stable staff.

​I have written before about the difficulties trainers face when it comes to recruiting a steady flow of staff, a problem that, at least in the short term, could be made even more taxing when we finally regain our freedom from under the heal of the despotic and undemocratic European Union.
I am of the opinion that adherence to tradition, to the tried and tested ways of organising a racing yard, is a hinderance to solving a crisis that has the potential to bring the sport to its knees. Around me, as I write, are several hundred racing books written over a period of one-hundred-years. From the time of Eclipse, no author had need, even during the war years, to mention a shortage of labour in the industry. In his autobiography ‘They’re Off’, Sir Jack Jarvis, who retired from training in the late sixties, suggested that a shortage of suitable labour was a constant worry, though by his own admission he refused to bend to newer, and what he considered, slacker methods of stable husbandry. So, by evidence provided by Jarvis, we can assume the crisis that presently grips the industry has had its roots in the ground since the late sixties and early 1970’s.
Modern employment law, as well-intentioned as it is, does not assist trainers. A racing stable cannot be put in the same box as an iron foundry or supermarket. People employed in those sort of work environments do not necessarily do so out of choice, whereas stable staff have made a very definite career choice. The 38-hour week and the care of horses is not an easily managed fit in todays regulated working environment. Of course, people must be paid a fair wage for their efforts, though personally I would find it hard to accept extra payment for, as an example, being summoned back to the yard in the wee small hours to help pull a cast horse off the wall of its stable or walk around a horse with colic. I would suggest the finer emotions of life play no part in the workings of an iron foundry, though they are the mortar that bonds humans with their work with horses.
Working with racehorses, perhaps in any form of equestrianism, is not reflected in such noteworthy novels as ‘Black Beauty’ or ‘National Velvet’, especially during the winter months. It is hard graft, yet even when winter is at its most unforgiving, the horse will always come first, the hungry and cold human second in the queue for comfort and rest. How can such considerations be regulated or understood by either unions or ministerial department?
In the racing stable there is one job, the main occupation, no doubt, that not every boy or girl will necessary master. The work rider should be at the top of the stable employee pyramid, and while these people may be the most skilful in the saddle, they are not always the best members of staff when it comes to the dirtier and more mundane jobs that require doing through the day. To be frank, most of the ‘feet on the ground work’ that comprises a typical day in a racing stable could be taught to anyone from seven-stone to sixteen-stone. Why trainers, either individually or as a collective, during the quiet months of their seasons, do not organise ‘work-fairs’ is beyond me. Remove the veil of mystique from the racing-world and the pool of potential recruitments will increase many-folds. The vital ingredient in the success of the venture will be in the tutoring and mentoring. I believe in the U.S. and Australia there are stable employees who ride and those who are ‘feet-on-the-ground’. This is, I believe, the way forward in this country.
 For instance, I could walk into any racing stable and after a few minutes briefing, and without supervision, muck out stables, clean tack, sweep yards, fill hay-nets, groom and carry feed to mangers. Yes, I have some experience but anyone with a will to learn could master these jobs in the same period of time it takes to teach someone to stack shelves in a supermarket.
I honestly believe that a small part of the staffing crisis is manufactured by employers, who though wishful of a full complement of staff, are all too aware that their biggest overhead is the wage bill and that it is cheaper to pay overtime to fewer staff than it is to have the right number of people for the job. I’m sure such a claim is not true for those trainers at the top of their profession but it must be a factor further down the food chain.
I have always advocated that weekends should be worked the same as week days. If horses were exercised seven-days-a-week, as I believe is the routine at Ballydoyle, it would make it logistically easier to allow every member of staff a day off every week. Fit and healthy young horses left idle in their stables makes no sense, especially in an era when the majority of trainers have access to horse-walkers, pools, turn-out areas and other forms of unridden exercise. The sport is a 24/7 these days. In the days of Jack Jarvis it was not. Yet we persist with the easy day on the Sabbath.
The racing industry should aspire to a work pool of the most skilled labour force in the whole of equestrianism. For too long racing’s foot soldiers have been considered by the other equine sports as ‘inferior specimens of the horse-caring community’. Racing grooms, as they are now called, should, with assistance, have the skill to clip the horses they look after, for example. Indeed, every equine skill, within reason, should be taught to every man or woman working in the industry. It shouldn’t be a badge of shame to work in the racing industry, a rank or two down from working with show-jumpers, dressage horses or three-day-eventers. Working with racehorses should be considered the prestige career within the equestrian world, after all, the most famous horse events in the world are not the Show-Jumping Derby, Burghley or the Dressage World Championship, are they?