Hi Guys,

There's going to be large field sizes again this week. Week 1 is a different issue as every horse needs a rating, so maidens will be split into Divisions.

However, from Week 2 on, no race divisions are created unless absolutely necessary.

Therefore the Rules for excess field sizes are as follows:

Maidens – Unraced horses given preference to gain handicap mark, and highest rated horses scratched until a field of 30 is reached.

Handicaps – Lowest rated horses scratched until 30 entry limit is reach.

Group races – Lowest rated horses scratched until 30 entry limit is reach.

Watch your nominations careful, set realistic targets for yourself and your horses.

Thanks..

Colm

Question... For group and listed races, will unrated horses be rated below or equal to the lowest rated horses?

Colm,

For handicaps,

If there are six or seven horses on the same lowest rating and one or two have to make way what happens then? How do you decide?

I have a horse in UK week 2 race 13.

lol Scatters, I was going to say I agree with your post mate, there was nothing wrong with it, I for one had to horses this week that I had to place them in handicap races because there are no maiden races for their distance, so I'll say it for Scatters seeing that he had cold feet and deleted his post, Colm, there are not enough maiden races for newbies or slow horses.

For stakes races, preference is given to horses who have already earned a rating.

Being quiet honest, we've never faced this matter before. Opinions welcome on how people would like this managed.

Options are:

1. We ballot out a select number of horses to get to the 30 mark, and remember who this happened to, so we don't pick on the same person again in the coming weeks.

2. We set a rule, that all horses on lowest rating and tied are balloted out.

Weeks 1 & 2 combined show 44 races and 36 of them being maidens and every distance from sprint to stayers being covered. The bulk of the Week 1 maidens were split to divisions, to give every trainer a possible chance to get a rating. With trainers having 25 stable boxes, you would hope that would have been enough.

With the new rules changes being explored this season with regards to handicaps, you'll see alot of the high class horses not being eligible for the handicaps, and trainers most likely won't run them in the lower grade stakes races because of weight penalties that could apply. Most of these will rise to handicaps of 100+ after Week 1, or very shortly.

The slower horses will be rated 90 or below, and will stay in that range, and with approx 90% of the handicaps being 0-90 or less, that should give plenty of opportunities to the slow horses or newbies. Most league horses don't do well running top weight in handicaps.

Colm, What about if there was more races made so all trainers have a fair go, because you can't make decisions as we go, it clearly shows that there are more trainers this year, as I wasn't in the league before so I couldn't comment on the years earlier, but the right thing to do is to cater for all I say, but by all means I would stand corrected with a good outcome.

JC, you have a good point.

But I like the maiden rule.

I don’t like the handicap rule. There are more stables now and it looks like people are going to get squeezed out.

What if a newcomer has a horse who is handicapped with a lower rating (no disrespect but there will be a few of them out there) and keeps getting his horse scratched because of his lower rating? He misses out on a chance to win a race (with his or her lower rating) thus be enticed to come back. You could argue that he or she should enter horses in maidens. True, but it needs to be at the appropriate distance (and this is mostly not always available i.e. too many group races) and more importantly he has a better chance of winning with the lower weight the horse is carrying. You need to give the newcomer more options because ultimately the league will survive with new blood. A solution would be to have more maiden races at varying distances. But the best chance a newcomer has is when his horse is placed in a race with lower weight.

Truthfully in real life there is way more maidens and lower class races than listed and graded races and this should somehow reflect the league. So I believe you should have divisions for handicaps to give the newcomer more options. Above all you need to be able to give the newbie a chance to participate and win till he learns the ropes.

We already have a wonderful league and whatever final decision is made I will accept it and move on.

You are doing a wonderful job Colm, and I appreciate all your efforts.

Kind Regards

John

We may have to consider those options. We've never got such a huge influx of new trainers before. Nobody could have accounted for this.

yep agreed colm it has been a good season for the league mate, but john's post is very interesting to read, just one more question colm,
Will you commit to league 2 later this year, as I have to know colm so I can prepare myself as I am playing my other game mate, and left the league game at present please.

Colm wrote:

What if six or seven horses are on the same rating? It would be unfair to remove them all.

This is a workable option. Good suggestion.

With regards the other points made about maidens by yourself and JC, I take those on board.

With the sudden increase in new trainers this season, and I hope everyone does stay, we may have to look at restructuring the league for future seasons.

Instead of running two seasons a year, this be changed to one long season, and take a break mid way to allow the staff time off to recharge. The extended season would allow the creation of more handicaps and maidens.

These are all options on the table, but we'll have put our heads together.

It was just an option. Although, if I was to ballot out 1 or 2 horses, as you could imagine that might create an argument as to why my horse was removed and his wasn't, etc.

So, the handicap division is looking like the way to go for fairness to all.

One long season what a great idea, and have six weeks off at half way, I say yaeh to that decision colm.