FEELS LIKE A CHORE

The season does not feel that far gone, yet when we get past Royal Ascot the truth is the pinnacle of it has already sailed by. It is the stage at which you step back and dread the come down. It's akin to coming to the end of a holiday and dreading returning to work the following week.

What is so important for racing is that the seasonal narrative leads on to the next big meeting in  which there will be an anticipated build up as the key races take shape. While it is a narrative that must be must be drummed home to those casually tuning in to the sport, it is now harder than ever before to generate a buzz from what follows.

A further downside is that it gives a window of opportunity for those very persistent supporters of some of the proposed daft innovations, such as team style racing based on a Grand Prix points system, to air their voices. Only two groups of people could possibly support such nonsense; those with their finger in the pie who will make a quick buck from it, and secondly those think it benefits to try any new idea sod the consequences. These have no traditional feel for the sport.

So, as we get the pulse back to norm after Ascot, we have to live with the new look Pitman's Derby, the nearest event we had to the Melbourne Cup but now a dreary spectacle run on sand. Yesterday's race was interesting to watch as the final stages unfolded but anyone claiming that the contest has not had some of its soul taken from it since it was taken off turf is either a liar with an agenda, an in vogue modernist, or a twenty something year old.

Then at teatime came the Irish Derby, a race that can range from an above average looking Epsom winner confirming his standing, or in a year such as this, a mumbly jumbly group reopposing from Epsom looking more like Leger and future Ascot Gold Cup sorts.

It turned out to be a ' what was that all about ?'  accompanied by baffled exhaling. No idea what casual viewers would make of it all. The winning jockey could be the subject of a comic strip. Leading the normal life in disguise, mowing the lawn, food shopping, painting the gate. Then the call comes in, he has been chosen for an assignment in a big race.His mission, to defy all odds and win. Off come the cap and dark shades, on go the silks.

In fact such little interest does the sport per se generate with the general public you could tell people that Padraig Beggy is kept fresh for the big occasions, and that whenever he is booked for a ride in a big race it means connections really fancy their horse. Keep a straight face and they will belive you.

 We know now that the one who came on by a ton from the English version was not in the line up. If Japan missed had Ascot and turned up yesterday the talk would have been of how he cut down and passed the runaway leaders having appeared to have given them too much leeway.

Looking to the near future the Eclipse can be a real buzz race, seeing the three year old classic crop taking on the elders, but following on the King George has partly lost its mojo down the years.It was once the duty of connections of a Derby winner to line up at Ascot if they considered their colt to have claims to being a champion.

Nijinsky, Mill Reef, Grundy, The Minstrel, Troy all succeeded on the 1970's, Shergar, Nashwan, plus Teenoso a year later in the 1980's, Generous and Lammtara in the 1990's, but none since Galileo in 2001. In fact no Epsom winner  has attempted to win the Ascot race since Workforce in 2010.

For racing fans it leaves a void. That final weekend in July, the weather generally agreeable, schools breaking up for holidays, and a Derby winner facing the cream of the older middle distance brigade. The race had now adopted a different shape and is not the must go for event it once was. As a result we don t count down the days as the race approaches anymore. Just another Group 1.

Maybe this year the field will include the the Eclipse winner, plus Japan, Masar, Crystal Ocean, Magical., Anthony Van Dycke, plus that group of solid true Group 2 performers who may have nicked a Group 1. They will provide some depth to the event. We live in hope.

The July Cup fixture once possessed an almost gentle quaintness, concluding on a Thursday. It's now another fixture that has lost its identity, the big race crammed into a hectic peak of summer Saturday with its importance diminished, along with it's presence diminishing the John Smith's Cup which had been long established as the focus of that mid -July Saturday.

Chester,of course,has its original and what was at one time it's only summer fixture on the same day. A visual gaudy mess of corporate tents, joined by the increasing number of solid fittings that are bars, along with the Pim's stands and theme bars such as the one that takes the shape of a traditional red bus.

The latest innovation is to be a brand new stand after the winning post, not the most viewer friendly location for those who would consider themselves racing fans. However, when it was stated that " the City of Chester needs a conference center", then we realise that the once enjoyable venue has a covering all options agenda.

Even in the eyes of the glass half full brigade, the first half of the 2019 flat season has not been a vintage one for both the fans of the sport, and the sport itself. We need some fireworks in the next few months to come from top class thoroughbreds, not trashy concert evenings.

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REALITY CHECKS NEEDED

Racing does not benefit from broadcasters misleading viewers over the sport's true popularity. As has long been the case with the Grand National, we are told people from all over the world were watching Royal Ascot live. Numbers are not given but it would be safe to guess that the claim is not the extraordinary one it may sound.

