Getting back to normal. And a grip.

It's been over three weeks since my last chapter, but at least I'm back in harness now.  I wrote a chapter on 26th February, but sadly my father died that night and it's taken a while to get back into my usual rhythm.  Getting there now, but.  And we had his funeral on Monday.  So I'm getting back on track.  The final spur has been that racing politics are getting as shambolic, as idiotic and as nasty as the national situation (well, not quite - we're maybe 2% of the way there, but that's 2% too much) so I felt that I'd try to distill a small dose of common sense to pour oil on the waters.  (Onto racing's waters, that is; as far as the national situation is concerned, that seems to have gone beyond recall, thanks to the deadly duo of Cameron and May, and to the dangerous lunatics whom they have empowered / abetted / encouraged / failed to control - delete as applicable).

We've had a few debacles recently.  The equine influenza epidemic-that-wasn't could, with the wisdom on hindsight, have gone better, but that's water under the bridge.  Lessons, one presumes and hopes, will have been learned; and no lives were lost.  Erring on the side of caution is rarely the cause of a disaster, and it wasn't in this case either.  The next contentious issue (unless I've missed one) was the Sandown photo-finish debacle.  That was a debacle, but it certainly wasn't the fault of either the judge or the stewards.  Or any other BHA employee.  Or the BHA.

At Sandown the hurdles course and the steeplechase course converge on the finish from different directions.  Therefore, if one is to be fair (and it is the racing authorities' duty to be fair), there must be two finishing lines, each at right angles to the racing line on its own course.  This means that if there is one winning post on one side of the track, there must be two on the other side.  We're dependent on the photo-finish being lined up to the correct post on the side which has two posts.  (And we always will be, irrespective of whether there is one post on the near side and two on the far side as at present, or one on the far side and two on the near side, which would be the alternative).

It sounds simple, but humans are fallible and once in a lifetime you will find that the technician responsible for lining up the photo-finish apparatus will get it wrong.  That is what happened on Imperial Cup Day.  I don't know whether the technician works for the racecourse or for Racetech, but the certainty is that he doesn't work for the BHA.  It was 0% a stewarding mistake and 0% a judge's mistake.  In fact, the judge did well to realise so soon after having been given a duff print that it was a duff print, and thus to rectify the error so swiftly.  He did so well in advance of the 'weighed in' - and, frankly, any bookmaker silly enough to pay out before the 'weigh-in' has only himself to blame.

But then we came to the National Hunt Chase.  The fatal fall of Ballyward was tragic, but it was not the result of the race being long or being for amateurs.  It took place the better part of a mile and a half from the finish when Ballyward was still travelling easily, and he was being ridden by the most successful amateur in history, one of the most competent and experienced there has ever been.  He just jumped poorly all the way round, and the writing was on the wall from early on that he looked unlikely to get round.  I've never watched any of his previous races so don't know whether was generally a bad jumper or whether he was just jumping uncharacteristically badly that day.  Whatever, this tragedy should not be used as a stick to beat either racing, the BHA, amateurs or the race.

Unfortunately, the race then produced the debacle of the poor decision by the stewards to suspend Declan Lavery for his ride on third-placed Jerrysback.  This was just plain silly.  It is good to have a rule that says that in jumps races a rider should pull up if his horse is very tired and out of contention.  But this should not have been erroneously applied here: by definition, a horse who finishes third is not out of contention.  What prompted the stewards' bizarre decision is hard to understand.  But at least their mistake has now been rectified, even if Declan Lavery should not have been required to travel from Ireland to London to have the injustice righted.  I hope that he has received an apology and his travelling expenses.

Furthermore, leaving aside that this rule should not be applied in instances like this where it is not applicable (and it was doubly inapplicable because, over and above the horse not having been out of contention, the fact that he was fine after the race - not apparently that the stewards took the trouble to find that out - shows that he wasn't even particularly tired anyway) it is a rule that should only be used with circumspection under any circumstances.  Racing has two inherent achilles heels - ie fatalities and the whip - but, up to now, horses being tired is not a third one.  I think that everyone recognises that horses getting tired is inevitable; and it is not not an issue.  The stewards should be thinking long and hard about turning it into an issue, and creating a third stick with which the sport can be beaten.

So that's the situation.  But that is very, very far from saying that we should be looking for different leadership.  I have been appalled in recent days to read a series of news items detailing people who ought to know better giving the opinions that the BHA is not the right body to rule the sport and/or that Nick Rust is not the right person to head the BHA.  And I have not used the word 'appalled' there lightly.  If you feel yourself getting ready to voice the view that we would be better off without the BHA, or with someone else at its head, then take a deep breath, start counting to a million, and let me know when you've finished doing that.  And get a fu*&in' grip.