dublin racing festival has convinced me beyond doubt ...

​Forgive me. Today’s thoughts mirror 100% my thoughts in the previous blog I published. I constantly worrying that our glorious sport is at a tipping point; its survival dependent on correct if radical decisions that must be taken by the sport’s governing authorities in both Ireland and Britain. My thoughts yesterday were honest and truthful to my opinion, if not particularly well constructed. What I am now certain about is that the problem to be overcome is not wholly the domination of Closutton but the actual overall ailing health of the sport.
Willie Mullins won the first three races at Leopardstown yesterday, all Grade 1’s, with horses, given that stable jockey Paul Townend was not the winning jockey on any one of the three, that were, to the benefit of Danny Mullins, the second or third strings. All of the Closutton horses are trying, of course and not knowing which of his three, four or five-runners, is the best is a conundrum for punters, as it must be for Paul Townend. And though his domination (I suspect he won the Bumper as well) yesterday and virtually every day, is proof of his status as one of the greatest racehorse trainers of all-time, the rise and rise of Willie Mullins is perhaps detrimental to the sport as a whole.
Although there is some merit in limiting a trainer to a maximum of four or five runners per race, and if this was brought-in I would like it to include every race in the racing calendar, I don’t believe it is the solution that would best serve the sport.
Another of racing’s long-term problems, affecting both Irish and British trainers, is the retaining and recruitment of staff. It is a problem that I doubt affects Willie Mullins or perhaps any of the top stables either side of the Irish Sea. It is, though, a problem that must be addressed for the widespread benefit of every other trainer in both Ireland and Britain.
A cap on the number of horses any one trainer can have at their disposal in any one season would go some way to levelling the playing-field and countering the staff-shortage crisis. I would suggest the cap would be in excess of 100 and below 150 and to be for both codes of the sport. If a trainer with 200-horses registered to him or her were forced to reduce their string-size by fifty, he or she would also be forced to lay-off six, seven or eight members of staff. Because of the acute staff shortage in both countries, these people would immediately be snapped-up by other trainers, thereby going some way to reducing perhaps the sport most pressing issue.
Also, owners of the horses let go by their trainer would then have to find homes for them with trainers a litter lower in the training food-chain, which would go a fair way to levelling-up this particular playing field. Of course, the mega-trainers would keep the best and say goodbye to the lesser fry; occasionally though a gem would slip through the net and someone would find themselves with a Derby, Gold Cup, Cheltenham or Aintree contender that otherwise would not have found its way to them. For the sport, a cap on numbers achieves a win-win scenario and should be trialled for a couple of years to ensure it brings the benefits that theory suggests it should. And a cap should not be seen as punishing the very best but giving a leg-up to the sport at a time when the vast majority of its participants are in dire need of assistance.
Incidentally, who else thought Conflated was going to play a part in the finish of the Irish Gold Cup yesterday? I still think Galopin Des Champs will prove a hard hero to slay come March as he stays so well, which I don’t believe will prove to be Fastorslow’s main weapon (I even suggest they might divert him to the Ryanair) but though she is never the most optimistic of trainers, being more Tim Forster than Paul Nicholls in thought and word, I think Venetia Williams might have greater hope in her heart that a deserved Cheltenham Gold Cup winner might be within her grasp at long last.