Being The Judge

Furthermore, you guys need to introduce claiming races; then you would see some action, both at the windows and at the claim box. More people would get involved in racing if they could buy a horse right out of a race. And it is still the best safeguard against horsemen and owners that want to take an edge.

Barry could you please explain exactly how claiming and selling races work.

Claiming races are used to classify horses in an effort to keep horsemen honest and give punters a reliable guide as to value.

Example: a horse is entered in a race in which it can be claimed (bought) for $25,000. If the horse is worth $50,000, the owner is taking a huge risk in running it in a race in which it can be bought/claimed for half of that value.

However, if the prize money on offer is, say, $12,500 to the winner, then the man is risking perhaps only $12,500. If this same fellow feels very strongly that his horse can win, he may bet a few thousand dollars on his horse to make up for any potential loss.

Conversely, if a guy has a horse that is worth $12,500 and he runs it in a race from which it can be claimed/bought for $25,000, it will not be competitive and he will be wasting his time and his money.

Generally, horses that win claiming races are worth slightly more than the price for which they can be claimed, because it takes a better horse than the claiming price to win.

If somebody wants to claim/buy a horse, they must have the cash with the paymaster at the track and fill out a slip to claim the animal in question and drop it in a box at least 17 minutes before the "off." If more than one claim is made for the same horse, they "shake" (select a pill from a container) to see who gets it.

A really hot horse can have up to 15 claims in for it.

The owner that runs his horse in the claiming race is entitled to any prize money. The guy claiming the horse gets no prize money, but he gets the horse.

If the horse dies or breaks down in the race, the guy with the claim is totally responsible, as title passes when the gates are sprung open.

do they ever put them in too low for betting purposes? in the uk the higher the claiming price the bigger weight the horse carries

Barry

In the Cape we tried claiming races time and again with little interest.

In the end it appeared to me we have a racing culture here where most people live in hope and swing on to the bitter end.

I also think our trainers are not comfortable seeing horses they have trained stay to race in the same centre and as a result they also did very little to motivate the idea with their customers.

Jack, that is a shame.

Claiming races would sharpen everybody's focus, that's for sure.

Hibernia, of course they do. The trick is proper placement. You don't want to place them too low, or the price goes down too far.

probably a hard question to answer barry but how often do they have claiming races and how many on a daily card

Cant they get Charles Faull to be on the show again. He seemed to have opinions on MR'S

Think desks are positioned wrong Andrews or who ever presents the show shhould sit in front of the panel and not in the middel

Very difficult to control.

Scotia - if the Al you refer to is me I would rather pass on that and hope to be invited onto the show (that never happened previously) to discuss marketing.

The MR debate is probably just beyond me as I have been shown up a couple of times on the Red Tribution debate by JD who seems to have good knowledge on the subject. A face value punters argument would not be all that bad I suppose.

I reckon David Safi would be a good call. Formgrids is a usefull tool as we all know and it would not take too long to find horses who are being unfairly treated by the MR system. He has created a fantastic system in formgrids and I would think that he would be able to design a system that would make merit rating more fair. I am sure he has views on that.

What say you mister a.

Al in answer to your post as a punter it makes no difference to me how the horses are rated, it is my job to study and find the possible winner 2nd 3rd horse in any race, as a owner/breeder/ trainer etc having an individual horse running for stakes it becomes vital that my horse does not get overrated and weighted out of it,,the reason the American system of claiming works so well is that they have come up with a system that basically forces you to place your horse in its correct place as they have tote betting only which means if you drop your big value horse into a low value claiming race you will win but you risk losing your horse way below its value and as you know the more you put on the tote the less it pays, so you cant really pull off a betting coup,,, as with most important things in this game I believe that before changes are made views and opinions from all interested parties should be submitted to a panel to prepare a programme for a conference to discuss the best possible way forward,,, systems in other countries must be studied

Thanks for that. As a punter I must admit to being caught out by looking at the MR as part of the form study. I often look to see how far a horses MR has dropped over time without winning. This has not helped me much in making the correct choices and formlines seem to be the only way to more consistantly find winners. Formlines, following a horse that seems due to win until it does and memory works for me. Has not worked with Red Tribution though.

Are the claiming races in the US similar to the selling stakes in the UK or do they also use the claiming stkes in the UK?

I would be cautious in following what the rest of the world does. I believe that us South Africans are quite innovative and always "maak n plan". We have the best constitution in the world, why cant we have or invent the best racing systems and let the world follow. MR included.

On a 9-race card, at good tracks, there are 4 or 5 a day, at lesser tracks 7 or 8