SITUATIONS VACANT

There remains an insistence on blaming the staff shortage crisis in racing yards on the so called unsociable working patterns. The issue, one that is receiving growing publicity in the written press,  was covered in The Daily Telegraph earlier this week.

Whenever this is under the spotlight very little thought is given to the consideration that for healthy energetic youngsters, being a stable lad or whatever they are called now, provides a livelier, happier working day than being a gimp in a call centre with grim evening shifts, the bullying atmosphere of being a robot in an Amazon warehouse, or even being conditioned for laziness by studying for some odd named and probably worthless degree.

And while the overall employment situation is brighter and offers more opportunities than in the 1970's which reduces the number of staff obtained due to limited openings elsewhere, at the centre of the staffing crisis lies a growing indifference to the sport in general.

It is a sport which simply fails to get the adrenalin pumping in the younger generations.

Nowadays there is no regular method of feeding interest in the sport to youngsters. If you grow up equating betting with football and live in a household with, as is commonly the case now, no printed newspapers lying around, you are not really going to be aware of its everyday existence.

If there is a racing fan residing under the roof there will be a possibility that a copy of Horses in Training is within sight, inviting to be picked up, even out of curiosity, even for someone who doubts they will ever have much time for the sport. A youngster will not conduct an internet search on a subject he or she holds no regard for.

Even allowing for the overall decrease in the sales of printed publications, it would be fascinating if sales figures were available for the Horses in Training publication down the decades.This was a publication that opened the world up to a young racing fan. Trainers strings with pedigrees, trainers phone numbers and addresses.Wow, imagine looking after a Vulgan store, or a Sir Ivor two year old.

This appeal would be driven beneath by the image of the sport being attractive. It was still a major tier sport then. Horse pastimes themselves would be high up on the consideration list for someone fancying an outdoor sport to get involved with.

With the function of the horse in modern society disappearing just like coal bunkers, Subutteo and Chopper bicycles, those inclined to find a hobby away from computerised fantasy games now have modern trendy pastimes on offer to contend with all the traditional ones.

Hang Gliding, Skydiving, Segwaying, and not to forget that sport where those giant kites lift you off the ground. There is also this increasingly popular lark of 'flying' across valleys attached to overhead zip wires. A pastime strongly opposed to by those who term this oddity as 'sound violence'.

I was chatting to someone who is a member of a rambling club and who was incensed at the so far defeated proposal to install one of these functions in Thirlmere, in his beloved Lake District.

"I'd still go the Lakes if it ever went ahead, " he told me, "I'd just keep away from the particular valley that will have these morons passing above".

Truth is, these 'morons' might in another era have been inclined to join a riding school where they may have got bitten and wanted to take it a step further and work amongst horses, with the racing world being one of the most open gateways for them.

And this would have been at a time when there was no racing industry structure as there is now, such as schools where the kids learn to ride, strap horses and learn all the required stable duties. They are also coached how to conduct themselves properly.

No doubt there will be tomfoolery,  horseplay and initiation ceremonies but surely nothing like in times past.

Many years ago I was in conversation with someone who had a lifetime in the sport. He recalled when he worked for a famous trainer in the 1940's. If the lights were not switched off in the lad's dorm by a certain time, the trainer himself along with a couple of high ranking staff would enter the dorm and beat the boys with long toms.

Someone who worked for two well known northern national hunt yards in the 1970's recounted to me of how in one of the yards they would carry out mock hangings on new recruits which would involve taking them to a barn, standing them on a couple of bales of hay stacked up, placing a noose around their neck, throwing the rope over a beam and pushing the newcomer off the bale.

It would be surprising to find that settled staff at Asda, John Lewis, or B &Q,  thrash young boys with whips or place real nooses around the necks of new starters

However, this should not mask the issue that in Newmarket there has existed for many years a serious drug problem, higher than the national average, in addition, a higher than normal suicide rate. Though no link between the two has been proven it would be no surprise if one existed.

Trying to move forward, the appeal of working in racing could form television advertisements in the style of those army ones.

A montage beginning with a mucking out scene on a dark morning, then riding out on a snow covered landscape, feed buckets, gatherings in the tack room, travelling to the races in the horsebox, racecourse stables, leading up a winner, a late return to the yard with darkness having fallen, then ending with lots of beaming faces in a homely pub.

It is a sport that must once more be made attractive again from its soul.

For the real dilemma is that the appeal of horse racing itself has never been so low. The liars who equate racecourse crowds with the popularity of the actual sport are spinning a myth. A sport that a lower percentage of the betting public than ever before wish to bet on, a sport that nobody wants to work in, and one that has too many key figures outwardly in denial of the crisis it is enduring.

image in Public Domain

A BATTLE OF THE FESTIVALS

A tightly packed fixture run of Spring festivals, no time to reflect but plenty of action to digest whether from attending or watching from afar. Cheltenham is the lucky one, it gets the first bite and even allowing for the unwise decision to stretch it an extra day and dilute the quality, it is and will continue to be the strongest and most anticipated.

