about a horses chances of winning a race, all they need to say is "not 100% ready", noones asking for them to give a detailed description of their prep.
- Total Posts 764
Fair enough then
Ben,
These "warm up no betting" races you suggest. Would there be any prize money on offer? A nice idea in principle but racing expenses still need to be paid (entry fee, transport, jockey fee) so there’s got to be a reward for the owner or they would be as well running their horse in a "proper" race.
My view is it’s virtually impossible to prove that a horse is 100% or 90% etc etc. Its a massively subjective area. I’d prefer to see the BHA operate a "totting up" system whereby if a trainer is deemed to be in breach of the rule x many times in a season then he/she has to explain their actions with a trip to Portman Square.
As with most improvements in racing administration it all takes resources and money….two things the BHA maintain they are short of.
- Total Posts 764
Ben,
These "warm up no betting" races you suggest. Would there be any prize money on offer? A nice idea in principle but racing expenses still need to be paid (entry fee, transport, jockey fee) so there’s got to be a reward for the owner or they would be as well running their horse in a "proper" race.
My view is it’s virtually impossible to prove that a horse is 100% or 90% etc etc. Its a massively subjective area. I’d prefer to see the BHA operate a "totting up" system whereby if a trainer is deemed to be in breach of the rule x many times in a season then he/she has to explain their actions with a trip to Portman Square.
As with most improvements in racing administration it all takes resources and money….two things the BHA maintain they are short of.
True, that, hadn’t thought of the trainers expenses.
Problem (at the moment) with the totting up system is that at the end of the year the trainer would be called to the judge and the judge would probably say something along the lines of "we found x trainer innocent as there was insufficient evidence of their horses not running to their true merits"
Having said that, I’m pretty sure if the BHA came here for a solution to many of their problems they could solve a lot! A lot of people with a lot of different good ideas that’d only need a bit of tweaking/polishing.
I agree Ben….plenty good ideas on here.
There’s a huge grey area that folks need to consider. Remember these are animals that cannot talk and tell their trainers if they are 100% or otherwise today!!
One other point. There are trainers of different levels of ability out there. Some are better than others at getting their horses fit. Some are downright useless tbh. Should a trainer be penalised for being bad at his job? That’s a completely scenario to running a horse knowingly less than 100% fit. And how do the stewards / BHA prove the difference? Extremely hard to do so IMO…a minefield.
Of course in many countries they do have "barrier trials" which are when horses run together from the stalls and the results are recorded. However, without betting, they don’t really give anybody a clue as to the exact fitness of a horse – despite their videos being shown in evidence when pundits discuss a race. This only really works when horses are also trained on the course although of naturally quite a few Newmarket trainers have taken their leading fancies to the track to do racecourse "gallops" as part of their preparation. Only all weather racecourses would want to hold these in any numbers..
I think it’s a worthwhile discussion but I tend to come down on the side of leaving things how they are but encouraging trainers to be as up front as possible.
Even master trainers like Mike de Kock have to acknowledge that horses "need a run". You can’t keep a horse at the peak of it’s powers for a long time. If trainers had them fit to run too early in the season then they would have gone over the top by the time of their main aims. I imagine this would annoy not only punters but their owners as well.
It’s also sometimes down to geography. I’ve worked in Newmarket and sometimes you think your horses are on top form and then you realise that Lambourn, for example, has had a milder Winter and their horses are, on average, ahead of the game. These things tend to even out as the season progresses and is one of the fascinating complexities of the sport we love.
It’s only similar to athletics. You’d can’t expect Mo Farah – for example – to be ready to run for his life at an indoor meeting in February if he wants to be at his peak for the Olympics or World Championships in the late Summer. It’s all about priorities and sometimes this has to be factored in by punters and is reflected in the prices.
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