the covid-19 interlude continues. life without horse racing just isn't living.

​Every professional sport must have within its structure a layer of professionals who do not necessarily require a deep understanding of the sport that employs them. To advance its cause, perhaps in some instances its very survival, each and every professional sport must have in its ranks movers and shakers who need no introduction to politicians and corporate sponsors. Horse racing has as its governing body the B.H.A., the British Horseracing Authority, an organisation I seem to criticise on a regular basis, sometimes out of ignorance, I admit, but on more than one occasion because I believe they have failed the sport and are just not fit for purpose. I do not believe in beating around the bush.
Although, to take football as an example, the head of the Premier League does not need to have any idea how to conduct a training session or to comprehend why a coach would employ a back line of three or only one up front, he would be failing in his duty if he had a similar outlook when it comes to finance and integrity. As every football coach has a training session most mornings, racehorse trainers also have a training session every morning, only in racing that session involves a combination of rider and horse. This distinction is significant as horses do not play by the rules, they react to circumstance and it takes a lifetime in their company to understand their foibles and only then in what might be small measures.
It is the equine aspect of our sport that persuades me to the opinion that ‘horse people’ should be at the heart of B.H.A. decision-making. When it comes to job advancement within the sport, we are light-years away from being the equal of other industries and even some sports. Why employing someone from rowing to head-up the sport was more beneficial than employing someone with a lifetime’s knowledge of both the horse and the sport is beyond my comprehension. I am not directly criticising Anne-Marie Phillips. I am sure she is doing a noble job, now she has familiarised herself with what she has let herself in for. Yet so many outstanding men and women retire from our sport, both trainers and jockeys, as well as owners, and yet nowhere within the B.H.A. hierarchy is there a place for these people to share their expertise. When Fred Winter retired as a jockey the Jockey Club, racing’s rulers at the time, would not even allow him to interview for the post of starter! It beggars belief, doesn’t it? As far as starters are concerned things have thankfully changed.
My main criticism of the B.H.A. is that, and this no doubt has to do with no one at the pointy end of the organisation having any hands-on experience of horses or indeed the sweat and grind of the sport, they are only capable of reacting to situations, with every good idea (like moving start-times so that the racing channels can give a better service to its customers) only rarely emanates from them.
There seems no procedure for demanding a vote of confidence in the B.H.A.. Trainers and jockeys might moan spasmodically about decisions made by the B.H.A. but no one puts his or her head above parapets to demand change or to call foul.
As I said, great people retire from our sport, their knowledge left untapped when they could offer insight that men in suits cannot dream-of. Just looking swiftly at the bookshelf next to me and I see the names of Ian Balding, Dick Hern, Martin Pipe, Richard Dunwoody, Simon Sherwood, Ruby Walsh, A.P. McCoy, Richard Pitman, Henrietta Knight. The list goes on. Were any of these people approached by the B.H.A. so that their expertise could be utilised for the sport’s benefit?
To my mind, horse racing should have a supremo, someone to take the buck as well as the vital decisions and that person should be someone steeped in the history of the sport, who has a deep understanding of the horse and who has an arching experience of many aspects of horse racing. At the moment there are too many ‘stakeholders’, too many vestige interests, for any one man or any body of men to be able to make the sound judgements calls required to get things done, as with the decades old controversy surrounding the use of the whip.
It is my opinion that within the next couple of years the manner in which the sport is governed should be reformed, with greater emphasis placed on ‘horse people’ achieving positions at the higher echelons, with those from the world of finance and business employed to do the ‘white collar’ aspect of running a professional sport. Horse racing is not an industry that can be learned from a book or from a few months research. Those employed within the industry, the blood and guts of the sport, are not employed in a mere job but are employed by a life, by a life’s work. C.E.O.’s can come and go, with their three or five-year contracts they are mere transient beings compared to the man and woman born to the sport, who no other life but horses and the racecourse.
I have now done this subject to death. I will leave it alone until the next time the B.H.A. inflames my ire.
On another topic: I have written to the clerk of the course at Aintree to ask for an explanation as to why the Grand National was cancelled when eight-months were left in 2020 to reschedule the race, when the B.H.A. are moving heaven and earth to ensure the Guineas and Derby are staged this year? There seems to be double standards at play, especially when the Grand National is head and shoulders more popular with the public and generates far greater revenue for the sport. I will report back when, and if, I receive a reply.