Since BACK TO WORK (see Donec.co.uk) I have done very little research, but I have noticed that BFS (Big Field Starts) under NH rules (jump racing) are still at an unacceptable level of incompetence and unfairness – for which the actual starters are not responsible. You have to look at least one level above the starters to find out what went wrong and when. Between 1710 and 2000 British Racing took starting seriously and that applied to big fields under National Hunt Rules as well as to smaller fields.

In 2000 or thereabouts that changed. The BHA employed a Raceday Regulator with no knowledge of big-field starting and a fixation about getting big field races off on time. Something like that. Instead of asking questions and taking advice he made drastic changes that resulted in a succession of false starts in top class races that annoyed every element of the racing community and the racing public. And that has been his story ever since. But he refused to cancel the changes he had made, and Higher Authority did nothing to educate him or to sack him. So the false starts have increased. But at least he did the decent thing and in due course left the BHA.

His replacement (the present Raceday Regulator) saw that a pandemic of false starts was rampant and was told about his hopeless predecessor. He was told about the simple adjustments required in order to reinstate the system which had made British Racing the home of fair starts for 200 years, and he made it clear that he would rather die than take advice. So the pandemic continues, and the name of British Racing is tarnished bigtime.

Here are the facts of life: 1) Fair (and safe) starts are as vital to horseracing as to the Olympics. No argument, although the dunce may well not agree. 2) There is a key to starting big fields without causing a False Start, as follows: Do not ask your big field to do things that create tension and upset horses and jockeys. Today’s Regulator inherited a process whereby your big field is put under pressure at the very beginning of the lunacy. The horses are required to form a tight-packed caterpillar of resentful horseflesh that is formed up and sent on its way all over the racecourse during any time that has to elapse before “start time” is reached, which could be one minute or ten. Is that clever? No, it is lunacy. That is the legacy that today’s Regulator inherited from his predecessor and so far the silly ass has done nothing to discontinue the features that cause stress and tension, which inevitably trigger FALSE STARTS.

Who is responsible for the False Starts phenomenon? First the BHA recruitment section, for recruiting duds. Second, the recruitment section again, for not ensuring that any dud who gets through phase one of the recruitment process is given training before being loosed off on a British racecourse. Third, the CEO for a third time, for allowing the starting procedures to be managed by unqualified and untrained people. Fourth, the CEO again: for not ensuring that the starters are consulted about the processes that they are asked to operate. Virtually all the starters are ex-jockeys and the present crisis would never have developed if they had been consulted twenty years ago. In addition the head starter should have constant access to the CEO and should be encouraged to use it.

That’s it.

Now let me update you about the WHIP, and I am afraid that the CEO (Mrs Harrington) is in for a roasting. The padded whip was licenced for use on British Racecourses in 2006 after 20 years of development undertaken by the Jockey Club. Eighteen years later its use is compulsory all over the world and the enthusiasm from “all over the world” is unanimous. However it is my painful duty to reveal that the CEO of the BHA has her doubts about the enthusiasm of the planet’s horsemen.

Commenting on something or other she revealed that she sympathised with those who cannot accept the judgement of horsemen everywhere (the judgement that the padded whip is pain-free). This development is not because of pain signals which her scientists have noticed emanating from robustly-ridden horses, but because a new group of anti-whip protesters claim to be seriously unhappy. Why? Because their “perception” of the hit mechanism triggers a “perception of pain” that these particular protesters wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies. “There is no alternative,” they cry. “The whip must go! And that nice Mrs Harrington is on our side! Such a nice person!”