This type of betting are not new to France and Japan.

In France, all horses belong to the same stable ( ie not sure if it also applies to horses belong to the same owner) will get the same color and you walk up to the PM and call a color-in French , of course.

In Japan, they like grouping a fancied one with a no-hoper and share the same color ( ie not sure if they also share color with the same ownership; I 'll check with an oversea forum later). I don't speak Japanese and I have never been there. Can someone please confirm?

Not long ago, Australia had a pool that you either pick even/odd/mix on the Q result. They called it "twos up". Let me tell you about the pool size-------sometimes, the total was  less than $10 for the whole NSW state. HKJC should not bother with these new bets. They should run the racings cleaner and the pool size will increase automatically.

I was wrong about the Japan info. .... Please read from a Japanese guy on this subject:


***********************************
Based on barrier draw real.


The horses are "bracketed" into 8 colours based on where they draw - starting from the outside in.  So 13 and 14 were the two outside barriers, so they were bracketed together as 8 - pink.  11 and 12 were the next two so they were bracketed into 7 - orange etc etc.

It used to be the only form of exotic betting and was very popular, but has dropped off badly with all the fancy exactas, trifectas etc....
*****************************8