Maths & Big Pots

Waiting for a phone call to put me in taxi service mode, I thought I would back-up some of the statements I've been making about there not being enough races in Japan, for on paper, it looks like a porky worthy of the current US election debates.

According to the Australian Fact Book, which brings all the world's racing data together, there were 15,812 flat races in Japan in 2014. More than enough, right? Well, yes, that would be a pleasing number for the population of horses in training, if they were all JRA turf races. But here's the reality - only about 3500 are JRA races per se (the others are NAR, which consist almost exclusively of dirt tracks), and a third of those are held on dirt, rising to half of them in winter. It makes a mockery of good turf bloodlines, and backs up my theory of there being too many horses when you consider nearly 7000 foals were born in the same year, virtually all coming from the same monopoly group (who, it should be noted, also happen to be by far the largest owners in the business in one way or another, due to silly rules on ownership, as well as the people behind the extensive R&R facilities that get used with remarkable frequency, more often than not due to a lack of space at the racing stables more than anything else).

The last gripe about the tiresome level of R&R excursions aside, why am I still saying "not enough races," for surely there's enough to go around looking at the figures, especially considering there were a lot more (nearly 8500) foals born in Japan in 2000? Because one only needs to look in the current big club catalogues to see where the majority of horses are bred for: Carrot Club (84 horses listed, with four reserved for NAR), Sunday TC (89 horses, with four for NAR), and Shadai TC (88 horses, and none for NAR), with the vast majority of entries boasting about the turf accomplishments of their sires; pure dirt heroes are about as rare as rocking horse poop. With too few turf races in the first place, and a fraction of those reserved for newcomers (not to mention a priority system that basically screws over late developers), it's easy to see why JRA horses don't get a fair crack of the whip. Okay, you may have a turf horse that can run well on dirt, but it's rare as that's not what they are bred for, and being forced to convert to dirt halfway through a season is nothing short of pathetic. The pots may be rich, but the odds are stacked heavily in favour of the breeders and the chosen few that get a JRA trainer's licence...

Courtesy JLH Racing

Thankfully, it's a much better situation in England, with plenty of races and independent organisations. And it looks like Blacklister will be staying on, too, adding to the interest of what should be an excellent flat season ahead of us thanks to six UK runners this year. Moving away from turf, we also have Raining Dollars (pictured) lined up for Townsville on the 26th Down Under - he, though, unlike JRA converts, is trained and built exclusively for dirt racing, making Schwarzenegger look puny!