DIVERSITY & Jockeys should not be punished for excellent horsemanship

The call for diversity in society obviously has dark undertones. As with weather manipulation by various world governments, which is doubtless responsible for ‘climate change’ around the world, forced diversity goes against the normal order of things. I am not against, you must understand, allowing diversity to occur, as I believe everyone should be given an opportunity in life to succeed, not that everyone will achieve success beyond living an ordinary life, of course. When all is fair in love and war, the cream will always rise to the top.
There has always been diversity in racing, even if in small measure. In the early part of the twentieth-century there was more than one black-skinned jockey riding in major races on the flat, for instance, and for the whole of the recent history of the flat, between and after the two World Wars, many were the years when the leading owners have come from India or other parts of the continent of Asia.
Successful diversity in society comes naturally, as has happened from the Huguenots of the 16th and 17th centuries, through Jewish, Irish, West Indian, Asian, etc, moving into our country. What is wrong about forced diversity can be exampled by DEFRA spending £100,000 of tax-payers money to establish that the British Muslim population are not keen to either visit the British countryside or indeed live there, with lunatic Labour activists demanding that British people should leave their dogs behind when they go to the country as ‘Muslims are unhappy being around or close to dogs.’ Since when has harmony been achieved by pitching one sector of society against another? It is the British Muslim society who must move on this issue not the sector that for a thousand-years have had dogs at their side.
Now the B.H.A. are at it, spending money that is better needed in other walks of the racing world in search of a formula that will attract diverse communities of our country to either go racing or to work in the industry. Would it not be money more wisely spent if one-day a year there is a race-meeting themed around the sort of ethnic groups the B.H.A. want to see on our British racecourses? A West-Indian-themed day in May; a British/Asian-themed day in July; a North African-themed day in August and so on. And free entry for all, black, white, red, pink or coffee-coloured; a mingle of diversity. With jockeys from those countries, West Indies, Asian, etc, invited and given rides, with entertainment and food to match the theme of the day.
I have said this a thousand times (exaggeration) that if you want a mix of diversity at Leicester racecourse, for example, put on a free coach service to the track and have guides on hand to help first-timers to orientate themselves. And get rid of all the separate enclosures, so people can experience racing from all corners of the racecourse. A day out at the races should be a day out under the sky, not corralled into an enclosure as if the members are afraid of being inflicted with whatever bug or virus the commoners suffer from.
And if diversity includes the fairer-sex then have a ladies-day which pivots the eye on the female jockey, with the best female riders of the world invited to be part of a celebration of female inclusion in our sport.
What is not required to encourage change is committees deciding on what must happen but the sort of action that comes from shooting at the hip, from common-sense and local expertise. If you want to encourage more Asian women to give our sport a chance, then send out invitations to them. If you are throwing a party, send out invitations. Do not think it, do!

I am always pleased when a jockey wins an appeal against a riding ban. When jockeys ride a finish a circuit too early or stop riding before the finishing post as happened at the D.R.F. recently, then a jockey has no foot to stand on, no defence, no argument that can possibly succeed. It is when a jockey is given a ban, as with Ryan Mania, for riding out hands and heels, riding in tandem with the feel his mount is giving him, that I am implored to vent my objection. This is what brought Ryan Mania a ten-day ban from the Wetherby stewards for ‘failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing – failing to demonstrate sufficient effort from after the second-last hurdle’. Mania maintained that he was doing everything possible to gain the best possible placing by riding rigorously with his hands and heels and that the horse would have gone any faster if he had used his whip.
What gets this sport into hot water with our opponents, an issue that continues to be highlighted when talk turns to the mythical yet somehow relevant ‘social licence’ is overuse of the whip or indeed any use of the whip. Yet when a jockey shows discretion when it comes to use of the whip, when he puts the welfare of the horse first, as he or she should be expected to do, he or she leaves themselves open to the ‘non-trying rule’. Kindness and excellent horsemanship should never be questioned, let alone punished.