We aren't intimately aware of all the trick plays and secret trap doors connected to rules affecting how and when permit holders can bring their horses into Hong Kong, but one has to wonder if the cycling of the horse population is contributing to the small fields that have opened the season.
Small field sizes tend to be an annual issue at some time in September-October, but this year seems to be much worse than usual and, as we head into a feature meeting for National Day, we find another meeting thin on numbers.
Maybe it's the midweek dirt racing instead of Happy Valley, maybe it's the 169 horses at Sha Tin carrying a "T" brand and not yet ready to race, or maybe it's the disappearance of older horses ready and willing after a summer break.
At the past two midweeks, 13 of 16 races were undersubscribed, but we have even had a high proportion of small fields on weekends.
Why does anyone care? Because full fields have a correlation with turnover and the fact turnover is still booming even without them just says something about the bullet-proof racing economy in Hong Kong.
We have written about how owners with permits for unraced horses seem to leave them in the bottom draw until almost the moment they want to bring in the horse. Then they stampede trials in Australia and New Zealand late in the season, not only causing a bottleneck with flights out, but driving up prices, since everyone tries to buy the same youngsters. It doesn't help anyone and might be playing a role in these poor fields.
And then there are old horses. When Double Dragon won the first race on opening day, the 10-year-old was a reminder that September and October were once the playground of the aged.
A little time off to freshen up and many an old horse was able to get things together for a few runs and possibly a win at the start of the season after a decent ratings drop in the summer reassessments.
But those rehandicaps, once a highlight of the break and a big driver of betting turnover, have become a ho-hum non-event of a point dropped here and two points there, instead of sixes and sevens and eights, so owners no longer wait for them.
Instead, they rush to retire their old horses in May through July, horses that would otherwise be helping to make up full fields now as they seek that one last win after dropping a grade.
As we said, turnover is going gangbusters again, so it is difficult to suggest to anyone at Sports Road that the cycling processes leading to small fields need fixing - except to say turnover would be even better with full fields.
First it's the afterglow, then comes the hangover
Caspar Fownes' great start to the term has some wondering if the renowned "champion trainer hangover" is a fact or a myth. History suggests the negative next-season effect of winning the championship is a fact but, like any really good hangover, it starts slow and builds.
Sure, it's possible to win the championship in consecutive seasons - John Size did it three times on end when he first landed at Sha Tin, but he hasn't done it more recently.
The basis of the theory is that, having squeezed horses to win the championship, the trainer is stuck with many of them, they have found their level in the handicap and winning becomes tougher.
Yet, here is reigning champ Caspar on top with 10 wins and a lead of six over another perennial fast beginner, Me Tsui Yu-sak.
So where's the headache? Hangover, shmangover.
Well that comes later. To some extent, having pushed the team in the final throes of the previous season means the same ones return very fit and can win a race or two with that advantage.
We've looked at the first 54 races of past seasons to get a guide - most years that's where the calendar sits by the end of September - and more often than not, there is no sense of a hangover for the champion trainer, more like a warm afterglow.
Last year, Dennis Yip Chor-hong had three wins and was only two off the pace set by Peter Ho Leung and Derek Cruz. The year prior, Size was on four wins and trailing only Danny Shum Chap-shing on six and Richard Gibson on five.
Without listing them back to the turn of the century, the pattern is recurring. There are exceptions, like in 2006 when reigning champion Size had yet to lead in a winner and Yip and eventual champion Fownes were sitting on six. The champ is usually in touch early and the hangover takes it toll later.
And that 2006 start was another exception worth bearing in mind if you're looking at Fownes' early dash as an indicator of another likely title win.
Going back to Size's debut in 2001-02, only twice has the champion handler of any season led this early. Fownes was one in 2006 and Size the other, when he shared the lead with Almond Lee on eight wins at the end of September 2007 and was still in front on July 2.
The last time Fownes began this quickly he had 11 wins after 54 races and led Tsui by six this time in 2010. History repeating? Fownes eventually finished runner-up to John Moore.
Here we go again and again
It had that "oh, no, not again" look about it and so it is. Anyone who happened to cross paths on the internet with a story about horse racing in China, published in a British paper, might have thought (again) the sport is at the starting gates there.
Apparently a grandson of the Queen has picked up a job with something self-titled the China Jockey Club, which apparently runs racing there. We hear there was no-one more surprised about that than the folks at the China Sports Administration, which is actually supposed to have that task.
The reality, as we've said countless times and as was drummed home to anyone at the Asian Racing Conference in May, is not only is racing in China not at the starting gates, neither its sire nor dam have yet been foaled.
