you should never be afraid to be wrong.

​I am not always wrong in my opinions. Occasionally, I am right to the point of brilliance. Not often enough, of course, for it to be noticed. I wouldn’t like that anyway, being caught in the spotlight. I do not even publicise this website, preferring to have visitors stumble upon it, not expecting anyone to stay longer than a browse. This is purely a vanity site, an outlet for thoughts on a sport I love and care about, a method for self-preservation and mental well-being.
I rarely indulge in research, relying on thoughts tumbling from my brain, hopefully in an order that suggests I am not as dumb as first appearances might suggest. I am not impeded by the control or dictates of an editor and when tired, which I often am, ‘that will do’ becomes a legitimate excuse for publishing what more professional writers would put aside for polishing the following day.
If it becomes obvious to me that I have published facts that are in fact not true facts, I will return and make the relevant corrections. Not that being always correct is important. Never be afraid to make mistakes as knowledge always wings itself to you as people are quick to put you right.
If I have no respect for a body of people, the B.H.A. for example, I do not feel any responsibility to put on record any of their successes. Journalists at the Racing Post have a duty for the good of the sport to detail both sides of any situation. They are respectful and work as a collective, with not one of them, seemingly, possessing an opinion at sharp angles to that of any of their colleagues. Which is fair enough, though not necessarily good for the paper’s readership.
I believe that British horse racing has the distinction of having the least effective leadership of any sport. The situation of poor prize money is not new. Indeed, it is not even relatively new. It goes back the best part of fifty years. Go compare the prize money of the sixties, seventies and eighties in this country to the levels in France, the U.S. and Australia in the same time period. Whereas in other countries prize money has increased in real terms, in this country the opposite is true. It has never been addressed by racing’s governing bodies through the Jockey Club, B.H.B. and now the British Horseracing Authority. 
The selling-off of the Tote into private hands was an opportunity lost for the sport to be self-sufficient through betting. We had the open goal of a concept similar to other countries and no one had the business brain to make it happen.
And of course, allowing the tail to wag the dog was the catalyst for the overkill of meetings that is destroying the competitiveness of the sport at the moment. All that needs to be done at this moment to steady the ship is for the B.H.A. to demand that any meeting with seven or more races advertised should delete one race. With so many meetings that would lose up to four or five races per day and up to twenty-five races per week with nobody noticing any appreciable difference. In two-months, especially with, crossed-fingers, autumn ground, field sizes would be back to acceptable numbers. That is all that’s need to be done. But will it be done? Can it be done? No, not with a tripartite agreement that is a water-boarding torture for the sport.
The solution to the prize money crisis is complex, especially when solutions acted upon by the countries we are in envy of, are ignored. But the field size solution is so easy to implement that it is staggering it was ever allowed to be a problem in the first place.
And that is my biggest beef about the B.H.A. It is far too reactive when it should be proactive. The B.H.A. workforce is paid to oversee the health and wealth of the sport. They are the people, supposedly, with their fingers on the pulse, with plans A. B. C. in place to combat any conceivable problem that appears on the horizon. But that is not the case, is it? There should not be a situation when all three of the sport’s stakeholders must agree before any change of any hue is agreed upon. A majority vote should be enough to remove the possibility of stagnation.
I only wish the Racing Post would crusade for change at the top of the sport instead of reporting the latest sightings of the elephant in the room. It is my view that the B.H.A. is a failed organisation and should be replaced by a governing body with a supremo at its head, someone who has first-hand experience of the sport and the people and horses at the heart of the sport. I may be wrong, of course, though on this subject I would bet this is one of the few occasions when I am 100% right.