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OK, there are plenty of contenders, but my suggestion is the one that excludes the winners of apprentice or conditional races from carrying a penalty if they reappear before their handicap mark is altered.
My understanding is that this dates back many decades and was introduced to act as an incentive for owners/trainers to run horses in apprentice races. But the need for such an incentive disappeared long ago, with all low grade handicaps blessed with plenty of runners regardless of who can ride in them.
It’s bad enough that we still use a handicap rating system tied to a 7 – 13 day cycle for changes to the mark, which already leads to horses running off extremely lenient marks even including a penalty. But this anomaly is just another way in which the other runners in a handicap are being artifically denied a fair chance at the weights.
After all if an apprentice race winner doesn’t have to carry a penalty, surely logic dictates that the handicapper shouldn’t raise his mark for that win. But since the handicapper actually treats all race types the same, surely the penalty system should do likewise.
The departure of Phil Smith and his replacement by someone with at least a modicum of interest in modernising the entire system is long overdue.
I asked exactly that question to Phil Smith when he was on ATR a couple of years ago, he was not for turning and said trainers wanted it.
There is absolutely no logic to it as only the winner of the apprentice/conditional race will benefit and then for only a few days. As you say it is even contradictory in the horse receiving no penalty but still going up the handicap the same as any other race.
I agree but as you’ve started a thread about a stupid rule here’s my twopenneth.. I cannot understand why a horse which comes out of it’s stall has to automatically be disqualified. Surely it should be at that starter’s discretion.
Presumably it will take a Classic favourite or a horse of Frankel-like profile to be scratched before this gets reviewed.
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