Despite a poor field and the lightest jockey (newcomer Hatsuya Kowata), I don't have a lot of faith in getting a result at Kokura. We have to go back almost a year-and-a-half to see Single Cask's last decent performance, and I'm not expecting anything today either. Here's why: If you look at her records, other than a bad run due to an unsuitable distance in her learning phase that kicked up a 12th, she only ever performs well when she has back-to-back outings - a large gap of three months doesn't bode well if experience is anything to go by. I think we'll just be making up the numbers as usual - a pattern that we see far too often in JRA once a single win has been achieved, as the trainers can sit back and just watch the money coming in for another two or three years without having to put in any effort whatsoever. Most of them don't put much effort in in the first place, but it's that single win that gives them the cushy number (as if things weren't cushy enough already in JRA!), so that's a target to aim for before the horse can be released to Northern Farm and their blasted treadmills for 90% of the year - everyone in the inner circle gets a nice little cut, and owners are so used to this (knowing nothing about what goes on in real racing having been fed BS from the legendary JRA Book of Excuses for decades), no-one complains. We can also see the pattern confirmed through jockey choices on the 'also-ran' nags, with Single Cask serving as a perfect example - leading jockeys like Tosaki-kun and Uchida-san (both ex-NAR), a try with Genki Maruyama, then a last-ditch attempt on dirt with a new jockey (gaining a weight advantage that gave us the edge to claim that one, all-important victory), before a string of folks with an average winning percentage of 0.03 to keep things ticking over with little or no hope of a decent finish. Madness.
PS. Good start, but last by miles, begging the question - again! - whether these horses actually get trained at all. Confirmation of what I said earlier? Yep. JRA is a bad joke, unless you're in on it, of course, and then the money just keeps rolling in regardless of results. It's nothing like racing, that's for sure - you're simply left with the feeling that you're a victim of a scam...
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
Tasty Carrot
Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - unlike JRA runners (wherever they're sourced from), these Carrot Club NAR horses certainly give value-for-money. Yuta Sato's stable put in the work on Chocolat Sucre (pictured), and all the effort paid off handsomely when Taito Mori crossed the line in the 1200m 2R at Funabashi this morning to claim a seven-length victory. I've known Yuta a long time but, while we've come close, this is the first winner we've had together since he became a trainer, so I'm chuffed for both of us. She will probably need a bit of a rest at home now, as she's not eating well due to a stomach upset - that's what R&R is for, to repair problems, and, as a proper horseman from a horsey family, that's fine by me. What gets my back up is the JRA lot on automatic R&R mode, whether the horse needs it or not, and usually it doesn't. If it's tired after one race every few months, it's because it's not been trained well enough in the first place, and another holiday certainly won't improve things! Anyway, 'Choco-chan' gave me my 43rd win so far (my 20th in NAR), and a very satisfying one it was, too.Million Ways was in the next race, and came fourth with Mashima-kun in the saddle. It was a steady improvement on the last race, which is all you can ask for. The first part of the race was really impressive, to the point where I thought we'd got win 44 in the bag, but the finish was off the pace, which on the face of it points toward a shorter distance being the way forward. After the last run, Mashima-kun and the training team put together a few fixes that all worked nicely today, so we can look forward to the next outing. Yes, NAR folks learn and then apply knowledge - something one doesn't see very often in the other Japanese racing series. As such, although we didn't win, I'm happy with what I saw, and the results will come with this one. Again in contrast to JRA, there's time for the horse to hone its craft, with plenty of opportunities to run during the year - assuming it doesn't get injured, of course!
Anyway, I got what I wanted today - not just the win, that was a bonus. What I got was improved horses, straight talking and 100% effort from all concerned. That is more important than cold results, and that is what real racing is all about. As a sign of faith, before something else annoys me, I'm buying into the last Carrot Club NAR horse that's still available...
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Stinky
Having got away nicely, Perfumer finished a disgraceful ninth at Funabashi, beaten by a huge 2.5 second margin by an NAR horse - the one's that JRA people look down on! Having taken so long to prepare for a race and coming up with a performance like that, in what was supposed to be a less competitive event compared to a full-blown JRA one, one can only assume (and hope!) that retirement is the only answer. If the trainer says it needs a rest after that gentle jog, I shall scream - loudly! It's time that someone in Carrot Club realized that keeping horses like this because of one lucky win in a low-level race is simply a waste of time and a drain on resources. Racing is not about making up numbers - it's about being competitive. There are born racers and this obviously isn't one of them, whatever the bloodlines. Thoroughbreds that can't race after eight months of training simply aren't racehorses, and need to find another avenue of employment.
