Race Planning
12/06/09 22:27
After reading todays Racing Post and the upcoming clash of Puppy Derbys at Wimbledon and Henlow in August, add into this the many open races that are nothing better than low graded races, and surely it points to our sports race planners to be looking at how best they can improve things.
I honestly feel that the “Kudos” that went with winning any open has totally gone and a few people are being lulled into a false sense of security with bitches that have an open win beside their name, do not get me wrong I am in no way saying that people should not breed from their bitch as everyone has the devine right to do whatever they so choose to, however I know for a fact that a few people have bred their bitch as it won an open and took it for granted that they would sell the pups no bother as they were from an Open winner, sadly they where left with a litter of pups that they could not sell and could not afford to rear either, this is when the trouble begins, I strongly believe that if that bitch had not won that sub standard open then that person would never have bred with their bitch and thus would not have suffered the stress involved with paying for a full litter of pups.
I would like to see some opens dropped and raise the bar with what opens would be left, make an Open win be for minimum £250, this would stop some promoters filling cards with sub standard open races, lets make winning an open a proud thing again.
With regards the clash of Puppy Derbys, whilst there is nothing that can be done thus far, I feel that rules shall be changed very quickly to allow the race planners the authority to refuse a date for a race, however the mere fact that Henlows proposed £10,000 to winner and total payout of over £12,500 was refused should be looked at very closely, why our governing bodies would refuse any proposed prize money is way beyond me and in this day were things are ever tough for owners to see prize money pushed away by our rulers is very disconcerting.
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