strange programming for 2yos

last year the 2yo feature program in natal had the group 3 godolphin barb and strelitzia over 1100m at the beginning of april then at the end of april the debutante and umkhomazi over 1200m at Scottsville then 1 month later the group 1 tsogo sun and the alan Robertson over 1200m at scotsville then the 1400 group 1 races for 2yos on july day then the 1600m group 1 races on gold cup day...I cannot understand why this has been changed this year and you have debutante and umkhomazi this Saturday at greyville a week before the 1600m on gold cup day.....makes no sense at last years program was well spaced and it went up in distance and gave feature runners in the 2 group 1 sprints at the end of may a chance to get used to pmb at the end of april ....this year you bring in the draw bias at greyville into play and the quality of the 2 races is not group 2 material ..mindboggling why its been changed as it made perfect sense the way it was done last year

Pirates I totally agree with you,it makes absoloutly no sense, the only thing I see is that gold circle don't have enough feature races to fill up grade1 mercury sprint day..its a shambles

mvp1 wrote: Pirates I totally agree with you,it makes absoloutly no sense, the only thing I see is that gold circle don't have enough feature races to fill up grade1 mercury sprint day..its a shambles

the mercury sprint in the past was always a stand alone feature race so don't see the need to change...would like the thoughts of racegoers and this goes for all 3 major racing centres in that is it necessary to have feast or famine racing during your racing season?the cape summer season and the natal winter season is 3 months long and surely it isn't necessary to pack in 5 or 6 feature races into one meeting then have 4 or 5 meetings without a topliner feature race ?a lot of feature races pale into insignificance whenthey have 5 other features on the day and also you could give fillies a chance to compete against the colts like in years gone by sunera and splendid anne would run in the sa fillies sprint then the gilbeys a few weeks later..from a racegoers point of view there are to many boring meetings in the height of the season whereby they could be spiced up by a feature race

In Gauteng, payday weekends are feasted with features but famine is the order on the weekend before payday. Dreadful.

I'm not saying it is right, but I think the programming of including as many features on one bumper card per month is financially driven; you'd probably find that (for instance) the P6 Pool would increase by R1 million from the norm on the 'bumper' meeting, but only increase by R100K if the weekly meetings include 1 or 2 feature races per week.

So probably not ideal from a racegoer / punter point of view - but maybe understandable from the operators side?

For me personally it does not make much of a difference - as I probably would 'invest' the same amount whether it is a 'bumper' or 'normal' meeting - where I definitely lose interest, is on the workrider meetings and when the top-liner is a MR62 or something

The 2yr old program this year is a JOKE.

If you want to create hype & interest then run a 2yr log with the races building up from 1000m to 1600m and a points system where the top 5 earn a cheque at the end of the season......... Already there is a stuff up with the Grade 1 1400m races on July day and then the KZN 1million rand race where owners go for the cash instead of the Grade 1 prestige but how can you blame them???