‘I think two-year-old racing is on a decline that cannot be stopped’
Driven, as ever, by economics, Australian two-year-old racing appears to be losing importance – but while that concerns some industry figures, others say it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Ironies, chicken-and-egg scenarios and Catch 22 situations colour the argument and populate the reasons, but it’s clear Australia’s once fierce obsession with first season racing appears to be waning.
The Golden Slipper (Gr 1, 1200m) remains Australia’s most important stallion-maker and the world’s richest two-year-old event, yet race clubs have become increasingly wary of programming juvenile contests, seemingly driven by their lack of attractiveness to the main driver of industry funding – punters.
Then again, trainers complain about clubs not scheduling enough two-year-old races. Clubs respond that trainers weren’t nominating enough horses to sustain them.
And as a consequence, the two-year-old features that are put on, in particular early in the season, are high quality contests that drive many rivals away.
Trainers are instead appearing more content to hold off and turn a young horse out for further development. This is particularly so when – with economics speaking again – the spiralling yearling prices of the past five years, linked to service fees and mare values, make trainers less inclined to risk early injury, or an early revelation that a horse lacks ability.
While the backstory is complex, the numbers are plain.
In 2023-24, Australia had 2,335 two-year-old starters. According to statistics reported this week, that’s the lowest number in at least four decades, and down 17.5 per cent from 2,840 in 2019-20.
Those 2,335 starters represented just eight per cent of the active racing population, down from an average of almost 11.4 per cent over the past 35 years.
The nation’s foal crop continues to be low by historical standards. It was 13,251 in 2021 – which fed the 23-24 season – and was 12,362 the year after. That was its lowest figure of the past decade, representing a steep fall from the 18,741 of 2006. The crop didn’t drop below 18,000 from 1996-2002, and was 20,000-plus from 1986-1991.
Two-year-old starters in 2023-24 represented 17.6 percent of the foal crop – the lowest rate of participation since 2008-09, when 18,758 live foals were recorded. Still, there should still be enough foals born to successfully populate a hefty two-year-old program.
Myriad reasons have been proffered for the change in the Australian landscape. One of the most important is the bottom line: revenue. Juvenile races are generally less attractive betting propositions, particularly early in the season with so little form exposed.
Last Saturday, as another example, the TAB’s win pool for Rosehill’s two-year-old open handicap was a paltry $37,290 – $22,000 below the second-lowest race of the day.
It’s a similar picture even at the height of the two-year-old season in the autumn. On February 15, Randwick’s only juvenile race, the Pierro Plate (1100m) had a win pool of $97,327 – bettering only those for the two earlier races on the card, the Midway and Highway handicaps.
Sydney racing used to be populated in the early spring with five two-year-old features, held in late September and October.
The season kick-offs of the fillies’ Gimcrack Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) and the males’ Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) remain in that timeslot. But the Silver Slipper (Gr 2, 1100m) was moved to the autumn in 1998, the Canonbury Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) went the same way in 2002, and the fillies’ Widden Stakes (Gr 3, 1100m) followed in 2004. More exposed form by then helps inform punters’ choices.
After the Gimcrack-Breeders’ Plate double-header last October 5, Sydney had only one Saturday juvenile race in a five week span – the non-black type Kirkham Plate (1000m) on October 26. There was only one city two-year-old race between those two, a 1000-metre maiden on a Warwick Farm Wednesday.
“We used to have those five stakes races early on in the space of a couple of weeks. It was exciting, and it used to be a thrill to have a horse in them,” said dual Slipper winning trainer Gary Portelli.
“At the first official two-year-old trials of the season, there used to be something like 20 trials on a day. Last September, we had eight.
“It’s all just starting to peter out a bit now.”
Portelli understands the rationale.
“They don’t get enough betting turnover in two-year-old races,” he told ANZ News, “so when racing’s all about betting turnover, the last thing they want is to hold a two-year-old race on the day where they’re not getting enough numbers.”
This, he said, created a Catch 22 which meant trainers were more inclined to save their horse for another day, year or even season.
“When you put fewer two-year-old races on, the strength of them becomes very strong, with a lot of good horses bottle-necked into the same race,” he said of a situation which may have led to relatively few multiple two-year-old winners in Sydney last season.
“So if you’ve got a horse who’s not quite a potential Group horse, why would you bother racing it at two against these good horses?
“If they aren’t winning barrier trials and looking like Black Caviar, you just tip them out for a spell. There’s not enough races for them.
“I’d rather not have my horse getting beaten, losing its confidence and losing my owners’ confidence, by racing it against horses I’d rather not take on.
“Whereas in years gone by there were more races – provincial, midweek, particularly before Christmas – and you were able to place those horses who weren’t quite Saturday horses better. Now you can count those races on one hand.
“You cannot place a two-year-old that’s not quite top-level before Christmas. It’s just a waste of time. So all of a sudden you’ve got less numbers. They’re all in a paddock.”
Sydney’s pre-Christmas juvenile program now helps explain why more Slipper horses aren’t debuting until January or February – eschewing the old rule of Slipper queen Gai Waterhouse that to contend in the Rosehill feature, a horse must have contested the Gimcrack or the Breeders’ Plate.
And perhaps owners and trainers have learned lessons of patience, moving away from the clamour for quick rewards which often also brings quick injuries. This has been especially so in recent years of NSW prize-money boosts – for older horses’ races, such as the $10 million Golden Eagle (1500m) for four-year-olds, and for more standard races across the board, including later season two-year-old Saturday handicaps.
