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Consistent ground conditions surely would be a cause of fewer non-runners all weather though.
True DJ, naturally it’s to be expected turf racing would have more non runners for the very reason you cite above. However the weather has been settled this week, the going at 3 of the 4 flat meetings yesterday was officially good to firm. Brighton had the much maligned firm ground but only 3 non runners! Anything to do with 3 of the 4 handicaps having 6, 7 and 13 declared I wonder?
Did you read the Flatstats report Tuffers? Thoughts?
Do you know that the racehorse population has expanded at a proportional rate to the increase in fixtures and average field size is almost identical to what it was in 2000.
Why have maximum field sizes dropped?
Why are 48 hour decs resulting in such a seemingly large increase in non runners, especially this time of the year with relatively settled weather?
The figures I gave on my opening post do not include AW fixtures.I never mentioned a conspiracy theory.
Given the choice, I’m sure the bookies would prefer that every race on the card was a 20 runner handicap.
Really? Any E/W figures to back that up, lets say in comparison to a 15 runner handicap?
Did you read the Flatstats report Tuffers? Thoughts?
Do you know that the racehorse population has expanded at a proportional rate to the increase in fixtures and average field size is almost identical to what it was in 2000.
Why have maximum field sizes dropped?
Why are 48 hour decs resulting in such a seemingly large increase in non runners, especially this time of the year with relatively settled weather?
The figures I gave on my opening post do not include AW fixtures.I never mentioned a conspiracy theory.
Given the choice, I’m sure the bookies would prefer that every race on the card was a 20 runner handicap.
Really? Any E/W figures to back that up, lets say in comparison to a 15 runner handicap?
CR – I’m afraid your link to the Flatstats report doesn’t seem to be working so I cannot comment on that. I think maximum field sizes have been reduced for safety reasons but I don’t have any figures on that. 48 hour decs are bound to increase non-runners because there is an extra day for all sorts of things to go wrong with the horse quite apart from any changes in the going.
Prizemoney may be yet another factor. Falling prizemoney has meant that it’s important to pick the easiest opportunities for your horse and so there is a temptation to give your horse multiple entries and then declare in the race with the smallest field. The BHA admin website allows you to view decs in real time and I know trainers use this as a tool in deciding where to enter.
My point about the bookies was that big field handicaps have always been the bookies most profitable races because it is much harder to find the winner.
I thought a conspiracy theory was implied in your posts. Why do you believe that there are fewer handicaps with 16 runners or more?
Have a good read of the Flatstats report when you get some time.
I’m not mischief making here, I love horseracing. I’m just commenting on what I see before me almost every day and it will shortly be reducing my contribution to the levy if it continues.
The 64 million question Tuffers! Being a racing man you must have heard Big Mac going on about these 16 runner races where more commonly that can possibly be the law of averages one runner is taken out leaving 15 in, and meaning e/w terms for shop punters are reduced to 1,2,3 on the place terms?
I have indeed but it’s a long time since I took any notice of Big Mac. I was thinking about this issue again last night and it may be that the use of online declarations has caused field sizes to even out. You can view the number of declared horses for a race before you enter and it’s only natural that if you have more than one entry you are likely to go for the race with the fewest number of runners.
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