Here is what I did


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This is why we should not be in a rush. I dont have the time at the moment. But if we add a load of 1m races and are light on the others then the schedule will be unbalanced. We also need to avoid clashes, no point having 2x 6f 0-90 handicaps in the same week. Or a load of 1m races in the same week, you wont get any entries in some races.

To edit or rebuild the schedule you first need to add up all the races for every category and then add races where needed. This needs to be checked back for clashes. Im not trying to be awkward, I have pointed all of this out before. Otherwise the schedule will be biased towards one or two distances or age groups.

Its an impossible job Gray but it needs to be done properly. Im not sure you are working off the last schedule either

There are five 10f races in week 13? How many 1m races?

Can I get a copy of the latest schedule for flat in Excel? I can easily extract the info about the races from there as shown below



It's not too hard to balance if you're able to do tables in excel.

Just having a closer look at last season's schedule and I guess I'm volunteering to do it seeing as I disagree with Matt that we have a lot of time. I think the sooner it's sorted the sooner trainers can plan their stables but also gives Leon time to sort this out for TOM. It's easy to say we have lots of time but then Leon ends up having to work overtime to sort TOM out!

354 races
2 year old only 80 23.6%
3 year old only 53 15.0%
3 year old + 174 49.0%
4 year old + 44 12.4%

I don't have Rich's original schedule but I'd love to hear his thoughts on how he broke it down. I wouldn't be surprised if the figures were something like this and in tweaking they got changed slightly.

2 year old - 25%
3 year old - 12.5%
3 year old + - 50%
4 year old + - 12.5%

I think that's a reasonable breakdown for % of races for the season.

And then in terms of types of races for the last schedule

Maidens 53 15.0%
Handicaps 141 39.8%
Listed 32 9.0%
Group 128 36.2%


And extrapolating from that Rich might have designed something like

Maidens - 15%
Handicaps - 40%
Listed - 10%
Group - 35%

Personally that's pretty good too though I'd tweak it slightly. Working off a 390 races schedule (30*13 weeks)

Maidens 35 races (30 in week 1 and 15 more after uploads)
Grp 1-3 120 races (40 of each)
Listed 40 races
Handicaps 195 races (50% of races)

For the handicaps I'd scrap the 0-75 category. Have 0-80, 0-90, 0-100, 0-110. Of the 195 races 20% each for the 0-80 and 0-110 and 30% each for 0-90 and 0-100.

Here are the distance spreads.



Bit messy but I figure Rich meant it to be something like this

5/6f 25%
7/8f 25%
9-12f 30%
13f+ 20%

I'd agree with these but the question is do we tweak it

So there's the basis for redrawing the schedule.

HERE IS THE MAIN QUESTION FOR TRAINERS

Do you agree with the percentage splits above that I am suggesting (the ones in yellow are the ones I will be using to redraw the schedule.

If not what do you think the changes should be?

I'll leave this up for a week and once folk have debated it I will post the final breakdown for the schedule and then start filling in the nitty gritty and yes that part will be open for debate next but this is the basis for starting things off

Just in case it's not clear. I'll work out an example here.

For 2 year old races there would be 97 races (25% of 390)

Of these 9 would be maidens
There would be 10 listed races 10 group 3s 10 group 2s and 10 group 1s over the season as well as 48 handicaps. Of the 48 handicaps, there would be 10 each for 0-80 and 0-110 races and 14 each for 0-90 and 0-100 races.

As to the actual races distances 2 year olds are slightly different. So there would be 20 each 5/6/7/8f races split up into the categories above and 17 of 8.5/9/10f races.

Sorry andy I cant read that font colour baby poo yellow its hurting my eyes lol

The tables are great Andy. Thats a huge help. I agree with helping Leon but I just dont have the time.

The percentages you've listed above, are they from this seasons final flat schedule? Rich didn't have a final schedule.

its the last scheduled you sent me named march 6th

Wot Paul said .

It's the schedule dated 6th March. I think the changes threw some of the % off a little compared to what Rich had in mind.

Can we have some more listed races, I think they are very important races because the real good horses ( group 1 winners) can't run in them ( to much weight) and it gives the higher rated H.cappers some thing to aim for. I think higher rated h.cappers struggle to give lots of weight to lesser horses plus in real life the better H'capps are limted h'capps where u cant do that in so5.

At present the schedule would have 390 races. Of these 40 each would be G1/2/3 and listed for a total of 120 races and of the remaining 170 there would be 35 maidens and 135 group races of which 10-15 would be G1 handicaps say 120 handicaps if we plan for 15 G1 handicaps.

It could be possible to tweak the handicap races such that 100 (instead of 120) are handicaps and have 60 listed races instead of 40.

What do others think? Personally I think that listed races are probably going to be won by the top 10 trainers. If the top 10 trainers have a full stable of 20 horses each. Then there are potentially 200 horses that are going to be aiming for the Group/Listed races. Not all will win a race and having 200 horses contesting Group/Listed races means that the remaining trainers are really going to be struggling to win one of these IMO.

FWIW I favor 40 listed races.

Myself I think the handicap's are more important than listed races I rather stay with 40 listed races myself.

In fact my numbers are off - sorry can't count

390 races. 40 each G1/2/3/Listed = 160.

Off the remaining races actually 45 would be maidens not 35.

So that would leave 185 handicaps of which 15 say are G1 Handicaps. So 170 handicap races.

If you assume the maidens are actually more like G1s as they are really to get a mark and the top trainers will be contesting these with their best horses then that's 205/390 or more than half which are going to be contested by the top 10 trainers (who will have 200 horses or thereabouts).

That means the remaining trainers 11-30 something would have potentially 400+ horses contesting the handicaps (and the top trainers can contest these if they wish too).

You could argue for a reduction in group/listed races and for increasing the handicaps as the majority of trainers won't have horses capable of contesting these and actually have fewer races to contest than the top trainers will.

Definitely don't think increasing listed races is a good idea.