April 2008

Anti-racing Post?

I have thought, for quite some time now, that our dedicated daily rag might, more appropriately, be known as the Anti-racing Post. I’m not at all sure why but for many years they seem, on major issues, to take a stance as far opposed to the interests of the Racing Industry as they possibly can. It is, of course, understandable, to some extent, when the issue involves the ‘auld enemy’, the bookmakers, that they might side with their biggest advertising customers but it has gone far beyond that. They don’t seem too fond of those of us who make our living in the industry and they pander to, but maybe secretly despise, those that own the horses.
I think it might have something to do with the paper being dominated by ageing hacks who are, principally, punters and, like most punters – if you don’t believe me, take a look at the Betfair forum – they, inexplicably, blame jockeys, trainers, owners, horses and just about anybody apart from the bookmaker for their losses over the years.
But at last maybe – just maybe – there is a glimmer of hope. One of their most talented scribes, whose stuff I used to love reading but who seemed to have slipped into a bitter tabloidian mode, has, perhaps, regained his independence, fetched his integrity from the cupboard, dusted it down, and has realised that he is one of us; he, like me, makes his living from horseracing and he should be supporting it. Paul Haigh, it seems, has rejected the party line, declined the three line (or is it now just two line?) whip and is back on the right side – on a couple of issues at least.
On the issue of McCririck’s demotion, although he declared a personal interest, he was one of the first to question how much good ‘Big Mac’ has ever done for racing. There is no doubt whatsoever that Channel 4’s resident clown has, over the years, been very good indeed at promoting John McCririck and I was not at all surprised when I was once told that he received more mail than the rest of The Morning Line team put together. He remains one of the most recognisable characters in racing and he could not have attained that position without truck loads of entertainment value, but is the image he portrays the image racing wants? From a very early stage in my career I realised that, if I was ever interviewed by John McCririck, he would have one aim, and one aim only, and that was to promote himself. It has been painful to listen to him taking a stand on issues relating to horse welfare, husbandry and training, when what he knew about the subjects could be written on the back of a postage stamp. But the last straw for me, and, perhaps for the bosses at Channel 4, was when he decided to appear on Celebrity Big Brother. I admit that his presence on the show did make me watch it, but only for the few minutes that it took to confirm my opinion that it is a show for ‘has beens’ and ‘never will be’s’ who can see no other way of promoting themselves. I can only assume that, when he decided to go on that show, John McCririck already knew that his popularity in racing was on the slide and, if that is the case, I cannot help but feel sorry for him. The alternative, that he saw a career for himself outside the confines of racing and thought Big Brother would take him to a wider audience, would suggest that his ego has reached a level beyond all reasoning.
Anyway, to get back to Paul Haigh, not only was he willing to buck the trend and state the obvious on McCririck, he also took a stance on another issue dear to the hearts of those that like to take the populist line – the whip. While the majority of his colleagues at the Racing Post (and his friend McCririck) continue to pour fuel on the anti-whip inferno, Haigh took a much more objective stance.
He clearly recognises two of the most important points. Firstly, that ever increasing penalties for breaking the rules together with ever changing legislation will never placate those that object to the use of the whip. This only serves to confirm their belief that whip use is wrong and, regardless of changes in its structure or its use, they will never be satisfied until it is withdrawn altogether. He states, in my opinion quite correctly, that ‘the way to deflect criticism is to explain to people that those who actually work with horses have no interest in abusing them.’
He also points out, quite correctly, that there is no place for crediting horses with human characteristics and feelings. He, it seems, thinks that the horses’ response to the whip should be the main criteria used by those who must, of course, monitor its use and ensure that no abuse takes place and I am sure he is correct that this is a good indicator, but I would go further still and say that there may well be cases where horses are not obviously responding to the whip but where its use is still justified and does not constitute abuse.
I believe that, before we start considering guidelines for use of the whip, we must try to understand how and why it works. There is no point whatsoever, as Paul Haigh says, in thinking how you yourself might respond to the whip as the whip would not have the same physiological effect on humans. In breeding, and training, horses to race we have honed their flight response to a great extent and we have reached a point where they need very little encouragement to run. But there probably comes a point in a race where, at a very subconscious, even chemical, level, the flight response starts to wear off. At this point, I believe, the whip can induce a further response which hormonally enables the horse to draw on extra reserves, reserves that humans simply don’t have, and it can easily be argued that this response is, to some extent, a natural safeguard for the horse. It is ludicrous to think that the horse thinks ‘this hurts, so I’ll run faster’. It is most likely that, if the horse was even capable of thinking about the whip, it would have exactly the opposite effect. But that is not how the whip works. It works at a level well below conscious thought and that is why I believe it is essential that we retain it.
At the risk of falling into the same trap as its critics, whenever I feel the need to express my beliefs on the whip in terms of human characteristics, I liken it to the boxer in his corner about to go out for the last round with his Second growling at him, maybe even slapping his face, and saying ‘Wake up, keep your chin in, and look after yourself’. He, like the jockey, is urging his athlete to call on the last reserves. Not to do so increases, rather than decreases, the risk of injury.

Donkeys Under Orders?

Last month we touched on the BHA’s plans to rid British racing of the lowest rated horses and I questioned the idea that this would be done by simply banning horses below a certain level (e.g. BHA rating 50). Personally, as I stated in the March Klarion, I don’t think it is necessary to ban these horses and any such scheme would meet with vigorous opposition from the ‘It’s a hobby’ lobby.
It is far more important to make it necessary to achieve a certain standard in order to win a race and this should be quite simple without resorting to a ban. All they need do is remove the allowances and conditions which make it possible for these horses to win.
It is surely in everyone’s interest to set some sort of minimum standard but sadly, the racecourses, who wield so much power when it comes to setting the programme, don’t seem to think that is necessary. Quite the contrary, they seem to be hell bent on driving standards downwards and not just to save on prize money.
I was staggered when reading through a Racing Calendar in early March to see a race at Kempton, over one mile, for four, five and six-years-old maidens, whose sire established one or more yearling sales in 2005,2004 and 2003 respectively with a median price of not more than 15,000 guineas. What, exactly, is the purpose of such a race?
At the risk of incurring further wrath from those who, quite unjustly, think I was born in a 200 horse stable and that my sole aim in life is to keep the ‘small boys’ (and girls) down, I will state again my long-held belief that the principle of median auction races, and auction races, is flawed. I cannot understand why anyone trying to promote our industry would think that the person who pays least for their horse should be given the best chance of winning. Are we trying to promote low prices? Surely, at whatever level you operate, you cannot believe, if you push the boat out and pay more for a yearling than you have in the past, that you should be penalised for doing so? I have never understood this idea.
Anyway, whatever you think of the median auction race system, there cannot be any place for it in a race already restricted to four-year-old and upwards maidens. If these horses have failed to win as two and three year olds, there is no justification whatsoever in imposing more restrictions in what appears to be an attempt to exclude any horse that might run faster than a beach donkey.
I was particularly disappointed by this race being at Kempton, a Racecourse Holdings Trust course, where they had suggested they were going to promote a better class of all-weather racing. I was even more disappointed to discover that there were eleven such races ranging from five furlongs (it is much worse for sprinters to have failed to win at two and three) to twelve furlongs in the first three months of the year, and a further nine median auction maidens that were open to three year olds as well. Mediocrity rules.

 

March 2008

Firhill for Thrills?

I’ve heard a rumour – entirely unsubstantiated, of course – that Nic Coward, the current chief executive of the BHA, could be heading back whence he came, into football management. This time it is the SFA (Scottish Football Association), rather than the FA, that are in dire need of his talents to combat falling attendances at Glasgow’s third club, Partick Thistle, and draw support away from Rangers and Celtic.
If my source – we’ll call him the bluebottle on the wall – is correct, Mr. Coward has some revolutionary ideas to enhance the experience at the Firhill ground and he is confident that he can more than double the regular crowd which currently stands at somewhere in the region of six – three men, a dog, and a couple of winos that have been living there since 1993.
The bluebottle reports that plans could include the replacement of plastic seats with leather armchairs; televisions showing all the current soaps, Big Brother, and dog racing from Shawfield; and free refreshments (Irn Bru and Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers, I believe).
Mr. Coward was heard to say that “for a large number of football clubs it is not about silverware, their position in the table, or even goals on the pitch. For the majority, these are just add-ons to the footballing day”.
I’m joking, of course, but the idea is hardly more ridiculous than Nic Coward’s suggestion that prize-money isn’t important to the majority of British owners. The only more ridiculous statements I’ve heard in the last month were those from Alastair Down in his concurring column a few days later. Alastair came out with some of that age-old drivel comparing racehorse ownership with having ‘a gun in a shoot, a golf club membership or a little sailing boat in Ramsgate’. Like so many of his colleagues before him he conveniently chose to forget or ignore that our government, some very large bookmaking firms, thousands of employees in racing, and a significant number of journalists seek to make money out of horseracing and, illogically, in Britain, they expect the people who own the horses to treat it entirely as a hobby. I wonder how much he would expect to get paid for twenty column-inches on the daily meanderings of a little sailing boat in Ramsgate?
I agree with Alistair that owning racehorses is a ‘rich man’s game’ and he is correct that ‘a racehorse costs £20,000 a year and upwards to look after’ but he, unbelievably, still finds the cost a mystery and states that ‘it certainly can not be put down to the price of labour’. No wonder I found it impossible to stomach his paper’s campaign on stable staff. Sadly, it seems that, like David Ashforth before him, he hasn’t got a clue! Wages constitute, at least, 42% of our turnover and it is not uncommon for it to rise above 50%. I wonder how that compares with the printing of the Racing Post.
It is naïve in the extreme to dismiss prize-money as a significant source of income to all of us that work in racing, including the stable staff. Not only do we enjoy a percentage of that prize-money but levels of returns for owners directly affect trainers’ ability to charge and, in turn, their ability to pay.
I think we can safely assume that Alastair Down, even if he doesn’t read this, will have read Paul Dixon’s letter to the Racing Post on the subject and I hope that the new editor did as Paul suggested and made his columnist write out ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ 500 times.
In his letter, Paul Dixon reminded Alastair Down and the rest of us of the effect that falling prize money is currently having on British racing and pointed out we have only been sustained by the huge investment from the Maktoum family. Without them our breeding and racing industries would go into freefall.
When Nic Coward first appeared on the scene and talked of improving the racing experience and reducing the emphasis on betting, I thought it was a breath of fresh air. I, wrongly it seems, assumed that he was bringing ideas from football, where top clubs compete at the highest international level, have huge numbers of dedicated supporters and, as result, command high levels of sponsorship payments and fees from the media. I assumed that he would be looking to improve the quality of our product on the track but I now fear, as my Partick Thistle analogy seeks to demonstrate, that he believes we can lure spectators with better facilities in the stands while disregarding the quality of the racing they have, supposedly, come to watch. I have, for a long time, believed that, if we are to secure any long-term prosperity for our industry, we must endeavour to involve our spectators in all aspects of the sport, educate them, and offer them high quality racing on an international level. Prize money is key to this aim. The alternative, with low prize money, poor quality horses, and an emphasis on the betting will have us following dog racing into the doldrums.