In the tussle that ensues amongst the rest to keep their rank in the pecking order, Aintree is the venue most disadvantaged in the sense that it has to contend with a Fairyhouse Irish Grand National meeting that is growing as a whole, a Punchestown Festival that is now on a higher summit than it ever has been, not to mention other fixtures with eyecatching prizes.

There are those surviving 'support' races at the old Sandown Whitbread meeting that were originally designed as a one off to give opportunities for some of those animals who missed their chances when Cheltenham was lost due to the foot and mouth epidemic.

They are still in the calendar and this year a certain Altior will be appearing in the two mile chase. Admittedly, there is no Champion Chase equivalent at Aintree but surely it is in the spirit of the sport to step up in trip in the Melling on a track that beckons specialist two milers giving them a chance of getting home over half a mile further - there have been some magnificent renewals of this.

One can also not help to notice some of the prizes on offer at Fairyhouse this week and some decent quality turning out. It's all competition to Aintree.

Fact is that despite the three big championship races at Cheltenham all falling to horses trained in the south of England, the pool of horses towards the top of the pyramid is top heavy with those trained in Ireland.

They have a programme of festivals, mini-festivals, plus the regular Sundays all have an attractive structure to them with good prize money on offer. In short, apart from Cheltenham or the King George or Grand National, there is enough booty in their backyard for them to stay at home.

Last week there were more notable names missing than normal from all quarters. Thank God we did have Might Bite (pictured) appearing, a wonderful animal of the highest class with character, quirks, good looks and probably the most popular national hunt horse in training at the moment.

It was regrettable that Native River did not face him again but still an acceptable field. It is debatable whether the same could be said of the juvenile hurdle, which those with long memories will remember as the Weetabix Hurdle in the late 1970's.

This year none of the first three home in the Triumph Hurdle appeared in the race. Even the winner of the Fred Winter, Veneer of Charm, chose the Fairyhouse Grand National meeting , and for good measure also ran again at the same venue this week finishing fourth, one place behind the animal who finished fifth in the Triumph. 

Other notable absentees from the meeting were Footpad, Sandro, Presenting Percy and Shattered Love, who was another who ran at the Easter Fairyhouse  fixture. There was a time when the last two named would possibly have lined up in the staying novice chase at Liverpool

Each year you can go through the Aintree programme and note by their absence, the horses 'claimed' by rival fixtures.

In lazy mind mode it is easy to consider the fact that Aintree as a racecourse went from being lost nearly twice to becoming a modern renovated arena with terrific facilities, an expansion in fixtures, and attracting massive crowds for its showcase meeting; then to link this with a belief that the meeting as a whole attracts better quality horses than in the past.

The two issues exist side by side but are separate from one another. While again this year the meeting went down as an unqualified overall success, we must accept that the large majority of those swarming the enclosures are increasingly becoming a separate entity from the racing fan attendees, something that we would expect less in the jumping game.

A fair summary of the racecards would be that they are standing up fairly well but on the whole the quality of the three days bears some dents. Does anyone really believe Dawn Run, if she existed now, would have been appearing at Liverpool the same number of times that she did in her short career?

After finishing second in the 1983 Sun Alliance Novices Hurdle at Cheltenham, she reappeared on the Friday of Aintree to win the Page Three Handicap Hurdle; this at a time when The Sun sponsored the Grand National.The very next day she lined up in the Templegate Hurdle and ran the reigning champion hurdler Gaye Brief to a length, in receipt of only 6 lb.

The following year after winning the Champion Hurdle, she followed up at Aintree in what was now the Sandeman Aintree Hurdle. Then, after her famous Gold Cup victory in 1986, she lined up at Aintree for the race Might Bite won last week, getting no further than the first fence.

As it was down to injury why Buveur D'Air did not take his place in the Aintree Hurdle it would be unfair to cite the below par turnout for this year's renewal. Still, long gone are the times when the likes of Night Nurse, Monksfield and Sea Pigeon would line up, connections leaving the impression that it was their duty to do so.

Away from the essence of what the sport is about, there is now a growing tendency for groups of ladies to book the day off work for Aintree ladies day, dress up, meet, then spend the day in a pub.

And the following is even more concerning; I was talking to a lad in his early twenties who had gone on Thursday. There was around eight lads and girls who had gone together and booked expensive seats in one of the stands. They had not been before.

As it turned out, they felt that the atmosphere in their stand was not up to their expectations, so after a couple of races they promptly left their comfy specks behind and spent the rest of the afternoon in the marquee in Tatts, where live music played all day to a packed audience.

The racing per se was not high up on their agenda and there must be serious doubts whether any of this young party will ever be racing fans. Aintree racecourse as a business would be happy knowing they will probably return, but as the whole structure of racing needs people like these to place bets on the sport when away from the course, then they are merely wallpaper to cover cracks.

I enjoyed my Thursday with a full house of a gang of four. Two of us lifelong fans, the other two not particularly stirred at all, just content to stand with a beer and waffle about anything but racing. But no doubt God willing they'll return again next year and the year after which will of course please those doing the wallpapering.

pic by author

LIES THAT SERVE NO PURPOSE

'Scu, Francome and Jonjo:Three great jockeys who never won the Grand National.' was a short piece broadcast on ITV racing during Aintree 2017. It promised more than the run of the mill educational material aimed at the general public, but turned out to provide a classic example of how out of sync those that pull strings in the sport are with this imaginary fresh audience they want to welcome aboard.

