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The Sunday Syndicates Post – Vol. 3, Issue 7

This weeks Issue features an opinion editorial from Syndicates.Racing founder Jack Cantillon on how we can reduce the negativity around the sport of horse racing, increase participation and improve perception to propel our great sport back to the top pedestal.

There’s been a lot of debate on here on the whip, welfare and prize money woes. So thought I’d jot down a series of positive ideas racing can use to get better in small ways. We should always be proud of our sport, pushing forward.

Universal rules Sports like football and rugby are easily accessible for any fan to pick up and watch a game globally as the rules are universal. It’s long overdue racing jurisdictions unite for a standardised rules.

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Blacktype should be allocated on the basis of ratings achieved, not positions achieved in what can be incredibly weak races.
— Jack Cantillon

Bin the existing pattern system and start again. Blacktype should be allocated on the basis of ratings achieved, not positions achieved in what can be incredibly weak races. (Don’t get me started on black type in National Hunt handicaps…)

Get out in front of media. If people are speaking negatively about racing, why are we not fighting back with facts? We should be replying proudly, unapologetically about what makes our sport great. Vicky Leonard gets it in Australia. Check out her Op-ed in the TDN here.

A young Syndicates.Racing member shares a moment with a member of the squad at Breakfast With The Stars

More drone footage. This isn’t rocket science. More camera angles, makes better footage, which makes better content, which grows our sport. We’re a high octane, extreme sport – let’s embrace it.

Introduce digital trading card game. It’s interesting to see Tote Fantasy have some nice early success. If I was them, I would look to do a digital trading card game like Sorare. Think buying a Galileo card as a two year old and watch it blossom for years to come.

Bring relatable stories to life When people talk about sport, they do so through stories – think Tiger Woods comeback. We need to create and document narratives for wider people to grasp what’s magic about our sport. Rachael Blackmore is a story of the decade, celebrate.

Global greening. I’ve seen in Oz but we need to integrate our cities better into our events. Make people ask themselves, what is this I’m missing? Partner with West End theatres during Ascot. Partner with Dublin pubs during DRF. Partner with the Louvre during the Arc.

Reward the evangelist. The most neglected member of racing is the regular racegoer. In Ireland, if you attend a meeting 20 times or more, you should get the Freedom of Irish Racing. Attend every meeting in country for an affordable amount and we celebrate them.

Link TV right allocations to customer satisfaction. If racecourses deliver great value money for customers and attract the best horses they should be rewarded with better races and more TV right income. Historical positions should be ignored, innovation celebrated.

Claiming races. I know a lot of jurisdictions know this but claiming races are great. You can watch a race and buy the winner (or any other horse for that matter) – there’s magic to that. Run them every week – increase trade, give owners immediate action and embrace the fun.

Tonkinese en route to victory before breaking the Irish claiming system.

Bookmakers are not the boogie man. There’s a simple reality – betting funds our sport. Without it, we would be back to royalty racing in match races. It’s imperative we work together to grow the pie, not fight over a sliming slice – it’s okay to like a bet.

Investment in independent content creators. A really simple investment is have a bursary for 25 – 50 horse racing content creators every year. We should pay for new cameras, microphones or travel. It’s the least we should do for people promulgating their love of the sport.

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Give more data. Data creates debate. Debate creates betting turnover, conversation and engagement.

Give more data. Data creates debate. Debate creates betting turnover, conversation and engagement. Weights should be published, sectionals should be universal, stride lengths should be published – it’s simple.

Partner with Zed Run. If you search “horse trainer” or “stable” you’re now as likely to see a Zed Run stable as a real stable. The online game is surprisingly authentic – I own a few horses – we should try convert more of the players to IRL version.

I’m going to be exploring these ideas on #ArtoftheMating on YouTube. If you want to speak ideas drop me an email jack@syndicates.racing or sign up to our mailing list here to follow along. Let’s grow game together.

The Meta Files

Is there a relationship between heart size and athletic performance in horses?

“Eclipse first, the rest nowhere”

95% of all living Thoroughbreds can trace their pedigree back to a horse called Eclipse, the most famous racehorse of his generation, who was unbeaten in 18 starts. It is said that he was retired to stud because there was no opposition capable of beating him! When he died in 1789, a necropsy showed that his heart weighed 6.4kg, almost twice the average Thoroughbred heart. Was this the reason for his dominance? Two of his most famous descendants were Phar Lap and Secretariat. Phar Lap, who won the 1930 Mebourne Cup is a national icon in both Australia and New Zealand. After his death in controversial circumstances, his heart was found to weigh 6.2kg. And the pathologist who performed the necropsy on Secretariat estimated that his heart weighed 10kg. Contrast these weights with that of the average human heart (300g)!

It seems reasonable that a big heart would allow more blood to be pumped around the body. Nowadays we don’t have to wait for the results of a necropsy to measure a heart –cardiac ultrasound is an easy, non-invasive way to do this. Some yearling buyers like to have a cardiac ultrasound (heart scan) performed on the horses that they are interested in. But does measuring heart size tell you about a horse’s athletic potential? A study from Newmarket in 2003 showed that heart size is linked to performance, and also showed that training increases heart size, similar to what happens in human athletes. However, they cautioned that ultrasound scans of the heart in untrained horses do not predict how well they will perform.

A study in Arabian endurance horses from 2014 showed that the horses that performed better also had larger hearts. But the researchers didn’t directly link the two and say ‘an enlarged heart will mean a horse performs better’ – this is because it is possible that the elite athletic horses were born with hearts that were already larger than normal, allowing them to perform better. The only way to prove a causal link would be to take a group of foals, scan their hearts at birth and record heart size, then follow them through a standardised training regime so that the only variable was heart size. But difficult as this study would be to set up, it would still not account for an individual’s genetic make-up, rider skill and the horse’s temperament (the ‘will to win’).

Back to that yearling at the sales – he may have a big heart, but how well does it function? What about the muscles, the lungs, the limbs, the bones, ligaments and tendons? And how will he cope with raceday pressure? So the answer is, heart size is important but it is only one factor. If it was that simple, we’d all be doing it!

Foal Watch

The stars really seem to be aligning for Fifty Stars with his first foals taking breeders by storm. After our breeding syndicate welcomed their first foal out of Lady Breffni into the World last week Tinnakill welcomed another belter by the Group 1 winning son of Sea The Stars. Stops a Nation foaled a good colt foal that weighed in at a a whopping 57kg. Stops A Nation was a bumper winner for Willie Mullins and was named after the Melbourne Cup held at the track where Fifty Stars was so effective, Flemington Racecourse.

Ian Thompson and his wife Nicoal welcomed an absolute belting colt by Dandy Man out of Top Class Angel on Saturday night. He looks a foal full of quality.

Next Gen

Freedom Falls is gearing up for a big 2023 season after having such an exciting freshamn season last year. With her maiden tag still intact we’ll aim to loose that early in the season before taking aim at bigger and better things. Here she is having her first away day of the year.

Our New Bay filly ramped things up during the week with Kevin Phillipart de Foy on Cambridge Road. She’s a straightforward filly who looks like she could be precocious.

Team Mullins decided not to declare West End Victory for Gowran on Saturday which looks smart now as that race looks like it was won by a potential superstar in the shape of €310,000 store purchase Brighterdaysahead. WEV has been given an entry in Thurles on Thursday.

Thank you.

Thanks for reading. We hope you enjoyed this bumper Issue. Get in touch john@syndicates.racing.

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