A tiny step forward

A new dawn awaits. Today I (we) rode out for the last time unprotected around the trunk: from tomorrow (June 1st) we all have to wear body protectors / safety vests / flak jackets, as Hugh and Martha are doing in this pic. I suppose it's a good thing. In fact, I know it's a good thing. It's definitely a good thing for the manufacturers and vendors of them: there must have been the best part of a couple of thousand of them bought in the last couple of months, which makes a handy six-figure sum, at about ninety quid a time. That will equate to a six-figure profit, because I can't believe they cost very much to make. Their use will do virtually nothing to reduce the incidence of serious injuries sustained by exercise riders, but will reduce soft tissue injuries around the abdomen in a few accidents. For race-riding they're definitely a good thing when a fall is usually followed by flailing horses' hooves, but that isn't really an issue in the vast majority of home-work falls. But they will do a small amount of good and won't do any harm other than financial, so the benefits have to outweigh the drawbacks. Especially for the manufacturers. I just find it rather hard to understand why we are barred from riding out without them, but are allowed to smoke: if lads were barred from smoking, the pain and premature death that would be prevented would be far greater than the pain and premature death prevented by making the wearing of body protectors compulsory. Maybe there is some logic in there somewhere, and I suppose it's a good thing that the nanny state / police state (chose whichever description you prefer) is applied only haphazardly rather than totally, but I just always find myself somewhat discomfitted by an application of priorities which shows a lack of appreciation as to what is fundamentally important and what isn't. The edict appears to have been prompted by the Racing Post, and in its defence the journalists, who are not practical horsemen, have been acting with good intentions. It is just that if there were a serious wish to improve the health and safety of riders, body protectors would have been very far down the list. In no particular order, there would have been a serious attempt made to control the equestricidal tendencies of the motorists - particularly the lorry drivers - in this and other training centres (hitherto, Mark Tompkins stands alone as an activist in this direction, and Jockey Club Estates are at best ambivalent); a ban on lads smoking; a move made to encourage trainers to give their horses a less restricted, unnatural and regimented lifestyle so that they don't have to do whatever frolicking they like to do with riders on their backs, because so many accidents are caused by horses' freshness which would be prevented if those horses spent an hour or two a day loose in a paddock; a move to get a lot of horses castrated a lot earlier in life, because so many accidents are caused by the sex drive of colts who have no chance whatsoever of being required for a stud career. But I suppose if you have no idea of the theory and practice of the lives of horses, none of those things would occur to you, and you'd feel that you'd made a great leap, instead of a tiny shuffle, forward by helping to make the wearing of back protectors compulsory.

From the overlong opening paragraph of this epistle, by the way, please don't feel that I don't take safety seriously. Au contraire: the problem is that I take it very seriously indeed, and because I am so intensely aware of the dangers involved and conscious of what could be done to lessen them that I realise that, rather than thinking that making body protectors compulsory has made a significant contribution to the improvement of safety, it has only made a tiny improvement; and that there are so many other things that could be done to make the lot of riders safer that are never even discussed. Other than by me. And as I devote so much thought to trying to make the job as safe as possible, I find it rather patronising to be dictated to by people who, as I see it, have no understanding whatsoever of the issues involved. (By the way, I know that, although a lot of premature deaths would be prevented by making it illegal for lads to smoke, it isn't feasible to ban them from doing so because of human rights legislation etc.; but is dictating what clothing they wear any less of an infringement on liberty? All the arguments about a responsibility towards ensuring that people make things safe for themselves surely apply equally to smoking).

I should have saved the above for a 'pink panel' on thoroughbredinternet. I don't know if you've seen any of the few (two so far, I think, or it might only have been one - I can't remember if the musings over Val Royal and the National Stud were written by Nigel Reid or by Rosinante) 'Tilting at windmills' leaders on our favourite site, but I think that's just the sort of stuff that is wanted. Except that this wouldn't really be wanted at all, because it is far too parochial an issue for an international website, and could only be tenuously described as a bloodstock issue. So it's just as well that I've got this blog to let this shite see the light of day. And, for obvious reasons, it definitely wouldn't be welcome in the Racing Post; not even in the alternative viewpoint slot, whose name I've forgotten because it appeared so infrequently and seems now to have expired altogether.

To return to less boring subjects (which isn't necessarily saying a great deal), we've had a sunny morning (I thought I'd get this in, because Lawrence Wadey, for one, particularly enjoys the meteorological bulletins) followed by yet more rain. With large parts of the field underwater after the 55 or so hours of incessant rain at the start of the week, the horses were barred from the field for two days so they were like bedouins reaching an oasis when their freedom was restored yesterday and today. There are six horses in the field as I write - Jack and Jill, Brief Goodbye, Millyjean, Milton's Keen and Lady Suffragette - and all six currently resemble very happy hippopotomi. Doubly happy, in fact, because I've given them another metre of Joe's grass today, so they were straight into that after their roll in the water hole.

The deluges of the past few days will have been very welcome in Peter Chapple-Hyam's stable. Noel O'Connor passed me yesterday evening as he cycled home, and he waved his arms to the sky, indicating his delight that his charge Authorized will find his favoured wet ground at Epsom. It's hard to envisage him being beaten in the Derby, and I hope that that prediction is correct. I also hope that we find a pleasing result to the first race at Eagle Farm on Saturday, which is the Group Three race in which Somewhere Safer will be making her bid for glory. It's at 12.15, which is 3.15 in the morning in the UK, for anyone who fancies watching At The Races instead of sleeping. She'll be the one jumping from barrier four, in Sheikh Ahmed Al Maktoum's colours of yellow, black epaulettes. We've struck lucky with the rider as well as with the draw. 51.5 kilos meant that our options seemed limited, but I suggested to Michael that it might be a good move to see what lightweight interstate or NZ hoops would be there on Oaks day, guessing that Craig Newitt or Lisa Cropp might be possibilities. And, lo and behold, Lisa Cropp is riding for us, which is terrific news. So, with no disrespect to the Derby intended, that will definitely, from my very biased viewpoint, be the race of the day. She's got a lot to find on form so we won't be disappointed if she isn't good enough, but it's just a thrill to be competing at a higher level, and I'm sure she'll acquit herself with credit.