To address the general knowledge deficit at all levels today, I am offering yet again the answer to the question of what the handicap system is. The handicap system is a method of rating to classify a racing thoroughbred population of a jurisdiction into the eight classes of ability the breed delivers genetically worldwide. It is designed to equalise the form/chances of all horses in most races by assigning mathematically appropriate weights based on past performances.

Thoroughbreds are athletes, and the outcome of races is not exactly a 100 per cent game of chance akin to a lottery. The goal of handicapping is to create and drive profitable competitive wagering by enhancing the unpredictability of the outcome of a race through a perception that any horse has a realistic chance of winning. Importantly, as well, is to ensure that it meets the main criterion for a successful gaming product, which is its simplicity to facilitate growth in the market.

What is a claiming system? It is based on an artificial or non-genuine classification that divides a horse population into over 20 categories. Trainers have the option to enter horses with mandatory price tags or otherwise in certain races. Entry conditions for claiming and non-claiming events are determined by races won, age, sex, and earnings, as opposed to classified ability, therefore rendering the product difficult to comprehend.

Plagued by predetermined weight allotments before nominations, the system cannot equalise form/chances by ability. Therefore, a claiming system is not effective in producing competitive wagering consistently, as superior horses with weight advantages and ability are able to compete with inferior ones in upwards of 80 per cent of all races projected, resulting in nearly 50 per cent odds-on favourites on each programme. The importance of handicapping is ignored.

The US Jockey Club, effective October 24, 2025, now operates with a classification/handicap rating system designed to equalise form in an effort to rescue its shrinking racing industry, with the breeding industry in a four-decade pattern delivering fewer foals again in 2025, and the racetrack operations struggling for economic viability with the promotion of live horse racing.

To demonstrate the bizarre and evidently overcomplicated conditions used to determine nominations for Caymanas horse racing entries a few months ago, I published an example to demonstrate the absurdity of it all. To accommodate the US claiming system, there was the division of the horse population into 25 categories in 1992, which had a 100 per cent certainty of being counterproductive, and remains the primary source of perennial unprofitability for promoters.

There have been two occasions this season already when the Racing Office has had to extend nomination deadlines due to insufficient original entries. By the way, for obvious reasons, the promoter has a responsibility to inform the customers of the additional entries in each of the affected races for which trainers make these late declarations at the request of the Racing Office.

As things stand, the horse population division is now at 20 categories, and this is what is offered. Graded Stakes, Open Allowance, Overnight Allowance, Three-Year-Old Graded, Restricted Stakes, Three-Year-Old/NW2, and Maidens, Four-Year-Olds&Up/NW4, NW3, and NW2, Five-Year-Olds & Up/NW2, NW3, NW4 and Maidens. The claiming tags are as follows:- 200K, 350-250K, 500-400K, 700-600K, $1.0 million-800K, and $1.5-1.2 million.

Against the background of 856 races in 2022 and 754 last year, this will not be sustainable indefinitely with a breeding industry of uncertain guaranteed minimum adequate foal crop and profitability. There are no investors to fund the importation of horses, which will become more unaffordable anyway, with no end in sight to the annual decline of the US foal crop.

As I have been advising for the 33-year life of the local claiming/condition system, it is not necessarily the tags that produce huge numbers of odds-on favourites and reduced field sizes, but rather the non-genuine splintering classification of the horse population. As a career marketer of over four decades, this is the only failing product with a captive monopolistic market that I have ever seen.

For a decade and a half, the obvious solution, including the training of handicappers, has been available to both promoting companies at no charge. In fact, it has been published in this medium for 13 years, but it has been resisted by the mathematically challenged operatives of these promoters. After 96 years, the US Jockey Club has seen the light, so what about here?

The managing executive stakeholders group’s affinity to the profit-immune claiming system has now, in my opinion, assumed a selfish cult-like status in support of this failed racing product. Although fond of expressing concern for the loss of the benefits of the racing industry to the economy, they continue to ignore the verifiable data-based analyses and solutions provided in this column. Good luck with that.