 

Blunder Costs Dear

I was on my way to Keeneland sales last September when racing at Warwick was abandoned after two races but, Jock Bennett, who was there representing us, was so incensed at the track’s mismanagement of the situation that we took the unusual step of submitting a bill to Warwick racecourse for the costs relating to our two horses which did not run.
We were not the only ones who were unhappy and Warwick was, eventually, fined £2,500 by the BHA.
In the meantime they have totally ignored our invoice for £942.38p and all the subsequent reminders but they recently announced that they would be making an ex gratia payment of £180 to the owner of each horse entered in the abandoned races and a payment to the Injured Jockeys’ Fund.
A strange way of going about things, don’t you think? Our owners didn’t actually incur any costs as Weatherbys refunded the entry fees, the jockey didn’t get paid, and we, as is our policy, made no charge for the plating of the horses, the transport, or the staff that accompanied them. We, on the other hand, were out of pocket to the tune of £942.38p (a reminder, perhaps, to Warwick racecourse and all those who consistently overlook what it costs to put on a horse race). The racecourse, surely, should have known this as it was Mark Johnston Racing Ltd and not Sheila Brookhouse or Sheikh Mohammed that was invoicing them for the costs but their answer, when we queried the situation, was to suggest that it would be ‘easiest for all’ if we made ‘adjustments in [our] own accounting with the respective Owners’.
I, as you can probably imagine, do not agree. We will not be invoicing our Owners to rectify Warwick racecourse’s mistake and we will, without great expectations, submit our invoice again.

 

Fabulous Forties?

The BHA is considering banning all horses rated under 40 from racing in Britain with effect from the beginning of 2009.
On the one hand I think it is long past time that they did something to stem the proliferation of poor quality horses but, on the other hand, depending on how it is expected to work, I think it is perhaps unreasonable to impose a blanket ban based on a figure which is, after all, only a measure of the official handicapper’s opinion of the horse’s ability.
One would assume that the owners of these horses believe they are better than their official rating or they would not wish to persevere with vain attempts to win races. Surely, therefore, we should, long ago, have introduced a cut off in our handicap system at a level well above 40. Owners should be entitled to run bad horses if they wish and, hopefully, learn the hard way but they most certainly should not be given a weight allowance from other, slightly less moderate horses, to give them a chance of winning a race.
Back in 2002 I proposed that the handicap system should stop at 50 but it was bridge too far for the authorities at the time. Maybe it still is. I was working on the principal that a horse rated 60 is, based on the old selling handicaps, a good ‘selling plater’ and I cannot see any logic in making a horse of that calibre give more than 10lbs weight to another horse in order to give that very moderate animal a greater chance of winning a race. The cry at the time was that there were many hundreds, if not thousands, of horses at that level and it was unreasonable to prevent them from racing.
I was not, of course, saying that they should be prevented from racing but rather that they should need to run up to a rating of 50, or more, to have a chance of winning a race. We did not do it and so now the number of horses in that bracket has multiplied and will continue to do so until something is done.
Regional racing was a tremendous compromise but did not go far enough and was never embraced by the racecourses or the ROA. The original proposal from Peter Savil was that regional races would be run early in the day to provide an alternative in betting shops to foreign racing, cartoon racing and ‘one arm bandits’ (a much more appropriate name than the bookmakers’ preferred FOBT’s). He proposed that the races should be worth no more than £1,000 as it should be uneconomical to travel this level of horse outside its own ‘region’. The ROA couldn’t grasp the principles and insisted that the races must be worth a minimum of £2,000.
I would have gone even further. I didn’t think these races should ever have been considered as part of the normal programme and I would have liked it to be possible, theoretically at least, to win a regional race and still run in a maiden under proper rules. Thus, the winners would still be considered maidens for the purposes of sales catalogues and there would be no financial incentive to breed or race these horses. I saw it as something like Point-to-Pointing for flat horses and I think we should even have considered allowing a different category of trainer (amateur or permit holder) and, perhaps, amateur riders to ride against professionals in these races.
I believed that such a system would have helped stop the proliferation of low grade races under rules while offering a short-term solution for the number of those horses currently in training and, a the same time, making a significant contribution to the coffers for proper horses.
Sadly, the racecourses, aided and abetted by the ROA and the bookmakers, scuppered it before it got off first base. Hopefully, they now understand that something has to be done.

 

Confusion Reigns

I certainly didn’t expect anyone to send me a used £100 note with an answer to any of the questions I posed in last month’s Klarion and, if truth be told, I didn’t really expect any postcards either but I did think that, somewhere along the line, someone would tell me if the flat trainers championship for 2008 had already started or not.
I did eventually find out when William Haggas called me and asked me to support a proposal for the flat trainers championship to start and end in November so that they can make a bit of a song and dance of the winner at Doncaster’s November Handicap meeting.
According to William, as of last year, the criteria for the trainers and jockeys championships are now being set by a committee of the BHA but nobody seems to know who is on this committee or when they meet. All we know is that, some time during 2007, they moved the goal posts and, to date, they haven’t moved them back again.
Personally, I still can’t see what is wrong with a championship that runs for the calendar year – it isn’t the most important thing in any of our lives anyway and, if you keep it simple, it allows us and followers of racing to understand the statistics – but William’s suggestion is certainly better than the current shambles. Under the present system, winners and winnings for more than a third of the year are being completely discounted and this goes entirely against the wishes of the participants. Since the beginning of all-weather racing, trainers have always said that all races should be counted, regardless of the surface they are run on or the time of year, and it is beyond belief to me that some committee of the BHA can change this and the Racing Post and other publishers of statistics have blindly followed their decision.
If you look up ‘Trainers Championship’ on the Racing Post website you’ll still find the table for last year and you’ll find Derek Shaw, who I believe to have more winners and winnings than any other trainer in 2008 to date (there is no way of knowing for sure), languishing down in 101st place. They say he had 22 winners and £104,896 in prize money when, in fact, in the calendar year, he had 51 winners and £225,642. A big difference. So far in 2008 he has trained 14 winners and £74,768 in prize money (update before going to press) but, if they are applying the same rules as last year, on 31st March they’ll take him back to zero and make him start again.
They say it is for better marketing of horseracing and the trainers championship. They aren’t doing much for the marketing of Derek Shaw and, frankly, I don’t think they are doing much for the marketing of Mark Johnston Racing or any other trainer either. In the current climate, more than ever, we need to recognise every penny of prize money we get.

February 2008

Fifteen questions unanswered from 2007 (…… and long before)

with the odd opinion from yours truly thrown in.

 

1. Who is running racing?

Maybe everyone else knows and I’m the stupid one but I’ve heard others asking the question and I haven’t heard a satisfactory answer. I know that Paul Roy is the new chairman of the BHA and I know that Nic Coward is the new Chief Executive but I don’t actually know what they are, or are not, responsible for. Does the BHB still exist or has it been replaced by BHA and BHE?
I get the impression that we currently have the BHA but that we still have BHB, which is still responsible for, among other things, finance because BHE isn’t up in running yet. Does that make sense? Probably not.
Even when we do know exactly who and what has replaced the old BHB that will not, unfortunately, tell us who is running racing. They tell me Paul Roy and Nic Coward are very good at their jobs but we haven’t seen much action yet. A far cry from the Savill days and, no doubt, some are very happy with that but mostly those with a personal agenda which they are determined to put before the best interests of the British racing industry. That is something we could never have accused Peter Savill of when he was at the helm. In those days we knew that the aim was to put British racing, as a whole, on a sound financial footing and we made some strides towards it. Now we are back on the slippery slope and I haven’t met anyone yet who has a plan, sound or otherwise, to arrest the decline.

2. How many members of The Horsemen’s Group could really be considered to be ‘horsemen’ (or women)?

Now, I’m not being pedantic here or suggesting that they should hunt twice a week, play polo and own a pony that does tricks. But I do think they should, at least, know which end kicks.
When the idea of a Horsemen’s Group was first mooted I thought it was, perhaps, a way forward but I warned the National Trainers Federation from the outset that they must not allow it to be driven by the ROA who are, with all due respect, still dominated by the ‘it’s a hobby lobby’.
The Horsemen’s Group should represent all those that are professionally involved in getting the horses to the track and through the race, and they should fully understand all the issues that affect us.
I don’t think, from what we have seen so far, that applies to the current group.

3. When are we going to see some income as a result of the move to 48 hour declarations?

How long have you got? Only joking. Don’t worry. No doubt I could write for a week about this issue but I won’t. I’m as bored by it as you are but I’m nonetheless convinced that it is wrong and that five years of trials have shown us that it is, economically, very bad for British racing.

4. If we don’t see the (revised….. downwards) forecast income from the sale of British racing abroad, how long will it be before we revert to 24 hour decs?

Could it be never? Despite all logic saying we should have reverted to 24 hour decs before now, we have not; despite the BHB telling us that, if the satellite TV companies failed to meet their forecasts for projected income, we would revert to 24 hour decs, we have not; and despite our representative organisations, like the ROA, the NTF, and the Horsemen’s Group, assuring us that, if the income was not forthcoming, they would not agree to continue with 48 hour decs, we have. So, reluctantly, I have concluded that, for the time being, the racecourses and their associates at ATR and RUK are going to do exactly as they please and are going to impose 48 hour declarations on us for the foreseeable future regardless of the lack of income and/or the increased costs.

5. When will we see racing at Great Leighs?

I think it is supposed to be next week, or the week after, or the week after that, but, like ‘tomorrow’, ‘next week’ never comes.

6. Who cares?

I think Great Leighs is now about 14 months late and during that period the allocated fixtures have been redistributed amongst the other all-weather tracks ( some grass tracks too). That has probably shown us, if we didn’t know already, that it won’t make a lot of difference where we run these races. Very few people want to go, the surface is much the same on all the AW tracks, apart from Southwell, and we have so many of these races now that field sizes are dropping dramatically. Although there are some valuable and very attractive all-weather races, there is no structured programme for decent horses and, hence, little incentive to keep the better horses in full swing all winter, unless you are going to send them abroad.
What’s more, although Great Leighs is close to Newmarket, it is, like all the other all-weather tracks, a long way from Yorkshire where a large percentage of British horses are based.

