as if there isn't enough for trainers to get done in a day!

​The recent post Royal Ascot spat between Newmarket trainer George Boughey and Sheikh Abdullah Almalet Alsabah over the performance of the owner’s Asadna in what ever race it was, (the Chesham?) is a case of the trainer being damned whichever way he managed the situation.
I am sure you are all aware that Asadna suffered a cut to his shoulder the week before Royal Ascot. I suspect he caught the door of his stable as he was being led out for exercise. Pure speculation on my part but from my experience more likely than the horse being kicked. The horse was never lame, was treated accordingly and Boughey kept the B.H.A. informed of the horse’s welfare throughout and Asadna passed the obligatory pre-race veterinary examination upon his arrival at the racecourse. In effect, the trainer did everything by the book.
Two things he didn’t do, seemingly, was to inform either the owner or the press/public. The first instance is a moot point. The horse was not lame, there was no suggestion the participation of the horse at Royal Ascot was in doubt and Boughey had a hundred and one matters, many of greater importance or urgency, to attend to at a crucial time of year for his business. Perhaps the owner should have been informed but where does a trainer draw the line at what information he must pass on to each and every owner? Should a trainer inform an owner that his or her horse was naughty when being shod that morning and the farrier had need to use ‘sharp words’ to bring the horse to order. Or a horse kicked the wall of its stable while being groomed. Or that his or her horse stood on a stone on the way back from the gallops and may or may not have bruised a foot.
Likewise, what information is relevant to a racing journalist/tipster? Or punter? If the trainer of every runner in the Royal Hunt Cup was obliged to report every little mishap and incident that had occurred to each runner during the lead-up to the meeting, wouldn’t that become information overload? How would all that information be disclosed to the press and public?
Should a trainer running a horse in blinkers for the first time on a racecourse provide video footage of the horse on the gallops when first trialled in blinkers? Something, I would suggest, far more relevant to the press and public than a small cut.
The story on Asadna was the owner taking umbrage at a lack of communication with his trainer, not what Boughey should or should not have informed the press. Owners like the Sheikh pour millions of pound into owning racehorses to run in this country, there has to be a level of confidentiality between owner/trainer that the press/public have no right to be a party of. When assessing the form of any race there has to be an element of it being a guessing game, it is why last week people won money on a 150/1 outsider that every professional journalist and punter ignored. Form and ratings do not equate to science. If Boughey had announced that Asadna had suffered a small injury and might not run, then he did run, he could easily be accused of ‘putting punters away’ if the horse won at longer odds that it was prior to the announcement.
Asadna may never win another race. Or he might win a classic. Who knows? What is certain is whichever scenario comes true, it will have nothing to do with his run at Royal Ascot.
Training racehorses is a stressful business. As Sir Mark Prescott once said something alone the lines of (tongue in cheek as it normally is with the great man) horses spend all their time trying to injure themselves, while the staff do their best to abet them. Every minute of every day a horse in a stable of a hundred could bang a knee, go off their food, suffer a bout of colic, spring a tendon on the gallops and so on. He or she must cater for the wants and needs of every owner and for every minute of every day the telephone might bring problems in need of immediate answers from the press, from owners with helpful suggestions on what is best for their horse and so on and so on.
Trainers, I believe, would need to employ a press agent to comply with any regulation or request to inform the press/public with every trifling occurrence to the horses in their care. There has to a be a line and that line should be if a horse suffers an injury that puts its next scheduled racecourse appearance in jeopardy. Anything beyond that is intrusion on matters governed by owner/trainer confidentiality.
The mental well-being of trainers is as important as any other member of the racing industry. Racehorse trainers are not running a charitable organisation for the financial well-being of punters, they are running a business. Journalists want their cake and to eat it. They eulogise the gambling exploits of Ryan Price, Barney Curley and the Druid Lodge Confederacy, yet wish total openness in the modern era. Journalist will soon be campaigning to force trainers to allow punters free access to yards and grandstands erected by the side of gallops and a running commentary on the horses flashing by.
George Boughey was the victim here, not the punter.