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Plans are being proposed for York to host a super handicap race in August with the prize money being £1m in plans to revamp the Ebor meeting.
Totally opposed to it, although no doubt the media will love it.
Inevitable comparisons to the Melbourne Cup etc.
Anything that is a mega pay day , that is a handicap, is simply a bonus to those sharp trainers that manipulate the system to suit their own ends.
The sooner that all handicaps are removed from the calendar the better.
Conditions races, Group races, and claimers , are the way to go hopefully, in my opinion.
Never happen here though, hence why bookmakers sponsor handicaps rather than other races.A handicap should never have higher money than a conditions race or group race. Handicaps reward cheating and incompetence. In fact a prize money band system would be better for all racing, but that’s another days debate
Apart from not moving the race back to the Wednesday fail to see any negatives with this.
An incentive to cheating as implied by the previous posters is not a factor as an extremely high rating is required to even get a run. 3 yo’s struggle to even get a run in the race these days, a rating of 110 plus is required and that will only go up as it will for the older horses.
I would imagine Aidan will have one or two highly rated 3 yo’s for the race but if they’re good enough no reason for them not to run in the Leger with 3 weeks between the races, horses regularly run in the Great Voltigeur and Leger
great posts yeats, cant see how trainers can manipulate their rating when lowest OR in last season’s renewal was 101
If you have a horse good enough to be a 120 horse and you train it to a mark of 101 then that is either cheating or incompetence and your reward for that is to be well handicapped for £1million race
The prize fund for last year’s Ebor was £280,000 with prize money paid out down to sixth place. The Ebor is already open to all horses, no matter how high their rating. The crowd on that Saturday are sardines, any more would be abject cruelty
So what is the point of promoting it to a ‘super’ race when it’s already super. Would a prize fund of £1,000,000 attract any owner not attracted by the existing £280,000?
A vanity project by the York executive
I’d surmise that what makes the Melbourne Cup special is not its prize fund but the fact that it’s run on a working Tuesday – ‘the race that stops a nation’
Drone is right. These things are executive vanity projects not unlike cities who bid for Olympic/Commonwealth Games, projecting all sorts of ‘benefits’ while knowing they’re flushing money away.
Better having 2 or 3 300-500k races at smaller york meetings rather than an already established one, a bit stupid, just like the royal ascot prize money boost, need less money at these bigger meetings and more at the smaller.. boosting the prize money isnt going to attract anyone else as the money in the group 1s tend to be almost irrelevant because there almost always won by massive outfits who would be there regardless.
wexford I agree that handicaps should not be better paid than Pattern races, but if it puts racing on the front pages its all good. Call me naïve (even though in late 50s) but I think it would be really hard to cheat and get into this sort of race with ‘loads’ in hand
I’m quite surprised at the negativity being expressed here. In my opinion racing needs more of these ‘super’ races as they’re exactly what will help attract the wider public’s attention. Jumps racing desperately needs to do something similar mid-season.
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