Public Workouts Should Not Leave Punters Puzzled

One hundred and fifty-seven days is a long time in horse racing yet, between them, that is how long Kauto Star and Binocular will have been absent from the track when they line up as favorites for the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle respectively at Cheltenham next week.

Binocular has not had a race since the rearranged International Hurdle at Ascot on 20 December, while Kauto Star's last outing was the King George VI Chase at Kempton six days later. What with Master Minded having had just two races since the summer, the most recent of which was in mid-January, and Kasbah Bliss just a single outing over hurdles since last year's Festival, the favorites for next week's feature races boast a combined total of just seven starts this season.

This is not to imply that they do not deserve to head the market, just that the punters who will stake millions on their chances next week must have decent memories, not to mention a fair degree of faith. Form is the oxygen of betting, but this year, in the main events at least, it is not that easy to catch your breath.

The winter weather, of course, has played its part, as trainers have struggled to find races for their major contenders. At the same time, though, it has been clear for at least a decade that the Cheltenham Festival is now the only thing that matters for many owners and trainers, and that horses' seasonal programs are being planned, and often curtailed, on that basis.

That, of course, is an owner's prerogative, and suggests other tracks need to try harder to stop their own feature races declining any further. But the all-consuming focus on mid-March does have other consequences too, and one of these appears to be the relentless rise of the racecourse gallop.

It is now one of the "go-to" responses for some top trainers, when asked whether their horse will need a Festival prep race. "Ideally, yes," they say, "but it doesn't really matter if not. We can always give him a racecourse gallop."

The problem with racecourse gallops is that they serve a useful purpose for trainers, but are precious little use for rest of us. Punters, in particular, are left with guesswork and anodyne quotes to work with, rather than the evidence of an actual race that can be watched and evaluated time and again.

Only this week, Sicilian Secret advanced to the top of the market for the Festival Bumper on the basis of a workout after racing at Leopardstown on Sunday, though to be fair, it is a long-established tradition that Ireland's Festival contenders breeze on the track after this meeting. It is, in fact, an event in itself, particularly for racegoers who can't make it to Cheltenham but want to soak up some of the buzz. The racecourse, meanwhile, can bank on some extra ticket sales.

Racecourse gallops like the one involving Binocular last week are a different matter (and, more to the point, within the writ of the British Horseracing Authority and the Racecourse Association). A ban would be counter-productive, since trainers clearly think they make a difference, but as the practice seems to be shifting from trend to habit, it might be worth laying down some ground rules sooner rather than later.

We can never expect an American-style system, where pretty much everything happens in public and is duly recorded for the punters' inspection. But it would surely be possible to record at least such basic information as how much weight the horses involved in the gallop are carrying, exactly how far they traveled, and how quickly.

It is punters' money, after all, that helps to fund racecourses in the first place. If trainers are going to use those facilities to get their horses ready for major events, they should at least be prepared to go beyond the usual bland quotes and give us some feedback that might be of some use.