October
MarchGroupthink
Horror and disbelief has been expressed — rightly — at the ARB’s recent decision to rubber-stamp group and listed upgrades to 41 sprint/mile races on the Australian calendar. Gobsmacked as I am, I’m at least relieved the list didn’t include any new Group 1s to add to the already bulging list of 71 we have now.
I’m still getting over an appalling decision by the Australian Pattern Committee last year that gave the nation three shiny new Group 1 races in 2013 — the Canterbury Stakes, the Moir Stakes and the Memsie Stakes.
The Canterbury Stakes is a run-of-the-mill Group 2 weight-for-age sprint that is sometimes won by a Group 1 horse.
This year, its first as a Group 1, it was blessed with a Group 1 field — thanks largely to Gai Waterhouse’s decision to support it with Pierro and More Joyous. Its prizemoney ($355,000) puts it at the lowball end of the Group 1 range in Australia — a category that included too many races even before the elevation of the latest three.
As for the Moir, did we really need another Group 1 weight-for-age race over 1200 metres at Moonee Valley? There are now three such events — out of a total of four Group 1s run at the track!
Surely the Feehan/Dato’ Tan Chin Nam is more deserving. Since 2000, nine of its 13 winners have been Group 1 winners including four individual Cox Plate winners. Runners-up over that period include Makybe Diva (twice) and Green Moon.
As for the Memsie, give us a spell. It’s a warm-up race for half-fit stayers and listed winter sprinters.
There seems to be no acknowledgment from the APC about the snowballing nature of these decisions. They are self-fulfilling prophecies. You overrate one race, so the horses that win or place in that race become overrated, and next thing you know another race is upgraded because overrated horses have run in it.
Cremorne (Vic)