IT’S tempting to devote this column in its entirety to the issue du jour, the decision of the BHA to make declaration of wind-operations compulsory in racecards from January, and there is plenty to chew over, with the decision welcomed by and large by punters but meeting with a lukewarm response at best by the National Trainers Federation and Racehorse Owners Association.

I’m wary that turning this into a punters v owners issue is misleading, however, and while there are some points to make regarding the various attitudes shown, it makes more sense to view this as an opportunity for education rather than another skirmish in what is a phony war.

Punters are not the natural enemies of racehorse owners despite ongoing arguments about which group the sport needs most and perpetuating that myth does not help the sport. Owners do much to provide the product for punters to bet on, but punters (willingly or otherwise) provide much of the prizes for which owners compete, and while some will always view bettors as parasitic, it is clear that the relationship between the groups is fundamentally symbiotic.

TRANSPARENCY

Currently, the money for which owners compete is pitifully low compared to most racing jurisdictions, but the mechanism for obtaining that money is finally being improved and the key to putting racing on a solid footing for those who compete in it is to ensure that betting turnover is sufficiently robust. In order for that to be the case, punters must have confidence in the product and that means providing transparency in terms of relevant betting information.

The efficacy of various breathing operations has been put forward as a reason why this information will not benefit punters, with many opponents pointing out that there are a range of procedures with differing degrees of success.

I agree that a note that a horse has had surgery since its last run is not as beneficial as knowing what kind of surgery has been performed, but the basic information is a net gain for the savvy punter. The general misapprehension here is that the only reaction a punter can have to the information given is to blindly back such horses, but this just demonstrates how the complexity of betting and the degree with which punters engage in it are underestimated.

The punter is not just an individual, but part of a bigger organic group, and the more factors which are presented in the betting equation, the more knowledge is collected to be filtered down within the betting community. How that knowledge is used is up to the individual and the fact that there can be different interpretations is to the benefit of the market. In a hypothetical universe where we knew exactly what surgery had been performed, and we could predict the benefit accurately in terms of pounds and ounces, there would simply be an immediate shift in the market to account for such information, with no benefit to anyone.

DEBATE

Betting turnover would not be stimulated – indeed the opposite would be the case; any new data must have a degree of subjectivity about it in order for it to drive betting turnover and the appeal of horseracing is that almost all the information is subject to debate. What kills betting on racing is the pervasive belief that some important information is being kept out of the equation, and the move to include more data, subjective though it is, must be welcomed.

Those betting markets which are currently thriving are the ones which are data-driven, with football turnover rising almost exponentially in the past two decades, for example. This doesn’t mean that all football punters are coming to the same conclusions, but that a data-rich environment encourages strong opinion which allows punters to bet with confidence in their own opinions and judge their success or failure based on those assumptions.

PERCEPTION

Too often in racing, factors come to light after the result which appear to explain improved performance and that makes many punters believe that they are playing with a marked deck. In reality, perception changes in the face of pre-race information. For example, when tongue ties were utilised but not declared, there was a feeling that connections held an advantage in terms of predicted improvement, but while the aid is often the catalyst for improved performance, it’s been shown to be much less important than imagined when all results are analysed.

Some owners are concerned that their ability to back their own horses will be compromised by providing more data, but the reality is that while the market will adjust to pertinent information, such adjustments will not be drastic, and a data-rich environment is beneficial to bookmakers as well as bettors, meaning that turnover is stimulated on both sides of the betting counter.

There are valid concerns about the new rule, particularly in how it can be effectively policed, and these should not be ignored; nor is there any pretence that this move on its own will revolutionise betting on horse racing, but hopefully it will help to demonstrate that giving punters what they want is a win-win situation for racing and all its constituents.