why ruby walsh is just the best.

​A week or so ago I wrote a piece moaning – I thought of it as positive criticism – about the B.H.A. (in general I moan rather too much about the ‘powers-that-be, an expression I use to hide my ignorance of who exactly is in control of our sport) and the people it employs. I was not critical of anyone in particular, just the seemingly random way it appoints its top people. No one at the B.H.A. rises through the ranks to become head-honcho and certainly no one with a vast number of years working within the racehorse industry is ever invited to its top table. At the moment, as excellent as her c.v. maybe, we have an ex-rower in charge of our sport, this equine, 7-day-a-week sport that espouses many tenticles.
The Racing Post led today with the common-sense opinion of Ruby Walsh that it shouldn’t be beyond the wit and wisdom of Irish and British racing to schedule each horse race throughout the racing day to start at eight-minute intervals to prevent two races starting at the same time. As he quite rightly pointed out, and it is obvious when you think about it, why should races only start on the hour, the quarter or the half-hour? As he said, the racing industry in Ireland and Britain should think of themselves as one product.
If Ruby and his father ran racing here and in Ireland the problems we face would be solved in a few months, if not a few weeks.
Ruby is right, isn’t he, in his observation? As a jockey he would not have given the matter a moment of his time, yet after only a short while as a pundit and full-time racing columnist he has hit the nail right on the head. Here we have a small movement costing zilch which will have nothing other than gains if implemented.
So why has the B.H.A. or the racecourse association not thought along similar lines? Isn’t the whole point of the B.H.A. to guide the sport in a positive forward direction? This observation of Ruby’s should not have even been in the B.H.A.’s in-tray, yet I doubt if anyone within the organisation has even given it a consideration. Why? Because in the main the people on the Board of the B.H.A. are not true dyed-in-the-wool racing people. High finance they may be good at, good old-fashioned, bang-in-your-face, common-sense, not so much.
If you gave John Francome, for instance, the dilemma of sorting out the whip issue he would have it sorted in a day. The B.H.A. have struggled with the problem for what seems like a hundred years but might only be decades. If they were in charge a century or more ago, we would still be arguing over nudge and jostle races and the use of spurs.
Ruby has already sorted out the ticklish t.v. problem of start-times, though I dare say now aware of the issue the B.H.A. will form a committee, talk to all its stakeholders and some time in 2021 will come to some sort of conclusion.
I have no doubt the B.H.A. and all its stakeholders (I think therein lies racing’s major stumbling block to getting things done) are fine, honourable people. But how many of them are steeped in racing lore? How many of them have mucked a stable out pre-dawn or fallen from a horse on the gallops or stayed-up all through a cold winter’s night to ensure the safe delivery of a foal? Some, yes, but they would be in the minority, I suggest.
There should not be space in our sport for someone to put forward such an innovative and really quite simple solution to what is a fundamental yet unseen issue. If the B.H.A. functioned more proficiently they would have seen the problem years ago and dealt with it in the manner Ruby Walsh has suggested. And why are people of the calibre of Ruby Walsh allowed to retire from active participation in our sport without being first sounded out as to whether they would be interested in a position of at least advising the B.H.A., if not actually becoming a salaried member of staff? Of course, their predecessors, the not-so-shabby-looking-now Jockey Club, didn’t think Fred Winter a suitable person to become a starter. Enough said, perhaps.
The Dame who presently holds the top chair at the B.H.A. has been in office since June and I doubt if even now if she is properly up-to-speed. By the time her tenure is over she will still not be as knowledgeable about the sport as the head man or travelling head-girl of any of the top yards in the country. She will know the right hands to squeeze in Westminster and that may well be useful to the sport but it is not as impressive as knowing the nuts and tiny bolts of the sport she represents. If she fails to attain protection of our sport from the politicians or does nothing to find new sources of future funding, she will simply move on to the next C.E.O. position that comes her way. She may fall in love with the sport on her journey – why wouldn’t she? – but failure to improve the sport she is paid a sizeable wedge of money for not too many hours a week would not cut her to the bone as it would Ruby Walsh, Francome or someone whose whole life has revolved around horses and racing.