Pacemakers debate

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Pacemakers have been the hot topic after So You Think was beaten in it’s first start overseas and I thought some of the people who like the site but may not be up with some of the lingo may like to know more, so i have typed a brief article that hopefully helps.

In the UK where So You Think is now racing some of the bigger stables use what they call a pacemaker. It is very handy if you have a horse that gets back in its races and you can create a good tempo in the race and give your ‘good’ horse every chance of winning. In this case our champ was checked when it’s stable mate cut across in front of it, and then set what was a stupid pace which set the race up for an opponent to come from behind and get up by the narrowest of margins.

Thank goodness at his next start he was ridden better and got to show the world that he is as good, if not better than any other middle distance horse in the world.

I have had a lot of people tell me they were not aware of pacemakers, and asked why we don’t have them?

I feel we are blessed by not having them. For starters it is far more favourable to the massive ‘one owner’ stables such as Godolphin etc who have a huge number of horses and can put pacemakers in races. The smaller trainer with very few owners can’t put one of his client’s horses in to make pace for another. It changes the playing field, unfairly in my eyes.

There are a lot of opinions and points, but what I think it comes down to is that they are simply not needed, and our racing is the best in the world. There are more tactics involved in a race, if it is a stop-start tempo and jockey’s take off early, it just adds to the spectacle.

I seen an article Ken Callender penned in which he said something to the effect that Sunline vs Northerly, Bonecrusher vs Our Waverly Star, didn’t need  pacemakers to be clashes we will remember forever, and we don’t need them in the future.

I for one am totally against the idea of having them in Australia, but I don’t think we need to be very worried, as an overwhelming amount of the racing population all agree on that fact that the pacemaker idea is not needed as we have a great racing product, and if it aint broken, don’t fix it!!

***Going through the midweek form, I don’t think it’s a great betting day but there are a couple that I am interested in (before scratchings)

Race 5  No.3 ANOTHER INVADER– Made good ground last start and i think will enjoy getting over a longer trip- $4.60 + $1.90 on tattsbet currently.

Race 6 no.1 SOPHIE’S SPIRIT– Comes off a good run behind Mystical Grey and seems good e/w value with Tattsbet at $6.50 + $2.30..

**Also Vision And Power has been retired from racing. One of my best mate’s Trent Shaw  is in love with the horse and pestered me that the horse never got enough recognition in the press and said it must get mentioned. In all seriousness though, he was a super horse and it is just unfortunate that his last couple of preperations haven’t worked out, but hopefully that has not taken too much of the gloss of his achievement’s.