The silence grows even louder with the stakeholders’ failure to respond to the December 31, 2024, Financial Report of Overall Loss of promoting company Supreme Ventures Racing & Entertainment (SVREL), accumulating to in excess of $385 million. By the way, in June of this year, the amount was rounded up to $400 million by Gary Peart, the executive chairman of parent company Supreme Ventures Limited.

The questions listed here are an exercise to determine the level of understanding the stakeholders have as it relates to the important data points of the horse racing industry in terms of its regulation and promotion.

(1) What is the most important aspect of the racing industry?

(2) Is the owning of racehorses a business or a sport/hobby?

(3) Who owns the local racing product, and who owns simulcast?

(4) What is the size of the existing horse population for racing?

(5) How many types of wagers does the promoting company offer?

(6) Is handicapping of races a Jamaica Racing Commission regulatory function?

(7) What was the 1992 premise of changing from a handicap to a claiming system?

(8) What has resulted in smaller field sizes since 1993 under the claiming system?

(9) What was the annual growth rate of the number of races before the claiming system?

(10) When and why did the promotion of local horse racing become profitable?

Ten points will be awarded for each correct response. To support your position or otherwise, note that there is statistical data from the Jamaica Racing Commission and the Betting Gaming & Lotteries Commission reports, as well as financial reports from the previous promoting company, CaymanasTrack Limited, and now SVREL. Please submit your answers to wesmartinhorseracing@gmail.com. Informed by data-based analysis, the answers to the questions will be published in this column on November 28, 2025.

I had conversations with two trainers over the weekend, and one, in particular, who has already made plans to practice his craft elsewhere. The problem for him is that unless it includes moving to one of the countries operating a handicap system, delivering a viable racing product, likely success is therefore questionable. Whilst the other was upbeat, misguidedly, I may add, without reference to the breeding industry in his optimism about the future.

The stakeholders of the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association (TOBA) and the United Racehorse Trainers Association of Jamaica (URTAJ) both have an affinity to the counterproductive claiming system with cultlike tenacity. This, despite the irrefutable data assessing the failed past, present, and uncertain future of this racing product and consequently the industry.

With available statistics outlining the nearly 33-year underperformance of the local racing product and the United States Jockey Club undertaking the classification of the horse population to move to handicapping, it defies understanding that the TOBA and URTAJ are focused on the simulcast revenue stream of SVREL when the local product will be viable, if delivered in theeasily understood handicap system, even after its three-year banishment.

Actually, the real purpose of this exercise is to provoke serious fact-based thinking and productive discussion on the future of the industry.I would expect the surviving supporters of the 1993 claiming system, being much older and hopefully wiser, to have an informed perspective as to why the racing industry has reached this level of deterioration. However, with the classification of the horse population, available since 2012 and published here since 2015, there is some hope that a plan for the revival of the industry could emerge.