Benefit of the Doubt (Part Two)

This ('The Racing League') is well timed from my point of view, for two reasons.  Firstly, in the last chapter of the blog I was musing on the subject of giving the benefit of the doubt (to the Saudi Cup race-meeting).  Secondly, only the other day I was having a discussion about sport with somebody in which I explained that team sports rather pass me by because I generally never mind who wins.  I've tried and I've tried and I've tried, but I've never really been able to understand or put into practice the idea of 'supporting a team'. 

I love cricket.  I love reading about cricket, hearing about cricket, talking about cricket.  On the very rare occasions when I see it, I enjoy watching it.  I love watching a good contest between the bat and the ball, and if someone is playing really well I love watching him (or her) taking wickets / getting runs (delete as applicable).  And it's terrifically exciting when we get down to a really close finish, as happened last summer in the World Cup Final and in the Headlingley Test.  But I keep falling at the crucial hurdle of the fact that, generally, I don't mind who wins.  In the closing stages of both of those matches, I was really excited - but, even so, I still didn't really mind which team won.

I tend to explain my failing away by saying that I'm not English so England is not my team and thus I'm always a neutral observer; but even if Scotland were involved in Test cricket, I probably wouldn't mind too much if they didn't win, or get too excited if they did.  And it's the same for supporting non-national teams.  I like to follow Essex, and Fulham in soccer, taking an interest in their matches and how they fare, but again I'm no more than mildly pleased when they do win, or mildly displeased when they don't.  I did get very excited when Scotland nearly beat England at rugby last year, but even then I wasn't excited enough to interrupt evening stables to watch the last half-hour of the match.

I can just about understand the supporting the national team thing, even if in general I think that it's not a good idea to go too overboard on nationalism (particularly at the moment).  And I can understand cheering your team on if it is your team, eg your school's First XI or First XV, or your village's or town's team.  Or, rather, if teams were as they used to be.  But now that ...'s team isn't ...'s team, I just don't get it at all.  Even the Yorkshire XI is no longer a Yorkshire XI, ie you no longer have to have been born in Yorkshire to play in it.  When your local team was your local team, and its players were people you went to school with or who lived just down the road, then that made sense.  But nowadays?  How many Manchester United fans live in that area of Manchester?  1% of them?  Less than 1% of them?  And how many players are locals?  Any of them?  None of them?  I just don't get it at all.

So now we have 'The Racing League', which aims to lure a new generation of fans to our sport on the basis that people, supposedly, really care which team wins.  In one sense, I'm the last person who should be commenting on this because I acknowledge that the whole 'supporting a team' thing passes me by.  But, by the same token, I've probably spent more time musing on the concept of supporting a team than have those to whom such a thing comes naturally.  And this is what it boils down to, as summed up by the headline on Lee Mottershead's piece in the Racing Post: "A bold move with plenty of cash but will anyone care who comes out on top?".

And where does the Saudi Cup come into this?  Well, it's the same thing: I'm happy to give The Racing League the benefit of the doubt.  Or, rather, I am if they go about it sensibly (which I'm not sure that they will) - basically, if they create teams that people can support.  Unfortunately, I have seen no evidence so far that that is what they will do.  Therefore, I'll explain how it should be run (I write with maximum pomposity).  And I won't be sending the organisers an invoice for £50,000 + VAT as my consultancy fee.  Seeing the grand titles which they have given themselves, I suspect that they'll need to save the pennies to pay themselves without giving any to me.

How to make the teams supportable?  Seemples: make them geographical, local.  Twelve teams - twelve areas.  (Qualification to be based on where the horse is trained).  Every licensed trainer to be put into one of 12 areas, depending on the location of his/her stable.  The National Trainers' Federation can help with this if it's difficult because we're split up into regions in that organisation, to decide which regional meetings we attend.  I'm in the Eastern Region, which largely consists of Newmarket-based or Exning-based (or Six Mile Bottom-based) trainers but also includes the likes of John Jenkins, Pam Sly and Christine Dunnett.  I'd suggest giving this region two teams, simply on the basis of there being such a large proportion of the country's Flat horses trained in Newmarket.  For the divide within the town, I'd split it on which side of the Exning Road or All Saints' Road one trains.

Then we would have South-East, including Epsom; South, including Lambourn; South-West, being Wiltshire and counties farther west; Wales; North-West, including Cumbria and Lancashire; Scotland; the North-East, including Middleham; the lower part of Yorkshire, including Malton; East Midlands; West Midlands.  You'd need to tinker things around with the Midlands teams to ensure that enough stables fell into each area (again the National Trainers' Federation could easily come up with suitable boundary-lines) but doing it along these lines would work. And everyone would have a local team to support, wherever they lived, because all the horses would be locally-trained.

Three weeks before the start of the competition, all trainers (who wanted to) would submit a list of all the horses in their stables rated between 70 and 90 whose owners would like them to take part.  The team captains would thus each be given a list of their squad, from which they must select 30 horses; and they would then pick the 30 horses most likely, in their opinion, to do well, which basically means the 30 most in-form horses.  However, the catch would be that horses whose owners live in the catchment area would have priority, and you'd only start taking horses owned elsewhere if there were not 30 locally-owned ones on call.  (And one would hope, by the way, that international mega-owners would not put their horses forward).  The identity of the trainers would be irrelevant: you could end up with 30 horses trained by 30 trainers, 30 horses trained by one trainer, or something in between.

That's the sensible way of doing it, and also the equitable.  The way suggested, that horses are only eligible if they are trained by particular trainers of the organisers' choosing, is total bullshit.  For a small stable to house a horse who would be perfect, but who isn't allowed to compete because his/her trainer isn't one of those whom the organisers have picked, would be totally unacceptable.  That appears to be the case at present, and I'd question whether the series ought even to take place if that's the case.  Once you start framing races and basing a horse's eligibility on the identity of the trainer, then we're heading into very treacherous waters.

As regards the jockeys, the obvious thing is for the teams' jockeys to be jockeys who come from that area.  It might be the case that in some areas we would be struggling to find three available jockeys who were born and/or raised there (particularly at the fixtures which clash with Goodwood and York because, realistically, no jockey is going to turn down a ride in a big race at one of those meetings to ride in this) but in those cases we could widen the scope to include jockeys who live there now.

So that's fixed it: a nationwide league of local teams, framed in a way that everyone in the country has a local team which they can support.  And done in a way which won't put anyone's nose out of joint.  As regards the prize for the winning team, split it equally between every full-time worker in a stable in the area of the winning team, plus the team ambassador.  (Easily done: Weatherbys maintain a list of registered workers for each stable).  It doesn't need to go to the owners, trainers or jockeys: if they've done well in the competition, they'll have picked up a good amount of prize-money anyway.  That'll particularly ensure that you'll get widespread support and enthusiasm for the project from within the game.  Every employee in every stable in the country will (or should be) on-side and willing their own team on.  Seemples!

By the way, lest anyone say that I'm only producing a set of rules designed to suit me, that's not the case.  As with other team sports, I'm an impartial observer.  In this case, it is because this does not really affect me.  I only train one eligible horse, and she's only borderline-eligible.  Of the horses whom I train currently, one (Kryptos) is rated over 90, while the second highest-rated horse is Hope Is High, rated 70.  She probably won't resume until June; so if we say that she'll probably have had one run by the time that the squads are identified, and we work on the basis that she has never won first up and always needs two or three runs to reach her peak, she will almost certainly be rated below 70 on the qualifying date.