The Question Of Claiming - Other Racing Issues

Rule #44 section (vi) of the 1977 Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC) Racing Rules states in part…”in the case of emergency, deemed by the stewards or the starter, any race may be started with a flag…”.

The starting gate, for whatever mechanical reason could not be positioned for  the 1000 metres of the straight course rendering race ten abandoned when it could have been otherwise.

This is a symptomatic encapsulation of the fact there is a serious knowledge deficit that militated against the growth of the racing industry over the last three decades.

This affliction commenced in 1993 when, against the advice of champion owner/breeders Howard Hamilton and the late Pat Rousseau, the then JRC  agreed with a misguided elite that owning racehorses could be a viable business proposition.

The governing body therefore allowed the establishment of a complicated and hopelessly flawed claiming system in an amateur environment.

This replaced the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) metric of classification of the horse population, through ignorance, erroneously called a handicap system.

Handicapping is the appending of weights in a race and is done after classification. There was a failure to understand that BHA methodology ensured, that in offering horseracing as a gaming product, it was easy for the bettors to comprehend classification with horses of similar ability competing with the form equalized to drive wagering.

In 1993, from 300 per cent growth cumulatively in 30 years, the unviable claiming system inherited an average of 115 runners and between 11 and 12 races per day. However, over the 30  years of operation, Claiming on average has delivered less than 100 runners and less than 10 races per day. There were 802 races in 2023 down from 856 the previous year.

The horse population has declined by 33 per cent, ownership of horses 45 per cent and broodmares by 66 per cent. Now there are around 800 horses available, faultily divided into 21 categories ensuring small fields in 40 per cent of the races offering too many odds-on favourites discouraging wagering.

This results in at least a 15-20 per cent underperformance of the racing product. The error of 1993 has lost an estimated $150 billion in the handle since and  government subsidy is estimated at US$33.0 million including a $1.2 billion debt waiver.

It was surprising that in 2017 investors Supreme Ventures Limited, so they are not blameless, undertook no due diligence exercise to determine why an industry that grew exponentially in 30 years failed  so spectacularly over the succeeding 25 years following the abandonment of classification.

What is also surprising is the lack of recognition a claiming arrangement and classification are not mutually exclusive but can coexist.

It is time the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association (TOBA) and the United Racehorse Trainers Association (URTA) stopped pretending the claiming system has worked. The economic viability of the promoting company is paramount.

Instead of hounding the promoting company to close the $2.2 billion gap between maintaining the horse population and the $800 million in purses returned, TOBA and URTA must first agree a superior and more viable racing product is a necessity.