another proposed million-quid bonus, ditto, fingers-crossed & greyhound racing.

​The ‘Another View’ column in the Racing Post is becoming a veritable treasure trove of illuminating ideas. Today it was David Carr’s turn to propose what on paper seems an idea worth pursuing. 
Ratings, to my mind, are at best educated opinion and at worst a load of old bollards. Ratings are pseudo-science; flawed pseudo-science at that. Too many horses are ruined because of one above-ability run which the handicapper takes as gospel and the poor horse is lumbered for several seasons with a rating it has little hope of ascending to. Horses need to be accessed on no more than five previous runs, though I would prefer three-runs, with the average rating for the previous five (or three) runs prevailing.
But I digress. David Carr was writing about the Longines World’s Best Ratings, to be published any day soon, with racing journalists agog with excitement to see who is judged the best of the best. He believes, and he will be pleased and relieved to know I agree with him, that one win in one major race is sometimes all that is needed to be awarded top marks for the year, which leads to very few flat horses dancing all the right dances during the previous season.
He proposes, in order to encourage owners and trainers to run their best horses more often, to award owner of the ‘bestest horse in the world’ more than just a trophy. £1-million-quid should be given as the magnet for achieving top marks, to give the Longines World’s Best award a more meaningful reason for existing. More runs in the qualifying races, the more points gained, the better the chance of scooping the bonus.

In an age of raising costs everywhere you look, high inflation and governments around the world, though not now the U.S. (we all need a Trump in our lives) determined to do nothing to halt the devaluing of the pound (or euro or whatever) in our pockets, horse racing in this country seems awash with real or proposed £1-million-quid bonuses. The latest splurge comes from the uniting of Ascot, Goodwood and York, who have come up with the bonus in an attempt to attract foreign owners and trainers to the idea of supporting the King George & Queen Elisabeth, the Sussex and Juddmonte International Stakes.
I am lukewarm about this initiative as I prefer the big British prizes to stay with British trainers. But if it increases field sizes and competitiveness, perhaps it should be applauded. (I even get bored and cross when Aidan O’Brien snaps up all the juicy prize-money, though not his genius son, Joseph or the more mortal Donnacha).

Fingers crossed for weather less dramatic this weekend. Friday is forecast to be blighted by high winds, cold temperatures, rain, with snow on hills. It is ‘Trials Day’ at Cheltenham this Saturday and though it is a meeting that often proves of no impact on the Festival itself, and wish it could be elevated into a Gloucestershire version of the Dublin Racing Festival, this year we are tantalised by another clash between Constitution Hill and Lossiemouth. The mare, remember, must travel by boat and high winds might temper Willie Mullin’s enthusiasm for the trip, and heavy ground, it is presently good-to-soft, might temper Nicky Henderson’s enthusiasm for running Constitution Hill. So, as I said earlier, crossed-fingers is the order of the day and the following few days.

Greyhound racing is none of my business and not part of the remit of this website. But one cannot but feel saddened by decline in a sport that shows no sign of coming to a halt.
I only glance at the headlines in the greyhound section of the Racing Post and have never attended a greyhound meeting. But I do wonder if the sport is too attached to its past and whether the sport needs an entrepreneurial spirit to improve its chances of survival. 
I do wonder if it is a country sport locked-in by tradition to an urban arena. Perhaps the demise might be a sign to look at a redevelopment of the sport. I understand that in the main greyhound racing is a sport for betting purposes and that perhaps it is time, as horse racing is beginning to do, to put the emphasis on the greyhound itself, to show the outside world that its greyhounds are not throw-away items but that they are loved and respected.
Why not take the sport to the racecourse and stage races up the long straights, following the lead of pony racing. Greyhounds jump hurdles and this too might spark the interest of race-goers. Carlisle holds a trail-hound race every year and is very popular.
The rot I suspect will not stop until those charged with leadership of the sport step out of the shadows and display some entrepreneurial zeal.