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Good Bye HWOE, Hello NR.
Harness & Greyhounds
After 6 years, the HWOE handicapping ceases from Friday Night. As an exercise in Change Management, it's introduction was botched from day one. Tin ears abounded in RWWA, anyone who made suggestions or minor alterations was ridiculed, ignored, on occasions lied to and on others, subjected to misogynistic disrespect. People traveled for hours and hours for numerous consultation meetings having done hours and hours of background preparation to be not even afforded a car parking space or a jug of water on the table for 3 hour meetings. Officials played with their pens "doodling' on pad paper, periodically rolling their eyes, stating "I take your point" when that was the furthest thing from their mind or, in some cases, were outright hostile towards industry representatives.
When the leader of the organisation stated unequivocally that "Barrier draws are not a handicapping tool", what hope did it have. Initial suggestions that the the HWOE bands were too broad (remember the $40k-$70k band) were ridiculed, only to be later changed to $40k -$55k, getting PBD introduced to at least some of the programming was like drawing teeth from Cujo, actually bringing junior drivers to some of these consultative meetings to explain in person how their opportunities were vastly diminished under the existing claims rules to see them basically ignored, the paucity of Westbred races, multiple promises of 'trial periods" with release of turnover figures, incidences of short priced favourites and associated data that were never kept....you could go on forever.
Whilst the initial HWOE concept definitely had some merit, it morphed and morphed further and further towards the Conditioned Racing Handicapping system that it ended up being. Levels appeared, band racing all but disappeared, the dollars last 5 drop backs evolved into drop back on steroids with all manner of conditions It had more patches and band aids applied to it in the form of eligible/not eligible clauses than an Egyptian mummie. Data on horses leaving the WA system were denied only for there to be sanctions invoked to keep them here Regular punters simply gave up on it, it was way to confusing for them to even contemplate betting on a product that was already falling out of favour with them.
So, as an educational exercise, I printed off multiple copies of Friday Night's fields off HRA and organised a "coffee" meeting this afternoon with the regular crusted on PubTAB punters and without saying anything, handed them out, complete with NR along side each horse. Unfortunately Race 1 was a PBD $L5 which had NR"s drawing all over the place. After that, it was plain sailing. PBD based on NR unless RBD as stated. Query on High Price starting out its class in the NR 85 races in order to get a good barrier draw against perhaps beter opposition, queries on concession NR claims. Pretty simple. Don't know whether it will work but the straw poll suggests the much simpler system has almost immediate acceptance amongst those with an open mind to accepting a model which can at least be quickly explained and understood. I think the basic concept of Dollars Last % is relatively straightforward provide it does have all the "Eligible/Not Eligible" excesses attached to it. Dollars last 5, RBD, pretty straight forward. PBD based on NR, pretty straight forward. Even down at Busso, the discretionary handicapping based on life time wins is producing winners from 40m and 30m regularly over the first two night and some very exciting and unpredictable racing. Perhaps the "type" of life time wins based on stakes may need consideration but so far, a 9 race and an 8 race programme with full fields spread across multiple handicaps seems to be working.
One disappointment...only 8 races first up but not uncommon over New Year when there are races everywhere compressed into a very short time frame. But we will see what rolls out over time. Under HWOE's 318 Friday Night Metro meetings, not once did it ever result in a fully subscribed 10 race programme, not once.
There will be critics, of course there will be critics, some will already be lining up chipping away with their personal digs but it is a democracy and people have opinions, and there will probably be some tweaks moving forward. Time will tell, but to my eye, this has a far greater resemblance to a proper handicapping system and is a much simpler piece of kit for the average punter to understand. Some horses will advantaged by the change, some will cop it between the eyes a bit but the new programming model seems to be trying to cater for as many as possible with some non NR races as well.
A second disappointment is that as yet, it seems to be a secret with no publicity or education of the public by RWWA having been undertaken in any publications, either hard copy or electronic, that I have read. Surely it is worthy of a major press release if they are serious about reviving our industry.
+1 -1
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Comments
JimmyPop likes this post.
"Eligible/Not Eligible" excesses attached to it."
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JimmyPop likes this post.
I think 3 year old races across the entirety of the year are neglected , some of the old programming was head scratching , I was struggling to find a suitable 3 year old race at the back end of last year for my bloke too the point I had to bite the bullet and just race against the older horses to earn a quid , rwwa couldn't of cared less it almost feels as if they are trying to cut costs by dealing out less bonus money to owners, which seems stupid as it's one of the biggest lures for new and old owners looking at the yearling sales, there's a discussion on Facebook eluding to the fact the programming for this new system is neglecting certain classes of horses, ive said it all along both handicapping systems are garbage in reality what we are getting with the NR system is nationally hated, but for what ever system you end up using, program accordingly and fairly to every class of horse
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JimmyPop likes this post.
also when your talking full fields using tracks that cater to Max field sizes of like 8 at busso and 10 at Albany is slightly deceiving, pinjarra on Monday doesn't really back up the argument of full field sizes , but concerning as it's probably the fairest and all round best track we have in the state
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