Field Selection
It’s less prevalent nowadays, but I still hear the odd owner grizzling
about a lack of communication from their trainer. I accept that not all
trainers are experts in that field, and there is always room for improvement.
However there are ways that other industry participants can make to easier for these
people to ply their trade, and make decisions on behalf of owners.
One of these would be for Clubs to indicate in their programmes, how
fields are to be selected. This is particularly frustrating at this time of
year in the Canterbury region when there are often far too many horses to
squeeze in to the allocated number of races, especially at the grass track
meetings.
I know that clause No. 4. says that ‘In the event any race or races are split
on the Programme, unless specific in the individual race conditions, races will
be split and selected at the clubs discretion, with consideration given to
Ratings in the first instance.’ That’s all very nice except it tells the
trainer nothing of how the ratings will be considered, either from the bottom
or the top.
I recall when the points system was introduced, it was proposed that
these type of fields would be selected from the bottom up one week, and from
the top down the following week, so everyone gets a chance at starting. That
seems to have gone out the window, although admittedly some Clubs are good at
indicating how they are selecting. I suppose in the case of one day Clubs that
makes it a bit more tricky as they don’t want the lower rated horses, but it
needs to be remembered that we are an Industry and selfish attitudes only serve
to damage that.
The situation was brought home to me a while back when I rang a Club
Secretary to ask how the balance of the field for a race where one win horses
would be given preference, would be selected, and found he didn’t know. Having
promised to find out, he came back a bit later and said the person responsible
for selecting the field didn’t know either!
It doesn’t matter how these decisions are made, either on high to low
ratings, vice versa, or even on form, but it would be a big help to know prior
to nomination or acceptance time, so that everyone knows where they are and can
make decisions based on information available.
Pete Cook