Winning Post - Letter Of The Week Archive

In my opinion the current benchmark ratings system in Victoria needs to be reviewed — in particular, the benchmark (BM) 58 races.
Also, I believe there is an oversupply of meetings on synthetic tracks being dished up when most participants, I believe, prefer not to race on them.
Last week I sat through a morning session poring through acceptances for Werribee racing (for Thursday May 26), where there were four races scheduled as BM58s.
The 1115m race had 23 acceptors (before two withdrew), resulting in four emergencies and four being balloted out. The top-rated 23 horses nominated for that race were between 59 and 65.
The field limit was 13 runners, so there was a possibility that in a BM58 race not one horse rated 58 or below would get a run.
Similarly, the 1425m race had 33 acceptors, and the top-rated 14 horses nominated were between 59 and 64.
Fortunately this race was divided but even so, seven emergencies could still have missed out on a run.
The 1625m race had 25 acceptors and it was also split to accommodate them, but nevertheless the top 18 horses nominated were rated between 59 and 65. And then there was the 2030m ending up with 19 acceptors, with the top 12 rated between 59 and 65.
This is happening on a regular basis. What the powers that be need to understand is that when horses miss out on a run, they are usually set back at least a week, possibly two, and that’s if they’re lucky enough to get a run under similar circumstances at their next attempt.
They don’t survive on fresh air in the meantime so the cost is passed on to the owners, who already have to deal with the frustration of not being able to get runs when they want to.
Clearly there is no shortage of people wanting to race their horses on grass tracks.
In contrast to the Werribee situation, on the synthetic surface at Pakenham that night these were the field sizes before scratchings — in race order six, nine, eight, nine, seven, nine, 10, 11.
That’s 61 acceptors (before scratchings).
Fast forward to Pakenham on Sunday (just five days later) on the grass track and we had an explosion of nominations and 140 acceptors.
In the BM58 races, there were 68 nominated for the 1000m race and 97 for the race over 1400m.
Figures don’t lie. People want to race their horses on grass tracks so these synthetic tracks should be treated as emergency venues, available if there is serious doubt about a meeting going ahead due to weather conditions.
They should not be served up as the norm and destroy our winter racing.
In relation to solving the bottleneck of horses vying for runs at the lower level my suggestion would be to introduce races for horses rated 0-57, 58-63 and 64-69, with benchmarks kicking in at BM70.
I’m hopeful common sense will prevail down the track but before the new season starts.