BACK TO GO FORWARD, AND A BILLIONAIRE LOOKS IN OUR DIRECTION.

Mr. Strong of Andover, in a letter published in today's Racing Post, makes a similar point to what I have been saying for many years, that for our sport to go forward we need to look to the past. Any idiot, including this idiot, realises that we cannot a regular source of competitive racing when the number of racehorses in training is going down while at the same time fixtures are not being cut accordingly. 

I have argued recently that if racecourses will not commit to fewer fixtures during these troubled times, the easiest option for the B.H.A., if they have the power to enforce such a proposal, which I doubt, is to return to the days when the majority of meetings were composed of 6-races. Such a measure would cut the number of races per season without the necessity of cutting the number of race-meetings and would improve competitiveness on a daily basis. Of course, the major festival meetings, such as the Cheltenham Festival, Aintree, Royal Ascot, Glorious Goodwood, etc, would not be impacted by the 6-race rule.

I would also suggest where there is presently a 2-day meeting, this could, though not commanded by regulation, become a one-day meeting of, say, 8 or 9-races. If either or both of my proposals were implemented, prize-money for the lost races should go to boosting prize-money on the remaining races. Boost, of course, is too strong a word when one is only talking of savings of £10,000 or thereabouts, though in these tough times an additional £1,000 per race is not to be sneezed at.

The B.H.A. and the sport in general, with all the rocks in the road supplied by a government not exactly a supporter of our sport and by an increase in general and specific taxation, one could almost compare the situation to wartime, when cuts and reorganisation were needed to safeguard the sport for times of peace. It is the same with wildfires, a blessing to climate activists; with a heatwave forecast and with areas of nature historically easily set on fire, why is water not sprayed on the most likely areas to burn before they burn. Preventative action must be cheaper to firefighting. It is the same with racing at this moment in time. Make the cuts now so as to prepare the sport to be in better place in the future, and if the good times should return, then the sport can steadily return to the days of now.

Mike Repole, not a name I am familiar with, is featured in today's Racing Post as he has his first runner in Britain after many years of great success as an owner in the U.S, Watch Party, trained by Roger Varian. Repole made his substantial fortune in the soft drinks trade, selling his original company to Coca-Cola for 4-million bucks and then repeating the fete years later by selling his second company to Coca-Cola for 8-billion bucks. He is a man who does not have to worry about paying his utility bills.

In the U.S., Repole has gained the reputation of a man who has no qualms about voicing his opinions in public and is highly critical of the way U.S. racing is governed and marketed and he intends to have many more horses trained in Europe in the coming years. I suspect he is in for an unpleasant surprise when he discovers that horse racing in Europe is far from thriving, with France Galop taking the scissors to the French racing schedule, Italy in sharp decline, and with British racing, once the benchmark for horse racing all around the world, in the midst of a civil war, with governance in tatters, betting shops closing and all-round revenue on the slide.