Quote:
Originally Posted by mountainman
1000 horses?? That sounds stagnant. And so many questions come to mind. Both as an official and as a horseplayer. At first blush, it sounds like a catch-22: campaign available stock with discretion and keep horses sound, but that should, in theory, lead to some short fields. How many days per week do they run?? And how many races?? And if they repopulate only with young horses, they must card lots of mdn races. I would guess they have stern regulations applied in an inflexible manner.
As far as charting every horse to death, are you guys sure that's not just to appease some need for control?? lol.. ( and that from a guy who prides himself on extreme familiarity with two tracks only). In my opinion, the sort of handicapper dedicated enough to pursue that degree of local knowledge would outstrip his peers, anyway, in assessing shippers-even by taking just a cursory look.
|
They run twice a week, with 8 races on Wednesday with 12 horse fields and 10 to 11 on the weekend card with 12 to 14 in each race. 99% of the horses are geldings so they don't retire as quickly as they do here in north America, but they do have to keep a certain rating or they are forced to retire at the end of the year. Also, there are no maiden races, they do have what they call Griffin races which are for young runners who have no ratings but there are very few of those the entire year.
