What is a Selling Race?
Several of my friends today, have asked me to explain what a selling race is in horse racing in the UK. I did try to find an explanation on the Internet, but everything was just too technical or only gave the basic facts.
The concept is simple, in that it is basically a horse race, where the winner is sold at auction. The auction is very little different to a typical auction at the local furniture saleroom, except that if you are the ownerof the winner, you can bid yourself. If you succeed, you are said to have bought the horse in. Just like in the saleroom, the auctioneer or in this case the racecourse takes a proportion of the sale price.
As yesterday’s race was a stakes race, the weight the horses carry depends on their age and sex. Free As A Lark carried eight stone four pounds as she is a three-year-old filly. The winner, Prince Apollo carried nine stone and a pound because he was a five-year-old gelding.
Other selling races are handicaps, where the better horses carry more weight according to their official rating.
So you may argue what is the purpose of a race, where if you win it, you lose the horse in the auction? Especially, as the prize money in selling races is not very good. But then as they are the lowest level of horse racing , the entry fees are low.
I’ll give two examples of when we have run horses in sellers.
C once bought a yearling filly at the sales for just a thousand guineas, despite being extremely well-bred. But Infant Protege, as we called her, was very small and to put it mildly, just a tiny bit nasty, fully living up to her nickname of Sybil. We needed to get a run out of her, so that she knew what racing was supposed to be about. The trainer put her in a not-very-good selling race at Brighton with an experienced jockey who could get the best out of her. It worked and she ran properly for the first time to be third. In the end she won a race at Haydock and was second in another in quite good company. At the end of the season, she was sold at Tattersalls, for a price that gave us a small profit!
In Free As A Lark’s case, because I still own the brood mare, it would have been nice to get a win out of the filly, so that the pedigree looked better, when any other progeny are sold. There was also the subsidiary reason, that as she was in effect C’s last runner, it would have been nice for it to be a winner! But you shouldn’t let sentiment interfere. I don’t think C would have!
There are other reasons, the biggest of which is probably betting. If a trainer picks the race right, then the horse will have a better chance of winning. So putting a better horse in a poor selling race may almost guarantee that win. But remember that all form and ratings are open and fully published. So you may well get the win, but the odds would be so short, that you won’t make much money, if any!
I’ve also known that horses have been entered in sellers, because the trainer is owed money by the owner and wants to see if they can get some of their money back.
So essentially, as in many things in life, it all comes down to money! Whether it be concerned with breeding, prize money, betting or debts!
But you have to throw in the fact that a win is a win and it is very good feeling to be a winning owner and/or a breeder.
Free As A Lark Has Been Claimed
She ran a lot better yesterday at Redcar and was second. But as she was at fairly short odds, it wouldn’t have made you rich!
As it was a selling race and she would have been put up for auction, if she’d won, she could have been claimed as well, if you’d put up the right amount of money.
This is fact what happened, so she has now gone to a trainer in Wales. I hope she does him proud, but she really hasn’t shown the form she did in her first couple of races.
So it’s all a really sad end, especially as her mother was C’s last purchase! But hey! That’s racing!
Free As A Lark Runs at Great Yarmouth Today
She’s in the 15:20. She may have a chance and if you have Sky, the race will be on At The Races (Channel 415)!
I’ll be going by train from Dullingham and I’m also hoping to look at Norfolk’s cut-off Eastern outpost.
No she doesn’t as the ground has got too soft! But I’m still going to the town to have lunch and a look round!
Racing at Lingfield
As I said in an earlier post, Free As A Lark ran in the 14:20 at Lingfield today.
I took the train from Whittlesford Parkway, changing at Tottenham Hale and Victoria to get the train to Lingfield.
Lingfield Station
From the station it’s just a five minute walk to the racecourse.The ticket cost just £13.80 return with my Senior Railcard. I suspect that there were others using their Railcards for a day-out at Lingfield.
Free As A Lark ran better than last time, but not as well as I’d hoped.
Free As A Lark
She runs in the 14:20 at Lingfield today. I’m going by train from Victoria.
Here’s hoping her luck has turned.
And perhaps even mine!