These are the days where we all have a thousand channels at our fingertips. We  can tune into nonsense like PaversShoestv whenever we choose. The Toe Post Show clashed with the Chesham. I doubt huge numbers from around the globe would have been tuning into The Toe Post Show but the same could be probably be said for the Chesham, even though it probably came out ahead in this clash.

Many believe that the sport would benefit from a bigger proportion of airtime put aside for historical perspectives. Some of us appreciated the part of the coverage from the day we still nostalgically refer to as Timeform Charity Day at York last Saturday when Richard Hoilles brought out a racecard from the corresponding day in 1971, 'Ford Cortina Day', assisted by a replay of the closing stages of the three year old sprint then known as the Ford Cortina Cup.

The race was won by Sir Mark Prescotts's lightly weighted Heave To, with the eye going straight to the Whitney colours on the top weight Swing Easy, who went and destroyed Mummy's Pet in a heavy ground King's Stand Stakes soon after.

Both Swing Easy and Mummy's Pet retired at the end of their three year old careers. Those of us who got obsessively bitten by the racing bug in 1975 witnessed their stud careers from the year when their juveniles first hit the track.

It's an angle that would only take a minuite or two to mention on TV, but it's one of racing's most alluring areas where fans are able to follow progeny of their favourites. It was more easily enjoyed then with a multitude of competing factions and a sizeable number of prominent owner breeders allowing fans to understand the concept of 'families' in the bottom half of pedigrees, and be engrossed with the likes of the Joel and Hollingsworth operations.

All the more surprising that in relation to the Royal connection this week there was no recounting of the Height Of Fashion saga, who was from the most successsful Royal Stud female line, and who ended up being sold before becoming one of the most successful broodmares of her era.

It cannot be repeated enough that though this sphere of the game is not connected to betting, those who begin to take a keen interest in it are very likely to become horse race punters for life.

It was likewise disappointing that they failed to put Bataash's achievements into proper perspective on the run up to the King's Stand Stakes. Being talked of as the best sprinter since Dayjur, or even the best ever was irresponsible and would have still been even if he had not fluffed his lines again.

Ratings need be supported by solid achievement and this is an animal who has been given the platform to show his worth at the very highest level on numerous occasions but has fallen short every time.

And what of those sprinters that graced the scene in the time between Dayjur and the present. Well, Mozart, Oasis Dream and Stravinsky were undoubtedly superior for starters, and you could throw in another half dozen who were arguably of similar ability. And no comparison of speedsters is ever complete without putting Abernant into the mix.

You could invent a name for all this attention given to Bataash. It could be called something like the 'Hawk Wing Syndrome'. Admittedly, the rating this hugely hyped colt received was in the Lockinge after it had been promoted to the highest level, but the circumstances allowed him to hugely flatter himself yet allow no leeway for the weights and measures brigades to downgrade the performance.We know he was not that good. High class, but not outstanding by any means.

Unfortunately Hawk Wing had an unfair burden put on his shoulders from his early days when it was reported that some of the long lived staff at Ballydoyle who had been there during M V O'Brien's last three decades at the helm, believed that this was the best horse they'd had in the yard since Nijinsky!

Bataash has been enveloped by this syndrome and if he appears next at Goodwood and steams home it will give the myth more mileage.

The narrative on Masur was put into a more realistic perspective. The emphasis on a Derby winner staying in training was righly given the high profile attention it deserved, along with it being questioned whether, if connections had been totally delighted with his preparation, they would have nominated the Prince Of Wales as the target for him last weekend. The post race analysis to the performance was likewise handled impressively.

The Lanfranco Dettori adulation over the four-timer was overstretched for the racing fan, but in the circumstances there was little choice for them to make it the lead narrative from the moment the third winner went in, to the close defeat in the Britannia.

It was however low down the pecking order in the general news and the racing broadcasters should have took their feet off the pedal after the bubble burst. Instead they choose to focus on this glitzy media personality when a serious and balanced discussion of his riding ability would have been more apt.

Jimmy Lindley would have been an asset here. He could have analysed Dettori's riding style with Julian, watching a video of him in the early 1990's, a video of him now, and looking at what become of the many young riders influenced by his style a quarter of a century back.

When Dettori springs from a box in one of those annoying 'LadsLads' adverts and utters something inaudible, it simplifies someone who is no doubt far from a clown of a person and does the image of the sport no favors -  though he was used for a Golf holiday commercial where he let out a silly laugh. The same of course applies to all the other jockey's involved in such adverts, with Richard Dunwoody appearing in someones's living room in a daft William Hill advert perhaps starting it all.

Jonjo jumped a fence at Wetherby and shouted 'lotta bottle' to the camera in an advert for milk. Kevin Keegan was the Green Cross Code Man, John McEnroe recomended Bic Razors. The truth is that nowadays racing is not popular enough with the general public for it's stars to be used in general advertising, many of whom under forty years of age could only name McCririck, McCoy and Dettori.
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ROYAL ASCOT CAN'T COME SOON ENOUGH

It's not been the best start to a summer for horse racing. There just seems to be a prevailing feeling of resignation that the sport is taking stock, that it simply just has to make the best of what it has left. Many long term racing fans are moving the food about on their plates, trying to conjure up an appetite.

