Confronting the reality of Blue Book Part II status: what would our pedigrees look like?

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

For the first time in its modern history, Australia is facing a genuine risk of being reclassified as a Part II nation in the International Cataloguing Standards Blue Book.

The ramifications of falling into Part II would be immediate and far-reaching. They are not abstract, not symbolic, and not contained to administrators. They affect catalogue pages, stallion rosters, sales results, World Pool participation, and, ultimately, the credibility of Australian racing as a major global jurisdiction.

The risk is real.

A demotion that would change the shape of Australian racing

The Asian Racing Federation (ARF) wrote to Racing Australia on 16 October, stating that Australia’s governance of the Pattern may no longer meet the requirements of a Part I jurisdiction.

The letter outlines specific failures: no functioning Pattern Committee since 2017/18; no implementation of downgrades despite Asian Pattern Committee (APC) standards requiring them; domestic guidelines that diverge from APC Ground Rules; and race upgrades announced in New South Wales that cannot be recognised internationally.

The letter states that there would very significant consequences not only for RA, but the entire racing and breeding industry in Australia, the Asian region, and beyond. So what exactly are the consequences?

Why Part II would rewrite the Australian racing landscape

There are currently 12 Part II nations - Bahrain, India, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Saudia Arabia, Scandinavia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.

Demotion would not change Australia’s domestic racing program. Cups, Guineas and Slippers would still be run as local Group 1 races. But what changes is the world’s interpretation of them.

Under Part II, all stakes races are internationally classified as Listed. They can't be granted higher status. A future Cox Plate winner would be recorded as a Listed winner, appearing the same in a catalogue as the winner of the Listed Wellesley Stakes in New Zealand.

A Group 1 mare’s produce - if earned after demotion - would also be Listed. Stallions entering stud would do so without the prospect of siring internationally recognised Group winners. Catalogues would lose the typographical hierarchy that signals class at a glance.

Worst case scenario - Australia would shift from having 608 stakes races in 2025 to just 76 in 2026. Previous winners keep their black type, this would only shift for future winners.

Below is an example showing the pedigree of Autumn Glow (The Autumn Sun) with her current Part I pedigree and her theoretical Part II pedigree had the races been won under Part II conditions.

It is important to note that these are examples only for demonstration purposes and the International Cataloguing Standards apply for the year that a race was won, so these are purely theoretical and no changes would be done retrospectively back in time.

Gallery: Autumn Glow's pedigree and theoretical pedigree if Australia was demoted to Part II

Autumn Glow’s dam Via Africa (Saf) (Var {USA}) was a Group 1 winner in South Africa, a Part I nation, so she would keep her Group 1 win, while both Autumn Glow and In The Congo would theoretically be downgraded to Listed winners (if they won under Part II conditions).

Historical achievements remain intact, but the story going forward becomes significantly harder to tell if Australia moves to Part II.

“Breeders race for black-type. Prizemoney is great, but the black-type is our currency in the studbook and the sales catalogue, especially when you’re selling,” Peter Murray, director of Thoroughbred Breeders Victoria, said.

The sales market will feel the impact of this move first. International buyers come to Australia because they understand Australian Group form as directly comparable with Japan, Europe and North America. Remove that comparability, and buying decisions change.

More questions

On 28 November, Racing NSW circulated a Participants Bulletin attempting to “correct the record” regarding black type governance. The notice framed the Pattern debate as a battle against vested interests resisting downgrades.

That framing is difficult to reconcile with the central industry concern. The Pattern was never designed as a tool of domestic competition - it exists to improve the breed and to record excellence in sales catalogues under a globally-recognised structure.

The bulletin’s description of the Pattern as a means of “ensuring races featuring consistently high-quality performances are properly recognised” omits the essential point that recognition is not for domestic celebration, but for international cataloguing.

The entire system was built internationally in the early 1970s to assign value in the Stud Book. It allows quality to be immediately recognised on the page and Australia was a key part of that process.

Gallery: Inglis catalogue page from 1949 before cataloguing standards. Inglis catalogue page from 2026 Classic sale

The Racing NSW bulletin aimed to reassure participants that the upgrades implemented in New South Wales during 2024 were “within the rules,” asserting that APC approval is only required for Group 1 races.

However, these upgrades were not approved by Racing Australia and Racing NSW proceeded without formal approval. Despite this, Racing Australia uploaded the upgrades to their website, presenting them as if they had been formally ratified.

Clarification from Racing Australia was sought, but we received no response before publication of this article.

When contacted by TTR on Thursday, Pete Sweney, General Counsel at Racing NSW commented, “The NSW races that were upgraded to Group 2, Group 3 and Listed Races status in late 2024 were upgraded by Racing Australia pursuant to Black Type Guidelines that had been formally adopted by Racing Australia in September 2024. It is further noted that the formal approval of the Asian Pattern Committee is only required in respect of Group 1 races.”

However, that assertion lies at the heart of the problem: recognition of black type requires a functioning, nationally accepted gatekeeper. It cannot be approved unilaterally.

The Asian Racing Federation has made that clear. The Blue Book makes this clear.

Gallery: 2025 Blue Book Part I Eligibility criteria showing need for a Pattern Committee

How the Guidelines became a flashpoint

Earlier this year, Racing Australia circulated a proposal to replace the existing black-type framework with a ratings-only model to replace the non-existent Pattern Committee. Under the draft, upgrades and downgrades would be determined by benchmark thresholds rather than Pattern analysis, and more than 100 races nationwide would qualify for elevation, including several additional Group 1 sprints in New South Wales.

