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So what sort of format would people like their racing presented?
Personally I would like to see a shot of each horse in the parade or pre-parade (wherever they have the least on them). A shot of each horse going to post. This allows time for the presenters to discuss each horses chance. I also like to see the horses being loaded and I know for many trainers and industry people this is a key period, particularly in maidens. Also one full replay of the race, another of the finish and perhaps any key incidents is sufficient, on some occasions the number of replays is ridiculous. It is easy enough to record a race or watch it again on a website or watch one of the replays that both RUK and ATR provide.
Obviously it becomes difficult to fit all this in when very large fields are running, or several cards are being broadcast on the same day, so priorities need to be made, so cut all the long shots from the coverage (they after all supposedly have less chance of featuring) or skip them going to post.
As far as betting, the ATR format of having the odds at the side is sufficient and works well, particularly as any one who is watching for punting purposes is more than likely to have odds checker or similar running on a nearby computer screen.
As for interviews and features with connections, these are often not particularly enlightening when conducted in the middle of a busy racing afternoon, people are often under time pressure to get ready for the next race or move from one place to the next, check their horse is ok etc.
This is where interviews conducted earlier in the day are often better, everyone is a bit more relaxed as they are not under as much pressure and concentrated on doing an interview.
The article covers makes many excellent points. It would be very interesting to see the success of Godolphin trained horses versus those trained by outside trainers, is anyone able to produce such statistics?
Those trainers often get the supposed second strings yet the likes of Michael Jarvis, Mark Johnston et al. seem to get very good results, Boscobel for example would not be far off the best of his generation. The contrast with Juddmonte’s operation which sends its horses to a variety of trainers is an example of the benefits of spreading a diverse string.
I was also told by someone at tatts sales last year that John Ferguson has only purchased 11% winners for Godolphin. How true this is I don’t know but that seems suprisingly low considering the resources available.
I guess the moral of the story is that money alone can’t buy success!
Firstly I apologise for repeating previous discussion if that is the case, but I am new to the forum.
I’m sure stopping horses does happen. But I would argue that the vast majority of times a horse is "stopped" it is simply its own abilities at that moment in time in that particular race that are stopping it, not the jockey. As is rightly pointed out much of this can be divulged from the form book – but fitness, pre race prep etc. can not and not every pedigrees is easy to analyse as far as calculating an ideal trip.
The jockey is fully aware of limitations of ability as are all the other connections. It is this knowledge that leads to information that can be misused to lay the horses. Technically running a horse in these circumstances is not wrong, however a system that encourages it can not help to reduce the number of cases relating to inside information.
If more horses were running truly on their merits and trying their utmost to win the race then those were being given "dodgy" rides would be that much easier to observe.
Several times in this thread the issue of horses not being trained or raced to win is brought up. This is the result of a system that does not reward a horse for running to its maximum ability first time out (or everytime for that matter) but rather penalises it.
The easiest way for a horse to win a decent number of races is to progress through the handicap system, to do this, as low a handicap mark as possible, is required to begin with, to best "exploit" the system. Similarly once a horse is handicapped to its level then clearly it is unlikley to win as it will continuously come up against "progressive sorts", so connections have little option but to try and lower their handicap mark. None of this requires a jockey to "stop" a horse. But anyone with a brain can work out when this is the case, for example a horse bred for middle distance trips running in three five furlong maidens. For evidence just go and look at how unfit many horses running in maidens are in the parade ring. The horse is racing to the best of its abilities and the jockey giving it a proper ride. Anyone connected with the horse will be aware that this is the case. This is where most of the problems raised with the passing on of information arise. If the system rewarded horses for performing to the best of their abilities then there would be far fewer horses running in this type of situation.
I am fully aware of how greatly the handicap system underpins the vast majority of racing in this country and that most of this is exceedingly obvious. What I am interested in is why nobody seems to raise this issue when discussing "corruption" in the sport. Surely it is this facet of the racing that creates so many of the grey areas in the context of the sport.
