I think bottom-up grading has always had potential to counter Pathway/Time graded call it what you will interstate. The devil is in the details. T3 has never really been an effective approach because dogs drift in and out of Tier 3 from event to event. Not to even continue with the 'random ballot' aspect of Tier 3 grading. Bottom-Up APM was a loser because it was purely about the money and amount of time off track GOOD dogs had to make their comeback to racing. It gave easy kills for good dogs and did bugger all to give slow dogs a chance. I still think there is a place so that 'every dog has its day'. Good dogs deserve their days. Honest little battlers and triers should never expect to compete against the best but I think there is room to afford the battlers to have a fair crack at the winning feeling. Whether you think the battlers are the dogs or their trainers, I don't care so long as the dogs are presented fit to compete. Where I felt Pathway and Time Graded has been misleading is that the dogs presented in meetings encountered far more injuries. In other words they got across the vet table but injury in running rates increased. In other words some of the runners were not running time because they were carrying injuries before jump. I don't have the answer to that, There are sound dogs that don't run stellar times in open grading and there are other dogs that shouldn't really have been presented in the first place regardless of grading conditions. Nothing is ever as easy as it appears on paper.
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