Japanese Training Facilities

[WinterTriangle]

I had done lots of reading about these last year, mostly due to Casino Drive. But lately, TVG has run a few snippets on the facilities.

It appears they spare no expense for the well being and training of their horses. Swimming pools for stamina building, as well as uphill mulch courses, and even lovely nature walks for the horse's "relaxation and emotional well-being."

On top of that, they seem technologically ahead, instead of clockers, bar codes in saddlecloths are read by bar code scanner for time. Somebody recently wondered why we are not using GPS chips or something?

I was really impressed with their entire facility!

I say this because, after reading the topics elsewhere, (about Penn National), I wonder if that stuff happens over in Japan?

Am also wondering what their drug policies are and if it is SOP to give horses myectomies {regardless} and stuff like that?

[WinterTriangle]

So, I've just been informed that in Hong Kong, every workout is taped and replays made available so that handicappers don't have to depend on "handily" and other words to do our thing.

Why, in the age of technology, being used elsewhere, are we here, still hand timing workouts when there are more reliable methods?

why don't we have GPS and/or bar coding in the saddle blankets when others do?

[proximity]

It appears they spare no expense for the well being and training of their horses. Swimming pools for stamina building, as well as uphill mulch courses, and even lovely nature walks for the horse's "relaxation and emotional well-being."........................I say this because, after reading the topics elsewhere, (about Penn National), I wonder if that stuff happens over in Japan?

there are people (plural) at penn national that do this stuff too.

pen doesn't video tape workouts because relative to hong kong...... nobody cares.

as far as relatively nobody caring..... that is at least somewhat penn national's fault.

[Seabiscuit@AR]

The Japanese super league (JRA) is probably the best set up in the world. They also have a domestic league which means a lot of little races with less interest

In HK you have only 80 or so meetings a year, in Japan it would be about 300 JRA meetings a year

Both places work on a small number of races with big turnover per race. When you set things up like this you can probably afford to have better coverage of the races

In the USA you have lots of races with small turnover per race. You probably cannot justify providing all the extras they do in Asia

A possible solution is to close down a heap of USA tracks and create your own USA Super League. The obvious way to go would be to declare all the synthetic tracks as Super League tracks (as that would provide about the right number of tracks) and relegate all the dirt only tracks to domestic league status

Key tracks with Turf and Dirt could be Super League tracks too. But basically you would need to have less tracks and less races but bigger pools per race to justify having all the extras

The sectional times in the saddlecloth thing is probably not as useful as it sounds. To be honest the info provided in USA form guides is perfectly adequate. But there probably are too many tracks with small pools in the USA. If 10 tracks are all running races at the same time they just take money from each other in the simulcasting era. You only need 2 to 4 tracks running at any one time

[WinterTriangle]

Seabiscuit,

From what I hear, yes, Japan is a class act, and does it without slots.

On Sat and Sun, they open the gates to 100,000, not 10,000.

Somebody on bloodhorse pointed out that "Penn National runs 200+ days. Philly 300+ days. There's aren't enough good horses, or fans, to support this".

I personally don't need to log into my AWD and see 20+ races running simultaneously. Esp. when they are tiny fields and small pools. In Japan, a day out at the track is an event. their whole organization is not fractured like here.



And, the last 2 years of our KY Derby has come with rather distasteful baggage. Big Brown with connection issues involving over-drugging horses, and then I Want Revenge, another story of lameness, drugging, the favorite who ends up not even being able to run in the race. Yeah, people want to *get into* a sport like that, it draws fans, it draws new horse owners (which we need, not more breeders)...............NOT!.:rolleyes:

You have to solve the BIG PICTURE items before you try to nail down stuff like takeout, etc. (which become non existent issues if and when horse racing itself either ceases to exist or has no following.)

[beertapper]

i've been to 2 jra tracks. They are very well maintained and you can expect to see 50,000 to 100,000+ on a G1 race day. A decent mix of people of all ages attend too. Alot of people seem to be fans of the horses, and not so much into the gambilng.

When it comes to gambling, the gov't has a total monopoly. There are no casinos, no slots, just a few lotteries and pachinko parlours. So they can get away with some pretty high takeouts. Also, there are no multi race wagers. They introduced the trifecta a few years back and that's about as exotic as it gets. I think something like a pick 6 there would be a big hit, but it seems the gov't doesn't want to encourage gambling too much...

[Cratos]

i've been to 2 jra tracks. They are very well maintained and you can expect to see 50,000 to 100,000+ on a G1 race day. A decent mix of people of all ages attend too. Alot of people seem to be fans of the horses, and not so much into the gambilng.

When it comes to gambling, the gov't has a total monopoly. There are no casinos, no slots, just a few lotteries and pachinko parlours. So they can get away with some pretty high takeouts. Also, there are no multi race wagers. They introduced the trifecta a few years back and that's about as exotic as it gets. I think something like a pick 6 there would be a big hit, but it seems the gov't doesn't want to encourage gambling too much...

You hit the nail on the head; Japanese racing is controlled at the NATIONAL level. American racing is controlled at the STATE and LOCAL levels. This is a major difference with much more disorganization, political in fighting, and confusion.

[beertapper]

.... there are no multi race wagers. They introduced the trifecta a few years back and that's about as exotic as it gets. I think something like a pick 6 there would be a big hit, but it seems the gov't doesn't want to encourage gambling too much...

:lol::lol:

HORSE RACING JRA to introduce 'win big' tickets in 2011

Thursday 19th November, 02:10 AM JST

TOKYO —

In a bid to halt a continuing slide in revenue, the Japan Racing Association said Wednesday it will introduce in 2011 a new type of betting ticket that can return winnings of up to 200 million yen. Punters have to correctly predict on the tickets purchased online the winning horse of five selected races. The pool will be carried over the next racing day if there are no winners.

The JRA’s revenue has fallen for 11 consecutive years through 2008. ‘‘A betting format featuring high dividends often draws attention,’’ senior JRA official Kaoru Obata said. ‘‘We definitely need to attract new customers.’’ Currently in Japan, only ‘‘keirin’’ bicycle racing has had bettors guess the winners of multiple races.

[Show Me the Wire]

The grass is greener on the other side of the fence syndrome. Japanese racing's handle is sliding too, without cheating trainers. How can this be (sarcasm)?

Thanks for answering my question about why we should model our domestic racing after Japan's model.