PS. The trainer report, believe it or not, points towards an R&R session. Come on! Eight months of holiday for no apparent reason (in which time Blacklister has run 14 times in the UK with constant good results), one crap performance lasting just over a minute (a good first half means nothing if the second half - the one that counts - is pathetic), and off for R&R again. Retire the bloody thing now, and while you're at it, take away the trainer's licence because he certainly shouldn't hold one with that kind of thinking after taking forever to achieve a piss-poor result with the facilities JRA has at its disposal. This was a warm-up and nothing more. If it isn't injured (and you'll know by the morning whether it is or not - no need to go to NF to figure that out), it should be raced again ASAP now it vaguely remembers what a race is. If it can't race, release it to a riding club, for if it goes away to the frozen wastes and treadmills of Northern Farm, it will come back useless again. That much I guarantee.
PPS. The post-race report also states - from the Carrot side - that the winning horse was a high-level nag, and indeed, most of its career was in JRA racing. But it is now an NAR horse, with NAR training facilities and budgets, and the fact remains that Perfumer came ninth, not second. Whichever way you look at it, starting sixth favourite with unfancied horses beating it hands down, it was a run that no-one has a right to be proud of or defend. If someone said to me that this was indeed a warm-up, and there was never any expectation of coming anywhere, I would be prepared to look at things differently and say the result can be built on, assuming it runs again soon. What I'm reading, however, is typical JRA BS. "Oh, it was away from the track for a long time." Yes, and who's fault was that? It wasn't injured according to reports, except for one minor question mark over condition five months after its last race. And now they want to send it away on holiday again so that they can use the same excuse! With the Rush Attack news coming five minutes after this (an oversubcribed turf race - deep shock!), if tomorrow is no better and all I get is constant bull, I think I'll be throwing in the towel completely on Japanese racing. The gate draws (11 of 12 and 11 of 11) don't bode well...
PS. The trainer report, believe it or not, points towards an R&R session. Come on! Eight months of holiday for no apparent reason (in which time Blacklister has run 14 times in the UK with constant good results), one crap performance lasting just over a minute (a good first half means nothing if the second half - the one that counts - is pathetic), and off for R&R again. Retire the bloody thing now, and while you're at it, take away the trainer's licence because he certainly shouldn't hold one with that kind of thinking after taking forever to achieve a piss-poor result with the facilities JRA has at its disposal. This was a warm-up and nothing more. If it isn't injured (and you'll know by the morning whether it is or not - no need to go to NF to figure that out), it should be raced again ASAP now it vaguely remembers what a race is. If it can't race, release it to a riding club, for if it goes away to the frozen wastes and treadmills of Northern Farm, it will come back useless again. That much I guarantee.
PPS. The post-race report also states - from the Carrot side - that the winning horse was a high-level nag, and indeed, most of its career was in JRA racing. But it is now an NAR horse, with NAR training facilities and budgets, and the fact remains that Perfumer came ninth, not second. Whichever way you look at it, starting sixth favourite with unfancied horses beating it hands down, it was a run that no-one has a right to be proud of or defend. If someone said to me that this was indeed a warm-up, and there was never any expectation of coming anywhere, I would be prepared to look at things differently and say the result can be built on, assuming it runs again soon. What I'm reading, however, is typical JRA BS. "Oh, it was away from the track for a long time." Yes, and who's fault was that? It wasn't injured according to reports, except for one minor question mark over condition five months after its last race. And now they want to send it away on holiday again so that they can use the same excuse! With the Rush Attack news coming five minutes after this (an oversubcribed turf race - deep shock!), if tomorrow is no better and all I get is constant bull, I think I'll be throwing in the towel completely on Japanese racing. The gate draws (11 of 12 and 11 of 11) don't bode well...
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Three New Dates
Tenshinramman and War Chronicle are on the walking wounded list as usual. Apparently there's nothing wrong with them, but there always seems to be something or some excuse that doesn't allow them to run, so they just sit as semi-permanent fixtures at Northern Farm holiday resort. If that's the case, month after month, then they should be retired!
'Tenny' should be retiring next month anyway, but in all honesty should have been retired much earlier, when she could still hit the track with a bit of pride. As far as I'm concerned, the trainer has needlessly dragged out her 'in training' period for as long as possible in order to keep the income coming in, without even looking after the thing for months on end (it spends most of its time at NF), and had far too many 'last chances' for my liking; her last win was almost three years to the day ago, and she hasn't really looked like worrying anything but back-markers ever since. If she runs - and it is an if - before the end of next month, I guarantee she'll be in ultra-high tension mode, with her mind totally oblivious to the job in hand, and probably as tight as a pound of lard, because she can't train properly.
As for War Chronicle, apart from a mad burst at Nagoya (NAR) to get back into the JRA fold, she's hardly ran at all - twice in the best part of a year before the Nagoya campaign. I'd have rather she stayed in NAR - at least she might have run occasionally, and that's what racehorses are supposed to do!
We do have two JRA runners at the weekend, though, with Single Cask at Kokura on the 21st, and Rush Attack teaming up with Kosai Miura in an 1800m turf race at Tokyo-Fuchu on the same day. Not long after, Pop Label runs on the 25th at TCK in the 1200m C1-Class 10R. I'm not convinced a sprint is right for 'Pop', as he's always bloody awful getting out of the gate, but fingers crossed he can get back into winning form again - something long, long overdue...
