only in british racing can the 'bloody obvious' be ignored.

​The number of runners on average in British racing is declining. You only have to look at the declared runners at Aintree tomorrow (Friday June 7th) to get the picture. To have the picture enhanced, you only have to look back to last weekend and this weekend’s race meetings. It is a simple equation to solve, with the answer either too many or far too many.
The B.H.A.’s plan to ditch 300-races from the annual race programme was the most sensible idea to come out of Portman Place for a decade or more. Someone at the B.H.A. woke up one morning full of beans and after a cold shower and a bowl porridge this bright-eyed student of form had an epiphany – not many runners + too many meetings = too many races. The number of races to drop may have been plucked out of the spring air, though 300 would be as good a starting point as any number higher or lower.
If two, three and four-runner fields could be eliminated, the self-serving argument made by the opposition to common-sense, that more races equal greater betting turnover, is made moot as average field sizes would increase into double-figures, increasing betting turnover, I would bet. Might not increase turnover by not very much, though not very much would, in these straightened times, be a boost.
Of course, as good an idea as it was, chopping 300-races at the pinch-points of the season was almost certainly going to prove unpopular to the selfish brigade, better known as the racecourse owners and the Thoroughbred Group (aka the Horsemans Group).
It would have been less convoluted to simply choose a period of the season chock-a-block with race meetings, high summer, for instant, and then extend that period before and after the chock-a-block season, and axe one race per day over 300-days. A little simplistic, perhaps, yet I would argue easier to implement and less obvious to those with observation impairment, like myself, to notice, because when the season is chock-a-block with race-meetings no one is going to notice if Catterick, Chelmsford or Chepstow has only six races when the season before the meeting comprised seven.
As someone pointed out, 300 could be just the starting point as some races might become over-subscribed and have to be divided, which would be of benefit to connections of horses that struggle to get into races.
That said, there is one great benefit with how things are at present. With three and four-runner races, owners with horses in training at the moment have a greater chance of winning prize money, if only for toiling home a well-beaten fourth. Yet money going into an owner’s Weatherby’s account can only be of assistance in paying his or her training bill, which improves the trainer’s cash-flow, which in turn improves the chances of the feed-bill being paid on time. Etc Etc.
And small field sizes are nothing new. People speak as if two-runner races were unheard-of back in the day. Of course, back in the 1970’s, usually after a long period of snow, frost or waterlogging, racecourses like Worcester or Hereford might divide novice chases and hurdles four-times to accommodate the backlog of horses in need of a run. And that is part of the problem in recent times. The weather is more clement, with far less race meetings cancelled. Since I.T.V. took over coverage of racing, how many times have they lost a scheduled meeting due to the weather? Not many, I suggest.
There is uproar from some quarters at the idea of elongating the National Hunt Festival to five-days, with the argument that the elastic band is being pulled too tight, making for uncompetitive racing, yet the same argument does not seem to apply to the whole of the race programme. The elastic band is too tight, causing uncompetitive racing to become the norm.
Instead of experimenting for twelve-months with a reduced number of races, so that data can be achieved so a more informed decision might be taken further down the line, two-parts of racing rulers throw the toys out of their baby carriages and sob ‘it’s not fair, you’re not being nice to me!’.
You have to understand, if horse racing in Britain goes under in the near future and racing here resembles Italy, Arc, for one, will not go under. They will easily sell all their racecourses as building or retail sites and treble their profits. It is why British racing needs to be governed by racing people taking decisions that are to racing’s benefit. The present arrangement is like asking the chimps to organise their own tea-parties. A recipe for farce.