Hugh McIlvenny suggested it was an unfortunate omission in the riding careers of Francome, Scudamore and Jonjo not to have ridden the winner of the Grand National. But the piece contained another omission that was a truly shocking exercise of tampering with history.

Moreover, they have gone and swept away their crafty prints from the video,  which can be found on the ITV racing site with a few notable seconds erased -  the part where Jonjo is asked how close he ever got to winning the Grand National as a rider.

Jonjo's reply was that he was never in with a chance was worrying confirmation that a body of people, maybe topically a ' leadership group', want to bin parts of the sport's  history that they believe won't sit comfortably with the illusory masses they wish to invite in

Alverton was a chestnut gelding with a white marking down his face. He ran in the pink and green cheque Snailwell Stud colours and once ran in the Ebor. In the Spring of 1979 he won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, led into the winner's enclosure by future Ayr Gold Cup winning apprentice Kevin Hodgson.

Run in a snowstorm, he may or may not have still won if Tied Cottage had not come down on landing at the last but off a mark allotted without this improvement taken into account,  connections  allowed him to take his chance at Aintree for which he would be only the third Gold Cup winner since World War Two to run in the Liverpool race in the same season as his Cheltenham victory.

Starting favourite, Alverton travelled supremely well from the outset under Jonjo. Down to Bechers for the second time, racing towards the outside where the drop was less severe than the inside, he was catching the eye travelling with ease when tragedy struck.

The visual facts are that short of room, Alverton took off early, clipped the top of the fence and broke his neck on landing. It was an incident that took up more news coverage than the rest of the meeting put together.

The back page of the most of the Sunday Papers displayed a photo of Alverton laying dead with a distraught Jonjo knelt alongside him. It was a bad news day for the sport if ever there was one and came at a time when the animal liberation activists put more numbers, more regular demonstrations and more spite into their attacks on the sport than is the case now.

So, the question is who connected to ITV decided that this was something that would serve no purpose to revisit and that it would be best for all to pretend that it never happened, and then as an afterthought to cover their tracks edited out the part where the rider was asked about whether he was ever in with a shout of winning the event as a jockey.

Those of us with long memories will remember Jonjo affirming the visual impression that Alverton was lobbing along and was adamant that he would have won. He was also quoted as saying that he thinks the horse may have had a massive coronary or haemorrhage and been dead before hitting the ground.

The Grand National was a hell of a test. A dangerous one for both horse and rider but let's put things into perspective - all equine sports carry a degree of real danger. In relatively recent times Kieren Kelly, an emerging talent who had partnered Hardy Eustace in all of his hurdle races during his novice season, a partnership set to continue, lost his life after being injured in a fall.

Worldwide, there have been numerous riders who have not survived from injuries sustained during a race. In eventing there have been over fifty deaths worldwide in the past twenty years.

And in show jumping, it's scary to think that thirty five years have passed since Caroline Bradley collapsed and died at just 37 years of age shortly after dismounting during a competition in Suffolk . It was a coronary but her body had gone through a hell of a lot of punishment in her life, breaking most bones at some time or another.

The show jumping personalities were household names in those days.Paul Shockemohle, Man About The House ( pictured),  Rigsby, Caroline Bradley, Chicory Tip, Bowie, Harvey Smith, Are You Being Served, Gillan, David Broome, Peter Cleal,Eddie Macken and Boomerang, Brian Connolly, Nick Skelton, Gordon Jackson, Sparks, - hard to believe but those show jumping names where not out of place in that mix.

There was no real forewarning that the sport would lose its mainstream popularity in the years that have passed since. If you search hard enough you may find it on TV.The priority is not high though. When was the last time you heard it mentioned on Sky Sports News? That runs wall to wall for twenty-four hours but show jumping does not exist. Many people have to actually be told what the sport comprises of. The Puissance hmm .....

Don't ever doubt that a similar fate could not await racing. Some clueless people with too much power want to paint a cosy John Craven's Newsround picture of the sport. For reasons without foundation, they believe a rose garden image will attract more interest and increased betting turnover. Alverton, by Christ, lets forget what happened to him.

They are pandering to an audience that exist only in their imagination. They should go out and speak to normal working people, the category of persons they need to bet on horses to safeguard its future. They should ask them whether they believe horse racing is cruel. If they did they will find they don't have an opinion either way. Many of these will pack out the cult courses but will bet on sports other than horseracing when away from their visits to the course.

The anti-racing brigade reached it's summit in the 1970's and continued strong to the 1980's. But the modern emerging generations that wish to change the world are more preoccupied with the pollution of the Oceans, and rightly so too.

Horse racing should embrace and proudly boast of it's rich in depth fascinating history, warts and all. It does not want to be led astray by misguided individuals with more power than brains because soon, as with show jumping, it may fall to a tier so low that newspaper editors will not guarantee space for racecards, and who knows, like show jumping the sport may not be considered worthy enough to merit a mention on Sky Sports.

image fair use c Thames Television