Lucs Cumani© Photo Healy Racing
The following observations on handicaps were made to the renowned sportswriter Hugh McIlvanney whose collection of work on horseracing I’ve been re-reading recently in an attempt to brush up on how the job is done properly. They are over 20 years old but I challenge anyone to dispute their relevance because they still point out the systemic basis for so much of what goes on.
“I don’t like handicaps. I think they are a form of communism. Ideally I believe the best horse should always win a race. Handicaps are a denial of that principle. If you are beaten a head, giving 7lbs, you have the best horse but you haven’t won.
“With handicaps you are governed by another person’s opinion of your horse. Once a trainer finds a horse is overrated there is a huge incentive to cheat. We would be better off in every sense with a system of conditions races from the bottom up — from sellers and claimers and auction races up through all levels.”
The credibility of those comments comes from its source, Luca Cumani, who pointed all this out in 1992.
By then his handicap hit-list included a couple of Cambridgeshires. A luminous Group 1 CV also includes a hat-trick of Ebor victories that underline Cumani’s credentials as a master of his craft. It is a craft which demands moulding each horse’s particular talents to the system in place. The Italian dealt with the system better than most. But he wasn’t blind to some of its realities.
Any trainer worth their salt has to be clear-eyed. Since the majority of horses are handicap class that is what they run in and their best chance of success lies in keeping the handicapper in the dark as to their ability. And then we wonder why horses are run half-fit, over unsuitable distances and well out the back while giving the outside to no one. Well, actually nobody wonders because everyone knows the score. And any trainer who doesn’t know the score quickly find themselves idle.
Punting apologists will argue therein lies the skill, being able to recognise what’s going on and betting accordingly. It’s supposedly all in the formbook, but mostly that’s a delusional exercise in hindsight. It’s no coincidence that most serious punters avoid handicaps.
That doesn’t mean messing doesn’t go on in jurisdictions with programmes such as the one Cumani outlined. Where there’s betting there will always be those looking for an angle. But it isn’t so institutional as to produce maiden races that are effectively exercises in trying to distinguish won’t try’s from can’t try’s, a nod-and-a-wink process that in theory puts a huge onus on regulation but which in reality too often sees regulation relegated to being little more than cosmetic.
And that’s a reality for the simple reason that racing not only tolerates but effectively encourages a system which makes cheating inevitable and then largely pays only lip-service to policing it. And it makes the chances of any sort of meaningful change anytime soon seem very remote indeed.
If you want change then look to a bookie. How else to explain this reflex need to cut ante-post odds when on the face of it there’s little or no need to. Bellshill won his Grade 1 at Naas in a manner that he was entitled to, being pushed out to beat a 66-1 shot at long odds-on. And yet that was enough to see him cut in Cheltenham ante-post betting. What did he do to justify that, bar prove he’s alive and well and able to do what he should do.
As for the continuing hoopla across the Irish Sea in relation to their whip guidelines there doesn’t appear to be any appetite for change despite growing acceptance that all the BHA are really doing is digging an already deep hole even deeper for themselves.
The latest twist in relation to counting whip strokes revolves around Tom Scudamore aboard Soll at Sandown with attention being paid to the inflexibility of totting up of strikes despite the disparity of conditions between say a six furlong sprint and a three mile handicap chase. But really the true mathematical disparity is financial.
Would Scudamore have gone for broke the way he did if the race was worth ten grand instead of a hundred grand? Would Paddy Brennan’s adding ability have gone askew in an ordinary race to the extent it did in the prestigious King George? But if they hadn’t, the connections of the horses they rode would have been well within their rights to ask why the hell not.
British racing’s new deal with ITV could have repercussions for Ireland in terms of the majority of race days from 2017 being parked out on ITV4. It will certainly be a test of whether the old terrestrial-digital divide is as old hat as many claim. What was noteworthy though was a three-pronged battle between Channel 4, ITV and Sky for big money rights which rather puts the lie to suggestions of a game dying on its commercial arse.
What will be interesting in future is how far the promotion brief will be taken and how that will impact on the tone of coverage. Is it too much to hope for that instead of cheerleading this gets viewed as an opportunity for a truly independent approach to addressing racing issues that need addressing?
And finally, Joseph O’Brien was characteristically low-key in announcing the countdown to the end of his remarkable riding career. The former champion jockey is concentrating on his burgeoning training operation and indicated riding will be a relative sideline although he will continue to ride work at Ballydoyle for his father.
Perhaps only time will allow proper perspective on how truly remarkable the 22 year olds career in the saddle has been. Twice champion, winner of half a dozen Irish classics and four more in Britain, including two Derbies, O’Brien had the incalculable plus of riding for the most powerful stable in the world but also the colossal minus of being chronically the wrong shape for the job.
To those who witnessed his first racecourse efforts in 2009 the transformation from raw rookie to top professional in the space of a few years - while fighting a battle with weight only he will ever fully know the rigours of - was a colossal effort of will which no amount of accusations about nepotism and privilege can dilute.
It’s a will to give the shivers to other National Hunt trainers.
