Time For Pure Sport

Ettie Hart was a very strong fifth at Brighton on Monday, having forced the pace from the off. With a run like that, probably a furlong over her best distance now we have some experience with her, her time will definitely come. I should add at this point, after seeing yet more silly, artificially-high prices at Funabashi auctions yesterday, that she is providing some excellent sport for a horse that cost 1,000,000 yen! Yes, one million, when yesterday the cheapest nag of over 60 sold was nearly five times that - the one I fancied was 50 times the price. People keep saying the purse is high in Japan, and indeed it is. But you have to win to claim it, and with monthly bills, time-outs, et cetera, you have to win everything in sight at those prices, and that's not going to happen in the real world - in JRA, there aren't enough races, and in NAR, those big prizes simply don't exist. Last year's auction star, Matsurida Bach, which cost the best part of $2,000,000 US, and has since eaten up a good 3,600,000 yen in stable fees at a very conservative estimate, has so far won 9,500,000 yen - most of that coming in a debut win, while its last race (its fourth to date) saw it finish last, 1.9 seconds down on the winner. Only 198,000,000 yen to go, and the owner will break even, assuming it can get it all back in one race today, as those stable fee invoices keep on coming. Seeing as the winner of the last race Matsurida Bach ran in picked up 10,350,000 yen for the victory four months ago, I think we can see the maths doesn't add up. Not by a long way. Time for some sense to start kicking in if you ask me - silly money and those that keep dishing it out without thought, are simply ruining the sport, and Shadai Farm, which fielded 90% of the horses yesterday, are the only ones getting rich from it...

PS. Another joke element of Japanese racing is the reliance on Northern Farm - another part of the Shadai empire, of course (what isn't?), and somewhere I have no trust in whatsoever. Five of my seven JRA runners with Carrot Club are there, mostly on holiday, apparently "tired," which is basically an annoying excuse to make up for the lack of races and lack of space at Miho and Ritto (in other words, a byproduct of there being too many horses in training, naturally created by Shadai greed). What about the other two? Well, one has just got back from NF a week ago, and I'm waiting for a report to say Larressingle has been shipped off - a diplomatic delay no doubt. Racing my ass! The only other thing to report is that Lotus Blossom has passed the race proficiency test, but guess what? Sore shins are a possibility, and she has been shipped off to Northern Farm, joining Vertice and Chocolat Sucre - between them, half of my NAR Carrot horses, and keeping company with the ultra-expensive Magic Key and Kealoha, who are also there for months. Seriously fed up! I may rename this piece CAUB III once I have calmed down.