7. What will we do when the handicap rating of the worst horse in Britain falls below 0?

Will we have negative handicap ratings? Will we ‘devalue’ the handicap scale? We will need to do something.
50% of British horses which have been allocated a handicap rating are now considered to be 56 or lower and that, in my book, makes them ‘selling platers’ or worse. On browsing the latest published ratings I found one horse, the 7 y.o. mare Taili, rated 5.
As with 48 hour declarations, I could write a book on this subject and, as with 48 hour decs, I don’t intend to. I have had enough of beating my head against this particular brick wall.
It is bad enough to believe that professional British horseracing should provide opportunities to run for this vast pool of bad horses but it is absolutely nonsensical to structure races so that they can receive large weight allowances from other, pretty moderate, horses and, in so doing, assist them to do well. We are perpetuating and continually expanding the problem.
As with so many of Peter Savill’s ideas, those that rubbished the Competitive Racing Initiative and Regional Racing clearly didn’t understand it.

8. Did the 2008 Flat Trainers’ Championship start on 1st January?

I haven’t got a clue. I’m just a trainer. The last I heard was at a regional meeting of the National Trainers Association when it was stated that trainers had unanimously supported a return to a championship based on prize money throughout the calendar year. That should mean that it has already started but, if so, you would think someone might have mentioned it.
Are they ignoring us again? Probably. Surprise, surprise!

 

9. What about the Jockeys’ Championship?

There was a lot of talk about changing it after the best championship race we had seen in years, last year. I assume they haven’t changed it or, if they have, they forgot to tell the jockeys. That’s possible.

10. How many jockeys will the BHA ban, suspend or report to the Director of Public Prosecutions this year for breaking rules on ‘integrity’?

Who knows? Maybe they have learned from past mistakes or maybe they haven’t.

 

11. Will Tattersalls follow Doncaster and all the other bloodstock sales companies and increase commission charges by a whacking 50%?

Doncaster are following partners Goffs, and Tattersalls Ireland, in increasing their commission rate from 5% to 7.5% in 2008. So far, Tattersalls have held out at the old commission rate.

 

12. If so, will the OFT investigate?

Better still, will buyers start voting with their fee?. Tattersalls are certainly now offering better value and, if they should change, there are alternatives abroad e.g. Keeneland.

13. How many more ‘sales’ races or other scams to rob owners are we going to see?

Maybe the Epsom Derby will become a sales race. It’s half way there already. Is there another professional sport in which the participants are expected to contribute up to 125% of the prize money. I doubt it.

 

14. Will the Lanark Silver Bell, the oldest race in Britain, be run again in Lanarkshire?

Or Ayrshire, or Saudi Arabia or will the trophy remain in a vault in Lanark Town Hall?

 

15. If you ate Pasta and Antipasta, would you still be hungry?

!!!!!!
Answers on a postcard or used Scottish £100 note to me here at Kingsley House; with copies, only on postcards, to Paul Roy, Nic Coward, Paul Dixon, Simon Bazalgette, Nigel Roddis, John Holmes, Henry Beeby, Edmond Mahony, Lanark Town Council and Franco Fantoni.

 

 

January 2008

At the time of writing we are still waiting for William Hill and Betfred to follow rivals Ladbrokes and Corals into the Turf TV fold. There is little, if any, doubt that they will and I am fairly certain that, by the time you receive your Kingsley Klarion it will all be done and dusted. The inevitability of their decision will limit media interest but I hope the true significance is not overlooked.
I was frustrated by the protracted arguments and the fact that racing is suffering, yet again, from a series of legal battles with the bookmakers but I could understand, to some extent, that the bookmakers had to fight hard to protect their stranglehold on racing coverage: who could blame, Fred Done, having invested £8 Million of his own money in SIS, for using every weapon in his arsenal to protect his own interests? But it all got a bit ridiculous when Angus Loughran presented a feature on Attheraces from a William Hill shop, trying to convince us that the customers weren’t interested in pictures of horse racing, and then David Hood came on and told us that it would be the punters who would suffer as if this was someone else’s fault.
Come on guys, is it not long past time for bookmakers to accept that horseracing is still their core product, that it is pictures of live horseracing that bring the majority of the customers into the shop, and that far more could be done to promote that core product for the benefit of all those in the bookmaking and horseracing industries and the enjoyment of the customers? OK, so we all know that the costs on FOBTs and virtual racing are a lot less and that the margins are greater and expansion of those products, at the expense of live racing, will give healthy returns to share holders and put fat bonuses in the pockets of executives. But even those shareholders should be asking themselves whether or not their executives deserve large bonuses for short-term returns if they are eroding the customer base and leaving their companies open to challenges from other forms of entertainment and gambling. Should they not be asking themselves whether the betting exchanges could have been so rapidly successful if the bookmakers had offered a better horseracing service and encouraged the intelligent punter to frequent their shops rather than bombarding them with moronic rubbish like virtual racing?
I hope that some lessons will be learned from the Turf TV war and that it will now be accepted that live horseracing is as important to bookmakers as betting is to the horseracing industry. Maybe, if the two industries were to pull together in the same direction for even a short period they could see what might be achieved.
It is even more interesting to see that some of the Attheraces tracks have felt the need to sign up to Turf TV and I cannot help but wonder if they will place greater value on the pictures from away tracks now that they are having to pay significantly more for them. It has never ceased to amaze me that racecourses have claimed that their pictures have such tremendous monetary value yet they make so little use of them on their own venues. When will they learn to place the same emphasis on the sale of horseracing that they put on the sale of beer, champagne and sandwiches? Those running our racecourses are hardly any better than those running the bookmakers when it comes to promotion of the core product. Our racecourses are dominated by managers who have honed their skills in the catering trade and they cannot see beyond the short term profits on food and beverages. Like the bookmakers, they need to accept that we must try to sell horseracing to our customers at every opportunity to ensure that we have a strong customer base, of those truly interested in the sport, for the future. Racegoers and punters who come to love the sport and fully understand it will be with us for life, nor just until a better, or cheaper, form of entertainment and/or gambling comes along.

____________________________

While on the subject of pictures, I must take some issue with John Scanlon’s ‘Kickback’ piece. I also find racing’s failure to get into the limelight quite ‘depressing’ but I am not sure if John is right to blame our plight on the erosion of terrestrial television coverage.
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year for 2007 was boxer Joe Calzaghe and I would have thought that terrestrial TV coverage of his sport was even more depleted than that of horseracing. Furthermore, as far as I am aware, they do not have two dedicated satellite channels.
Don’t get me wrong, I would also love to see far more coverage of horseracing on terrestrial TV but our current coverage exceeds most of the other sports whose personalities featured in the BBC’s top ten. Boxing got two of the top three.
Our failure to create personalities and equine stars surely is not due to lack of coverage. It can only be as a result of the type of coverage we get and the emphasis on betting over sport. Personally, I believe that we can promote the sport without any detrimental effect on betting turnover and that, if we do so, we will be securing our future and ensuring a place for our ‘personalities’ in the BBC’s, and all other, rankings.

_____________________________

Lest we forget – 48 Hour Decs – Where’s the money?

 

 

 

December 2007

Rule Change?

There is no getting away from it, the jockeys’ championship was more exciting this year than it has been for years and the last meeting, of those that counted, at Doncaster, was a thriller in itself. I would have felt for Jamie Spencer if Seb Sanders had won the championship courtesy of the Godolphin horse, Omnicat, which unshipped Eddie Ahern in the shadow of the post and handed the race to Seb on Incomparable. It was very fitting, therefore, that Jamie should claw one back two races later, having gone down by a neck to our Premier Danseur in the next, and that he should leave it till the eleventh hour to draw level. It was so exciting that I nearly stayed to watch – nearly, but not quite.

Sadly, there is also no getting away from the fact that, despite the close run battle and the thrills of the last day, there were very few people apart from the sport’s dedicated followers and those actively involved, who were remotely interested. I wonder how many new customers horseracing has gained thanks to the 2007 jockeys’ championship. I suspect the answer is very few.
Motor racing, on the other had, regained a huge amount of its recently lost popularity thanks to the battle between Hamilton and Alonso despite the fact that neither of them won it in the end, and I think we should be asking ourselves why and what we can do to narrow the gap.
One thing is for sure. It won’t be a matter of simply changing the way we select our champion jockey and I could understand Seb Sanders’ frustration when some people were calling for a change to the championship rules within hours of the finale.
Personally, I have always believed that the jockeys championship should be decided on number of wins. Unlike trainers, it is not the jockey’s responsibility to plan the horse’s campaign or to maximise its annual earnings. The jockeys are expected to ride every horse to the best of their ability and, if a potential champion jockey has the ability to influence the outcome of the race, then that ability will be apparent whether he is riding in a field of selling platers or Group 1 contenders.
There is, of course, some logic in saying that it is a jockey’s ability which gets him, or her, rides on better horses in better races and so the amount of prize money won is a true reflection of the rider’s skill but we only have to look at the riders who would have been champion to see the flaws in this means of calculation. Would it have been reasonable for Mick Kinane to have been crowned champion jockey in Britain in 2001 ahead of Kieran Fallon? Or for Frankie Dettori to have taken the title from Ryan Moore last year? I don’t think so.
I can see that there is some disadvantage to a system which requires the combatants to ride day in, day out, and to travel the length and breadth of the country in search of a huge volume of rides, but it is their choice to do so and it brings the jockeys’ championship to a wide variety of tracks and a huge spread of spectators. That has to be a good thing.
Howard Wright agrees with me that the title should be decided on number of winners and also agrees with me that all races should count over the period of one year but he lays the blame for the decision to run the championship over the duration of the turf season at the door of the BHA. In fact it was the jockeys themselves, many years ago, that chose not to count the winter period and I have no doubt whatsoever that that decision was pushed through by those leading riders who could earn more abroad in the winter – particularly since the advent of racing in Dubai – and did not want their chance of winning the title to be influenced by their desire to spend the winter in sunnier climes. They didn’t want some whipper snapper to up and win the jockeys’ championship through 365 days of hard work, grit and determination.
The trainers, on the other hand, as far as I am aware, have always believed that all races should count and that the trainers championship should run for a full year. In this case, it was the BHB who decided, in collusion with Arena Leisure, to start and end our championship at Doncaster. As it turned out, with Aidan O’Brien winning, the exclusion of the first three months made little difference to the final standings but there are years when it could do.
Again, in this case, if we are trying to create public interest in this championship then we need to do a lot more than fiddle with the rules. The problem lies at the root of the sport and the BHA will need to change the emphasis from promoting interest in betting to promoting interest in the sport itself and its participants. That will be a tall order but I have heard that their new chief executive, Nic Coward, is thinking along those lines. In the meantime, hopefully, they will return the trainers’ championship to its previous format and make sure that we all know the rules.

