The protracted exchange between Matt Chapman and Kevin Blake on The Opening Show on Saturday morning came across far from the contrived debate for the purposes of the show as we have come to expect, but one where both involved felt passionately that they were on the right side of this particular divide.
Blake , as drawn out in an article he wrote on the ATR website the previous weekend, believes that an allowance should be introduced to progress the careers of female jockeys and to offset what he considers to be a small percentage of inferiority in their natural ability. He used data from a similar experiment in France to back up his argument.
Chapman poured scorn on the idea and highlighted that such a move would hamper the careers of many hard working, middle ranking male riders who were striving to break into the higher echeleons themselves. Chapman on this occasion is conclusively right.
The debate stoked up far more reaction than could have been anticipated and Blake popped up again on ATR's Racing Debate this morning where he was not taken to task with quite the intensity of the previous day.
In a society sullied by quota filling to fit diversity politics, common sense has to pose the question of where such an introduction in racing would eventually lead to ?
Do you bring in allowances for riders returning from injury, allowances for riders on mental health programmes, allowances for riders of advancing age, or who have failed to ride a certain number of winners or a race of a certain grade or value - and what about riders considered to carry disabilities?
We know what a farce the Paralympics has turned into. We had the well publicised case of the gold medal winning Spanish Basketball team, when most of the team members were later found to have been feigning mental illnesses. This category of disability borders on a large grey area and is easily open to manipulation.
Then to the more indisputable levels of disability. Those of us fortunate enough to move freely around unaided do not loiter too much on how they would cope if their physical movement became limited through a disability, so rarely consider or understand the merits of the disability friendly improvements made in society.
There are relatively mild, physical defined disabilities that, if carried by a rider, would allow them to compete safely in open competition including horse racing. In a would be confusing world of diversity allowances, the problem would be measuring how much one rider is burdened against a rider with a differently defined disability, then assessing which one is given the bigger weight allowance.
On the subject of sport and those with more curtailing disabilities, would it be not be too far off the mark to believe that a large number of physically impaired people would themselves think it more important that facilities were improved for them as spectators at able bodied events, as opposed to making it easier for them to play a physical sport themselves ?
In other words they would rather have more seats and tickets available for them to watch Roger Federer play live, than someone encouraging them to partake in disabled tennis.
We are in a society where many like to pat themselves on the back for standing on a moral high ground, yet many of those who insist on quota filing to further the causes of all sorts of classifications of peoples, do not batter an eyelid at a seventeen year old girl being allowed to end her life in a suicide clinic due to depression and anorexia stemming from an abusive childhood.
Maybe they will feel different when one day they are in peril from a house fire and the Fire Brigade response unit are struggling to save them because the crew called out had been appointed to fill the quotas for those impaired by Dwarfism.
And if allowances are applied to riders who are unable to compete equally on a level playing field, what of the trainers. They could claim as they are as much a part of the show as the riders in contributing in keeping the game on the road that attracts the punter's money to make it sustainable, then they should be helped along the way.
It is forever insightful when a trainer shares his thoughts on why he is finished with the game. Many who hand in their licence have a steadily regressive record though it makes you wonder how some who are faring even worse manage to keep plodding away, seemingly banging their heads against walls.
They can only go so low in reducing their training fees, so why not set up a fund that covers a high percentage of the training fees, meaning that an owner could put a horse with a struggling trainer and incur a bargain basement fee ?
Hmm, I've spent £45,000 on a Getaway store, do I approach Nicky and ask if there is any room knowing that it will cost me £30,000 a year in fees, or do I send him to the BHA funded James Moffatt, and pay just five grand a year.
It's nonsensical but the logic is on the same line of thought as giving female jockeys a weight allowance. In fact as the trainer comes before the rider, the predicament of many in the profession of running a yard is the one that should be addressed first.
Unfortunately, a frustrating and common trait of those handlers throwing in the towel is the total lack of understanding from them of the mindset of the punters who are the bread and butter of the game.
The Racing Post carried an interview last weekend with the recently retired classic winning trainer Mark Tompkins. There was one suggestion from the Newmarket resident that raised the eyebrow, namely the calling for tax to be paid on every bet struck on British racing wherever in the world it is struck.
It's not fully clear what he is implying but if it is a call for a return to punters paying a tangible tax on each bet then he is living back in the day when betting was predominantly about horse racing.
If a tax was reintroduced then the gradual migration of punters from horses to general sports would be complete and the sport as we know it would be dead. Fact is, the habits of the emerging generations of punters hold the key to the future well being of the sport and they are certainly not going to be wooed by any equal opportunity nonsense applied within the sport, whether for riders or trainers.
image in public domain
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