Those timeline pictures of the Epsom Downs on Derby day made depressing visuals. Looking like melted polar ice caps.They would not have been unduly worrying if they had been taken with a fifty year gap, but this was a mere decade.

In the mid 1970's the event was still spoken of as the biggest sporting gathering in the world. Some observed then that the crowd on the Downs was not what it has been in decades past. That it had fallen from one million to half a million. Still mighty though and far from the scattered about pockets the pictures show now.

Back in the mid 1970's the race was such an important fabric of British sport that both the BBC and ITV showed it live, that is two channels from the three available. You were able to switch back and forth. The first advert in the aftermath of Empery's triumph was a fast motion montage of a kitchen knife chopping through cucumbers, tomatoes, radishes and the like, accompanied by catchy symphonizer music. Was for some sort of salad cream. The event was so big that you remember such daft things.

You had the choice between the incomparable Juiian Wilson fronting a team that included John Hanmer, Jimmy Lindley, with the voice of racing commentating against a John Rickman led team that contained a boyish faced Brough Scott, John Oaksey, Ken Tyrell, with Raleigh Gilbert commentating.

We were an age away from microphones being stuck in winning jockey's faces. We were allowed to watch on as connections of the trimphant horse savoured their moment without pointless intrusion.

ITV did have a regular member of the team in the first half of the 1970's who would interpret to the viewer the type of exchange that he considered would be going on between the winning jockey and trainer in the aftermath of a race.

For example, if Joe Mercer was taking the saddle off a winning mount and talking to Dick Hern, we would be told that " Joe will be saying, he did it well boss, the Major will be asking, how much did he have left, plenty more to come boss, how further will he get, another two furlongs, could improve for it too. "  Probably a good job social media did not exist then but even so the comebacks could have been no harsher than what is directed at the present TV teams and their modus operandis.

It wasn't just that the Derby was better staged in its traditional Wednesday slot. As has been rightly bemoaned by many now everything is all too top heavy towards the dizzy sporting maze of Saturday.

Good grief,  even the Hilary Needler is now away from its midweek evening slot. In 1976 the race was won by the Ted Carr trained Bruce Raymond ridden 14/1 shot Feudal Wytch. Pat Eddery had travelled up and was on the beaten odds on favourite Be Satisfied for his boss Peter Walwyn, the pair winning the following three year old maiden with Forgotten Dreams.

Feudal Wytch was sired by Tribal Chief who would go on and be responsible for the following year's 1,000 Guineas winner Mrs McCardy. Coincidentally, over at Phoenix Park the same evening a filly called Cloonlara made a winning racecourse debut. Cloonlara was one of the most hyped up horses of the decade, not least because Vincent O'Brien considered her to be the best filly he had ever been involved with. She had an aversion to the stalls but got to Newmarket the following May and started favourite for the fillies classic, finishing fourth.

This is what is one of the biggest fascinations of the sport. A normal midweek day unveiling the start of a tale that goes into folklore. It can still happen now, but the concept of a normal midweek day has altered enormously with most of the quality aspects being pillaged and moved to the Saturday.

You will still see the odd early chapter of a story of a future equine star beginning on a Tuesday at Yarmouth or Nottingham, but they will happen with less frequency as things are all squashed into a Saturday where there is no room to anticipate, then digest it all.

We are told that the modern racing fan seeks more additional entertainment added on to the racing. It's a lie. It acts an excuse to cash in on the concert days. What they mean to say but won't say it
direct is that they want general members of the public to come to their premises for a booze up and concert without feeling that the racing is getting in  the way.

When you hear this spin you hope so much that it will all come back to haunt them. Someone soon will realise that there are thousands who will gather in the same setting and stay for hours with money to spend, without having no interest in the so called focal point of the venue - that's if, as the racing authorities will have us believe, the racing is the focal point on a concert day.

A rival attraction will then be set up for them to pilfer the audience. It happens in the United States where racetracks are located near main rivers. Riverboats with onboard casino's rig up nearby to tempt in those on the way to the races.

Here, there would not have to be an attraction with gambling facilities. Just the concert supported by a food and beer festival, best dressed prizes, karaoke, a few past it celebs handing out awards. Make no mistake, to these modern racegoers who are not over smitten with racing, such a rival event would result in a change of plan.

Thank heavens that Royal Ascot comes along next week. The sport needs a pick up and this week with regular World Cup Cricket matches, plus the US Open being stage at the showcase venue Pebble Beach, we have a summer where racing rarely can have had such little attention.

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