Hong Kong system is a forgiving one
With 83 meetings per season, raising of the trainers' benchmarks to a more reasonable level could hardly be cause for complaint
The reforming of the trainers' performance criteria was overdue but there is a view abroad that perhaps it is too simple and doesn't go far enough.
Considering the Jockey Club went from a season capped at 78 meetings to a season capped at 83 meetings four years ago, it might have been expected the adjustment would have come then. Better late than never.
The benchmarks were introduced in mid-1999, when the following season contained 658 races and every trainer's requirements were for 12 wins and HK$6 million in stakes.
There was some tweaking over the ensuing years, clauses relating to prize money and win percentages came and went, and a trainer in 2011-12 season needed only 13 wins to get a pass - 13 from 769 races - so he was better placed than when the criteria were introduced.
Have the benchmark criteria done what was intended with their introduction? Probably not, on face value, although they have caused some turnover in the participants which could not be tied directly to them.
Technically, the only trainer to have failed under the system and to have been thus refused a licence was David Hill in 2005, after a third failure to meet the measuring stick.