 

Handicapped

While we’re on the subject of championships, what on earth are Arena Leisure playing at now?
They’ve done away with their trainers Championship and I can’t blame them for that – last year’s winner, your truly, wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the whole thing – but look what they have replaced it with: a series of competitions based on a handicap system.
This takes the biscuit: now they are handicapping trainers. It would be laughable if it wasn’t so obvious that they believe they can boost the number of runners by offering a total of £25,000 in prizes to trainers and stable staff and, sadly, they may be right.
Maybe they can encourage trainers to run more horses in order to win one of their £5,000 prizes but there is no doubt that the type of trainer who will be encouraged by this will have no more regard for the quality of the racing than those who devised the competition.

 

Disadvantaged

If there is one thing we learned from the 24th Breeders’ Cup at Monmouth Park, and to a lesser extent from a few meetings run in Britain this year, it was that the main factor influencing abandonment of racing is not the weather but the number of pre-booked paying customers and the magnitude of the picture sales. I have to think that any normal meeting would have been abandoned under those circumstances and, if it had been in Dubai, they would have postponed the meeting, as they did with the 1997 World Cup, and ran it a few days later when the track dried out.
Anyway, I do not wish to dwell on the atrocious conditions at Monmouth Park but I would like to expand on comments made by Brough Scott in the Racing Post a few days later.

Brough was clearly shocked to discover that anabolic steroids are widely used in US racing and that they are not even tested for at the Breeders’ Cup. Brough quoted one ‘cool headed European professional’ who, apparently thought that one of the Breeders’ Cup winners ‘was so anabolically bulked up that he “looked like a five-year-old stallion”’
Well, I am not at all surprised. More shocking is the fact that the US isn’t the only jurisdiction permitting the use of these drugs. The holier than thow authorities in Australia and Hong Kong also permit the use of anabolics and their popularity is easy to see in the appearance and weight of their sprinters.
When Takeover Target tested positive for anabolic steroids in Hong Kong his trainer, Joe Janiak, claimed to have used the same drug many times before without a problem. He claimed that it was always clear within two weeks. The Hong Kong authorities, of course, adhered strictly to their rules and insisted that the Australian horse could not run in Hong Kong while any trace of anabolic steroids remained in the horse’s system, but their rules are very different from the situation in Britain, where we have a blanket ban on the use of anabolic steroids, and they allow their Hong Kong Jockey Club vets to administer the anabolic steroid Sustanon provided it is not used within 56 days of racing.
According to Brough, Dr. Scot Waterman, executive director of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium in the USA, claimed that ‘there are no scientific studies to say that anabolics actually enhance performance in the equine as opposed to the human athlete’. I would be very surprised if that is the case but, scientific studies or no scientific studies, horsemen the world over know very well the advantage that can be gained from using these drugs.
The playing field, whether it is turf, dirt, or Tapeta, is not level in intercontinental racing and the Europeans are at a distinct disadvantage.

 

Game Over Ball Burst

The turkeys have voted for Christmas and it looks like we are to be burdened with 48 hour declarations for the foreseeable future.
According to Howard Wright – Racing Post 27th November – ‘strong criticism from a group of trainers, claiming that increased costs had exceeded lower than expected returns to racing from this year’s introductory scheme, put its continuation – and ongoing efforts to sell British racing abroad – at risk’. Surely, those trainers, of which I was one, were not making a ‘claim’. We were stating an indisputable fact as, still, to date, no money has actually been returned to offset the increased costs of 48 hour declarations. It is claimed that some money – a tiny fraction of that predicted in the business plan – has been made but none has been added to prize money or distributed in any way to those that have incurred the costs.
Anyway, what is the point in my beating the same old drum? The same representatives of owners and trainers who are continually bleating about decreasing prize money and increased costs have now agreed to continue the debacle despite the abject failure of the business plan and we must lay the blame for any future failures at their door.
Racehorse Owners’ Association President, Paul Dixon, who chairs the Horsemen’s Group, apparently said, ‘the agreement now gives the whole industry the opportunity to provide a true test as to whether or not there is an overseas market for British racing’. Why did the last 16 months (not 8 months as suggested by Howard Wright) of blanket 48 hour declarations, nor the 4 years of all-weather trials before that not provide such an opportunity? They, RUK and ATR, told us it would.
National Trainers Federation President Tom Tate said, ‘there is now recognition by the NTF that we should give this a chance for the sake of the whole racing industry and in the hope that the sale of British horseracing overseas will eventually prove to be a commercial success’. Have we not given it more than a chance?
According to Paul Dixon, this proves that ‘the Horsemen’s Group is a body with teeth’. Handy for chewing the fat.

 

November 2007

Concern Over Atificial Insemination

I must be getting old. It comes to us all. We start off as radicals in our teens and through the university years and then, as we age, we become more conservative, with a small ‘c’ and often with a big ‘C’. It seems to be as inevitable as the loss of eyesight, and other things, but I, like millions before me, said ‘it will never happen to me’.
Unfortunately, it is happening. I’m lost without my glasses – still only + 1.5, I might add – and every time I look in the mirror I find a new grey hair but nothing hurts more than the suggestion that I am stuck in the past or that I am resistant to change.
I thought I had been at the forefront of change since entering this industry and I know everyone here at Kingsley House is still driven crazy by my daily attempts to introduce new ideas, schemes and systems but I hope they might also tell you that, even in the early days, I have never been an advocate of change for change’s sake.
However, as we have seen on so many occasions over the last few years, Howard Wright, in making his flimsy case for 48 hour declarations, likes to try and group me along with the Luddites (they were English, weren’t they? - that says it all) and ostriches. But now it seems that he may not be the only one who thinks I am reluctant to move with the times.
According to a Mr. David Brocklehurst of Charlock Stud, Towcester – I think he specialises in things with hairy legs and large patches of white on them – in a letter to the Racing Post, ‘research recently commissioned by the Racehorse Owners’ Association and Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association and published in their journal in effect concluded that the only barrier to permitting the use of AI in thoroughbred breeding was the fear of change’.
Well, call me old fashioned if you like but I don’t agree. I can see two very good reasons for resisting a move towards AI in thoroughbred horses.
Firstly, I don’t trust the stallion owners to limit their coverings. It is all very well to say that the number of mares covered has already, with modern stallion management techniques, risen above reasonable levels and that, with the introduction of AI, numbers will be limited by contract and agreement but how long would any such agreement last under economic pressures? How long until the stallion owners, pressurised to pay more and more for the best horses off the track, would want to see more sperm sold to get a quicker return? How long until the mare owners pressed for an increase in numbers to reduce the price and make the best stallions available to improve the stock of ever more small breeders? How long till one country, with limited stallion numbers at international level, decided to break ranks? Not long!
Further increases in the number of coverings and the consequential reduction in the numbers of stallions available would be potentially disastrous for the thoroughbred breed. We are not talking about beef cattle, pigs or even hairy ponies here. There is no available outcross for the thoroughbred, which wouldn’t require centuries of breeding just to get us back to where we are now, and our gene pool is already dangerously small.
Secondly, there are risks associated with artificial insemination, which should never be ignored or underestimated. I’ll never forget the lecture on AI at vet school when it was explained to us that commercial turkeys can no longer breed naturally as the breast on the male has become too big to allow contact with the female. Now that might seem quite funny and you might think that there is no possible parallel with the horse but just consider that we are already in a position, again due entirely to economic pressure to breed from every good mare and get as many foals as possible, where the vast majority of thoroughbred mares need surgery to their vulva to allow them to conceive and hold a pregnancy. As far as I am aware, this is not done in any other species and rarely in any other breed of horse. Poor conformation of the vulva would disappear in a very few generations if we stopped doing the Caslicks operation – mares that exhibited the trait would not breed or would, at least, have a limited number of foals – but owners of good mares aren’t going to retire them when a simple operation will correct the problem.
I hope you can see from this that those who are resistant to change aren’t always the ones with their heads buried in the sand.
Not long after Mr. Brocklehurst’s letter, Brough Scott joined the fray and put forward some compelling arguments for AI and a Yorkshire breeder, with ‘a science degree and a daughter at vet school’, claimed she had never met a vet who wasn’t in favour of AI in thoroughbreds. Clearly, she has never met this one.
Just imagine the scenario of the successful, but aged, stallion with acute laminitis who is struggling to stand never mind jump up on a mare. How will legislation distinguish between this horse and any other living sire? How much pressure will there be on the owners to keep this animal alive in order to allow his sperm to be used for artificial insemination?
Let’s face it, if we introduce AI, the breeding life of both stallions and mares will extended well beyond natural limits; that may be good for the bank balances of the owners of the best individuals but it will not be good for the future of the breed.

 

Rose Spot On

While on the subject of change, and the reluctance of some to embrace it, I was interested to see the press release in early October from the Stable Lads’ Association (the stable staff union) telling of their decision to change their name to the National Association of Stable Staff (NASS) and I was delighted to read that the name was chosen as a result of a competition which was won by our own Rose Beattie. Rose, like most of us here at MJR, learned a long time ago that I didn’t like formally referring to a colleague as a ‘lad’ (another of my changes).
However, I couldn’t help but notice that the press release came from Toni Dean who gave her title as ‘Office Supervisor, National Association of Stable Lads’; that the e mail address of the NASS is now office@naoss.co.uk; and that the shortcut that they use for that e mail address is ‘Stablelads Office’.
Maybe people should be able to call themselves, and others, whatever they are comfortable with.

 

What Do You Think?

