training those who work for trainers.

​Next to the establishments of the British Racing Schools and the Rehabilitation of Retired Racehorses, the best advancement in racing over the past one-hundred-years is the Regional Staff Development Programme coordinated by the Northern Racing College.
It would stagger the Trade Unions and Employers Federation to learn people employed to care for racehorses receive virtually no training outside of what they are either told by their employers or pick-up from experience, which often can be little more than what not to do rather than how to prevent the bad happening in the first place. I know; I’ve been there.
The Northern Racing College now go out to racing stable to assess the skills of stable staff, offering tutorials on how to ride to better effect and by playing back videos of themselves on the gallops, exercises to improve strength and balance and with a little help from the Equicizer that is transported to each yard in the college’s branded horsebox. If young up-and-coming jockeys can advance through the use of riding coaches, why not the staff who must ride horses six or seven-days a week?
I have seen first-hand good honest though perhaps not very able riders, usually girls but not always, turned sour of the job through being used, for want of a better term, as cannon-fodder on the gallops. Trainers may claim to match a horse to the rider but that is not always the case, believe me. These days, I hope, the less talented riders will be found a place on a college course to improve their skills-level and boost their confidence. This initiative is such a no-brainer that it is unbelievable the industry has survived until this technologically advanced century to draw itself away from a methodology that has its roots in an age of steam and coal and a tug of the forelock when encountering the master, or plain old employer in our day and age.
What I find particularly regrettable is that the old-fashioned stable husbandry skills are being lost due to work overload. Once upon a time a ‘lad’ would only be expected to care for one horse if the job was to be done properly. Between the wars two horses was considered the maximum per ‘lad’. Now five, six or seven is the norm. It is no wonder the nuances of stable husbandry are squandered in favour or speed.
I hope the college does not seek only to improve the riding skills of racing staff but set their minds to the all-round skills staff require to care for a racehorse. In most racing yards, for instance, the clipping is usually the preserve of one person in the yard or someone who makes a spare time job of going from yard to yard. If every member of staff was taught how to clip a horse the job would simply become an augmentative element of grooming, as far as grooming still exists today. In many stables clipping is carried out by the head groom, if he or she were to be freed of the task the time saved could be put to more productive use.
To my mind not only should clipping be a discipline of the racing groom but everything from mane-pulling, bandaging, not only for travelling purposes but veterinary care also, as well as basic training on how to spot sore muscles and muscle-wastage, if a horse is favouring a front or back leg (usually determined by shoe-wear). In fact, all aspects of caring for a racehorse should be taught, not merely left for the groom to pick-up through experience. The difference in knowledge between a trainer and head groom is usually quite small, yet it can be large between the head groom and the rest of the staff. This is surely an unwise situation.
What proficiency gives a person is confidence. When someone knows in his or her heart that they are not at a similar level to their colleagues a rot sets in, confidence plummets and the road ‘out-of-the-door’ is hastened.
What trainers are really bad at, in general, and I speak from experience, if somewhat limited, is identifying what each individual staff member is good at. This may seem one of the stupidest things you’ll read for a while but trainers are only interested when interviewing a prospective staff member is whether they can ride. I realise riding is at the core of every racing stable and a trainer must have in his employ a ready number of capable riders as without them his job is impossible to achieve. But if a trainer had a dedicated number of people to muck-out, sweep-up and deal with the menial yet vitally important aspects of the day’s work, it would free-up his skilled riders to concentrate on the work they would rather be doing, exercising and getting fit the horses. Any willing worker can be trained in double-quick time to muck-out etc and it is a job better done when the horse is out at exercise.
I have written before on this subject so will allow anyone interested to search the archive to access my further thoughts on the outdated work practices within the racing industry.
Staff who are valued will stay in the industry. One of the best ways to ensure healthy staff numbers within the industry is to keep on side those who already work in the industry. Training, for the majority, will build not only skill levels but confidence. The work being undertaken by the Northern Racing School is perhaps vital to the health and integrity of the sport as without good staff the racehorse trainer is lost, as is the owner, the breeder, the farrier and so on and so on.