Getting things right?

Continuing the theme of being prompted by things written in the Racing Post, I'll move on to three particularly sensible things which have been written therein recently. Two Sundays ago we had a pair of very good letters. One came from the Globeform maestro Geir Stabell lamenting the ludicrous situation which had seen the pre-race parade of the horses about to run in the Eclipse abandoned in favour of a parade of the jockeys (on foot, no horses in sight) about to ride in it. After that side-show had been completed, there wasn't even time for the horses to fulfill what used to be the obligation of passing the judge's box on the way to post. Great, I suppose, for racegoers who have no interest in horses, but significantly less good for the ones whom racing used formerly to try to attract. I don't study the rule-book often enough or closely enough (maybe I should) to tell you when the rule was scrapped which used to say that horses had to pass the judge's box on the way to post unless there was a particular reason (usually either a very badly behaved horse or extremely wet ground which would mean that the fewer hoofprints damaging the track, the better) for this requirement being temporarily waived. However, I do know that its scrapping was a bad thing. It is now the norm at some courses (Yarmouth being a serial offender) for the horses as a matter of routine to head straight towards the back straight if that is the most direct way to the start, irrespective of how wet or dry the ground is - and this is even (least excusably) the case at Kempton on the AW, where chewing up the track definitely can't be an issue. Anyway, a simple suggestion to RFC would be that it would be easier for racegoers to 'engage with' the sport (good verb, very 21st century) if the horses' warm-up preliminaries are made more, rather than less, visible.

I'll come on to the second good letter from that edition of the Racing Post anon. In the meantime, I will say how pleased I was to read Julian Muscat's column in today's Post. I can never nowadays remember what I've said/written where, but I'm sure that in previous chapters of this blog I must have bemoaned the fact that, by running a horse as a "pace-maker" (and it often isn't clear until after the race that the horse has only been there to fulfil this role) owners and trainers are allowed to disregard the rule which says that every horse has to be ridden to achieve its best possible placing. Rerouted in the St. James's Palace Stakes, Jan Vermeer in the Prince Of Wales's Stakes and Cape Blanco in the Queen Anne Stakes were three horses ridden in a way which seemed designed to ensure that they would achieve their worst possible placing, while Debussy certainly wasn't done any favours by the way he was ridden in the Prince Of Wales's - and yet nobody seemed to find this at all odd. The weird thing is that I keep banging on about this in my amateur way, while the so-called proper journalists, whose job is supposedly to make insightful observations about the sport, act as if nothing is happening. No longer, though, with Julian remarking about horses on whom such tactics are used that, "How this satisfies the rule demanding that every horse should run on its merits is completely beyond comprehension". Does it matter that what many would regard as the most important rule of racing is applied only selectively? I don't know - but I do know an area where it really does matter that the sport is so poorly policed.

For more than two decades, it appears to have been the case that British stewards have become ever less conscientious in exercising their duty to ensure fair play on the playing field - in particular to ensure that jockeys ride with due regard to the safety of the horses and of their fellow riders. There was a time when jockeys were expected to keep their mounts straight and were expected to take all feasible measures to avoid causing interference. In the days before the camera patrol, it was obviously hard for the stewards to play much of a policeman's role in this respect; but once the races had started to be filmed, stewarding policy in general seemed to place a big emphasis on ensuring that dangerous riding would not be tolerated. Nowadays, one sees dangerous riding on a daily basis, and it has become so standard for it to go unpunished that on the rare occasions when the stewards do take action, it is not only the reprimanded culprit who reacts as if he is the injured party. It is worth remembering that when a jockey allows a horse to cross another when he is not clear of that horse, then it is luck of the draw whether the horse behind him is brought down or not; so it is not a case of merely saying that no horse was brought down, therefore no offence was committed.

What has brought me on to this has been the Eddie Ahern case. I say this as someone who both likes Eddie and has a very high regard for him both on and off a horse. But this case is worth pointing out simply because it is a valuable illustration of the damage which can result from riders failing to keep their horses straight and of the policy which has led UK-based jockeys to believe that it is not unacceptable to endanger their fellow riders and their mounts. You might have read that Eddie received a 7-day suspension for causing a pile-up (which he admitted causing) in the Group Three Stockholm Stora Pris at Taby on 31 May. This suspension was subsequently increased to 21 days after the Swedish Racing Authority appealed against the leniency of the penalty, and its appeal was upheld. The upshot is that Eddie has received a 21-day suspension; two top-class horses (Sweden's reigning Horse of the Year Moe Green, and Touch Of Hawk, who is best known to us for having beaten Munsef in the 2009 Stockholm Cup) have suffered what appear to be career-ending injuries; and Frederik Johansson, the best jockey which Scandanavia has ever produced, has suffered a shoulder injury which will at best keep him on the side-lines for several months and at worst will mean that he never rides again. Another victim of the incident is Taby's (now former) chief stipendiary steward who has lost his job as a result of having given out such an over-lenient original penalty - which is understandable because the position of a senior steward can hardly remain tenable after he has made a ruling so patently wrong that the race club feels obliged to appeal (successfully) against it. So, while the British press coverage might have led us to regard Eddie as the victim, he was clearly the transgressor, while Moe Green, Touch Of Hawk and Frederik Johansson (three innocent parties) have all suffered penalties far in excess of his 21-day ban.

And where are my ramblings leading? Well, arguably the most revealing part of the whole episode was Eddie's comment that "Hughesie did a similar thing at Windsor and got seven days". Which brings us to my point: we have all, led by the stewards' repeated failure to give out meaningful reprimands to instances of dangerous riding, developed a mindset which holds that endangering the other competitors doesn't matter. Why should such a thing matter, if the penalty for dangerous riding is either non-existent, or both slight and markedly less than the penalty for excessive use of the whip, an offence which is harmful to neither man nor beast? I didn't see Richard Hughes' interference at Windsor but I heard about it, but I did see his two recent offences at Wolverhampton (one last autumn and one this spring) and all I can say is that it is not in the interests of the horses and jockeys of Britain for riding such as that to be regarded as anything other than totally unacceptable. And until the stewards (and press, for they must bear their share of blame - how often have we heard TV presenters reviewing a race by saying something like, "Granted that the horse has drifted onto the rails and squeezed up a few behind him, but the jockey was doing all that he could to keep him straight", when the jockey, who probably only had one hand on the reins at the time, clearly hadn't been doing everything in his power to keep the horse straight?) act as if they take safety seriously, racing, a very dangerous sport at the best of times, will remain more dangerous than it needs to be. We have all seen fatal falls resultant from horses not being kept straight, and I'm afraid that we shall undoubtedly see more. However, one of the main priorities of stewarding policy should be that such instances be kept to a minimum. Can we say that races are currently policed as if the safety of the competitors is paramount? I don't believe that we can: I'd say that races are currently policed as if the safety of the competitors isn't a major issue at all.

That's enough for one day, so I'll come on to the second good letter in the Racing Post on a later date.