when c.b.e.'s were not good enough for the Jockey Club.

​Back in the sixties, when Fred Winter retired as a jockey, he thought to continue his association with the sport by becoming a starter. To most people he would have seemed an ideal candidate for the job, especially as all the jockeys would have had nothing but total respect for his integrity. The Jockey Club, though, disagreed. In fact, I believe, they were quite rude about it. They didn’t want ex-jockeys involved in the administration of the sport. To be a starter it was an advantage to have some form of rank before your name. Starters were ex-captains or majors. That was the qualification. Knowing one end of a horse from the other really didn’t matter. The Queen awarding Winter a C.B.E. just did not cut the mustard.
In due course, no doubt through gritted teeth, as we know, ex-jockeys were allowed to further their careers within the sport, with Paul Barton and Robert Earnshaw among those employed in stewarding capacities. And, of course, ex-jockeys now start races on a daily basis. But that is as far as any ex-professional jockey has progressed within the administration of the sport. And here lies, I believe, a major weakness in the administration and governance of our sport.
If John Gosden were to shock and disappoint us by announcing his retirement at the end of this season, do you think anyone from the B.H.A. would have the gumption to think ‘hang on a moment, this guy could be a great asset to us’?
Very unlikely, don’t you agree? Doubtless, anyway, he would miss the vast open spaces of Newmarket Heath to even contemplate such a career change and if he did retire, he perhaps would want to travel the world or write his autobiography. That though is not the point. I am talking of a figurative John Gosden; any member of the racing community who holds the same respect amongst his peers and the public as the master of Clarehaven. I might have used Sir Mark Prescott as an example or Sir Michael Stoute.
I have no gripes with Nick Rust, the present chief executive of the B.H.A. or its chairperson, Annamarie Phelps. Except that between them their experience of actual horses, racecourses or racing’s workforce, is miniscule when compared with the three knights previously mentioned. If Nick Rust were headhunting someone to be chair of a multi-national engineering company would he give the job to someone whose working life was spent in textiles or fashion? Yet the present chair of the B.H.A. has come from doing a fine job at British Rowing and the British Olympic Association. She took up her post in June and I bet a dime to a dollar she is still feeling her way, learning as she goes. She may know how to smooth talk the right politicians and she may know her way round Westminster but can she hold a meaningful discussion with trainers and stable staff on topical racing issues?
Look, this is not a rant about the B.H.A. and especially not its present C.E.O. or Chair, though I am far from convinced horse racing has the governance it needs to accompany it safely into the future. To my mind, the B.H.A. is morphing into a Jockey Club in mufti. It is just that I see people, mainly jockeys and trainers, retire from their profession and be allowed to drift either outside of the sport or to remain at its periphery. In the main lost to the sport.
The weakness in our sport is that there is no place within the B,H.A.’s hierarchy for people of the calibre of Henrietta Knight, John Francome, Sir Anthony McCoy or doubtless anyone else I have mentioned in this piece. As there was no place for Fred Winter C.B.E. back in the sixties.
There are eighteen people at the main table of the B.H.A. Some have experience of owning racehorses, some either breed or whose spouse owns a small stud. Rupert Arnold, Member Nominated Director, was for six years a licensed trainer and Will Lambe, Executive Director, was once a racing journalist. Yet with the exception of David Sykes who seems well-qualified for his position as Director of Equine Health & Welfare, very few of them have had any blood, sweat and tears involvement with a racehorse. I am quite sure they are all dedicated to the cause, yet truth be known the board of the B.H.A. only come together eight times a year and I would be surprised if any of them are solely employed by the B.H.A. Yet racing is a seven-day-a-week sport.
There has to be a career path within the administration of the sport for respected ex-jockeys or trainers, or indeed owners or stable staff with the ambition to further themselves, to be able to bring their experience and knowledge to the top-table of the sport. Horse racing has its own language, traditions that wind back through the centuries and at its beating heart is not a man-made construction like a row-boat but a living, sentient creature. The sport encompasses so many different aspects that make up the whole. It’s intricacies and funny little ways cannot be learned in days, weeks or months. Nor its history, which reaches back through the centuries to weave the differing levels of society into one fragmented yet dynamic community. To my mind, the sport should be governed by true racing people, people born and bred into the very fabric of the sport, people who have known little else all their lives. At the moment, I dare say, the C.E.O. turns to such people for advice. To my mind the glove needs to be on the other hand.