October
JuneUnconvinced
Thanks to Paul Richards for his interview with Alan Brown of the Australian Pattern Committee (AusPC) but I remain unconvinced that the committee is on the right track with its slavish devotion to handicapper ratings and Asian Pattern Committee guidelines in determining and recommending group and listed status.
The major flaw with this approach is that horses who run in "overrated" races will inevitably gain higher ratings, becoming overrated themselves. When these overrated horses contest other races, the average rating of those races will rise and they too will be upgraded.
It’s a never-ending upward spiral that only appears to apply (in Australia) to certain classes of race — distaff events, sprint events and races run at weight-for-age or at set weights with penalties. Handicaps and races beyond a mile get no favours.
The AusPC’s approach distorts the allocation of precious resources. For example, the latest upstart Group 1s — the Canterbury Stakes, Memsie, Moir and Makybe Diva — have all had to have prizemoney injections to reach the minimum Group 1 benchmark of $350,000.
That is still light for a Group 1, but more than any of those races are genuinely worth. The top-ups those races have received could easily have been directed to staying events.
"We would love to protect staying races but we are bound by the ground rules of the template," says Brown, adding that the situation is a "chicken-and-egg scenario".
If the AusPC isn’t going to lift a finger to protect staying races, who is? Money will continue to be sucked out of staying events into overrated sprints unless someone acts to break the vicious circle.
Castlemaine (Vic)