LARRY'S VIEW - SMALL FIELDS PART OF THE BIG PICTURE

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, October 5, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

Many people are worried that the small fields in racing at the present time represent more than just a seasonal phase.

For the last couple of years in Queensland the months after the Winter Carnival have been quiet in terms of race numbers because those horses who are being targeted at a summer campaign would still be four to five weeks away from racing … horses like those who would be racing over the Christmas period and those heading for Magic Millions.

So, taking that lead, in a normal year, we would probably still have a couple months, at least, of low numbers.

If you want to drill deeper though, I know when I came up here three years ago there was something like sixteen, eighteen runners in every race … in every race on a Saturday … so it does look like maybe there is more to it this time around.

Of course the downturn in the economy is a factor. The phrase ‘a sign of the times’ is used so often to describe so many things these days, not only in racing but in all areas, and it is a very real factor that has to be dealt with.

One consequence of that is that the horse population (also read ownership pool) has got smaller while the number of race meetings has not got less … in fact they have probably increased. Training fees are not cheap.

There is a logical end result when you put the evidence together, so nobody should really be confused about the small field sizes. Owners and trainers have been impacted by changing times.

The small fields also obviously affect the whole viability of the betting operation from a punter’s point of view.

To generalize, in bigger fields the favourite might be about the three dollar mark, maybe even a bit more than that because the betting will be more spread across the runners. When you get down to small fields the favourite more often than not is a very short price.

It is hard to satisfy punters at the best of times. Many like to complain when favourites are beaten but they also are not happy when too many favourites to win at un-bettable odds, when is often the case in small fields … and that can make punters back off on occasions and keep their ‘investment’ in their pocket to the obvious detriment of industry turnover.

From a jockey’s point of view small fields are also problematic in that it makes it difficult to find rides. That situation is exaggerated by a unique situation in Brisbane where we have half a dozen good apprentices who are taking the majority of the rides as trainers are happy to put them on to claim the added advantage.

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Racing has a way of pulling itself through tough times … and, surprise, surprise it is often a racehorse that pushes the positive buttons and gets the racing engine up and running to something nearer its true capacity once again.

The way Pierro handled the Valley like on old pro on Friday night to claim his eighth straight win and push his earnings up to $3.1 million only added to his already formidable reputation.

He jumps. He puts himself in the race, whatever ‘s happening. If they go mad he can sit off them. If they go slow he can lead … or he can just sit outside the leader and apply pressure when it suits him. He is push-button. He has nearly got it all.

He was the Champion Two-Year-Old. If he goes ahead and takes out the Cox Plate … well, he will be one of the best ever.

It’s great that we’ve got Pierro coming through and we’ve got Black Caviar coming back next year.

So yeah, we can worry with justification about the small fields now and where that might lead but, through all that concern, we always seem to have something to look forward to.

The bottom line, as most of us have found, is that something will always pop up in racing to keep you going.

Till next week,
Larry

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