Those of you who use our website (www.markjohnstonracing.com) may have seen John Scanlon call, in the forum, for opinions on the new facilities at Doncaster.
I missed the St. Leger meeting as I was in Kentucky at the yearling sales and so it was not until last Friday that I got my first taste of the new stand.
I had a runner in the first race at 1.15pm, an early start, and, as is often the case, I was running a bit late. I had taken the precaution of calling ahead and asking Robynne to get the saddle as I thought my lack of familiarity with the layout might cause further delay. I had not, however, allowed for the fact that I would need to queue to get in. The man on the gate stood firm and barred my way, even when I told him that he had better saddle my runner in the first. I, apparently, needed to obtain a ‘barrier ticket’ from the owners and trainers desk before he could let me through. Luckily for me, an owner standing in the queue noted my predicament and let me in in front of him and Rachel, behind the desk, who knows me well, dispensed with formalities and handed me the necessary bar-coded bit of paper. Ironically, it didn’t work and the jobsworth on the gate had to produce a plastic master card from his pocket to open the barrier. Why couldn’t he have done that in the first place?
This was not a good start. I don’t expect to be treated like a star of the show or some kind of VIP but it infuriates me when racecourses treat us like they are doing us a favour by letting us in to attend to our horses, cater for our owners and, effectively, entertain their customers. It has always been one of my pet hates and, if I had not had an owner waiting for me inside, I would have turned around and gone home.
Once inside, it wasn’t as bad as I had expected and, having been tipped off in advance that the weighing room and pre parade ring were somewhere down by the two furlong pole, I headed in the right direction and soon found Robynne and the horse.
The saddling facilities are well away from the track itself, which always makes life a bit easier, and the boxes are very attractive and well padded if a bit narrow. Tracks have a terrible habit of consulting the old Jockey Club instructions on the minimum dimensions for a saddling box rather than the trainers and staff who have to use them.
I have heard many complaints about the siting of the paddock so far down the track but, for us, that wasn’t a problem and the parade ring itself is spacious and well laid out with rubber surfaces and no obvious hazards.
I watched my first two runners from the steps at the front of the stand, as I couldn’t find any dedicated viewing area for owners and trainers, and I couldn’t help but wonder how it would cope with a really large crowd. There are lots of seats but they take up most of the available space and there doesn’t seem to be enough space for those of us that want to watch the race live.
When I got a break between runners I managed to find the owners and trainers facilities on the third, or is it fourth, floor. It is a pretty big room with a bar and food – the signs offered sandwiches but, in reality, there was lamb shank and mash or lamb shank and mash – for which we had all been given £10 worth of vouchers, enough for one and a bit portions of lamb shank. The room is nice but, again, the space outside for viewing is very limited and, as far as I could determine, it is the only area set aside for owners and trainers.
I will need to explore a bit more next time I go but, overall, my first impressions were pretty good. I’m sure it will grow on me but I do wonder if, like so many other new stands, it has been designed principally with corporate entertainment in mind and the true racing enthusiast was a distance second in their minds. Once again I was left wondering if the future of our sport is in good hands.

October 2007

Going Crazy

Last month’s Klarion was hardly off the presses when Pietro Innocenzi, writing as ‘Trading Post’ in the Racing Post, was echoing my sentiments on over-watering of British tracks. His description of ‘divots flying around like insults on the Betfair forum’ aptly summed up the situation at Chester and I totally agree with him that such ground, described by clerks as ‘good’ or ‘good to firm’, seriously inconveniences the true fast ground horse and produces false results.
The day before I had been at Ripon’s last meeting of the season and had complained about the watering and the state of the ground to the clerk of the course, James Hutchinson, who dismissed my comments and was clearly happy that his description was accurate. Yet, as at Chester, York and on many other tracks around the country, the horses were kicking up large divots. This is not true, fast, summer ground.
The problem continued throughout September with extreme examples at Warwick, which needed to be abandoned after one race, and Haydock, where the Sprint Cup meeting was a fiasco due to over-watering having caused a serious draw bias.
This is all occurring in a year when we have experienced record rainfall and I can only surmise that those tracks where problems are occurring have suffered from mismanagement of the turf over a long period of time. The turf on the gallops here in Middleham has never been better than this year with a very solid, thick, sward of grass.
Personally, I would like to see regulation to prevent watering within a certain number of days, probably five or six, before racing. I accept that there might be complications during long meetings or when meetings are scheduled close together but something needs to be done to prevent, artificially watered, ‘false’ ground.
Surely, if good management techniques are applied and sufficient nutrient and water is given for maximum grass growth at times when racing is not taking place, a sound racing surface should be achievable without watering within a week of racing.
Following my comments at York and the coverage in last month’s Klarion, William Derby visited us with his senior ground staff, Adrian Kaye and John Morley, to see what we are doing here on the gallops and to show me their plans for York.
It was extremely good of them to take the time out for this visit, I learned a lot from them which will help me to establish gallops at Park Farm, and I was delighted to see their ambitious plans for the Knavesmire. They have had a very difficult year this year with flooding and standing water which they believe has caused the damage to the York turf. Hopefully, when their drainage and improvements package is complete, false ground will be a thing of the past at York.

 

Blind Obedience

There are two principal reasons for the use of a blindfold when loading a horse into the starting stalls.
Firstly, quite obviously, a blindfold can be used to disorientate a difficult horse, confuse it, and, by so doing, get it into a starting stall that it might otherwise be reluctant to enter.
The second most common reason is, if anything
, more important and demonstrates good practice and a proper understanding of horse behaviour: a blindfold is an excellent method of calming horses in any difficult situation and will make many of the most excitable and dangerous horses biddable and easy to handle. It is, therefore, an essential piece of equipment for calming the horse that gets upset in the stalls after loading and, as such, it prevents injury to horses, riders and stalls handlers. It also, of course, minimises the chances of horses attempting to break out of the stalls, an action that causes considerable delay to the start.
These two uses are, quite obviously, even to the lay observer, very different and should, presumably, be treated differently under the rules of racing. Unfortunately, the rules of racing have never applied simple logic in that way.
There was a time, not long ago, when trainers endeavoured to learn as much as possible about their charges’ individual idiosyncrasies at the stalls and would pass this knowledge on to the starters in order to facilitate the easy handling of the individual with the aid of any necessary tools like blindfolds. But the authorities (either BHB or Jockey Club at the time) decided, in their wisdom and in their quest to pass the blame for all delays to the start on to anyone other than themselves, to introduce new rules to stop those nasty little immutable trainers from seeking to gain an advantage at the start. They decided that any horse for which the trainer requested a blindfold, or which was blindfolded on its previous start, must be loaded first.
Now, this might be quite logical for those horses that are difficult to load and, so, might delay the start but it is, quite clearly, totally illogical for those horses that load easily but get upset in the stalls or might try to get under the front gate. Who, in their right mind, wants to have those horses in the stalls for the maximum amount of time.
What’s more, it can clearly be seen that, if the rules are applied literally, and they tend to be, then, once a horse has had a blindfold on, it will be loaded first for the rest of its life. Even if, as is often the case, it is the starter himself who suggested the use of a blindfold because the horse became unruly in the stalls, it is the trainer who must request it and the horse will, consequently, have to load first in future.
As a result, trainers like me who, until last year, would use the blindfold as the first harmless aid in calming the stressed or excitable horse and who would pass this information to starters whenever it might be beneficial, now see the blindfold as an absolute last resort (ask my staff who suggest its use) and now tend to tell the starter little or nothing for fear of being required to load first.
Starters tell us that the rule is illogical and removes their discretion when handling difficult horses; they lay the blame at the door of the senior starter who, they say, enforces the rule and he, in turn, blames his superior. None will stand up and say ‘the law is an ass.’ But they, like me, know it is.

 

Still Waiting

WHERE’S THE MONEY? 48 hour decs continue to damage British racing but not one penny has made its way through to prize money as a result of their introduction. Those who allow this nonsense to continue should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They are being made fools of, if they weren’t fools already. I wonder how many O Levels in arithmetic they have between them.

September 2007

Last Resort

Where do I begin? Not at the beginning, that’s for sure. Even I wouldn’t wish that upon you as the debate on 48-hour declarations dates back more than five years and I am certain you have seen more than enough of it in these pages alone.
Even to start where we left off in last month’s Klarion, with Simon Bazalgette’s promises of ‘jam tomorrow’, seems too long ago: so much has gone on since then.
Maybe I should start with Alastair Down’s article at the beginning of last month when he likened me to a ‘rumbling volcano’ and suggested that, if Ghengis Khan had a diplomatic corps, he would look for someone other than me to run it.
Many suggested that I should be offended by his words. I was not. I accept that much of it, at least where it sought to describe me, was true. It has been said many times before, if rarely so eloquently, and even by me myself. I have an inherent mistrust of those who are skilled in the arts of diplomacy and negotiation, fearing that they go hand in hand with collusion and deceit, and nothing in the long saga of 48-hour declarations has dissuaded me from that view. Given a choice, I prefer clear battle lines to parleys where the foot-soldiers’ homes and livelihoods are traded behind closed doors.
I was, however, surprised that he should suggest in his conclusion that I should be seeking to explain my views to the viewers of ATR and RUK rather than withdrawing my support for those companies. Where has Alastair been while I, and many others, have been beating our heads against the brick wall that surrounds the broadcasters and the RCA over the last five years? We have tried debate; we have tried compromise and trials; we have accepted their word and given ours; we have listened to the scorn and the ridicule from some of Alastair’s colleagues at the Racing Post; and this was a last resort.
I don’t need to feed the dog that bites me.

 

If Alastair Down needed any proof that attempts at reasoned debate on the subject would be futile, he need look no further than Howard Wright’s piece in the very same issue of the paper. Howard, in his inimitable style, points out that detailed figures on the costs relating to 48-hour declarations have not been published but he infers that it is us, the trainers or the opponents of 48-hour declarations, that should provide these figures. He conveniently forgets that it isn’t our business plan.
He tells us that “the critics’ approach to the income target has been that anything less than full achievement is a failure” and condescendingly claims that “sadly, business doesn’t work that way”.
Well, Howard, where I come from, in the real world of having to make ends meet, that is exactly how business works: you make a prediction on income and you are expected to get somewhere near it.
His words reminded me of sitting with our bank manager in the kitchen here at Kingsley House about a year after we moved from Lincolnshire. Things were very tough at the time; interest rates had gone through the roof since we bought the property, but we were managing to make the scheduled repayments on the loan – just. The bank manager was bending my ear on our first year’s results (financial, not winners) and I couldn’t understand why, if he was still getting his pound of flesh, he expected me to meet my targets as well. What business was it of his? I thought.
I now realise how naïve I was and I am astounded to discover that the journalist who is charged with writing a weekly page on ‘Business Matters’ for the Racing Post, is just as naïve as I was as a rookie horse trainer.

 

Before I leave the subject of 48-hour declarations – for this issue – I must make it very clear that I was not, as suggested, a party to Paul Dixon’s proposal for a compromise on declaration time which would involve 48-hour decs for meetings featuring quality racing and 24 hour, or a period in between, for other races. Paul Dixon and I did discuss his proposal but my view was that this was unlikely to succeed as something very similar was trialled two years ago when we declared at 48 hours for all group races and heritage handicaps. That trial failed and further convinced the NTF that 48-hour decs were not the way forward for British racing.
To quickly summarise what I do believe to be the way forward, I think that, with the help of the modern technology already available at Weatherbys, we should be seeking to provide full and comprehensive details of all races, at least 26 hours in advance of the race (i.e. soon after 10am on the day before). We should ensure that that information is available simultaneously anywhere in the world that wants it and we should then all get behind those that are trying to sell our product, not some bastardised version, abroad. At present, many hours are lost through the inefficiency of processing and distributing the information.
If I can get the full details at 10.15 am, so should the Doncaster Star and so should a punter in South Africa or even China.

