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Letter of the Week

Squibbing it

On reading the Australian Racing Board’s recent release on its 41 (count ’em) black-type upgrades to Australian races, I was reminded of the hit 1982 single The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum). While the song was arguably Fun Boy Three’s finest hour, it’s no joke that the Australian racing industry’s future is being held captive by the breeders of speedy squibs.

Not a single one of the 41 upgraded races is contested at a distance beyond 1600 metres and 26 are exclusively for fillies and mares. The only possible beneficiaries of these upgrades are the owners of the fillies and mares that win the cheap black type and, more importantly, the owners of the sprint/mile stallions in which the Australian industry is swimming.

The ARB’s mumbo-jumbo assures us that "protocols" are being adhered to and "benchmarks" comfortably exceeded.

Preposterously, there is a "pyramid" under which there must be more Group 2s than Group 1s and more Group 3s than Group 1s and Group 2s put together. So when you have a new Group 1, you need a couple more Group 2s and three or four more Group 3s.

This is all conducted under the auspices of the Asian Racing Conference and we may be assured that in the near future Australian Group 1s will be as highly regarded on the international scene as those contested in India.

Meanwhile the Group 3 staying hacks of Europe will continue to fetch the high Aussie dollar in telephone-number amounts and our rich and time-honoured staying events will continue to be won by imports and raiders. Either way, money drains from the industry.

Most recent example is Foreteller, whose nine starts in France yielded three wins, the best of them in a five-horse field at listed level, and four unplaced runs in Group 3s. He is now an Australian Group 1 winner.

The Australian racing industry is entirely funded by two groups — punters and racehorse owners. Overwhelmingly, both these groups want some balance restored to the Australian calendar, so that it becomes viable to breed a class Australian stayer.

Why isn’t the ARB listening?

Mitch Matheson
Castlemaine (Vic)
Today's Racing
Friday 29 March
Saturday 30 March
Sunday 31 March