the small field size crisis.

​Ed Chamberlain continues to bemoan the small number of runners in many races this season. He is quite right to highlight the subject as the lack of competitive racing has a negative impact on betting turnover, which is no trifling matter with the sport in dire need of a sustainable revenue stream.
The cause of the problem is obvious. Too many race meetings. You can only stretch a balloon so far before it bursts and that is where we are at the moment. At the precipice of falling apart at the seams. Independent of the overloaded race calendar, the situation has been exacerbated by the very mild winter we have had this season, resulting in very few abandonments.
And the problem will only get worse as owners tighten their belts due to the ever-increasing cost of living, something that though the poor are the worst hit, the rich, too, can be compromised by higher training fees, as well as fuel, energy, food, etc. Even if it is only a temporary blip to finances, with owners merely playing a waiting game until finances flourish once more, less horses in training next season will surely see a dire situation become ever more dire.
The race programme should reflect the number of horses in training and should be trimmed accordingly. All-weather racing, should anyone forget, was introduced to ensure the sport could be maintained through the winter to aid betting shops should the weather prevent any jumps racing. Yet slowly and inevitably it has become all-powerful, with championships, ‘win and you are in’ qualifiers for the Kentucky Derby, and Group races.
There are now six all-weather tracks, with a seventh planned in the near-future at Newmarket, with too many owned by one company, allowing Arc too much leverage when it comes to the race calendar. And why the need for so much all-weather racing during the summer? The problem of small field sizes through the flat season will not be helped by so many all-weather meetings. There should be, at least during the summer months, a cut-back on all-weather racing, with a limit of as little as five-meetings a week. It is all very well Arc crying over lost profits and threatening the sport with closures and smaller prize funds but the number of horses in training just does not justify the number of yearly race-meetings.
Also, and I may be off-target here, but tight-banded races cannot help the cause to swell field-sizes. I believe open handicaps, with no ratings restrictions, would bring about larger fields. Less competitive maybe but a method to ensure each-way betting. I also believe more imaginative race conditions wouldn’t make the situation any worse, with maiden handicaps, winner of one handicaps and more veterans races, especially on the flat.
There is though one benefit of small field sizes, an aspect of the subject never raised by Ed Chamberlain and racing journalists. When there are only three or four-runners, owners of moderate horses have an opportunity to win a four-figure prize, which, given the financial crisis we are all in at the moment, might be the difference between staying in the sport or leaving.
Which leads me to one final point. Though it is sad, for example, that Shadwell has severely cut the number of horses they have in training, especially at a time when several leading owners on the flat and jumping have died, the real worry for the sport should be the loss of the owners of one horse or two, those enthusiasts who breed their own, perhaps of limited ability. But these people, if they pay their training fees, keep those at the lower end of the sport afloat and too often they are forgotten. Those framing the race calendar should have the foresight to remember ‘the little guy’ and frame races for the least talented horses, if only to bolster the aspirations and enthusiasm of their owners and breeders. Godolphin and the other elite owners cannot grow this sport, only those at the middle and lower levels can encourage stronger roots to proliferate to sustain a healthy and growing sport.
I always argue that this sport is inclusive, a working-class sport underpinned by the wealthy and very wealthy and every effort should be made to by racecourses to welcome every strata of society and the race calendar should be framed to give everyone a sporting chance of glory first, second or third-class.