Further to last week's discussion of the death of value punting this season, more than one reader has been in touch on the matter. For the first time in Hong Kong racing history, professional punters are struggling and even the once-mighty computer syndicates have come back to the field. One reader blames the situation on the assessments of most of the rubbish that comes from Europe with Private Purchase (PP) permits and the resulting uncompetitive racing, fostered by the handicappers being unwilling to drop them fast enough. Horses horribly flattered by their handicap ratings back home who spend their first half dozen starts, at least, as no hopers, running around as 100-1 chances holding a place in the field but not in the market. Though the handicapper tends to drop most of these horses by 15 or 20 points when they arrive, it usually isn't enough and we do believe that ratings drops here are too slow across the board. It's the reason why the club has begun, in the past few seasons, to programme non-winners' races in Class Three and Four and extended-band races in those grades that glaze over fundamental problems with the handicapping. Another reader wanted to highlight the crunching of odds to nothing at all has not only taken place in the win pool (where this column tends to concentrate studies on the basis that all multiple runner bets are a function of win odds anyway and thus an extension of the same malaise). It's a sobering thought as you go to take your quinella that, according to this reader's study, half the quinellas have arrived at odds of 20-1 or less and 30 per cent have come in under 12-1. He also highlighted, while this column outlined the drop in average odds for winners this term, the median price had suffered an even heftier drop. Averages can be heavily influenced by outliers at extremely long or extremely short odds, so many statisticians prefer to look at the median - the statistical middle of any sample. The median win price this season is now sitting just under 4-1. Now pick the bones out of that.
