i fear horse racing is tight-rope walking into the dark.

​Let me make one aspect of this blog/piece crystal clear: I believe I.T.V. have proved the best broadcasters of horse racing the sport has ever enjoyed. I was brought-up on televised horse racing, starting with the exclusivity of the B.B.C. who I thought for a long long time were untouchable when it came to bringing the sport to the public. It has to be said that in the days of World of Sport I.T.V. came up short against the B.B.C.. Then Channel 4 won the contract to broadcast racing and my heart sank, only to rise quite quickly when it became obvious that the B.B.C. had only been going through the motions when it came to broadcasting horse racing. From the first edition of The Morning Show, though, I realised that in I.T.V., this time around, horse racing was safe in their hands. Time has proved, in my estimation, that it is more than just safe but in their keeping the sport could yet blossom.
Indeed, if the B.H.A. and others were to up their game, I believe there is a whole new audience out there for the sport. The sport’s professionals need to come round to the idea of sanitising the sport to a degree and taking bold steps in ways to fund the sport in the near-future. Whether jockeys, trainers, owners alike care for it or not, the whip is a border a lot of people will not cross. The horse is a greatly admired animal and horses doing what they are designed for, running and jumping obstacles at speed, is a spectacle that is as fascinating to the public as it is exciting for racing enthusiasts. But, and this perhaps goes for half the population, the public, the animal caring public, do not like to see brave and gallant horses hit with a whip and no amount of telling them that it doesn’t hurt is going to alter their perception. The rules on the whip must radically change, for the benefit and long-term future of the sport. One hit and one hit only is my solution, after that the determination of the result should be entirely down to the skill and artistry of the jockey and the willingness of the horse. In my opinion, and my opinion of the B.H.A. is not very high, I admit, but the B.H.A. are being ponderous to the point uselessness on this issue.
Also, and this was far more eloquently explained last week in the Racing Post by Khadijah Mellah, someone of greater authority on the subject than I will ever be, that if we want to attract the Muslim community to our racecourses, there must be areas that separate them from those aspects of their religion that are taboo, betting and alcohol. If Leicester racecourse, for instance, asked Khadijah for advice on this matter and implemented changes to make their racecourse more welcoming to Muslim racegoers, isn’t there a good chance attendances might improve?
But the main tenet of this piece is funding. The sport needs to stop fiddle-faddling around and set out a policy that will eventually lead the sport in the direction of self-funding from what used to be termed a Tote Monopoly. Damn racing atmosphere generated by the noise of bookmakers engaging with punters. Better racing should enter a backwater than lose the atmosphere of the betting jungle, eh? 
For better or worse, worse in many many ways, we live in a different age to when racecourses were crowded and people could bet in shillings. Every penny bet on horse racing should be generating income for the sport. Bookmakers will survive without racing, whereas in the days before sports betting they would have gone under. It is time the elephant roared and racing finally noticed its presence in the shadows.
Finally, the sport, I.T.V., should not be crowing about the encouraging upward sweep of racing viewing figures of late. No one can go racing, so those people are watching I.T.V. and the racing channels. People are starved of live sport and those people are watching horse racing. A minority of these people will be attracted to try out a day at the races, another minority will continue to tune-into I.T.V. racing. Another minority might watch the racing when nothing takes their fancy on any other channel. But if we have the return of our freedom and civil liberties (they have been taken from us, remember) in 12-months hence (this state of emergency is for 2-years, I remind you, and could yet be prolonged beyond that period) I bet you I.T.V. viewing figures will power-down to a number similar to that before the imposition of lockdown.
We are not lucky to be racing, as Ed Chamberlain and others continue to tell us. We are racing because of the betting duty that the sport brings to the Exchequer and for the televised opportunity for government propaganda. Yes, that is what the absurd ‘protocols’ on racecourses are about. As sporting arenas go, there cannot be a safer environment than a racecourse, especially huge open spaces like The Curragh and Newmarket. Yet jockeys must wear masks jogging to the start and must mask-up when returning through a sparse assembly of people. And social distancing must also be observed, even though that was unobserved and unmonitored during the F.A. Cup final, when people go to the beach and on Black Lives Matter marches, none of which has or will cause a spike or second wave. Horse racing is being used by government to reinforce the fear and stress of a virus that has said its goodbyes and will doubtless not darken our doors again, though a relative of the coronavirus might as we have seasonal outbreaks of flu virus most winter. The outbreak in 2017/18 was responsible for more flu-related deaths in this country, if you remove the obscene number of deaths in care homes from the official (if dodgy) number of fatalities, than this present and grossly exaggerated ‘health crisis’.
While we are being used and abused in support of the government narrative, our beautiful sport walks a tightrope in the dark towards who knows what future – racing as it is in Italy at the moment?