Seems the b.h.a. are not bowled-over by the racing league.

​I am a critic of the B.H.A. To my mind, others might disagree, they are too reactive when a strong governing body should be proactive, leading from the front and coming-up with their own concepts for growing the sport and securing its future. It is my firm belief, accepting as I do that a core number of employees should have business and accounting credentials, that the head of the organisation and the key advisors should all have hands-on experience of either horses or administration of some aspect of the sport. Horse racing is a sport/industry with a multitude of nuance and no length of time is enough to be able to understand the intricacies and history of the sport. As anyone at the top table of the sport will tell you, there is always something new to learn from horses and the training and caring of them.
But kudos should be given where kudos is deserved and I was pleased to learn that though they have left the door open – sitting on the fence is a key component of employment with the B.H.A. – thus far the Racing League has not been given any dates in the racing calendar for next season.
I disliked the concept of the Racing League from the moment it was given space by the Racing Post and in its watered-down form this summer I disliked it even more. We were promised teams sponsored by big-name companies not usually associated with horse racing. We didn’t get them; we got pretend teams sponsored by no one. We were promised razzmatazz and new bums on seats and received not much of anything. We were promised terrestrial television and got Sky.
It was suggested this was the perfect format to trial ‘whip-less’ races, the one redeeming element of the scheme, at least to my mind, and, no doubt vetoed by the jockeys, this too came to nothing.
We were promised grand theatre and what was presented to the racing public was a puppet show.
Of course, trainers, jockeys and owners were in favour, though only because of the enhanced prize-money of offer, which of course not even a cynic like me could criticise. Every race-meeting should have similar prize-money. It is embarrassing that British horse racing, the home of many of the world’s greatest horse races, is so demeaned by its level of prize-money.
Yet even if the Racing League were to become a runaway success, apart from the series itself and the enhanced prize-money, how can this idea take the sport forward? How can five or six Thursday evening fixtures swell attendance at race-meetings from January through to December? How can this concept revitalise the sport and help to secure its future?
Is the idea to turn horse racing into a team sport, open only to the select few, twelve-months of the year?
Last week I exchanged a couple of e-mails with Charlie Fellows, one of the Racing League’s chief supporters. I doubt if I dented his enthusiasm for the Racing League and he certainly did not warm my cockles with his vision for the Racing League. I may have upset him by suggesting the R.L. was just opportunism on the part of the participants and was more about putting extra cash in their pockets, which is perfectly valid during the times we live in, rather than winning the hearts and minds of the public.
I suggested the Racing League would serve the sport to greater effect if the ‘teams’, as pretend as they are, were to raise money for eight different charities, for example, from within the sport, the R.o.R and more public charities like Child-Line and Age Concern, demonstrating that this a sport with a big heart. In his e-mail, Charlie failed to make any mention of the charity idea, which I took as indication that charity and the R.L. are not and will not be compatible bedfellows.
The original concept of the R.L. came out of Formula 1, with aspirations expressed to capture in equine form the excitement and team loyalties of a sport that itself is in decline and having to copy aspects of other motor-sports to halt the haemorrhaging of interest.
As I said to Charlie Fellows, if we can’t get new bums of seats through Royal Ascot and the Cheltenham Festival, racing on a Thursday night sure ain’t going to make many inroads. I also said that if enhanced prize-money can be achieved for the R.L., why can’t it be achieved for race-meetings already scheduled for next season?
The Racing League, I continue to believe, has no place in the racing calendar. That does not mean, though, that innovation cannot be pursued, new ideas suggested and tried. But what is needed, as the majority suggested, is less meetings, and a root and branch overhaul of a calendar not much changed since the obese Queen Anne took that coach ride on Ascot Heath in 1711. 
Two suggestions I am bold enough to put forward are – during the summer months one day every fortnight without any flat racing, with N.H. and Irish racing filling the void on the selected day. And less, far less, all-weather racing during the summer months. I have other ideas, none of which, I suspect, Charlie would approve of.