enough is enough. or is it?

​There will be 4 fewer race meetings in 2022. Phew! I thought the upward spiral would never end. Though, as it is becoming in this world-wide governmental era of confused restriction of civil liberties, the number 1,482 is not set in stone. There is wiggle-room, apparently, for extra Sunday Series meetings and the nonsensical Racing League is still to be accommodated. So, four fewer may come 5 extra. Or 6. Or 7.
Everyone is happy except the National Association of Stable Staff. They are cross, very cross. George McGrath, head man of the N.A.S.S., is livid as the fixture list compliers, which is everyone, seemingly, except the N.A.S.S., have completely ignored any concerns for the welfare of the sport’s core workers, those men and women who look after the horses.
To look at the fixture list you would think the sport was booming. Which according to all concerned it is not. It is flat-lining; in need of an infusion of money and to some extent fresh ideas.
The Sunday Series, which in some corners of the industry is referred to as a success, is a case in point. The inflated prize money can only be beneficial but why start these meetings halfway through the afternoon, which allows for a last race around 7 o’clock. Stable staff have to be out-of-bed at daybreak, anyone leading up at a Sunday Series meeting who lives 3 or 4-hours from the racecourse will not arrive home and in their beds much before midnight. Trainers do not carry the number of employees to allow staff who had gone racing the previous day much of a lie-in. The biggest no-no to me about the Sunday Series is the requirement to start so late in the day for it to have any chance of achieving the goals of its sponsor and I.T.V.
If the mental well-being of jockeys is important, then what about stable staff?
Racecourses are a business and they must make a profit and as racing is their core business, they must have fixtures to get bums on seats and the cash coming in. In fact, everyone involved in racing must make money for the whole carnival to go round and round. But as has been the case for 200-years, stable staff are overlooked; taken for granted as if they remained servants of old.
Money, by the way, though helpful to staff with families to feed and house, is not the whole answer. Money does not rest tired bodies. Money does not quell the turmoil of mental decline. Working with horses is a privilege and has rewards far beyond a weekly wage but it is hard work. And in many ways, it is harder today than it was back in the time when stable staff were treated exactly like servants. 
Back in the days of Matt Peacock and John Porter, when the working day extended to any hour the ‘guvnor’ dictated, a groom was only expected to care for two horses maximum and the day’s chores were measured out throughout the day. The only rush and harry was when the ‘guvnor’ came round at night to inspect every horse, every stable, every curry-comb. Nowadays grooms can have six-horses to ‘brush-over’ at evening stables and the working day is regulated by employment law. It’s go go go from dawn to dusk with a few hours down-time, if they are lucky, in the early afternoon. Take three people away to go racing and the remaining staff may well be doubling-up, doing other peoples horses as well as their own.
The sport cannot risk losing staff of any calibre, let alone the really good ones.
‘Best Turned Out’ awards, although filled with best intentions, are no reward for the majority who have worked just as hard as the winner. To my mind everyone who leads up a horse should be earning a set amount. Instead of £200 for ‘best-turned-out’, for example, give everyone leading up £30 minimum. Not out of the pockets of trainers but out of a central fund accumulated from an extra £2 on what owners pay in entry fees and from sponsors. Factor in stable staff when prize money is being allocated for any race. For leading up in the Derby and such races, the lead-up fee should reflect the importance of the race.
Also, it might help the problem of length of time staff are away from home if some meetings were restricted to horses trained within a certain distance of the racecourse. This would be a good suggestion for Sunday racing and late-night Saturday fixtures. This is a challenging issue, no doubt, but in drawing up a fixture list that crams in meetings on weekends and allows evening fixtures to go on deep into the dark, the B.H.A. have completely ignored the concerns of the N.A.S.S. and that is blinkered thinking. If we must have 1,482 meetings, and counting, in 2022, put a bit of blue sky thinking into the process to sweeten the pill for those at the blunt end of the sport. Without stable staff, this sport will be deep in the mire.