Reading a Bill Barber article in the Racing Post (6 September 2018) I came across the following: “Concerns over the Harman issue have led some of the BHA’s shareholders to question the remit of the BHA itself.”

“Remit?” I consulted  Google. “Remit. The task or area of activity officially assigned to an individual or organisation.”

It appears that important shareholders in the thoroughbred industry (the Horsemens Group in particular) are becoming worried about the relationship which links them to the BHA (British Horseracing Authority), the department which manages the racing side of the industry, among other important aspects.

The Horsemens Group represents the Breeders, Owners, Trainers, Stable Staff, and Jockeys. Add to the mix the racecourses and the Jockey Club (which owns 15 racecourses and much of the Newmarket and Lambourn training facilities), then add the massive expertise of Weatherbys, and you have the life blood of the industry.

“The task or area of activity officially assigned to an individual or organisation.”

I understand. When vital elements of an industry do business together, all concerned must be clear as to the responsibilities, duties and aspirations which define their various activities.

On Thursday 23 Nov 2017, Chris Cook wrote in The Guardian (I paraphrase): 

The BHA got a shot across its bows on Thursday as it contemplated a rule change that would insist on trainers being punished every time a horse tests positive for a banned substance and the trainer cannot discover how the substance got into the animal.

“The BHA might be inviting its own destruction if it took such authoritarian action,” according to Roderick Moore, the barrister who successfully argued that trainer Philip Hobbs should not be penalised.

He added, “If the BHA changes the rules so that they say what the BHA would like them to say, they would have a mutiny on their hands. They would be playing with fire. They should remember that the BHA is not a statutory authority. It is only there because racing’s stakeholders agree to put it there and pay for it. If it began to run racing like a totalitarian regime, there would come a time when people would say, ‘Enough is enough.’ ”

More Bill Barber (Racing Post May 10 2018). I quote:   

“Senior British racing industry figure Philip Freedman has said there is a need for a fundamental review of the BHA, as the potential ousting of that organisation’s chairman Steve Harman hit the sport.

“The current crisis has been precipitated by an investigation into allegations that Harman had a conflict of interests when (at the Cheltenham Festival) he hosted Alex Frost, the chief executive of the Alizeti consortium that is set to invest in the Tote.  Harman has robustly denied any wrongdoing.”

Freedman, the chairman of the Horsemens Group, said: “There is a real issue of whether this should be a matter solely for the BHA board or should involve the shareholders. If it had been left to the BHA, I believe decisions would have been made and the shareholders would have been told afterwards.”

Last autumn the French equivalent to the BHA, France Galop, issued a statement which included changes to financial arrangements within the French racing industry.

Some of the changes were anathema to a certain number of owners and breeders (members of the French equivalent of our Horsemens Group). The following Sunday interested parties turned up at the Paris track where racing was due to take place. After the third race they picketed the paddock and told the racecourse staff that no more racing would take place because the paddock was “out of bounds.”  Two Group One races (top level) were scrapped as a result.

A meeting took place the next day. The representatives of the owners and breeders discussed the situation with the representatives of France Galop. Harmony was achieved in a very short time on the basis of the amendments to the proposed financial plans suggested by the pickets.

It is clear that in France the Horsemen pay the piper and wear the trousers.

If there is uncertainty about the pecking order at the top of British racing, nothing is more important than the need for clarification.

It sounds as though what we have at the moment is the BHA, a group of people with a tendency to behave as though they are the most important section of a large industry. Perhaps the word “authority” has gone to their heads. In reality they are simply employees “authorised” to do a very important job, which they do rather badly. They make far too many mistakes, and have been making far too many mistakes for far too long.

Why?

Because very few of the BHA Board have had hands-on experience in Racing.

Because it has developed a tradition of hiring expensive executives from far and wide who know even less about British Racing than the Board does.

Because never has the Board invested in a small and high-powered department made up of top class executives with proper knowledge of the racing world, whose remit is

a) to apply eternal vigilance to what the industry is doing,

b) to identify things that are going wrong, and

c) to correct those things in a matter of days rather than months, or years, or never – quite often never in the case of the BHA . In the real world I gather that such a deployment of human resources is not uncommon and seems to work.

In the decade or so during which Racing has been one of the subjects I have written about, the absence of such a task force is obvious. On the racecourse I have come across abuse of horses and jockeys because of inappropriate and dangerous methods employed by BHA officers. I have come across stewards who manipulate important disciplinary enquiries in ways that treat truth as of no importance whatsoever.  Meanwhile at BHA headquarters typists are busy turning misleading data composed on the track into misleading data that will appear that very evening on the BHA website, looking ever so respectable.

In the rule books I have read potentially vital instructions that have clearly been composed by morally deficient illiterates. It is not just rubbish, it is dangerous rubbish that has implications for the well-being of horses and jockeys. Take a look at the Interference rules on the BHA website if you doubt me.

On many occasions I have cheerfully informed  the BHA’s Top Brass of the questionable behaviour of its front-line troops   and on many occasions I have been cheerfully ignored.

British racing’s community is rightly admired for being the best community in the world, and yet its so-called leaders seem to be short of morals, of intelligence, of integrity, and of judgement. They are disinterested in improving their contribution  and are apparently unaware of the damage they are doing.

If there is any truth in my assessment, things have got to change. This is not going to be easy. Breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff (a community of about 80,000 people) exist in a world of bliss which I know well and have enjoyed immensely in my time. The bliss is based largely on the fact that at every level these people are striving for perfection. The last thing they want to be doing is fighting with “colleagues” who have strayed from the path allocated to them (their remit) and have become a liability – quite a serious liability in that they will not tolerate criticism.

If nobody follows the advice offered by Moore and Freedman, things will go from bad to worse. I am hoping that the Horsemens Group, the Jockey Club and the Racecourses, well-organised and intelligent participants with the best interests of racing at heart, will re-assert their position at the top of the pecking order and remind the BHA that it is the “hired help”, rather than “master of all it surveys.” Such a reminder is vital if the best industry in the world is to be served by the leadership it deserves, a leadership which is fit for service, which the present model certainly isn’t.

Best wishes,

Merry Christmas,

Happy 2019

DONEC