This takes me back to my post of Ron's a few weeks back about changes in racing. We need a culling of courses who cannot generate sufficient prize money for races held at the tracks, the knock on effect will take out the whole bottom rung of horses and trainers. The idea that a trainer cannot make his business function without gambling is absurd, imagine putting that in your business plan ' we anticipate having 2 touches a month to pay the lads', and it also encourages the behaviour we are debating. We need good trainers who can stand on there own as viable businesses.
What a brilliant idea. In show jumping (in France) there are training classes for youngsters where, although competitions, they are competitions to educate the horses under competition conditions. Everybody knows that the horses are being educated. Even when we move onto age classes (at 4,5 and 6 yrs) many of the competitions are about getting the horse to jump round clear rather than to see which is the fastest (so all clears are =1st). Prize money is divided equally and winnings go towards qualification for the serious stuff. I think the idea of extending something like that to horse racing is excellent; and, of course, there would be no betting on such races.
That is a genuinely brilliant idea. At the courses most local to big training centres, meetings arranged for 2yo horses to run under race conditions with no results shown or logged. Ideally apprentices could volunteer to ride at these meetings to gain experience but of course it is down to the connections to appoint their rider. A simple letter ' s' next to the horses name in forthcoming racecards to denote they have taken part in these schooling races to ensure the punter knows which horses have had experience.