“Patience is the cheapest input in racing, and now that you’ve got some very valuable races for older horses, people are just exercising patience,” Arrowfield Stud owner John Messara told ANZ.
“By putting on races for four- and five-year-olds and other races, what they’ve done is slowed down the rush to race.
“I don’t know if this trend about two-year-olds is such a bad thing. Giving horses more time to form their bones will help their soundness in the longer term. But having said that, it’s definitely a change in emphasis and will cause some ructions.”
Subtle long-term shifts in what are the most sought-after stallions could ultimately take place, for example, with those whose stock train on embraced more keenly than those spawning precocity.
Messara did, however, raise possible problems for the black-type pattern.
“If you’ve got a much smaller number of two-year-olds going around, you don’t know how that’ll affect the ratings of the two-year-old races, because they’re not going to be quite as competitive as they would’ve been with full fields,” he said.
“The ratings may go down, and that may affect the standing of some of those pattern races.”
A pattern committee – which Australia may one day have again – could then be led to make downgrades, diminishing once coveted juvenile races, and bringing obvious repercussions for the breeding scene and sales ring.
Portelli said one way to arrest the decline in two-year-old racing would be for racing authorities to give more notice about coming programs.
“We only know what races are coming up three months in advance, and so trainers get in a situation where they haven’t got a horse ready,” he said.
“If the authorities said: ‘We’re going to put on ten extra two-year-old races and this is when they’ll be on’, I’m sure that might help, but I just don’t think they want them.
“They’re happy to have big fields for Midways and Highways, big turnover races for four-year-olds and upwards. That’s where the money is.
“Betting turnover is where prize-money is generated from, and I understand that, but I just think two-year-old racing is on a decline that cannot be stopped.”
Portelli said, however, that an upside of this was its impact on horses’ longevity.
“We’re all becoming more patient because there are good races and more prize-money at three and four and so on. It’s probably better for the horses,” he said. “I still love my two-year-olds, but the mindset is changing.”
Leading rails bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse insists two-year-old races are popular betting propositions – for the dwindling numbers of on-course punters at least – but said NSW programmers have “shot themselves in the foot”.
“Precocity was regarded as being the most important thing with two-year-olds and there was really good prize-money available early in the season, with five great high prize-money races,” he said. “Now, there’s just the Gimcrack and the Breeders’ Plate, the prize-money is poor, and you get a handicapping penalty for winning them.”
Waterhouse pointed out the win purse for the $250,000 Gimcrack and Breeders’ Plate was only $20,000 more than that for a standard Saturday two-year-old handicap, such as last Saturday’s $160,000 contest at Rosehill, once its BOBS bonus was factored in.
“So there’s no point in getting the horses ready early,” he said.
Waterhouse called for the Gimcrack and Breeders’ Plate’s purses to be doubled, and for the Canonbury, Widden and Silver Slipper to be returned to the spring.
“There aren’t enough two-year-olds because there’s no inducement for trainers to produce horses for the early part of the season, because the races just aren’t there,” he said.
Thoroughbred Breeders NSW president Hamish Esplin said rather than be driven solely by wagering revenue, modern racing required “a more sophisticated analysis of programming and prize-money and the allocation of resources to expand the industry”.
This should include a more considered schedule for juvenile races in the back half of the season, he said.
“The programming of racing in Australia has been derelict for a good ten years,” he said.
“If you assume there is a decrease in interest in two-year-old racing and that this is not a good thing, where is the change of programming to return it to its former status?
“They could put better, longer races on at the end of the two-year-old season, with different ways of structuring two-year-old racing overall. You could incentivise owners to patronise those races through bonuses, including bonuses linked to three-year-old racing.”
Esplin called for more resources for three-year-old racing, with links to the two-year-old scene, rather than the emphasis on older horses which has accounted for so much of recent prize-money boosts.
“We keep heading down this older horse path, which attracts international horses and trainers, and does nothing for our breeding industry,” he said.
“That is the biggest factor as to why two-year-old racing is arguably not as prominent or relevant as it was – all these resources being pumped into races for older horses.
“They’re doing nothing for Classic racing. The history of the sport has been based on three-year-olds. Now they’re saying it’s just not as relevant. But Classic racing is our local stock, rather than all these older imports.”
Esplin said increasing yearling prices had also led “a noticeable shift” from trainers and owners to “not wanting to push their purchase earlier than needed” – sometimes for less obvious reasons.
“A bit of it is about preserving their bones and not risking injury,” he said. “But it’s largely driven by not wanting to find out too early that your purchase is no good, and that you’ve wasted money. That doesn’t look good, especially with the rise of syndication.
“Trial fields for two-year-olds are still strong, but race fields are not.”
Prominent bloodstock agent and Melbourne Racing Club committee member Sheamus Mills said a decrease in runner numbers had led to adjustments in programming, not the other way around. He pondered whether the rise of European shuttle stallions had led to less durable two-year-olds on Australian tracks.
“I feel like the field sizes diminished before the programming wasn’t there for them,” he said, citing Caulfield’s October Debutante Stakes (Listed, 1000m).
“We used to have two divisions of the Debutante Stakes (until 2004). Now, we only have one, and even then you don’t get a capacity field.
“Yearling prices might have an effect. Are people more careful about how they manage a half million dollar yearling versus a $50,000 yearling? I think so.
“And with the popularity of shuttle stallions, would there be the suggestion horses aren’t built to cop as much at two as they might have been with some of the bloodlines we’ve had in the past?”