‘Racing Australia must have a properly functioning black type committee’
Prominent breeding industry figures have reacted warily to reports Australia will soon have up to four more Group 1s, three of them in Sydney, using the news to call for the urgent reestablishment of Australia’s dormant pattern committee.
Reports on Friday said Group 1 status would come “soon” for the Golden Eagle (1500m), Rosehill’s $10 million non-black type set-weights event for four-year-olds, and The Shorts (Gr 2, 1100m), the $1 million set weights sprint which has its latest edition on Saturday, which was run as a Group 3 as recently as 2006.
Citing “high-placed sources”, the News Corporation reports also forecast other Sydney races could be elevated to top-tier status “as part of sweeping announcements which will also see The Everest (1200m) and Victoria’s All-Star Mile (1600m) become Group 1s”.
Four such upgrades would give Australia 78 top tier races – up from 64 in 2000.
The prospect has alarmed many in the breeding industry that the country’s black-type “pyramid” – running from Listed races up to Group 1s – would be far too top-heavy, thus distorting the strength of racing here in the eyes of the world, including international buyers.
This is especially so given Australia’s Pattern and Development Committee has ostensibly not met for some five years or more, after the modern shattering of relations between the states. While black type races have been added or upgraded, none have been downgraded in that time.
If Racing Australia’s (RA) Pattern and Development Committee still meaningfully exists at all, its membership is not publicly known and is not detailed on RA’s website.
However, ANZ Bloodstock News understands Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’Landys – also an RA director – told a Racing Industry Consultative Group (RICG) meeting earlier this month that he was in charge of the pattern committee, particularly as it pertained to decisions over Group 1s.
Australia now has 605 black type races, up from 549 in 2000.
In more recent years, its ratio of Group races amongst all stakes races has also increased. In 2014 it stood at 54 per cent, compared with just 27 per cent in North America, 48 per cent in Europe, and a global mark of 41 per cent, according to The Jockey Club Information Systems. In 2023-24, Australia’s ratio had risen to 55.23 percent, against a world mark of 36.8 percent.
Thoroughbred Breeders NSW (TBNSW) president Hamish Esplin, former long-serving pattern committee member Glenn Burrows, and Aushorse chairman and Widden Stud owner Antony Thompson concurred that news of the latest Group 1 upgrades highlighted Australia’s increasing isolation as a racing nation with a broken black type system.
“TBNSW has pushed for many years for a resolution of the impasse between the Principal Racing Authorities (PRA), which has meant that the pattern of black type racing in this country has remained stagnant for too long,” Esplin told ANZ Bloodstock News on Friday.
“Just as important as the elevation of races which deservedly should be given Group 1 status, like The Everest, is that races must also be able to be downgraded if their ratings do not support their black type status.
“What breeders really want is a wholesale reintroduction of the system that worked for almost 50 years, whereby all black type races are rated each year on their previous three runnings to determine whether they should be elevated, remain the same or demoted, with some discretion involved.
“In order to achieve that, Racing Australia must, in our view, have a properly functioning black type committee, which openly assesses the stakes calendar, so that everyone can see how the best races in this country are assessed. I don’t know when such a committee last met.”
Noting New Zealand’s Pattern Committee this week downgraded the Levin Classic (Gr 2, 1600m) from top level status to Group 2, with seven more Group 1s “under warning”, Esplin said a realistic number of top-tier races for Australia would be “somewhere in the low 60s”.
“How we’ve got to this point where we don’t have an assessment of these races as to the pyramid, where Group 1 races sit relative to Group 2 races and so on, I don’t understand it at all,” he said.
“Black type is a form of communication. It says a couple of things: this is the quality of the race; Group 1s are better than Group 2s, et cetera. And you can trust the form from them.
“If there were more Group 1s than there should be, it raises the question of purchases of Australian bloodstock – whether or not this is a proper Group 1 horse. That’s not a good consequence in our view.”
Amid signs of a thawing in cross-border relations since Aaron Morrison’s appointment last month as Racing Victoria chief executive, Esplin expressed the hope that interstate politics would not complicate the workings of a pattern committee.
“What we don’t want is a simple tit-for-tat trade-off of races to be made Group 1s without a full and proper assessment of all stakes racing,” he said, calling for greater transparency to the process than that which has reportedly led to the latest four imminent Group 1 upgrades.
