dido & charles, oaks this saturday?& 'a racing mind.'

​Why is it that the Jockey Club’s chair and senior steward is Dido Harding, owner of a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, former a successful amateur jockey and currently the starter for the Weston and Banwell Harriers point-to-point, while the incoming, if he actually arrives, B.H.A. chief executive, Charles Allen, was unknown to the racing world until he was announced as Julie Harrington’s successor.
To my eyes, a man with no experience or insight into the world of finance and big corporations, would not the former be a better candidate for the B.H.A. job and the latter better suited to the position at the Jockey Club? Perhaps someone might organise a job swap, if Baroness Harding could be persuaded to agree. Not that a swap might be necessary, given that a spat about governance could yet leave Charles Allen turning his back on the B.H.A..
Of course, the mystery is why this uncertainty has erupted, only a few days away from taking up his new appointment, one of several big salary jobs Lord Allen has at his disposal. It is reported in the Racing Post today that his lordship has qualms about governance. Perhaps he was given to understand a whip came with the job, a whip he could crack whenever the lower ranked shareholders (and used to getting their own way) got uppity and without a whip, he considered the B.H.A. job an impossible job to succeed in. At his age, he would not want to be thought-of in his retirement as a failure, when success in business is almost his calling card.
It just shows what a nonsense the B.H.A. is, a governing authority that is all smiles but with dentures that fall out when quick thinking and innovation is called-for. Surely someone within its organisation can see that someone with Dido Harding’s experience and success within the sport would make a far better candidate to lead the B.H.A. than someone whose only attribute is that he is a Labour peer during a period of Labour governance of the British people.
As I said before, the B.H.A. should suffer the same fate as its predecessors, the Jockey Club. It is unfit to lead our sport and if a new organisation cannot be established to guide the sport through the choppy waters ahead, the stakeholders tripartite, or whatever it is called, should be dismantled and a racing czar appointed in its place. The sport needs a dictator, though a kindly and accomplished one.

In the ‘Another View’ column of the Racing Post today, Daniel Hill makes the suggestion that tomorrow’s rather tepid, if top-heavy, race programme could have had life and exposure given to it if the Epsom executive had gone ahead with its plan to rejuvenate the Epsom Derby meeting by running the Oaks this Saturday, followed by the Derby the following Saturday, and the Coronation Cup either next Wednesday or Thursday.
It is an okay idea, except that I believe the order should be Coronation Cup this Saturday, the Derby on the Wednesday, with the draw for stalls position sometime during the Saturday, with the Oaks the following week-end. To facilitate the Derby draw being closer to the actual day of the race, I would like to see a race-day on the Sunday after the Coronation Cup, perhaps a charity day to raise funds for the R.o.R..
I remain wedded to the proposal that the Derby should return to the first Wednesday in June and at the very least Epsom should trial the idea for a period of three-years to determine if there is an appetite for a mid-week Derby by race-goers. If the Cheltenham Gold Cup can be run on a Friday, why is a daft idea to run the Derby on a Wednesday. The Melbourne Cup, a meeting which everyone cites as an example as to how the Derby meeting could be staged, is run on a Tuesday.

‘A Racing Mind’ a film documenting how Lilly Pinchin has overcome, through medication and willpower, A.D.H.D. and, perhaps by coincidence, during a period when she rode out her claim, has now been taken up by Amazon and can be streamed right this moment. Having seen it on YouTube as a 4-parter, now it is an hour-long standalone film, I can honestly say it is one of the best documentaries on the subject of racing I have seen. I hope everyone in racing that has access to Amazon (I do not) streams the film which might pave the way for Amazon to show more racing content.