BE VERY CONCERNED

We know that away from a handful of showcase fixtures the French racetracks pull in a mere trickle of racegoers, but  you were still left a little downbeat to hear Joffrey Huet failing to provide any encouragement that things would change anytime soon when interviewed at Auteuil for Attheraces on Sunday.

The present health of French racing was not the intended subject of the interview. It was on discussing his role in purchasing Cyrname for his current connections, Huet spoke of the lack of atmosphere at the Gallic tracks compared with the British ones.

It doesn't seem anything like the twenty years ago that John Hammond, lapping up the plaudits of the racing media for his exploits with the brilliant Montjieu, observed that the horse would hardly be known in France as it's all about cyclists and football players.

This is something we should be worried about. European racing is still arguably the best in the world and when one of the three nations that dominate it operate in half empty and silent arenas, you cannot view it as a dilemma independent from the others.

Some say that the Parisian tracks have suffered right from the beginning of the long established custom for the masses to travel out to the provinces for relaxing weekends. Even if any truth exists in this it cannot be cited as the reason for present day lack of engagement with the sport.

What seems more likely is that similar to Britain, the emerging generations in France are smitten with the in vogue sports that you are likely to find reference to within a few minutes of switching on the television. Therefore you would expect, like here, betting on horses would be in a steady, continuous decline.

But surprisingly, for the time being at least, this is not the case. Pari Mutuel betting on horses has made a small recovery. Whether in the long term this will prove to be a blip, no one really knows. It is certainly hard to believe that there is an emerging generation of the French populace that are endearing themselves to wagering on the racing game in greater numbers than the one before.

Returning to last weekend, the Altior v Cyrname clash was stirred up by sections of the media as something that was reaching out and touching those outside of racing's fanbase. Such nonsense is spouted without any supporting evidence whatsoever.

This is not to downplay the build up to the duel,which did not disappoint. But the fascination was for those in the racing domain. In the present day of hundreds of channels TV, X Boxes and Internet, the racing game can sail along on the horizon, out of sight and mind.

Compare this to to  an eagerly awaited steeplechasing clash from yesteryear.  Boxing Day 1975, Captain Christy v Bula  in  the King George V1Chase.

From the yard of Arkle's rider Pat Taafe, Captain Christy had triumphed in the 1974 Cheltenham Gold Cup while still a novice, then had consolidated his status by winning the Kempton race at the end of that year. He had formerly been a classy hurdler, good enough to finish third in the Champion Hurdle.

Bula had been out of the top drawer over hurdles, taking the Cheltenham crown twice. He was now promising to become the first horse ever to win both the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup. He had been third to his inferior Ten Up in the latter earlier that year when disadvantaged by the quagmire underfoot, so bad that the remaining races had to be abandoned.

There was another angle to the 1975 King George Chase. Bula hailed from the powerhouse yard of Fred Winter. In the 1974 running Captain Christy had prevented one of the most popular chasers of any era, Bula's stable companion Pendil, from completing a King George hatrick.

The countdown to the race had spacious write ups in the Sunday newspapers five days earlier. This was when the sport was afforded more prominence and everyone under a roof read a Sunday newspaper.

Tom Forrest wrote, " Never before have they clashed without something going haywire for one, or both of them. This time, their latest races show both in blinding form. Now we should know which is the master."

A field of seven lined up but but the expected duel materialised into a rout with Captain Christy, under the relatively inexperienced Gerry Newman, jumping off on front, building up an early advantage, then drawing further away from halfway to beat his main rival by thirty lengths, with the future winner Royal Marshall 11, in third.

Irrespective what we are told by the broadcasting media, who don't seem to understand that repeating spin will not turn it into reality, these showcase  events do not have anything near the same percentage of the population counting the days down as in generations past.

Moreover, despite the achievements of the wonderful mare Enable over the past few seasons, none of her races, and not even those of the supreme Frankel, had the same build up as the days drew nearer than that Nashwan v Indian Skimmer v Warning, Eclipse in 1989.

In the following few years after that race took place, sports betting exploded outwards, changing the whole betting scene, with racing 's dominance being eaten away at to the point were the emerging generations can bet without it.

France may for now, have managed to halt this downward spiral but betting on horses on the other side of the channel had never been on comparable levels to here, thus believing the decline can stemmed here is stretching hopes.

It is also worth noting that Japan's signature race, the Japan Cup, pulled in a crowd  of approximately 80,000 last week. Sounds fantastic, but when you compare it with the 180,000 that turned up in the flesh in relatively recent times, then it is an issue for concern.

What can be said with near certainty, is that since the end of WW2 the worldwide racing scene has never had so many dark clouds forming in the backdrop as it does right now.

Image from Pixabay 

A MIXTURE OF ALL SORTS

With Christmas approaching, many will be taking more than a cursory peek at the books available to add to our racing collections, which in truth are likely to have ceased expanding many years back.

There are various reasons for this. One of them glares at us in the form of the Tiger Roll book now on the market. Whether this fascinating animal lines up or not at Aintree next spring, the fact is that the final chapter of his career has yet to take place.

