I am looking at a BHA publication entitled  “2017-19 Business Plan (Update for 2019)”.

Pages 1 and 2 tell me that Racing is under threat and in peril and can only be saved if the industry stumps up vast sums of money for the BHA to spend on the fight for survival, which will involve increasing its activities “on multiple fronts” and facing up to a variety of new threats which have suddenly emerged from the doom and gloom that is going to be 2019. Otherwise, Diversity and Safeguarding (whatever they may be), plus “increased public expectations in a number of areas”, plus those threats I mentioned, will signal the beginning of the end for the sport that we love.

There you have it in a nutshell: while sensible financiers (ARC and The Jockey Club, to name but two) prepare to tighten their belts, the BHA wishes to impose a regime of “spend, spend, spend” on its shareholders so that it (the BHA) can build up a war chest with which to fight its way out of the Armageddon which (it claims) cannot be dealt with in any other way.

Is it the right policy to adopt? Probably not. One thing is certain, however:   the tone of the document is reminiscent of Mrs May attempting to frighten the public into surrendering to her interminable Brexit dirge. It would appear that “Operation Fear” is back in business, and the BHA has decided to give it a whirl. Rather pathetic, in my view.

There you have the basis for my instinctive distrust of the strategy recommended by the document to which I refer. However an instinctive reaction may not be sufficient justification for rubbishing 22 pages of doom and gloom.

Let me confine myself to one item on the BHA’s “ proposed further investments” list which seems particularly misguided. It  plans to reform the racecourse stewarding arrangements by eliminating the amateur stewards’ element (volunteers, largely unpaid) and replacing that element by recruiting and training  a fairly large number of professionals – adding considerably to the cost of all future stewarding operations.  Object of the exercise? To create a playing field on which all the decisions will be made by individuals who are beholden to the BHA for their weekly stipend.

Certainly there has been much  unacceptable  stewarding (and subsequent disciplinary processes)  over the last decade. However in almost all examples of the bad stuff those responsible have been the professional stewards, not the amateurs.

If page 10 of the 22 is implemented, gross injustice  will  increase , as will the wages bill for providing same.

And if the other 21 pages are of similar calibre, I would suggest that the BHA should use what money it has to better effect, before it starts begging for more funds to finance a host of projects which sound about as essential as Father Christmas. Why should the pillars of the Racing Industry (who do a brilliant job) be asked to finance the whims of a BHA that is notoriously Third Division? For example….

Read on…..

BACK to the day job for the umteenth year in succession.

STARTING ARRANGEMENTS

I apologise to my faithful readers for returning to this subject, but needs must when one is dealing with the behaviour of lunatics.

Umpteen years ago the BHA invented a pre-start process for large fields of steeplechasers. The BHA starting teams were instructed to organise the runners into close-packed processions as soon as they get down to the start. The procession is then required to rotate in a sequence of small circles while waiting for start-time.

Whereas it has been universally acknowledged throughout the racing world since time immemorial that the atmosphere at the start of races should be as calm and as stress-free as possible, the BHA had developed and imposed a process that is unfair, seriously upsetting for horses and riders, and dangerous. It is commonly known as the Rolling Maul.

When this brainwave didn’t work. and False Starts continued to happen, the BHA was advised umpteen times to drop the Rolling Maul. No more close-packing, no more rotating masses of horseflesh getting more and more stressed.

Eventually (after five years) part of the message got through: recently everyone could be seen to be trying harder to get the horses to walk into the starting area when a race was due to begin. But that didn’t work because the horses were already overheated by what had gone before.

What had gone before to create such a ghastly situation? The bloody Rolling Maul!

Get rid of it? Not that simple.

It turns out that the BHA is determined to keep the sardine formation (close-packed) and the formation-dancing-in-little-circles.

Does one despair? Not quite.

At Kempton on December 27^th  2018  at 3.05 pm, The 32Red.com Handicap Hurdle ground to a halt in a False Start.

What’s so special about that?

The fact that there were only 8 runners.

Plus the fact that the Stewards were satisfied that no jockeys should be reported for contravening the starting procedures.

So the jockeys were not to blame, and the number of runners was not to blame.

So what was to blame?

The bloody Rolling Maul!

Will the Penny never drop?

JOCKEYS

My memories of racing go back as far as Monsieur L’Amiral’s victory in the Cesarewich (1947? Sorry about the spelling). From then to now, my abiding passion has been  the skill of the jockeys. With that in mind, I hope I can impress the reader by saying I can never remember a year when two jockeys have emerged at the same time from total obscurity into the full glare of the spotlight where they have demonstrated all the talents and all the skills and all the aptitude and all the judgement that normal jockeys take years and years to acquire.

It happened in 2018. First we had Briony Frost over hurdles and fences and then Jason Watson on the flat. If these names mean nothing to you, write them down and if the opportunity arises  go and have a look at what the very best of human endeavour can achieve in a sporting environment.

BEREAVEMENT

Recently Donec lost his “fidus Achates” (best friend) after six years of bliss. The beloved one (a Nissan Micra, first registered in 2000) was small, nippy and easy to park. The Marlborough-Pewsey-Devizes Triangle, including the formidable  Oare Hill and the precipitous climb from Alton Priors to Adam’s Grave, were child’s play to this thoroughbred of the tarmac. The end came on a level stretch of the A4. It gasped, then gasped again, then gasped no more, and the Auto-psy offered no hope.

If anyone has a redundant little car with the same sort of attributes, and wants to turn it into a few hundred poundsworth of cash money – please contact a broken-hearted Andrew Simpson at 01672 861122 (andrewsimpson123@btconnect.com).

The 42 bus service (Calne to Marlborough and back again) is brilliant and the drivers are excellent, but it is not the same…..especially in winter. Brrrrr!

Happy New Year.

DONEC