Good Going?

Prior to the Ebor meeting at York, Clerk of the Course William Derby was quoted as saying ‘the ground for Tuesday is likely to have the word “good” somewhere in the description’. Well, at least he was being honest and admitting that he would do what nearly every Clerk of the Course in the country seems to do nowadays and incorporate the word ‘good’ in their going description if at all possible.
This gives them a huge margin for error – from Soft/Good-to-soft in places, through to Firm/Good-to firm in places – but, unfortunately, apart from being the accepted mid-point somewhere between ‘heavy’ and ‘firm’ it was not logical to use the word ‘good’ to describe the ground at York. Frankly, it was a mess, and, while I appreciate that they have had atrocious weather conditions to contend with this year, I think someone should have made an effort to describe it as it was – not that that was easy to do.
On Tuesday I put it to William Derby that the ground was not as described (records now say that it was ‘Good’ but at the time I believe he was describing it as ‘Good to Soft’)) as both my jockeys in the Great Voltigeur, Frankie Dettori and Greg Fairly, had reported their mounts to be unsuited by the heavy patches on the back of the course. He, in true diplomatic fashion, said that he was sorry that the going was ‘not suitable’ for my horses but he maintained that his description was accurate and by Wednesday he had time figures to support his position.
Yet, at the end of that second day, when the ground had clearly dried out significantly, they had a large team filling holes on the course. Surely, it isn’t normal to be filling holes after racing on good ground. This looked like jumping ground in mid-winter and, clearly, many horses failed to handle it but the time figures, apparently, confirmed the description as ‘good’.
This doesn’t make sense but York isn’t the only course where we are seeing such anomalies this year. Several tracks have watered despite the wettest summer on record and it is now common to see the mud and divots flying in mid-summer flat races.
I have to wonder if the new going stick is, in fact, making life more difficult for Clerks in attempting to quantify and standardise something that is largely subjective but I also wonder if the turf surface on most of our tracks has changed in recent years and if they are no longer able to stand the pressure from large numbers of horses combined with inclement weather.
Is watering ruining our tracks? I think it may well be. As I have said above, we have seen tracks watering in areas where rainfall has been excessive for the time of year and it now seems to be common place for tracks to put some water on every day in the run up to a meeting.
Now, you don’t need to be Percy Thrower to know that, if you are going to water your lawn, you must saturate it and allow the water to penetrate deep into the soil. To water little and often brings the roots to the surface and destroys the grass and I assume that the same applies to racecourses.
They tell us that watering is to maintain the grass rather than to alter the ground but that admirable policy doesn’t fit with what we see in practice. Here in Middleham we have more grass on the gallops than we have ever had and the wonderful cushion allows us to work when the ground is firm but also holds the turf together when the rain comes. I cannot understand why we should find it the best ever summer for growing grass on the gallops but the Yorkshire courses are struggling to meet their usual standards.

 

Sales Time Already?

As you will see elsewhere in this issue, the annual round of yearling sales is upon us and even earlier than usual.
Buyers that I have spoken to unanimously agree that it is far too early but the sales companies, driven as ever by the vendors rather than the customers, seem determined to get earlier and earlier.
Amazingly, however, despite the fact that trainers have better things to do at this time of year than break yearling and most of their boxes are full, trade appears as strong as ever.
Average prices were up significantly at Deauville but this may, in part, be due to a better quality draft of yearlings at the French sale and I came home with five which are now, along with one from Doncaster, out in the field.
What a pity that we can’t get the main racing season and the Horses-in-training sales out of the way before we buy yearlings. Sadly that would be a step too far for the traditionalist sales companies.

 

 

August 2007

Problem Solving

The Met Office has, apparently, stated that this has been ‘the worst July since records began’. They were, of course, referring to the weather but they could just as easily have been talking about horseracing or even the MJR stable in particular.

For us, if you are simply looking at number of winners, it probably isn’t the worst July since records began – there must have been a time when we had very few horses and less winners – but it is certainly the worst July that I can remember and one of the all-time low periods for the stable.
Speculation on why is rife both inside the stable and elsewhere but most of the theories are very wide of the mark. The most common misconception is that it is all down to a lack of work on the High Moor with many asking me if the ancient gallop is open yet. In fact we have taken more horses to the High Moor this July than we did last year and, even if we had not, I would not be looking for such a simple explanation for our difficulties.
No doubt we ourselves have perpetuated the myth that work on the High Moor transforms the form of the yard but clearly that is not the case. Horses like Mister Baileys and Attraction won their respective Guineas without setting foot on the High Moor and we don’t need to look that far back to find evidence of great results from the Low Moor gallops alone – this was our best winter and spring ever.
Like all racing yards, we are well used to the ups and downs of our game, the peaks and troughs; the troughs that some trainers might blame on ‘the virus’.
First and foremost we have to decide if we do have a genuine problem and if it is a ‘herd’ problem i.e. is there a factor or factors that are adversely affecting the performance of a large number of horses at the same time? That is not an easy thing to do and, most often, the perceived problem is over before we are certain that it actually existed. I examine our results every day and it is well publicised that I like to look at the percentage of our runners which reach the frame: 50% means we are ‘flying’, 33% is good, and 25% is just acceptable. In late June and July we have been hovering around our lower limits with occasional dips below. In addition, the number actually winning has been well below our norm and the two year olds have been performing particularly badly. By this time last year around 40% of our two year old runners had won, this year it is under 10%. That clearly constitutes a problem.
However, if establishing that we have a problem is difficult, getting to the root cause or causes is well near impossible. These things are almost invariably multifactorial.
First we consider the general health of the horses and that starts with their appearance and body condition. In April and May 2006, when our horses were running below form, they looked poor. They were clearly unhealthy. This year that is not the case. The majority look very well.
Signs of disease like coughing, nasal discharges and skin infections are easy to record. At present we have a low incidence of coughing, a handful of horses with dirty noses, and a significant number of low grade fungal skin infections (ringworm). This is almost certainly affecting the performance of the horses or is, at least, one visible sign of the syndrome. But it is not the answer. To close down until all signs of disease have gone would be a disaster; that utopian state could never exist.
We must look for the horses that are well and try to run them but, at present, with soft ground on the gallops and on the tracks, that can be very difficult. When a horse works badly we can not be sure if he is unwell or if he was simply struggling on the ground. Conversely, if he works well, we wonder if his galloping companions were in some way inconvenienced. I am sure you can see that, in this situation, the two-year-olds, without established form as a benchmark, will be far more difficult to assess than the older horses and they will epitomise the problem.
I have always believed that, as a generalisation, our team performs best on firm ground. This is hard to explain but may be down to the free-running style that we apply to our training and our racing. This, alone, could not account for our current level of form but, when combined with health problems and a classical poor performance syndrome, it complicates the situation. The road to recovery is paved with soft ground.
All we can do, as is ever the case in these situations, is to pay the utmost attention to detail, to cut no corners, to leave no stones unturned, and to make sure that we are applying the same principles to training the horses that have served us so well in the past.
I pride myself, above all, in our consistency. We have, for at least sixteen years, managed to ride the troughs in each season. We have never closed down nor had a really disastrous year. I hope this isn’t the first.
Believe it or not, thanks to that fantastic start to the year, we are still ahead of last year. There is, therefore, still time for recovery. Let’s hope the Met Office has a better forecast for August and September.

 

Daylight Robbery

Tattersalls, in increasing their contribution to their “Millions” series of races and in upping their sponsorship of other races – they have now added the Group 3 Acomb Stakes at York to their sponsorship portfolio – have, at least, shown that they have a conscience and that, unlike their competitors, they accept the absurdity of Sales races. It seems that, while they feel they have no choice but to compete with Goffs and Doncaster in the sales race arena, they are determined to avoid the situation where the owners put up all the prize money and they walk away with a net profit, à la Goffs.
They have now increased their contribution to the ‘guaranteed’ £2,200,000 pot by £55,000 bringing the total contribution from them, and their partners Newmarket Racecourses, to £330,000. This brings their contribution to 15% with, presumably, the owners putting up the other 85% but I don’t think they have explained what happens if the total raised from entry fees exceeds £1,870,000. Will the prize money rise above £2,200,000 or will they reduce their contribution? No doubt Edmond Mahony will be straight on the phone to let us know.
We have to give credit where credit is due and, as I have said from the start, at least they are making some effort to be different. If theirs is the best show in town, just think how bad the others are. It is daylight robbery and I can only hope that, with the amount of publicity surrounding these races and the intended 50% rise in commissions planned at Doncaster in 2008, it will start to backfire on the sales companies. I have already made moves this year to increase the time, and ultimately money, I spend at Keeneland and Tattersalls in relation to Goffs. This is not a protest vote but simple economic sense. I can not afford to continue risking huge amounts of money on buying yearlings on spec to resell to owners when the realities of poor funding are now hitting us from all angles. This year we still had more than £600,000 worth of yearlings sitting on the shelf in January and that is too big a risk to be taking. The Keeneland yearlings were all sold before I left the sale and so, obviously, if that is the case again this year, I will spend more there. At other sales I am going to need to press owners to give me some idea of their requirements and their budget before I risk laying out large sums.

Owners should wake up to the fact that it is not only the sales companies that are robbing them blind, most racecourses are doing it too. All races are now run as ‘guaranteed sweepstakes’ with entry fees forming part of the fixed prize money pool unlike in the past when we had entry fees ‘added to stakes’. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that, in low grade races and in better races with early closing dates, where the number of entries are high, the contribution from the racecourse and sponsor is greatly diminished. Is it any wonder then that so many racecourses are putting on low grade handicaps where they know they will get a large entry, a full field, a maximum contribution from the bookmakers through BAGS, and their own input will be minimised? Any of you who own a horse with a handicap rating of less than 70 will be reminded of this every day. These horses have countless opportunities for entries whereas, at the opposite end of the scale, the best horses have few opportunities and entry conditions are structured to force us to make speculative entries at an early stage.