The tension around that proposal was heightened by events in 2024, when Racing NSW sought to have 17 races upgraded for the 2024/25 season using a similar ratings-driven approach.

In its Participants Notice issued on November 28, Racing NSW told industry stakeholders that those upgrades were made “under the Black Type Guidelines that Racing Australia formally adopted unanimously” and argued that the present impasse stems from Racing Australia’s failure to approve “internationally endorsed revisions.”

Racing Australia’s public position differs. In its 11 October 2024 statement, Racing Australia said that all upgrades must be submitted by the Principal Racing Authorities and then approved by Racing Australia before they take effect:

“Following the review by the PRAs, submissions for upgrades, warning notices and downgrades based on the Black Type Guidelines agreed criteria will be made to Racing Australia who will action the request after confirming the ratings information.”

That approval was not granted. Other jurisdictions, which had initially prepared upgrade submissions for the same season, withdrew them after industry feedback raised concerns about the broader impact of the proposed ratings-only framework.

“We feel that Racing Australia has not consulted at all with the broader group of stakeholders that could have a knock on effect from the proposed guidelines,” Murray told TTR.

As a result, none of the 2024 NSW upgrades have been recognised internationally, nor carried through to Arion pedigrees or sales catalogues, a situation that has now become central to the wider governance stalemate.

“We're also disappointed that it's going to be what suggested that it could be a purely numerical rating system that takes out any human involvement," Murray said.

“We all welcome competition. But I feel that the biggest states will come to have a bit of a monopoly over those sorts of races because they have the funds to put towards racing purses to attract those high rated horses. It also puts more of an onus on the racing clubs to come back and hit up their PRAs, in my opinion, asking for money to prop up the prize money for some of these races.

“There is a lack of any thought about the historical black-type races; if something like the Melbourne Cup, for example, doesn’t rate well over a period of time, it could be relegated to being a Group 3, even though it’s one of our most historical races on the calendar.”

It’s a moot point if Australia gets demoted to Part II - the Melbourne Cup would become a Listed race by international standards.

World Pool: a financial and symbolic loss

One of the least discussed consequences of Part II status is Australia’s removal from the Hong Kong Jockey Club’s World Pool. The HKJC requires IFHA-recognised Group 1 classification for a race to be included.

“As with the music industry, we must innovate together in a manner more compelling than the illegal alternative. To do this, our goal is for World Pool to provide coverage of the IFHA's top 100 races,” Michael Fitzsimons, executive director of wagering products at the HKJC, told TDN Europe.

“To meet the challenge of the illegal market, we can't and won't stop until we too have a convenient product with all the world's best races in one place, available to a global audience, through the national pool operators in every country.”

Without internationally recognised Group 1s, Australia simply does not qualify. And therefore can not access the benefits for punters, for turnover, and the flow on effects for prizemoney.

“World Pool delivers enormous benefits through global wagering liquidity, unprecedented international exposure, and stronger collaboration between racing jurisdictions,” said Brisbane Racing Club CEO Karl deKroo earlier this year when it was announced the G1 Doomben Cup would run as a World Pool event.

In 2025, thanks to the presence of Hong Kong’s Horse Of The Year Ka Ying Rising (NZ) (Shamexpress {NZ}), The Everest broke the World Pool single race record with turnover of HK$83 million (AU$16 million). The previous record was the 2023 G1 Queen Elizabeth II Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot with turnover of HK$66.2 million (AU$12.8 million).

The highest turnover for a single day in the World Pool was October 18, 2025 where three meetings were featured – The Everest, Caulfield Cup, and British Champions Day – resulting in turnover of HK$480.9 million (AU$93 million).

Part II status removes Australian racedays from that ecosystem.

World Pool participation is not just revenue, it is also visibility, legitimacy, and alignment with the world’s premier racing jurisdictions.

Reputation and governance: the issue the ARF is actually raising

The ARF’s letter is about governance. The letter notes that Australia has not operated a functioning Pattern Committee since 2017/18. It notes that guidelines have drifted from APC standards. It notes that upgrades are being pursued without national approval and without the oversight required of a Part I nation.

Part II is a classification assigned to countries that do not operate the systems necessary for international recognition of Group races. They are not required to have a local Pattern Committee to oversee race quality. Countries in Part II still race well; they simply do not meet the criteria for comparability at the highest level.

Embarrassment of demotion aside, the downgrade for Australia is a structural cost of being outside the system through which the global market understands and values Thoroughbred performance.

The crossroads

The Pattern Committee can be reconvened. Guidelines can be aligned. Governance structures can be repaired. Australia can demonstrate compliance with international standards. But the window for doing so is now defined by external expectations - and the deadline is likely to get real following the Asian Pattern Committee’s next meeting, happening this week in Hong Kong.

Australia has always presented itself as one of the world’s major racing nations. That claim rests on participation in the Pattern, on meeting the standards of the Blue Book, and on offering the world a racing product that is compatible with its own. If the country cannot meet those standards, the Blue Book simply reflects that reality.

The threat of Part II status is no longer hypothetical, but tangible, commercial, and structural. The Pattern is how Australia speaks to the world. Without it, the world views Australian racing as something very different.