We are actually all singing from the same hymn sheet Steve, I just don't think everyone sees it as people tend to panic when change is mentioned.

Your 107 horse should in an ideal world have an option of a conditions race, or a 110 or 120 handicap to run in.

The races shouldn't be geared up for the trainers they should be geared up for the horses.

If I have an 89 rated horse and I put it in a 110 that you are in I will get a 21lb pull - that is fair. You can decide you'd rather take your chances against a 124 in a Group race - that is up to you, but its fair. Its about having the choice. So your 107 could go Group at levels, in a 120 handicap where it might get some weight off the top ones or a 110 where it is liable to be top weight. At the moment too many players don't have a choice ... either because they are too high to get in a hcap or they are too low to be competitive in one. That is what we are saying.

A lot of mine at the minute are just sneaking in to the 0-90s. I can either try my luck at a higher level or give the weight. I have the choice. So I'm alright Jack. But others aren't. To be honest its worse on the NH side where every handicap is pretty much 140 or no limit and 80% of the horses are rated less than 110.

In my opinion the boys just under top level suffer most on the flat and everyone bar the elite suffers on the jumps.

Before I begin, I must admit, I have had my most successful season ever on the flat and many trainers would like to be in my position, but lets analyse my stable.

I have 7 flat horses that are genuine G1 contenders and one horse that is in the 90-100 category. All the rest of my horses are in the 100-110 category. Not good enough for Group races, but too high rated for most handicaps.

Most weeks I enter these 100-110 horses in Group races just to to give the horses a race, but 95% of the time they finish about 7th in their races. I think that many trainers will feel the same, that their horses only have a realistic chance in small number of races and they enter horses in races just to give them a race.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I would like to have about 15-18 horses running each week, but I want them to run in appropriate races and I am sure many other trainers want their horses in the appropriate races. I think that if you take out to top 6 trainers and maybe the bottom 6 trainers it is easy to make up a schedule for the rest of the trainers. It is those top and bottom six trainers that are harder to cater for.

I want those bottom 6 trainers to have a good experience when they join the league, but I don't want the top trainers to be disadvantaged for being successfull.

Do we need a schedule that is 100% realistic to real life. Martin I think said the same thing, it is our league and let's make up a schedule that suits as many trainers as possible. If we have to, we can invent a few races or change a real life 0-100 h'cap race into a 0-70 race or a listed race into a G1 race.

Stu's earlier post where he gave a possible split of races is the way to go. I would like to see a few tweaks to his idea which are listed below.

6 races up to 80
7 races 90
5 races 100
3 races 110
6 races G3\G2
9 Races G1

That's 15 Group races for the top horses and 18 races for the lesser horses and 3 races for those horses that don't fit into either category.

I don't mind if a similiar pattern is followed each week if it means that most trainers can have 15-18 runners in appropriate races each week.

If you think about race distances you have 5f, 6f, 7f, 8f, 10f, 12f, 14f, 16f, 16f+ (9 races). There's 18 lower handicap races so you could have two races per week at each distance over different handicap levels and the same for the 9 G1 races, one race at each distance each week.

Also, if some of these races were double entries, that would mean even more horses could be entered.

Just on a personal note, this split does not suit my current stable as I have too many horses in the 100-110 h'cap category.