The Hastings Racecourse numbers guy who's behind how you'll place your bet

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Anyone who enjoys confounding themselves with mental tests such as Sudoku, or Wordle, should head to Hastings Racecourse this weekend.

There they will find another dozen fiendishly difficult four-legged puzzles to solve. Fortunately, solving them won’t be easy and that’s good news for the sport. After all, the more difficult the puzzle, the more betting revenue is usually produced, and that means more resources for the entire industry.

At Hastings, the responsibility for making sure each race is as competitive and difficult to solve as possible falls to the track’s racing secretary, Scott Henson. It’s an unenviable role in many ways. This season, Henson must offer races to suit enough of the horses stabled at Hastings to fill 45 days of racing.

There are hundreds of horses and each has its own needs when it comes to criteria such as age, ability and preferred race distance. Added to which, trainers quickly lose their sense of humour if they can’t find a race for their horse. It can get tetchy.

“It’s weird, because your enemy, or someone complaining about not being able to find a race for their horse one week, is then your best friend the following week,” Henson said.

Fortunately, Henson, nephew of trainer Steve Henson, relishes the challenge of setting enough puzzles to satisfy both trainer and bettor and freely admits to being a “numbers guy.”

“I’ve always enjoyed the stats,” he said. “I used to follow the number of horses and put race condition books together even before I became racing secretary.

“We’ve created a database that basically has every horse on the ground, what category they ran in last and what claiming price they ran for. That gives me a general idea of where they fit in and, on paper, we can start pencilling it all in.”

Henson took on the role immediately following the COVID pandemic, a critical time for the sport, and he has faced huge challenges to keep the racing as competitive as possible following the deaths of several prominent B.C. owners and breeders over the past few years.

“Every weekend is like a new puzzle,” he said. “And, as the season progresses, the puzzle gets harder and the days get longer.”

Henson, along with colleague Ananth (A.K.) Kantamneni, have little down time during the season and, once the weekend’s entries are completed, they immediately start preparing for the following week.

“Being a smaller track, both A.K. and myself are responsible for so much else, like the payroll and equipment, or new hires,” Henson said. “But, on the racing side of things, as soon as entries are done, I immediately start into the next week.”

When it comes to setting weekly puzzles, there’s no rest for the quizmaster.

Hastings race selections: First race Saturday, 2:30 p.m.

Saturday, Race 1: Weekendindelmar had two of today’s rival behind her when runner-up on her season debut. That effort should have blown the cobwebs away and she looks like the one to beat in what looks to be a competitive heat.

Saturday, Race 5 Rockliffe showed smart acceleration to catch a couple of tearaway leaders recently and, despite eventually losing by just a nose to today’s rival, What’s Shakin, can turn the tables in a difficult puzzle the racing secretary can be proud of.