New season of “Jockeys” has started on Animal Planet- as a former horsey kid, I’m a fan. The season opener had a bit with the main female jockey, who has been working alongside another female trainer with a talented horse. They made a big deal about this horse being their potential “big break” and he was entered in a claiming race. They were trying to hide his workouts so the other trainers wouldn’t know anything about him and no one would be interested in buying him. There was a lot of drama revolving around hiding the horse’s talent, suggesting he might have leg problems (by leaving wraps on him in the paddock), etc.
So my question for any horse race buffs out there- why enter a horse you don’t want sold in a claiming race? They kept talking about it being a gamble- but for what? Aren’t there other races with similar purses that don’t risk losing the horse? The show just never explained what advantage they had in entering a horse they want to keep into a claiming race.
Even though your starting point is a TV show, the question is actually about the sport of horse racing, so I’m going to move the thread to the Game Room, our sports forum.
Without knowing the answer, it has to be that the purse in a claiming race is really good contrasted with other races at similar levels of competition. Because why else would anybody risk getting a horse sold out from under them?
I understand that US tracks regularly card an optional claimer. The race conditions are briefly described in here.
So, connections can run a horse in a claiming race without the risk of losing it. On the other hand, the OP’s comments would seem to exclude this possibility, firstly because there would be no need to camouflage either the horse or its form, and secondly it wouldn’t be a gamble (unless the gamble refers to a sizeable bet being placed on the animal).
Maybe the horse in question isn’t qualified to run in any other type of race. It would require good public form to run in a stakes race and it probably doesn’t have a mark qualifying it to run in a handicap. Perhaps a claiming race is the only option open to connections.
A question for Smokinjbc. Does this horse have any track form at all i.e. has it ever raced in public?
Thanks for your answer. They did not make it clear whether the horse had any track record. I am probably not getting how horses enter in races- I guess I assumed that if the trainer/owner had the credentials and the horse was the appropriate age/sex for the race, they simply had to pay an entry fee for most races (I come from a horse show/dog trialing background where that is true).
I don’t know what the conditions of entry are for handicaps in the US, but here in the UK a horse must run three times, or win at least one race, before it can be given a handicap mark. What normally happens is that the trainer will run the animal in maiden races (events for horses that have never won a race) until it either wins or has run three times, whichever occurs first.
At that stage the official handicapper will give it a mark that will determine the weight to be carried in future handicaps for which the horse is entered.
If Jockeys gives out any other relevant details about this horse and its designated claimer then it might be useful to post them.
The horse was BullyBullyBully. I didn’t catch anyone else but the jockey’s name is Chantal Richardson (I think). That makes more sense, to get the horse “gradable” , in a sense
I might have to pass on this now, because the show preview stated that a claiming race ‘increases a horse’s chance to advance its racing career’. I don’t know why that should be so, and it’s certainly not the case over here.
None of the above answers are quite correct. The reason they wanted to run him in a claiming race is to make him eligible for a different kind of race, called a “starter allowance” (sometimes called a “starter handicap”). These races are restricted to horses who have run in a claiming race at a certain level or lower, without risking further chances at having the horse claimed.
A typical starter allowance condition would be “Horses who have started for a claiming price of $25,000 or less since January 1, 2009”. So if you can manage to sneak your horse worth $75,000 past the other owners and trainers once in a $25,000 claiming race, you can run your horse in starter allowances for close to 2 years (typically they would write races with the above conditions through 2010) and win a lot of races at no risk of losing the horse.
In my experience, the vast majority of races run in North America are claiming races, so the first answer would be: there are more claiming races than any others, at all conditions and for all purses. There is a better chance that the right claiming race in terms of conditions is available for this horse to run in, rather than waiting for a non-claimer with similar conditions that may or may not happen any time soon.
It is important to remember that one of the reasons claiming races exist is to keep the field level. If the conditions were written for less-capable horses (and such conditions are not unusual, for example, “non-winners of $20,000 or more lifetime”) and the race was not a claiming race, there would be nothing stopping a Secretariat from entering and cleaning up. This would be bad for the good horse, since his owners may make him run more often than he should be; and also for the competition–why bother racing at all if they have no chance at the purse? By creating a claiming race, tracks let owners and trainers know that they run the risk of losing a super-horse to a buyer if they enter their horse in a field he perhaps ought not to be in.
The other reason they exist is, as Chez Guevara alluded to, “to advance its racing career.” Suppose a horse that people know little about does very well in a given claiming race. Running it in a similar race later might result in it being claimed. So it “moves up in class”–that is, to a race where the competition will be similar, and it is “just another horse.” If it does well there, it moves up again; and so on until it either plateaus at a certain class or goes on to become an allowance or stakes runner. Of course, the opposite can happen, and horses can move down in class too. If you’ve ever heard of the horseplayer who does “class handicapping,” this is what they’re doing–placing bets based on who is moving up and down in class. Owners will watch for this too, and make claiming decisions based on which horse is entered in a given claiming race: Here’s a super-horse dropping in class–should we buy him; what (if anything) is wrong with him? Here’s an average horse moving up in class–should we buy him, has he developed into a runner that might be a good investment?
It is also important to remember that claims do not happen frequently. Because the conditions work to keep the field level, it is not unusual, for example, for a claiming race to be run without any horses in it being claimed. Claims can and do occur though, and they are reported to the track attendees after the race and published later in the Daily Racing Form. But they’re not as frequent as they may seem. Still, entering a horse in a claiming race is always a gamble; and if the jockey and trainer on the TV show are trying to keep their horse’s workouts etc., quiet; then they’re just taking reasonable precautions against losing their horse. Although it should also be said that they cannot keep the workouts secret forever–the horse’s workouts will be published in the track program and in the Daily Racing Form eventually.
It depends on where you are. At Churchill Downs from June through the end of the meet July 4th weekend, the number of horses claimed is breathtaking. There have been a couple of races where the ENTIRE FIELD wound up being claimed.
That is the exception, not the rule. My nearest track right now, River Downs, probably sees fewer than 5 claims per month, even though the vast majority of the horses running can be claimed for just $4000-$5000.