MORE THAN A TRIPLE CROWN
In the spring of 2014 California Chrome won the first two legs in America’s Triple Crown, and finished 4th in the Belmont (the third leg). This alerted “Donec” to the world of Triple Crowns, apart from England’s own combination of 2000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger, so we applied ourselves to the evidence concerning America’s three-race test for 3-year-olds.
Since the 1930s, it has always started with the Kentucky Derby, early in May, over a mile. Exactly a fortnight later comes the Preakness, over just under a mile. The final contest is the Belmont, exactly three weeks later, over a mile and a half. The whole package takes five weeks. We took a closer look and were astonished.
Sensing that the US racing community needed guidance, Donec wrote to four of its top brass. We explained that five weeks in the spring is the worst possible season in which to run a meaningful “championship” for young horses. In addition, three extremely demanding races in three weeks is overtaxing on a monstrous scale. As such it provides valid ammunition for anti-racing factions, which we understood are active and powerful in America.
We received no response from the Paladins of the American Turf, which was a bit rude, but we didn’t take umbrage.
In 2020, enter Corona Virus and what do we find?
We find that the American Triple Crown has been rearranged, as follows: Belmont Stakes, 20th June 2020 at Belmont Park, New York; Kentucky Derby, 5th September 2020, at Churchill Downs, Kentucky; Preakness Stakes, 3rd October, at Pimlico, Maryland.
As I understand it, the principle was to keep the races at the tracks where they had always been run, and to slot them into racedays which already featured in the arrangements of the tracks involved.
Then some bright spark noticed that the 2-month gap between the Belmont and the Kentucky Derby could comfortably accommodate the Travers Stakes, a Top Grade race for 3-year-olds, over 1 mile 2 furlongs, scheduled for August 8th, at Saratoga, New York. Whether there was (or is) any intention to include it in a foursome, I do not know – but it fits in neatly.
So the Belmont (distance reduced from 12 furlongs to 9 furlongs – very sensible) was run on June 20th and was won by TIZ THE LAW. The Travers has also been run, on August 8th. It too was won by TIZ THE LAW in magnificent style. All concerned – including the horses – will be good and ready for the Kentucky Derby on September 5th , and will then have 28 days before the Preakness. Perfect equine social spacing!
This means that at last the American Racing community is acknowledging the fact that its three-year-olds need time in which to grow, strengthen, develop and achieve their potential. More than that: it has turned a questionable Triple Crown into a superb Quadrilateral Championship of which the whole nation can be proud.
One must just hope that all goes well with the remaining legs of the Quadrilateral and that, when the last face-mask has been binned, the great and the good of the American Racing community will resist the temptation to revert to the bad practices of the past.
They should talk to the trainers concerned. I have no doubt that they will be told that the new model is absolute perfection.
NEW CEO FOR THE BHA
Providence may well have decided that British Racing has suffered enough. Why do I think that?
Let us look back to the spring of 2019 and the appointment of Annamarie Phelps as Chairperson of the BHA. In her youth she had been an Olympic class oarswoman, and when she moved into management in the same sport she did an extremely good job.
When she arrived at High Holborn she may well have been handicapped by the fact that she was the first female to take the chair in a largely male organisation; and her limited knowledge of racing has probably been another negative factor. However, one year and a few months later she hasn’t put a foot wrong as far as I am aware.
Now the BHA has elected as its next CEO Julie Harrington, who takes office on January 4th 2021, when Nick Rust retires.
Julie Harrington is a woman. So is Annamarie Phelps. I would suggest that working together and enjoying each other’s company (if that is how the cookie crumbles) they will punch their weight. Nay rather they will punch more than their weight. They will bring to the table for the good of the sport the weight and the influence and the energy of a team.
Julie Harrington has been in and around British racing for years and years. She was an independent non-executive director of the BHA from 2014 to 2019, so she knows everything there is to know about that extraordinary and in many ways disgraceful organisation. She was a senior executive at Northern Racing for eight years and at one stage managed Uttoxeter Racecourse. Outside of racing she has won rave notices wherever she has worked, including British Airways and the Football Association.
How does she look upon her new job? “I’m so excited to be coming home to racing and playing my part helping this great sport to achieve a prosperity from which everyone benefits. I know how important collaboration across racing has been over the past few months and I look forward to working with colleagues from all parts of the sport.”
How does that sound?
STEWARDING
Racecourse stewards work under pressure. They have to digest what they have seen during a race and then relate that evidence to the rules that they must apply in order to reach a conclusion. Time is short. Inevitably, mistakes will be made.
If a jockey is penalised by the racecourse stewards and wishes to appeal against the verdict, he appeals, and a hearing is conducted by the Independent Judiciary, which is a body of men and women extremely well qualified to do what needs to be done.
If a jockey appeals, he has to deposit quite a large sum of money, which may or may not be returned to him, depending on a decision by the Panel. So jockeys seldom appeal frivolously.
The Judiciary’s panel (usually three strong, I think) is in no hurry, is under very little pressure, and has access to far more video evidence than was available to the racecourse stewards.
All else being equal, the system which combines racecourse stewards with the Independent Judiciary (a comparatively recent creation) is superb. If the racecourse stewards make a mistake (as is very possible), the independent appeal court corrects it.
But Brant Dunshea (the BHA’s chief regulatory officer) suggested in a recent RP article that it is “challenging for the racecourse stewards if the appeal hearing overturns their racecourse judgements.”
It isn’t challenging for anyone, and if it was it wouldn’t matter. What matters is that justice should be done. Common sense suggests that a partnership between racecourse stewards and the Independent Judiciary is the ideal way to achieve that objective.
Many of my readers will remember the campaign which Jamie Stier (now back in Australia) conducted to reduce the number of Amateur Stewards operating at race meetings. It was a mistake, and the BHA very stupidly allowed him to get away with it. The result was to give more and more power to the professional stewards, paid by the BHA, and less and less to the Amateurs, who were there to give the system a certain amount of vital balance. Without that balance the professionals can get away with all sorts of decadence, and they do.
That is history, and I hope that one day a wiser BHA will turn the clock back.
But for the moment Mr Dunshea’s letter shows that he is a follower of Stier. He wants his BHA team to have full control of all disciplinary procedures. I would remind him and the BHA that the Independent Judiciary was set up to make that kind of power-grab impossible. Why? Because it undermines the integrity of any justice system that is exposed to it.
Best Wishes,
Donec