OK this is cute

[elhelmete]

At Vincennes today each race appears to be 'restricted' to horses whose name begins with the same letter.

[iamt]

Trotting horses born in the same year and named in France have to have their name start with the same letter.

[elhelmete]

Trotting horses born in the same year and named in France have to have their name start with the same letter.

Really? I like that...sort of.

[NJ Stinks]

I saw live racing at Vincennes a few years ago in September. It was awesome to watch!

Saving ground isn't a big deal over there. ;)

[Hambletonian]

when I was in Paris a while back i noticed the alphabet issue and was shocked at what they do. You could have 16 horses in a race with names all starting with the same letter.

When I was there Vincennes used 2 announcers per race, and even had a RUS or two. Another interesting factor is that if you go off stride in France you are immediately DQ's...they helpfully list the DQd horses in a corner of the screen so you can save your breath.

When I was in Martinique, their racetrack races thoroughbred and standardbreds on the same card, and the standardbreds race on the grass. Well they did not have the video technology to list the DQd horses, and I was about to tear up my tickets after one race when the first four finishers all got DQd. The winner had finished like 15 lengths behind. Watching the replay, it wasn't apparent what they had done, none of them had made a full-fledged break, I guess they may have been rough-gaited.

Harness racing in France is 1000x times better than the crap we have here.