The Pakistani Betting Scandal
Now I’ve held a bookmaking licence in my time and I’ve also had some good successes making the odd ridiculous bet. I had £10 each-way on Terimon for the Derby many years ago at 500-1 and it came second, so I made a profit of over a £1,000 on the transaction.
Usually though I’ve had inside information, as the horse has either been one of mine or it has been trained in the same stable. There was also my last winner, Joy of Freedom, who won at Folkestone at long odds, because she was pregnant and that had improved her no end!
But in all these cases the bookies offered the odds and we took them.
The one case we didn’t take the odds, was when my horse, Debach Delight, won at Ayr. She started at odds of 22-1 on, which meant that to win a pound, you needed to stake tenty-two. Not good betting odds, but I had noticed that to generate business the bookies were offering 10-1, if she won the race by ten lengths. When she duly won by twelve, I told the jockey about the betting, who said that I should have had a bet and told him, as he would have made sure I won. He wasn’t suggesting anything dishonest, but he had eased the horse down in the last furlong and if it had mattered, he would have made sure, she had won by the requisite distance, as she in fact had.
This just shows that if bookmakers offer silly bets, like whether the next delivery will be a no-ball, it is very easy to take advantage.
In part this is what has happened with the scandal involving the Pakistani cricketers. The bookies offer a silly bet, so someone takes advantage and asks the bowler to bowl a no-ball.
The first thing that needs to be done is rid the sport of these illegal bookmakers or at least the bets that encourage cheating. Only then will we be able to clean up the game.
I have to say that the response of Pakistani supporters in the UK, seems to have been exemplary, with most appearing to be extremely disappointed about the actions of the Pakistani players.
Chester Racecourse
Chester is one of the British Isles oldest racecourses and it is unique in that it is only a short circular track, just outside of the city walls.
Chester Racecourse from the Walls
C and myself had one of our biggest successes in racing at Chester when our horse, Debach Delight was second in the Cheshire Oaks. But that was over thirty years ago.
In those days to get to the racecourse was a long slog across to and then up the M6. There was no A14 and it was stop-start all the way through Birmingham.
After this trip though on Virgin Trains, I wouldn’t drive, but would go to Milton Keynes and pick up a train direct to Chester. There is plenty of parking at Milton Keynes, trains are every hour and they take about ninety minutes.
Dirt is not for racing on!
For various reasons, I don’t like American horse racing and especially on dirt.
Small circular tracks, with the exception of Chester, are boring and lack the atmosphere and character of the tracks you get in the UK and Ireland.
In America you can use drugs to improve performance. This might be alright for the Ben Johnsons of this world, but it distorts bloodlines.
But the real problem with dirt racing, is that there is an unacceptable level of equine breakdowns and fatalities.
According to Chris McGrath in The Independent, America is reversing their incorporation of more equine-friendly artificial racing surfaces, as we have at Lingfield, Wolverhampton and Southwell. This is very much a retrograde step, but it is typical of the United States, where despite the rest of the world being different, they are always right and the rest is always wrong.
I’ll leave the last word on racing surfaces to my stallion, Vague Shot. He retired after seven seasons of hard racing without having suffered any serious injury at all. Now at the age of 28, he is still fit and sound and if he feels so inclined he can still do a full roll both ways. He may be the oldest Royal Ascot winner still alive. but he would have been dead many years ago if he had raced on dirt in the United States.
Free As A Lark at Yarmouth Today
She would appear to have a chancen in the 3:50, but she will be at short odds, so just enjoy it. It will be on At The Races, so if you have Sky, you can watch
Chelsea’s Gluten-Free Wedding Cake
Is Chelsea Clinton a coeliac? I doubt it, as she sounds like a faddy foodist or lifestyle-coeliac, who has gone gluten-free for effect! I’m sure if she was really a coeliac, she would have told the media. But she is having a gluten-free wedding cake!
It was funny that the bit about this pointless wedding on Radio 5, was just before Luke Harvey did his piece about the racing at Goodwood today. He talked about Hayley Turner , who had a ride on Barshiba in the Nassau Stakes, a Group One race at the highest level.
She actually is a coeliac and admits it in interviews and articles for the papers.
We need more open coeliacs like her and less like Chelsea Clinton.
The Anonymous Widower 