Ainsley Walters | Horse racing losing millions

HORSE RACING promoting company Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) racked up losses of $607.7 million in 22 months – $355.6 million over 10 months in 2017 and $252.1 million for all of 2018.

The trend of betting for 2019 has the new promoting company on trajectory to the billion-dollar mark in losses, taking it into the stratosphere of Caymanas Track Limited (CTL), which, up to the point of divestment, had consumed more than US$40 million of taxpayers’ money, starting some years after the bounce of a new totalisator system had worn off.

The constant in this equation of failure afflicting, at first, CTL, followed by SVREL, is both promoting companies operating a system of racing, claiming and conditions that fails to optimise the horse population to drive local-racing sales.

Four years after acquiring a new tote system and watching on-track sales soar, under handicapping and rating, CTL, in 1993, switched to a system of claiming and condition races, which watered down the system of rating horses in classes A-F, a to now almost 30 inequitable and uncompetitive categories.

The racing office fully well knows but is too obstinate, and only fools itself by fiddling, almost on a monthly basis, with new claiming restrictions and conditions, (‘tweaking’, they call it) trying to allow ‘self-handicapping’.

‘Tweaking’ has been nothing but a miserable failure to equitably allocate the three main trips on the racetrack – sprints, middle-distance and route races – to suit horses in the 30-odd categories, an exercise in futility with trainers having to wait upwards of two months before a suitable distance in a particular category comes around.

Bear in mind that the distances at which horses compete at Caymanas Park (let’s ignore those two-, three- and four-furlong straight races, another form of ‘tweaking’) begin with two five-furlong races, the straight and round course, increasing by a half-furlong, up to 10 furlongs, in addition to a nine-furlong and 25-yard route race, making it a total of 12 ‘real’ distances for three-year-olds and upwards.

UNCOMPETITIVE AND SPARSE FIELDS

Dividing a 900-horse population into 30 categories, among maiden events, claiming races, too-numerous-to-count condition races, allowance and graded stakes, while trying to satisfy the various distances, throws up uncompetitive and sparse fields at every distance, which is reflected in the betting pools.

A hybrid, allowing connections of horses to state what claiming/selling price they want to attach to their horses in handicap races, at the time of nomination, which would not affect, in any way, the already-published weight and handicap-rating group (class) for the horse in question, would still give persons a quick opportunity to part ways with horses, but not forced to enter claiming races in order to earn purse money.

The impracticality of ‘tweaking’, as explained in ‘Caymanas running lame’, is that Jamaica has one racetrack with 900 horses moving from stable to stable, under one purse structure, as opposed to North America with its more than 100 thoroughbred tracks, collectively in operation seven days per week.

In North America, thousands of horses routinely move from track to track in a claiming and condition system, searching for fair competition, based on lower or higher purses, requiring little or no ‘tweaking’ by racing secretaries.

Under handicapping and rating, the racing office would only have to equitably rotate 12 distances among the runners in at worst, seven classes, A-G, as opposed to 30-odd categories, effectively filling fields with horses showing similar ability.

A faster rotation in distances and classes would enable breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys and grooms to earn on a consistent basis instead of sitting down wondering when a race will be ‘written’ or, instead, participating in an event outside their horses’ class and distance.

Ainsley ‘Jimmie’ Walters is a veteran horse-racing writer, editor and editorial/production coordinator of Track and Pools, Jamaica’s official racing publication. Email feedback to ainsley.walters@gleanerjm.com and columns@gleanerjm.com.