HERE'S HOPING DELIA & ANNAMARIE ARE THE DREAM TICKET.

​I admit to being initially disappointed that neither of the two most important appointees in racing’s most recent history have no experience, or indeed love, of the sport they are now empowered to rule over. They are both, without a shadow of a doubt, proven winners throughout their careers and have the skills and knowledge to be a safe pair of hands. I would just like to see someone from within the industry, and not necessarily someone currently employed by either the B.H.A. or The Jockey Club, to have worked their way up to one of the highest offices the sport has to offer.
Look, Delia Bushell, the new supremo at The Jockey Club, and Annamarie Phelps, head honcho at the B.H.A. are smart cookies, with a curriculum vitae that fair crackles with evidence of wise decision-making and a methodology for getting stuff done. But have either of them had their toes trodden on by half-a-ton horse or had a silk blouse torn by the playful nip of a testosterone-charged two-year-old colt? Or even had £20 on a ‘good thing’ only to see it beaten a head by a horse ridden by a jockey who broke the whip guidelines? Or even sat on the back of a horse? Is experience of any of that important for steering a multi-million- pound industry to places it might not want to go? Or even to simply keep it afloat in waters it thinks a safe anchorage? Probably not. But it would give the sport, I believe, greater confidence if someone were appointed to these posts whose first utterances to the racing media were not “I’m looking forward to immersing myself fully into the world of racing” as full immersion in the sport would include hoof on foot, teeth ripping blouse, backing certainties that end-up losers and having more than a long-distance acquaintance with the animal at the heart of our sport.
Delia Bushell, who takes over from Simon Bazalgette in September as group chief executive at the Jockey Club has landed the job due to her proven record at Sky and B.T. for acquiring sports rights. For racing her first priority will be selling media rights, a case of poacher turned gamekeeper, perhaps.
A glance at her c.v. suggests she is someone who rarely sticks around for very long in any one job, though that may be par for the course in her line of work. No more than 12-months in her previous job and 3-years before that as managing director for B.T. Sport. In her defence she did last 11-years with Sky in several differing roles.
Annamarie Phelps, since June 1st the chair of the B.H.A. came to horse racing from British Rowing and the British Olympic Association, so in that respect she is at least ‘sporty’, having won gold in the woman’s eights at Atlanta in 1996 and was 3-times a world champion. Whether such sporting prowess is necessarily a good fit for running a sport that relies so heavily on an animal with no association with rule-makers I don’t really know. The proof, I suppose will be in the eating of the pudding she produces. With all the problems she inherited on day one, some of which, the never-ending saga about use of the whip, for instance, have bedevilled the sport for decades, she will have to be a quick learner and a diligent listener.
What is pleasing, for a sport that is both excellent at providing equal opportunities for both sexes and also very slow at giving female jockeys entry into the big league of the sport, is that, as their names suggest, they are both women, and as such might breeze a change of insight into the management and direction of the sport, as their male predecessors never really impressed, although again I am doubtless doing Steve Harmon and Simon Bazalgette a great disservice.
Both these women will be working at what I think of as the boring, though incredibly important, end of the sport. Media rights, broadcasting rights – don’t you dare give this sport over to satellite broadcasters, Miss Bushell – talking about FOBT’s, meeting after meeting, trying to talk sense into politicians etc and so on.
I hope both of them attend race meetings as often as their workload allows and tune into I.T.V.’s excellent coverage of the sport. But most importantly is that they visit racing yards and talk to trainers, jockeys, owners and stable staff, to listen to what they have to say, on how they see the problems that beset them daily and how they feel the future of the sport should be shaped. This is a hands-on sport, a sport of muck and toil, of hope and disaster, of joy and despair. This is, and can only ever be, a sport of blood, sweat and tears, with the horse, every horse, not the B.H.B. or The Jockey Club, as its driving force.
I wish the two women the greatest amount of luck.