Give non-runners credit they deserve - in the form guide

Ah, welcome home old mate. There's a touch of nostalgia involved in this item as it was a hobby horse long ago in a galaxy far far away called Australia, where we lobbied for a long time to have non-runners' ...well, runs ... included in the form guide.

Frankly can't recall if that was finally rectified but this is a new place and fresh ground and here we go again and perhaps in Hong Kong, where the club tries to be ahead of the curve, it will prove simpler.

While we are aware of the term non-runner being an indication that a horse is excluded from betting, prize money and other result-based considerations, there's still no reason why that athletic performance shouldn't appear in full in form guides.

Non-runners after the event are pretty rare. It happens if a horse was denied a fair start, the jockey weighs in light or the horse returns a positive.

If either of the latter occurs, the details of the performance still appear in the form guide with notification of disqualification, but when the horse isn't disqualified but merely withdrawn after the fact, the run disappears. There is a scratching notation on the horse's record and weights, times, margins etc disappear. It's a wonder they aren't airbrushed out of the photos. All as though the horse never actually ran - but it did.

It came up last Wednesday when Gene Power was declared a non-runner due to an incident in which the starter accidentally let the field go, Tim Clark wasn't ready and Gene Power came out a long last. Fair enough, but what the form guide won't indicate next time is that it was possibly Gene Power's best performance this season - working off a low base, true.