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Blackcaps LIVE: Sport Nation ExtraHawkes: Why the quality of Australian racing has diminished
Connor Scanlon • July 16th, 2026 1:49 pm
Has the quality of Australian racing dropped off in recent years?
Trainer Wayne Hawkes absolutely believes so.
“I'm telling you, as a fact, where our horses are compared to 25 years ago. The middle is getting narrower, the top end is getting less and less, and the middle is actually dropping more towards the bottom,” Hawkes told SENTrack & RSN’s Giddy Up.
The trainer explained that the level of racing in the country has diminished due to majority of horses only being good enough to win midweek races at non-major racetracks.
And due to that, the industry has purposely weakened Saturday’s standard of racing.
“Most horses that we buy are only good enough to win at Sandown or Canterbury in midweek races. To get past that level, that is not easy,” explained Hawkes.
“So, what we've done is we've weakened our Saturday races. Because you can run a Benchmark 72 in Sydney. 15 to 20 years ago, that didn't happen, it was an open race.
“Whereas now we've got a lot of restricted races that are run on Saturdays. So, our quality is not there.”
As a solution to the issue, Hawkes stated that handicappers need to stop keeping the ratings up of losing horses, and breeders will need to throw more money into the industry.
“The handicappers are the ones that are keeping these ratings up!” Hawkes exclaimed.
“I’ve gone to handicappers and said, ‘Why don’t you get off this horse’s back?’ One of the answers was, ‘If we do that, we are going to weaken our pattern because the quality of those races won’t look as good.’
“But what about the bloke who is putting that money in? Because if he drops from a 100 rater down to an 85, what if he gets the right race? If he wins, no one loses because the punter is happy and the owner is happy.
“Whereas if you get a horse who is running around week after week, eventually the owner goes, ‘Mate, we haven’t won for two and a half years, and it has cost a fortune.’ They lose interest!
“At the end of the day, the breeders are putting in a lot of money into the game, there's no doubt about that. But the breeders are going to have to start putting a hell of a lot more into the game.”
Listen to Hawkes’ full take below:
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