{"id":8034,"date":"2015-08-19T16:46:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-19T22:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/?p=8034"},"modified":"2015-08-19T16:46:02","modified_gmt":"2015-08-19T22:46:02","slug":"increase-field-sizes-by-racing-the-boys-against-the-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/increase-field-sizes-by-racing-the-boys-against-the-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"End Short Fields. Race The Boys Against The Girls."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AQ\"<\/a>When the gutsy filly Arabian Queen beat the John Gosden trained English Derby winner Golden Horn in the Grade 1 Juddmonte International run at York, England it was quite a surprise.\u00a0The female\u00a0three year old was a 50-1 longshot, while Golden Horn was the\u00a0heavy 4-9 favorite to take the $800,000 first prize pot.<\/p>

 <\/p>

However, fillies beating colts and geldings is not normally a surprise, neither is it a rare occurrence in the UK, Ireland and Europe. Fillies and mares race alongside males, and beat them,\u00a0on a regular basis. Females generally get a weight allowance from colts and\u00a0geldings when running against them. The\u00a0list of fillies who have won world class\u00a0Grade 1 races like the Prix De L’Arc De Triomphe is substantial, in fact the last four runnings of that race have been won by fillies. The great french racehorse Treve has twice beaten some of the best “boys” in the world when taking\u00a0the Arc\u00a0in both 2013 and 2014.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Then just three days later in California, the great American mare Beholder was much the best when she made a bunch of Grade 1 Males look positively pedestrian, as she sublimely parked in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar. A stunning victory, with an “Arazi” like move pulled on the home turn.<\/p>

 <\/p>

Racing secretaries, trainers and owners of horses should take note. Here most of our races are framed either for colts and geldings only, or for fillies and mares only. Yet at many tracks across the country we have an acute\u00a0and\u00a0critical shortage of horses and problems filling races with the required minimum of five entries. When these races barely fill, bettors and fans have little interest. They are\u00a0generally tired of five and six horse fields that offer no value betting opportunities, a mundane rather than interesting handicapping challenge and limited chances to make a significant score. Trainers and owners are repeatedly frustrated when because of a lack of entries races “don’t go”, and their primed, fit and ready horses are denied a run.\u00a0<\/p>

 <\/p>

\"Treve\"<\/a>So – why not take\u00a0those notoriously hard to fill\/short field race types,\u00a0combine the sexes and take entries from\u00a0both boys and girls. Create\u00a0a weight allowance for the girls, and increase the purse money, as two races are now being combined into one. We are not talking about implementing this idea for all races of course, just those races which, when restricted to horses of one sex, racing secretaries know habitually suffer from low entries and small fields.<\/p>

 <\/p>

The result would be fuller fields, intriguing handicapping contests and\u00a0increased overall betting handle. The number of races per day may of course be reduced as a result, but so what? Personally I would much rather watch a program\u00a0of seven or eight entertaining larger field races than nine or ten boring short field\u00a0affairs.\u00a0I think the majority of\u00a0horse racing fans would feel the same way.\u00a0<\/p>

 <\/p>

Which innovative racing secretary is going to give their track a shot in the arm by giving this a try?<\/p>

 <\/p>

Watch the great filly Treve win her back to back Arc De Triomphes\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

Arc\u00a02013<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Arc\u00a02014<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"AQ\" When the gutsy filly Arabian Queen beat the John Gosden trained English Derby winner Golden Horn in the Grade 1 Juddmonte International run at York, England, it was quite a surprise. The female three year old was a 50-1 longshot, while Golden Horn was the heavy 4-9 favorite to take the $800,000 first <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editors-blog","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoroughbredpeople.com\/blogUS\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}