 

Courses TV Not Set Up To Scratch

The 48 hour declaration debacle continues and Simon Bazalgette’s announcement of expanded distribution of British racing pictures in Australia and New York, so aptly described by Rupert Arnold of the National Trainers Federation as ‘the same old promises of jam tomorrow’, did nothing but add insult to injury.
Trainers are at their wits end and are losing all faith in the governors of our industry who are still blindly dragging us towards the precipice despite the failure of RUK and ATR to meet any of their own targets. We are particularly disappointed with the racecourses. They are losing all credibility. They, like us, are having to deal with the detrimental effects of the 48 hour declaration system on a daily basis; yet they say nothing. Why?
Ironically, the 48 hour declaration argument, the expanding fixture list, the Turf TV war and so many of the other important issues facing racing at present are intrinsically linked to the sale of pictures. Yet, on a daily basis, while visiting racecourses, I see the desperate incompetence of the courses, the Tote and the picture providers when it comes to selling racing to our own captive audience on course.
Sports like golf and motor racing provide television coverage which appeals to millions of prime-time viewers despite there being about as much action as you might find in a portrait of a dead rabbit. While in racing, where the outcome can be affected by a twitch of the jockey’s hand or a stroke of his stick and positions change with every stride, our on-course coverage switches to, and remains on, static adverts or other text before the last horse has even crossed the line. No head-on replays, no discussion, no debate about the likely outcome of stewards’ enquiries – just adverts for the next meeting or the has-been rock group that will be playing after racing.
The coverage of away meetings is even worse. No dedicated screens; no clear indication of what’s coming next or where to go to see which track; attendants at Tote terminals who, even when they try to be helpful, don’t know what pictures to expect on their screens and can’t find out; and coverage, if it comes at all, is likely to start when the horses have already covered a furlong or more.
If you want to be sure of seeing a race from an away meeting, it is best to go to the on course bookmakers shop. They generally know how to sell their product and will cover the vast majority of races, even if you will have to endure split screens and wall to wall cartoon racing.
The courses, on the other hand, either have no idea how to make racing interesting and sell it to their customers, or they have no inclination to do so. It is quite pathetic and totally ridiculous that those who fail so abysmally to provide adequate or interesting coverage of British racing on British courses should suggest that they can fund our sport by selling pictures abroad if we give them 48 hour declarations.

 

July 2007

The Name of the Game

What’s in a name? Sometimes quite a lot if you are a racehorse or, should I say, if you are the person who named a racehorse. So much so that I have often thought that someone should write a book on the hundred best horse names and the stories behind them. Maybe I’ll do it myself in my spare time.
The one that always springs to mind from our yard, when I am discussing this subject, is Tony Farmer and Julian Clopet’s filly from a few years ago by Sure Blade out of Russian Ribbon. I thought the name Cut the Red Tape was a stroke of genius.
Another which I will always remember is the filly by Risk Me out of Where’s the Money. Her owners christened her Itsinthepost and it was that name which brought this subject to my mind most recently in connection with, believe it or not, 48 hour declarations.
Where is the money? There is one thing for certain, it isn’t in the post and it isn’t making its way to those that need it by any other means. The fact is the money, which we were assured would be forthcoming from the sale of British racing to foreign climes if we would agree to 48 hour declarations, doesn’t really exist or not in sufficient quantities to be meaningful..
Surprise, surprise! After four failed trials we – that is all of us with half a brain, two O’Levels, or an NVQ level 1 in Racehorse Care and Management – all knew that the sale of British racing abroad was not dependant on an extension of the declaration time. If they could not sell it under the 24 hour system they were not going to do so by doubling the time from declaration. The excuse that they couldn’t get the form printed in time for markets like the east coast of America, South Africa, and Australia was nothing more than that, an excuse. This was most aptly demonstrated in James Toller’s recent letter to the Racing Post. He stated that, ‘As regards the selling of racing abroad, while on a visit to South Africa (the home of Phumelela) I had a runner at Lingfield, who had been declared 48 hours earlier.
‘At last I thought I would get some benefit out of this wonderful new system. On went their version of the racing channel and out came jumping from Haydock and Wincanton (declared 24 hours earlier) – not a sniff of Lingfield.’
So why are we continuing with this nonsensical system and why are we giving Racing UK and ATR ever increasing lengths of rope to hang us all with? They have failed to produce any cash for racing from their foolhardy scheme, the bookmakers have told us that the levy is likely to take a hit in the region of £7M, and those of us at the sharp end of racing are counting the costs of increased administration, missed opportunities, and non-runners every day. If it should continue beyond this year, we at MJR are certainly going to have to reconsider our policy of ‘no run – no charge’ or allow for the increased costs within training fees. How can we be expected to continue footing the shoeing, transport, and vet certificate bills for horses that don’t run when numbers of non-runners are vastly increased. We were promised compensation for these increased costs but, like the increased prize money, it hasn’t materialised. It is particularly frustrating when those that are supposed to be representing owners’ (most of whom are presumably paying these extra costs directly out of their own pockets), the ROA, appear to be doing little or nothing about it.
Perhaps one reason for this is that their new president, Paul Dixon, is himself, if his inaugural speech to their annual meeting is anything to go by, an advocate of 48 hour declarations. He stated, when talking about the sale of the Tote to ‘Racing’ that ‘they [48 hour decs] will be essential if international co-mingling of the pool is to expand in the coming years’. I wonder who told him that? I also wonder if he might be one of the select band of owners, running under the guise of the ROA, who make up part of the consortium who are bidding to buy the Tote in the name of ‘Racing’.
I am astounded that he, with the number of horses he owns, can be a supporter of 48 hour declarations. I know it is hard to believe but maybe, like so many other owners, members of the media, and racecourse executives, he just doesn’t understand the entry or declaration process. That might seem like a ridiculous suggestion but, let’s face it, one of the journalists who was pushing hardest for 48 hour decs and the man that Arena brought from America to tell us why they needed the new system, didn’t even know when our declarations closed.

_________________________________

Ascot Fireworks

Royal Ascot was, by most people’s standards, another tremendous success for us. With two winners, one in a Group 2 race and one in a Listed contest, I should have been over the moon but, for some reason, despite the thrill of those winners, the meeting was a bit of a damp squib for me.

The New Ascot

I have to admit that, having fielded such a strong team in the handicaps, I was disappointed not to do better, especially with horses like Eradicate, Colorado Rapid and Record Breaker, but I don’t really think it was the performance of our horses which left me deflated. The meeting just seemed to have lost some of its sparkle.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those that hankers for the old stand or objects to the modern architecture. I accept that the old stand was well past its sell-by date and had to go and the new stand is certainly something to behold but I still have some reservations about the view as, even when standing on the highest steps of the viewing area, I found myself more aware of the clutter in the centre of the track than ever before. My view seemed to be obscured by vehicles, toilet blocks and general paraphernalia and I found myself watching races on the big screen when I had always been used to watching the whole race through binoculars at Ascot. I am sure that those in the corporate boxes will have no such problems and probably aren’t too bothered about seeing the race anyway, so no doubt the furore over the view will settle down as the diehards like me gradually find knew vantage points from which they can see the horses live.
I am also still a bit concerned about the apparent track bias. It seems ridiculous that, after digging up the whole straight track and relaying it, they couldn’t make it the same on both sides. No matter what they say about the measurements and distance travelled, the topography is quite different on the two sides of the track and it is surely no surprise then that there will be a bias. The big surprise is that the bias started off, at the beginning of the 2006 meeting, favouring the stands rail and then miraculously switched the other way. They have assured us that they aren’t playing around with the watering system to slow parts of the track down but it is, otherwise, hard to explain.
However, it was not really the structure of the stands or the condition of the track which detracted from the meeting for me. The atmosphere wasn’t the same but, hopefully, with a bit of effort, some of that can be restored.

Royal Ascot 2004

Roayl Ascot 2007

I think the new owners and trainers facilities above the saddling boxes are excellent and they are no further from the paddock or stands than the old gatehouse was. So owners are well catered for when it comes to eating and drinking but, if they want to see a race, things aren’t quite so good. I have now scanned the racecard with a magnifying glass – my new specs from Boots obviously aren’t powerful enough – and see that there are two viewing areas for owners. I only found the one after the winning post and, for me, the view of the finish wasn’t good enough and, more importantly, I had a devil of a job getting an owner who didn’t have a Royal enclosure badge in there. Andrew Balding assured me there was a direct route from the paddock but I couldn’t find it. Presumably that was to the other viewing area. I’ll have to do a further recce next time I’m there.
Overall I think the thing that disappointed me most was the atmosphere, or should I say, lack of it. When we did have a winner. it was a terrible anticlimax.
Our staff tell me that it used to be a tremendous thrill for them to lead a winner back in through the big gates into the Royal Ascot winners enclosure. That feeling had gone.
In that old, intimate, enclosure it would seem packed with people and, as soon as I had finished talking to the owner and jockey, photographers would be looking for pictures of connections with the horse (everyone seemed to get in on the act) and a large band of press would gather round me. At some point during this interview I would probably be dragged from amidst the hacks to be interviewed by Jonathan Powell for the Beeb in the corner next to the winning post. All this has gone.
No sooner would the BBC interview be over with than I would be dragged again to a press conference in the room adjacent to the weighing room, I would be sat down, handed a very welcome glass of Champagne, soon joined by the jockey, and we would be interviewed in front of a sizeable gathering of the media who might then have a few questions of their own. The interview still takes place but the Champagne, the jockey, most of the press, and all of the atmosphere have gone. In one of my interviews there were four members of the press and in the other just one. I was assured that it was being ‘beamed’ upstairs to the press room but I was so disillusioned by this that I had decided, after Boscobel’s win, that, if we should be lucky enough to win another race, I wouldn’t go to the press conference.
After the press conference, if we didn’t have horses to saddle in the next, we used to be ushered to the trainers room to join owners and other connections for a drink. This didn’t happen to me, or Deirdre, after either of our wins this year but we were later told that we could have made our own way to the new room and we would have, apparently, been very welcome as ‘they’d hardly had anyone in all day’. Not surprising if nobody was invited.
I can’t actually remember if the trainer and jockey were ever given their trophies on the podium, other than in the Group 1 races, but now we are simply told that we can collect them from the weighing room after racing.
These little things may seem very trivial and no doubt, in the great scheme of things, they are but, when I was left twiddling my thumbs after winning two races I got to thinking about what we were all doing there. Why do we take all our best horses to Royal Ascot and get most of them beaten if it is not for the extra thrill, excitement, kudos and atmosphere associated with the great meeting. Certainly not for the prize money.
In the Britannia Stakes, as with all other handicaps this year, Annemasse and Regal Parade were competing for a total prize fund of £55,000 with £34,276 to the winner. When they met last, in a similar grade of handicap at Haydock Park, they raced, in a field half the size, for £100,000 and £62,320 to the winner. They could run at Sandown next weekend for £100,000 or back at Ascot, without the Royal, later in the month for £150,000 all in similar, probably less competitive, handicaps.
What’s worse, when we won the Britannia ten years ago with Fly to the Stars, he received just £3,796 less than this year’s winner. A massive increase of 12% in ten years.
The story is very similar for horses like Eradicate that ran in the King George V handicap. They were also racing for a first prize of £34,276, £524 less than Fantastic Love got for winning the race in 2003.
Don’t forget that, when I recently criticised the entry system for the King Edward VII stakes, a spokesman for the track said that their races relied on ‘speculative entries’ to boost the prize funds. I’d like to know just how much Royal Ascot took from owners this year and how much they gave back. I think we would all get a shock.

