Today's Excuse

Single Cask ran in the 1600m turf 5R at Nakayama at lunchtime. Guided around the track by Hiroyuki Uchida, I'm still waiting for today's excuse on yet another disgustingly poor performance from a Carrot Club horse...

It's a shame, because Single Cask was looking like a potential winner, except for some reason, the trainer decided to go for a distance a full two furlongs (400m) longer than what looks like a distance capable of giving the horse its best chance of victory, and changed from the regular jockey (one of the very best in my opinion) at the same time. Given the competition, being sixth favourite at the start seemed about right - I didn't hold out much hope of winning taking the aforementioned things into account - but to come home two seconds off the pace is just downright awful.

So, while I await both the jockey and trainer reports, which should be classic pieces, my earlier thoughts on abandoning Carrot Club and JRA racing in general is forming into a policy. I feel, for one thing, there are nowhere near enough JRA races for the number of horses kept in training. This then forces trainers to enter unsuitable races, and the situation only gets worse as the season continues. Some of the trainers know this, so put horses out too soon, and those that try and train them properly have no option but to field a pony in a race it has no possible hope of winning. We then get horses thrown by the wayside because they didn't win, when it's not their fault. The whole industry needs to take a careful look at what is happening, and either put more races on (just two meetings in the whole country today, which means 24 races in the last six days, with 11 of them for older horses) or reduce the number of TBs bred for racing.

PS. Eventually, in the evening, the excuses finally came. Tosaki-san had said before this was a nervous horse, so the chances of someone taking its reins for the first time and getting a good result are slim. Mistake number one. The start was good, so we had the distance excuse this time - my point exactly before the race even started, as this horse is obviously not a miler. Mistake number two. And now, the trainer is thinking of making another mistake by moving onto dirt, when shorter distances on dirt are not much different to a mile on turf from a stamina point of view. Add in the fact that not all horses like sand in their face, and we might as well write off this horse now. My future policy has just been formed, and the chances of me sticking to a stated policy are an awful lot higher than those of your average politician. I sincerely wish I hadn't bought more Carrot Club horses from the last catalogue. That was my mistake.