“What is achieved best by closed room decisions rather than open room decisions, when it comes to topics like this? I can’t see a benefit to it.
“If it’s about the politics, that’s to the detriment of the sport. That’s what’s happened for the past five years – politics has overridden everything.”
Burrows served on the pattern committee for 20 years – 12 of them as the auction house representative during his time with Inglis, before he represented breeders after his purchase of Willow Park Stud. He said the addition of more top-tier races should not continue whilst others were not downgraded.
“You might find a race that’s worthy of going to Group 1. OK, but which race drops off?” he said. “You can’t just keep adding and adding them.
“The pyramid idea was brought in years ago. Roughly, you should have X amount of Group 1s, 50 per cent more as Group 2s, double that again as Group 3s, and then your Listed races form the base, with a lot more of those. The pyramid now is already awfully out of kilter, and if you add in The Everest, Golden Eagle, All Star Mile and The Shorts – holy hell, that’s absurd.”
Last season, Australia’s 74 Group 1s was 80 per cent the number of G2s (94). In 2000, the ratio was 75 per cent (64/85). Since 2000, the number of Group 1s has grown by 18.75 per cent, while Group 2s have increased 10.58 per cent.
Burrows voiced concern that if Australia’s systems weren’t corrected, it could impact on how the country’s racing was recognised globally.
“If you add The Everest, All-Star Mile, Golden Eagle and The Shorts, the pyramid gets more out of shape,” he said. “I would query what the Asian Pattern Committee (APC) would think of that. I’m sure they would have to think something drastic has to be done, with a complete overhaul.
“And I wonder if it gets to a point where the APC says that until Australia gets its act together, there is no Group status and they will be demoted to part two of black type, like Singapore.”
Thompson stressed the need for Australia’s pattern committee to be fully independent, as in past years when it comprised breeders, auction houses, and a handicapper – rather than a CEO – from each state.
“Certainly, the pattern committee hasn’t been doing its job,” Thompson said. “It’s nice to see something happening, and obviously The Everest and these types of races need to be Group 1s and should’ve been for a while.
“That is encouraging. But the pattern is not a vehicle for the PRAs, for their commercial gain, to be traded or messed with. The pattern committee needs to be independent and needs to fit well within the guidelines of the international pattern, and not only upgrade races but downgrade races, and perform its function.
“We need a committee with handicappers from each PRA, and bloodstock people who are passionate about pedigrees, the pattern and ratings.”
Esplin said while assessments should be based on ratings, discretion should also be used in gradings, adding an emphasis should be placed on “grand final” races over lead-ups when awarding Group 1 status.
While early season Group 1s such as Randwick’s Winx Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) and Caulfield’s Memsie Stakes (Gr 1, 1400m) would rate highly, Esplin said it should also be acknowledged they were usually heavily populated by top-class horses resuming, and nowhere near their peaks.
“I can’t see why the system shouldn’t allow some discretion to ensure that it is only really the grand finals that are given Group 1 status,” Esplin said. “Lead-up races should not be Group 1s, notwithstanding that their ratings might indicate that. The Winx Stakes, for example, is really a preliminary lead-up to bigger races.
“Another idea floated is that some of the smaller states would get a ratings boost for their big races, artificially giving them points so they rate higher, or are not downgraded from Group 1. That would ensure the smaller states get enough Group 1s, which is a sensible idea in my view.”
Thompson said the committee should “review races like they used to do, and put them on notice like they used to do”, also espousing an emphasis on so-called grand finals.
“There needs to be discretion involved. We need to make allowances for the Classic races, and for the smaller states. It has to be very measured, and it needs to be accented on grand final races,” he said.
“The natural progression through the pattern is you progress through the Listed into the Groups and you end up in the Group 1s.
“And assessment of a race needs to be ratings-based on the day, not on the peak performance of horses for these season, which obviously skews races a lot and lifts the kick-off races in status.”
Australia’s pattern had been distorted, Burrows said, due to an overhaul almost 15 years ago when benchmark ratings were made the sole criteria of assessment, without committee discretion.
“All of a sudden there were about 30 races upgraded in Australia,” he said. “Eventually it was agreed going solely on benchmark ratings was not the way to go, but there’s been no adjustment back from that.”
Racing NSW did not respond to a request from ANZ for a comment from V’Landys.