PS. Rush Attack couldn't get a berth, because the race was oversubscribed. Now there's a shock! Didn't I just write about there not being anywhere near enough turf races? The Kokura run is on at least, but only because everyone is too lazy to travel so far south.
'Tenny' should be retiring next month anyway, but in all honesty should have been retired much earlier, when she could still hit the track with a bit of pride. As far as I'm concerned, the trainer has needlessly dragged out her 'in training' period for as long as possible in order to keep the income coming in, without even looking after the thing for months on end (it spends most of its time at NF), and had far too many 'last chances' for my liking; her last win was almost three years to the day ago, and she hasn't really looked like worrying anything but back-markers ever since. If she runs - and it is an if - before the end of next month, I guarantee she'll be in ultra-high tension mode, with her mind totally oblivious to the job in hand, and probably as tight as a pound of lard, because she can't train properly.
As for War Chronicle, apart from a mad burst at Nagoya (NAR) to get back into the JRA fold, she's hardly ran at all - twice in the best part of a year before the Nagoya campaign. I'd have rather she stayed in NAR - at least she might have run occasionally, and that's what racehorses are supposed to do!
We do have two JRA runners at the weekend, though, with Single Cask at Kokura on the 21st, and Rush Attack teaming up with Kosai Miura in an 1800m turf race at Tokyo-Fuchu on the same day. Not long after, Pop Label runs on the 25th at TCK in the 1200m C1-Class 10R. I'm not convinced a sprint is right for 'Pop', as he's always bloody awful getting out of the gate, but fingers crossed he can get back into winning form again - something long, long overdue...
PS. Rush Attack couldn't get a berth, because the race was oversubscribed. Now there's a shock! Didn't I just write about there not being anywhere near enough turf races? The Kokura run is on at least, but only because everyone is too lazy to travel so far south.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
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...
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!
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...
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| Courtesy JLH Racing |
DJ V2
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| Courtesy Realta HRC |
By the way, Sasagawa-kun - a young lad on the way up - will be the jockey for Perfumer on Thursday, which is an interesting choice, and one I'm happy to stand by. Perfumer's last practice time was surprisingly quick, so who knows? The announcement certainly pleased me a lot more than reading the Infinity Love report, where the reset so far has consisted of canter runs of a pace that 'Bugatti' does faster at a trot. And if that sounds like an exaggeration, ask Sophie and you'll soon realize it's the truth! We may as well say that Infinity Love will be useless - another Northern Farm casualty, in large part due to a system that is too far removed from a realistic race environment.
Yano... Again!!!
Phosphorus started third favourite with Kota Motohashi, but could do no better than seventh after a viscous blocking move from Yano (the jockey, not the trainer) that frankly would have got a fine at the very least in some countries - he's never going to get back into my good books after the Magic Key incident with reckless riding like that, and it's even more galling when he thrashed the crap out of the horse to finish a distant fourth, yet mysteriously couldn't find the whip at all with Magic Key, despite a potential win in clear sight. Anyway, until then, it looked like Kota was going reasonably well, although it was hardly the stunning combination seen before Phosphorus' injury. Okay, so 'Phos' had to be pulled up sharp to avoid an accident with Yano and Nakano-kun, screwing up the finish, but given the ground - which suits our lad - it wasn't really as impressive a performance as it should have been. Unless things start changing real soon, all we have is yet more proof on my long-standing theory that months (even weeks!) spent at Northern Farm is simply a recipe for disaster, whatever the reason for being there. Bitterly disappointed, and left wondering yet again (given the Magic Key injury taking an in-form nag out of action five minutes after its first win) if any of my Shadai/Sunday horses are going to perform as they should, although it has to be said that the poor result wasn't the jockey's fault. Not our jockey anyway...
PS. The jockey report mentions that 'Phos' is still carrying too much weight, giving poor response from the third corner onwards. Granted, that probably didn't help, explaining my feeling of seeing a relatively dull overall performance (far from fiery and sparkling anyway), although at least we'd have got into the money with ease had it not been for Yano's move. Amazingly, that wasn't mentioned at all, which is rather sad, as for those reading the report without the benefit of having seen the race will have a very bad impression of the training staff, when the poor result certainly wasn't their fault. As much as our family loves Kota, I'm disappointed in a statement that shows more loyalty to a friend than to a horse and team that has given him four wins.
PS. The jockey report mentions that 'Phos' is still carrying too much weight, giving poor response from the third corner onwards. Granted, that probably didn't help, explaining my feeling of seeing a relatively dull overall performance (far from fiery and sparkling anyway), although at least we'd have got into the money with ease had it not been for Yano's move. Amazingly, that wasn't mentioned at all, which is rather sad, as for those reading the report without the benefit of having seen the race will have a very bad impression of the training staff, when the poor result certainly wasn't their fault. As much as our family loves Kota, I'm disappointed in a statement that shows more loyalty to a friend than to a horse and team that has given him four wins.
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