June 2007

Humble pie, anyone?

The lunatics are running the asylum, or so it seems, and who would have thought that I’d be siding with the auld enemy – no, not the English, the bookmakers – in an attempt to get them back under control.
I know it’s hard to eat humble pie – it comes just below jellied eels in my list of favourite dishes – and admit that you are wrong but, when it’s costing you something in the region of £7 million a year, you had better just hold your nose and get it over with.
That is the figure which the Association of British Bookmakers have estimated that 48 hour declarations will cost British racing this year and it is not just an arbitrary sum that they have plucked from their bulging satchels. This is a carefully calculated estimate based on comparison between the number of non-runners since 48-hour declarations were introduced and the numbers during the same period last year. The advocates of this nonsensical policy have, of course, predictably, cried that there are extenuating circumstances (weather, global warming, global freezing, nasty little vindictive trainers, etc., etc., etc.) which have resulted in an unexpected level of non-runners but the bookies aren’t fooled that easily; they have an above average grasp of arithmetic and statistics. The ABB anticipated that argument and had also compared their figures with jump racing during the same period. Surprise, surprise! The number of non-runners in jumping (24 hour decs) went down by 2% while on the flat (48 hour decs) the figure was an increase of 59%. What’s more, this is almost exactly the outcome that the National Trainers Federation predicted.
Clearly, yet again, those sitting at the top table have failed to take heed of the views of the professionals who understand the subject. They have also failed to heed the evidence from four failed trials and now, it seems, they are choosing to blindly stumble along their ill conceived route despite the fact that it is costing us all dearly.
I think that our new leaders, Paul Roy and Nic Coward, should tell us when we are going to revert to 24 hour declarations. Give us a date. Show us that you, not the lunatics, are in control.
Personally, I’d like to see an immediate return to the old system, before Ascot, but, at the very least, we should have 24 hour declarations back before Glorious Goodwood.

________________________

Missing – 25 winners!

I’m already looking forward to bringing in the New Year. I’ve been abroad for Hogmanay for the last two years and it isn’t quite the same. I’ve missed the kilts, the singing, the dancing, the kissing and the shaking hands. I longed for the whisky, the shortbread, the black-bun, and the rain but I’m determined to make up for it. I’m going to be ringing out the old year and welcoming the new three times in the next ten months.
On midnight on 10th November 2007 we’ll say goodbye to the BHA’s year and we’ll officially enter the ‘Winter’; then on 31st December it’ll be off to Scotland (or Ireland, or France, or most other places where logic reigns) for the real thing; and then, on 31st March 2008, the BHA will tell us we can do it all again. Great, eh?
I discovered all this just a couple of weeks ago when I woke up one morning, opened the Racing Post, and saw that, overnight, I’d lost 25 winners and 150,000 quid in prize money.
At first I thought it was a misprint or that the anoraks in the Racing Post’s Stats Dept had got us confused with the jockeys, who either live and work in two time zones or would like to.
I waited a couple of days for them to spot their error and then, when they didn’t, I asked Rupert Arnold at the National Trainers Federation to put them straight. He didn’t. He informed me that it wasn’t an error and that it was all part of a very clever BHA marketing ploy to celebrate the year’s principal achievements before the achievers all pack up and leave for the winter. We can then have another, consolation, season for the mugs who stay to race for poor prize money in bad weather – losing their maiden tags and ruining their handicap ratings in the process – on sand during the winter.
They can have their own celebration at Lingfield in March and then the real players will launch their new year at the Doncaster Lincoln meeting in front of a large crowd of hardy Yorkshire punters and drinkers who couldn’t give a damn. They recognised that it might not be ideal to launch their season when half of their principal players were still in Dubai; they considered the Craven meeting but that didn’t solve the problem, they might still be in Dubai if it was cold in Europe or in Switzerland if it was very cold; and, if they wait for the Guineas meeting, the ‘Winter’ would be longer than the main show.
Now all this might seem, to some, like sour grapes on my part just because I’ve been knocked off my, no doubt temporary, position at the top of the trainers’ table but those of you who know me will realise that I am simply sticking to the principle that I formed way back in 1995 when the jockeys decided to limit their championship to six months of the year. I never agreed with this, always doubted their motives, and stated that, until you can win a maiden race on the all weather and then run in another one on turf, the ‘season’ must include all races and must run from 1st January to 31st December. All races run under the same rules of racing must count in the same championships.
Some say, perhaps wrongly, that one reason why we rarely saw Henry Cecil running horses abroad during his heyday was because he concentrated on British races to maintain his stranglehold on the trainers’ table. Trainers should, of course, run their horses exclusively for the benefit of the horses’ owners but, let’s face it, we are human and if the BHA think these championships and the titles that go with them are worth anything at all, they must realise that to exclude winter races from the principal championship is to condemn them, and those that compete in them, to a second division. We either ignore their championships altogether or, in order to maximise the chance of featuring prominently in the main table, we concentrate on the races run between April and October. No chance of two trainers or two owners going head-to-head for the title on the all-weather to the end of the year. Sure, you might get the same head-to-head in late October but this, if it occurs, will simply emphasise the mediocrity of all-weather racing. Another little incentive, if we needed one, to race at Nad al Sheba or even Deauville rather than at Southwell or Wolverhampton.
There is, of course, an alternative argument that says racing should welcome divisions and that the best horses should race in a super-league of races at super-league tracks for super-league prize money. I can imagine a scenario where I would welcome such a structure but we do not have that structure yet and, until we do, drawing arbitrary lines in April and November is a kick in the teeth to those that have worked all winter in Britain.

___________________________

Cowardly

I don’t frequent the Betfair forum and I don’t read Trading Post in the Racing Post but I caught the tail end of a debate in Paul Haigh’s column which had, apparently, been sparked off by comments made on that forum. It seems that Matt Williams, writing in Trading Post, took exception to comments made about Jimmy Fortune by an anonymous contributor to the Betfair forum.
Paul Haigh, very eloquently, turned this into a debate on freedom of speech and demonstrated his great knowledge of philosophy and philosophers from G1 down to Listed class. It was an entertaining piece, with lashings of quotes and references to articles on liberty, suggesting, if not quite saying outright, that Matt Williams was advocating censorship of anyone he didn’t agree with.
But that, clearly, wasn’t what Matt Williams was saying at all and I, at least, sympathise with his view. His principle complaint was that the critic chose to hide behind a pseudonym and I agree that, in most cases, such sad people shouldn’t be given a platform.
No doubt, there are cases where people may genuinely fear for their own safety, may be at risk of losing their job, or could leave themselves open to some form of persecution if they speak out, however legitimately, and reveal their identity but the Betfair forum could never present such a situation. In most cases to criticise someone anonymously and, effectively, deny them an equal right of reply is, in my opinion, despicable and cowardly behaviour.
I get my share of criticism in the press, on the MJR website forum, occasionally by phone, and in the mail. Unfortunately, it goes with the territory and, fortunately, most of it is like water off a duck’s back but the nastiest comments are invariably anonymous. I cannot see the justification for giving such people a public platform.
Perhaps, to place a comment on the Betfair forum, you have to register and reveal your identity to the operators. In which case Jimmy Fortune, or anyone who felt wronged on the forum, could have a right of redress but we all know that many forums have no such requirement for registration and we know that the Racing Post itself has been willing to print anonymous letters without making any effort to verify the source.
Such behaviour should never be confused with free speech.

May 2007

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?*

*but who will guard the guards?

Who’s in charge? It is an important question and one that almost everybody connected with the racing industry has been asking in recent months. Even those of us that work in racing full time are confused and it isn’t just that the faces at the helm have changed. We are all sick and tired of restructuring and the endless list of abbreviations for the various new authorities, organisations and departments. It is almost enough to make us call for the return of the Jockey Club. Almost, but not quite.

In the paddock

The NTF (National Trainers Federation) newsletter made a good job of explaining the situation and I shall try to pass that information on to you here with a little bit of expansion and personal comment.
The plan, it seems, is for the newly formed British Horseracing Authority (BHA) to take charge of the governance and regulation of horseracing in the near future.
The changeover has been delayed because of problems with the BHB and Jockey Club pension schemes. As I understand it – and I don’t pretend to understand it well – the principle problem lies with the Jockey Club pension scheme which, presumably, is a final salary scheme and has amassed huge liabilities. Liabilities which the Jockey Club, despite its vast assets and its obvious responsibility for setting up the scheme in the first place, would rather not have and so, in their wisdom, they made it a condition of the handover of power that the responsibility for the pension scheme went with it. I can only assume that those setting up the new BHA, in their lack of wisdom, agreed to this.
Anyway, if and when it eventually gets off the ground the new BHA will be headed up by Paul Roy, investment banker and racehorse owner, as Chairman with Nic Coward, who has come from the FA (Football Association – see, other sports have these abbreviations too) as Chief Executive.
The BHA will have six directors: two Independent Directors, Morag Gray – now independent sport and leisure consultant working, amongst others, for SIS (Satellite Information Services) but still best known for her previous role as Chief Executive of Hamilton Park Racecourse, and Jim McGrath – Timeform; two Independent Regulatory Directors, John Bridgeman – formerly Director General of the Office of Fair Trading and currently Chairman of the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA – another temporary body set up, it seems, principally to confuse us), and Ben Gunn – Treasure Island*; and, last but not least, two Members’ Nominated Directors, Toby Balding – former trainer, and Ian Renton – Arena Leisure.

BHA
Chairman	Paul Roy
Chief Executive	Nic Coward
Independent Directors	Morag Gray Jim McGrath
Independent Regulatory Directors	John Bridgeman Ben Gunn
Members’ Nominated Directors	Toby Balding Ian Renton

The ‘Members’ of the BHA are the ROA (Racehorse Owners Association), the RCA (Racecourse Association), the TBA (Thoroughbred Breeders Association) and the Licensed Personnel (in other words, those deemed fit to be ‘Members’ by the true ‘Members’), which comprises the NTF, the JAGB (Jockeys Association of Great Britain) and the SLA (Stable Lads Association).
Is it not strange that trainers and jockeys, most of whom are self employed, are considered to be ‘personnel’ while those employed by racecourses, stud farms or in regulatory roles in racing are not? I have no doubt that this is their way of categorising us as less capable of independent thought and/or unbiased opinion. They have, at every stage of their evolution, decreed that these ‘licensed personnel’ cannot have a seat at any top table, in their own right. Is this democracy? Is this good for racing? Is it logical that those professionals working full-time in the industry and, in most cases, with all their assets invested in this industry alone, should be pushed into a minor role? Is it any wonder, therefore, that we s