BC, the class system amazes me - how the industry puts up with it is beyond belief.

not only do consistent classes make for fairer racing but having distinct classes allows people to develop a following for horses and understand the sport.

as for State and national championships - imagine what it would do for racing if every horse entering the one million dollar national sprint championship must first qualify through a heat at a country track.All the stars around the country would have to make the pilgrimage to small regional tracks bringing elite racing, for a day to Wagga, and Bunbury, and Mildura etc..
and then you have semi finals in the city before a State final and then a rotating national final.

if this was repeated for every major national championship, of which there could be many given the different ages, distance and sex combinations you suddenly have injected some pretty exciting racing into the calendar Australia wide.

as for interstate rivalry - South Australians love to beat Victorians at sport, any sport.
How many brain cells does an administrator need to have to recognise this and arrange for special interstate meets - you get a sponsor to put up a trophy, name it after some common and famous identity and once a year get all the Vics to come to Adelaide for a State vs State epic and then next year you return the favour in Melbourne so that you create a Bledisloe Cup like fixture with the winning State enjoying bragging rights for 12 months.
Surely thats better than having an anonymous 8 race card at Cheltenham this weekend!?!?!
You could even tie in the harness and greyhound people for a massive promotion over the weekend.

The other point to all of this is, at the moment racing makes its money from punters.
If it provided racing with more meaning for the spectator it could turn racing into a TV event and then you are talking big dollars.

not nuclear science, but beyond the reach of the air heads who run the sport.

see ya
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