Vet Records - For the Bettor

James from Massachusetts left this comment awhile back when he signed up for his HANA membership:

I'm with you on the medical information.

Does anyone know what happened to the four horse in the third today? He looked lame and raced poorly. What about the five horse in harness racing at Woodbine? He was "Vet Scratched Sick". What did he have? Is he ok this time or is the trainer "taking him out for a tightener".

These are questions we ask ourselves as bettors quite often. We have no idea if a horse is in tip-top shape. We don't know if he is over what was ailing him. We are told to "watch the board", but what kind of advice is that?

In Hong Kong they truly take their sport seriously and they take bettors seriously. After each sub par performance, the horse is checked and this information is made public, so the bettors can be confident and know what happened. Tomorrow in race three we do not have to guess if this horse is fine, or what happened to him last time. It is there for us to see.

Veterinary Records of Declared Starters on Sunday, October 19, 2008

2 MARVELLOUS 03/10/2008 Substantial mucopus in the trachea after track work. 13/10/2008

It is there for every horse in to go tomorrow, and it is on their website each day.

They take it one step further. Full vet records in a database. This is not only good for bettors, but it makes sure that our four legged friends are also taken care of.

This not only helps paper handicappers, but also the software ones or the sheets. Sometimes a performance when a horse is lame or sick skews the data. If this information was in data files, sharp software providers could incorporate this in their numbers and make their predictions better.

Hong Kong is fighting for their bettors dollars and have so for a long time. At HANA I know we all hope that someday we feel like we are treated the same way.