CEO, CIAO

Nick Rust has announced that he will step down from his position as CEO of the BHA at the end of 2020.

He got good reviews from all the pundits, and he gets a good review from Donec, even though we have disagreed on several occasions, and are still at loggerheads in some areas, as will become apparent shortly.

So why the good review?Because he created the BHA’s Independent Judiciary. The BHA’s pre-2016 disciplinary system, in which the prosecutor chose the jury at both the disciplinary and the appeal level, was a horror and an embarrassment. Every time it convened, conferred and convicted, it took racing deeper and deeper into the slough of disrepute. This state of affairs was under the management of Mr Jamie Stier, now happily restored to New South Wales. At the time I suggested that Putin himself would be ashamed to adopt that aspect of BHA justice in Mother Russia. I am still of that opinion.

Consequently Mr Rust’s creation of the Independent Judiciary is an achievement of which he can be very proud, and a blessing for which the racing industry will be eternally grateful.

SPRINGTIME IN HIGH HOLBORN

No good review in this case. It is my painful duty to draw the attention of my readers to a minor but significant disaster which occurred at Warwick on the 11^th of January 2020, as the runners were preparing to face the starter before the 3.00 race, a three mile five furlong steeplechase. There were only 13 runners, but even so they had been required to adopt the close-packed processional mode and to rotate en masse. One circuit… chug… chug… chug, and again… chug…chug…chug… then a third circuit, followed by a fourth and then a fifth – the notorious ROLLING MAUL in full flow and as horrible as ever. Another example of Stier management, which is long overdue for the chop, and which does nothing to confirm the BHA’s claim to be among the leaders in the matter of Animal Welfare.

By this time all 13 horses were performing what might be described as an extended trot and all 13 were wondering when this nonsense was going to end. That apparently is the way things are done if your Raceday Director knows everything about trotting races in the Antipodes and nothing about jump racing in England – and is apparently allergic to the very idea of learning to do properly the job for which he is being paid a handsome stipend.

Comes the moment when those 13 horses are invited to approach the starter, who notices that they are breaking the speed limit for that phase of the exercise. They should be walking. So the yellow flag stays up and the charge of the light brigade grinds to a halt.

The Standing Start follows, and off they go. Normally the Rolling Maul sabotages the starts of big-fields only. This occurrence shows that as few as 13 runners can be driven mad if the pre-start delay is long enough and the management inappropriate.

End of story? No way. A week later I dial up the BHA website and glance at the Stewards’ Report on the incident. “Having reviewed the recordings of the false start, the starters were satisfied that no riders should be reported for contravening the starting procedures.”

You see what I mean?  He calls the incident a false start, and he acquits the jockeys of any blame. The BHA writer has told the truth! Most unusual. Apparently the starters  failed to name the guilty men. I can fill that gap: both CEO and Raceday Director have been told a million times that the Rolling Maul has got to go, but they prefer to persist with the Stier heresy.

They would do well to learn how the job used to be done, and should be done :

1. Let the horses congregate about sixty yards behind the tapes, where they will  walk in an anticlockwise circle, nose-to-tail, while pre-race adjustments are completed. No processional wandering all over England.  That is what starts the trouble. And it is the processional aspect that robs the start of its fairness. The leaders are advantaged, the rest are progressively penalised.

2. When called forward, the runners must walk. Sixty yards is quite enough space to allow all jockeys to find a fair position before the tapes go up, and the starters should encourage this process. Fairness matters.

In six weeks time, Cheltenham. More big-field races than you could shake a stick at. Dear Mr Rust, dear Mr Dunshea, you have just six weeks in which to put things right.  It could be done in ten minutes, if one or other of you (or both) were to have a conversation with a starter about what has been going on for the last eight years.

EUROPE

I am glad we are out. It was Europe in 2003 that scuppered British Racing’s best chance of getting very, very rich via the “data” project. I thought that the European Court’s judges made a wrong decision, and I wasn’t alone. The word “perverse” was widely used in legal circles to describe the antics of those Euro-jokers. They may well have been persuaded by arguments from William Hills’ lawyers too attractive to be rejected.

I hope that the Jockey Club, Weatherbys and the BHA are looking into the possibility of reviving the project even as I type this at 10.05 pm on 29^th January 2020.

Boris scored well by his courtesy towards the Europeans throughout. Brexit was an arrangement (or re-arrangement) “between friends” as far as he was concerned and the friendly relationship that developed is going to make a difference in the future.

The great advantage for Boris about the new situation, when the realities have to be faced and the hard work has to be done, is the fact that it must be infinitely preferable to  the crap he has had to put up with over the last six months, what with Mrs May’s Mess-up, the Supreme Court’s interference, no majority in the Commons and a lot of personal abuse into the bargain; all of which he has taken on the chin with a smile on his face most of the time, and not even the suggestion of a deviation from his chosen path. I do not think we have any reason to worry about Trump. Boris did not go into politics to take Britain into the servants’ quarters of the White House.

Another person who has behaved perfectly is Her Majesty the Queen, who has been magnificent.

Talking of politics, the great tragedy of my life has been my inability to convince three Prime Ministers and as many Health Ministers that Sir Gerry Robinson should be put in charge of the NHS. Who? There you go… you’ve never heard of him. Look him up.

If Sir Winston Churchill had been in charge during the last decade he would have invited Sir Gerry to join the Cabinet and get on with it.  Action this day, and no messing. Even now, ten years later, Robinson’s presence among the decision-makers could make, and would make, all the difference.

THE GREAT BLANKET DEBATE

I beg leave to draw your attention to SPORT 99, at the end of which (bottom of the page) there is a comment from ex-trainer Charlie James. He confirms my nightmare memoir of trotting up Sincombe Hill without the support of stirrups and under the merciless gaze of  the late Ginger Dennistoun, our trainer in more senses than one. Charlie adds to the data on the subject as he reveals that, after Sincombe Hill, he joined the Francome/Astley group (those who have spent time riding without even a saddle, just a blanket secured by a surcingle) rather than that of Sir Gordon Richards (no stirrups, no saddle, no blanket, no surcingle, nothing). It is all good stuff, straight from the horse’s mouth.

’Nuff said.

Best wishes, DONEC