Okay, I will have a crack at this from what I understand of how it works. Strangely in the supposed egalitarian society, the numbering in stakes races is in owner order, other than consideration of age and sex allowances and penalties. That is why the horses owned by Wertheimer & Frere are so often near the bottom, the Aga Khan horses are near the top (his title, not his name) and Godolphin are fairly near the top. The Coolmore horses depend on who is the first named owner for the individual horse. Put your horses in the AAA Syndicate and they will always be No. 1. Prix de Diane: 1 Aga Khan 2 Al Thani 3 Augustin-Normand 4 Dubois 5 Godolphin 6 Godolphin 7 Hancock 8 Jathiere 9 Lee 10 Quantum L Racing VIII 11 Scud Dei Duepi 12 Shaykhutdinov 13 Wertheimer 14 Wertheimer If that seems strange you should see how the balloting out rules have been changed this year for oversubscribed races, although the Arc is treated differently. The first rule is any horse that has run in the last eight days is eliminated. Next is any horse that has not run twice in France in its last five races. French horse ratings only come third on the criteria. So a French donkey could run instead of a Derby winner if the field limit is exceeded. Horses supplemented are exempt from balloting (money talks in Socialist France).
That race did not quite go how the form indicated. It was quite clear that Shepherd had been instructed to make use of the draw but that proved to his detriment. As it was my selection – in stall two next door – missed the kick and had traffic trouble worse than the M25 almost the whole seven furlongs and Fallon gave up in the short straight and finished third last. Clearly punters assessed the race like I had and expected Monfrid to be out the gate to make the running as he ended up favourite. Well done to Swanny on getting the winner from the eleven box, value for more than the winning margin having raced wide most of the way (avoiding all the trouble on the inside).
He was much handier than usual. Had a much better run of the race than the owners other horse. The ground made Chester a bit of a lottery yesterday with horses coming wide and from well off the pace and winning.
That was what I thought but you came up with the answer before I could check it out. Exactly the same in dog showing when we used to show afghan hounds. The catalogue for the entire show was always in alphabetical order of owner with numbers allocated in that order. The only difference being that if we had 3 dogs in different classes, our dogs would be allocated (for example) 181,182 and 183. In French horse racing it is the same but as if the catalogue was for each race