Of course, this is not the first time there has been a rush to claim the honours in getting a book into print on an equine subject. Ivor Herbert's first edition of his Red Rum book first appeared  in 1974 , with three Grand Nationals left to compete in. Updated editions followed but the haste to be the first to get the foot in the door first lacked etiquette.

There were no updated editions on the otherwise excellent Jonathan Powell book paying tribute to that little terrier Monksfield. In what was apalling timing, the book  was completed in late 1979 and released early 1980, before what could have been termed as the ' Sea Pigeon strikes back ' part played out.

Maybe the idea is that releasing these books when the subjects careers are still active will pull in a quick hit of sales, though I would guess the number of racing books sold has diminished in sync with genuine interest in the sport falling, and the gap between the number of books sold on the likes of football, cricket, and rugby, to that of horse racing, has widened further.

It has to be said too that over the last couple of decades it just ain't an even playing field for the authors of these books. Those turned out by the well oiled publication machine of the Racing Post have a significant head start on the others.

The blurb, often from Brough Scott. The in house review - let's face it, an in house reviewer is going to add a positive slant on an in house publication, even hyping up just a fairish offering into something of significance.

Thiry years back Michael Church produced a tad pricey but pleasant on the eye book under the Racing Post banner documenting the champion sires going back to the very beginning of the breed. Titled, Three Centuries Of Leading Sires 1721 - 1987, there was a limited edition of 500 published accompanied by a wall chart tracing back the sire lines.

While it was a useful for casual browsing, at the end of the day it comprised in the main of a list of champion sires with pedigrees and you would certainly not go as far to describe it as a publication to be ' celebrated ', as claimed by Tony Morris in his book review, who himself is not afraid to get critical to the bones, particularly when it comes to the indy publications.

On a brighter note, those of us who hold a copy will observe that anyone now wishing to get their hands on one will have to fork out at least £80.

With regards to what some may at one time have considered to be one of the great racing books, an obituary penned by Morris in 1994 brought something to light that would have previously only been known to a certain clan within the sport.

It is likely that a large number of racing fans who became smitten by the sport during the 1970 's would have read John Hislop's book, ' The Brigadier - The Story Of Brigadier Gerard ', and John Oaksey's,  ' The Story Of Mill Reef '. You could not read one without the other, many would have read each presentation more than once.

Leaving aside which horse was the superior one, I would guess that the favoured book at the time would have been the Brigadier Gerard one, helped by the fact that it was written by the owner, meaning the reader was offered an insight into the planning and decisions taken during the mighty animal's career.

But the tier on which the publication stood in the mind might have dropped a couple of levels on reading Morris's frank assessment of Hislop in a summary of the man's life in the Racing Post after he passed away. This involved the reasoning behind Hislop sending his mare Lady Pavlova to Queens Hussar.

In an early chapter in the book Hislop had explained why, on his pedigree reading, he considered the stallion ideal for his mare and thus executed a masterpiece of a decision which produced one of the greatest horses of our time.

Morris concluded that Hislop got pure lucky. That Queens Hussar was chosen as a mate purely because he stood nearby and was cheap.

Reading this, you then start to view similar books with a cynical perspective. There exists a most enjoyable book to read about the dual Melbourne Cup winner Rising Fast, published many years ago, and written by the horse's owner Leicester Spring.

Problem is, this publication takes a similar path in the early stages to that of the Brigadier Gerard book. The author goes into extensive detail in what he gleaned from his pedigree analysis in the sales catalogue that led him to bid for the future star at a New Zealand yearling sale in 1950.

A further drawback with horse racing books in general are the omissions. What if we have been told something about someone from a trustworthy source then have to read a glossed over account?

Or what if we just suspect, as the nature of the sport and it's unbreakable tie with gambling will mean quite frankly that it sits at the top of all sports for both the percentage and aggregate of uncsrupulous persons.

One must undoubtedly conclude that pound for pound the biographies of the top achievers in the other major sports contain more factual meat on the bone than the racing ones - save of course the odd exception, such as the Richard Dunwoody book Obsessed, in which the man who came across as one of the most articulate and level headed members of the weighing room painted himself as a rather dislikeable, wife bullying nutcase.

So with overall adherence to truth and sincerity, searching outside of racing's bubble is more likely to produce a good read. I have recently finished a Richie Benaud book and have begun an old publication concerning the 1956 Suez Crisis.

I would then quite fancy picking up another Australian cricketers book, maybe someone playing in the 70's or 80's, though I am told that both the Frank McAvennie and Kevin Keegan books must be read. Andre Agassi's too sounds fascinating, while the golfing one that I keep saying I must read is Rich Beems.

As for racing, maybe it's safer to look only to the historical ones that escape the libel laws and whispers. Treasure Of The Bloodstock Breeders Review was a fine compilation of historical work that needs the white mould removing and re -reading.

Whatever, for many the height of the book buying season has arrived. And for the declining number of racing fans still alive, it may be time to look outside and appreciate the characters from some of the other, much more thriving sporting fields.

A SPORT THAT IS IMPLODING

Toward the end of its days, each Waterloo Cup was staged amid the speculation of will it, or won't it, be the last ever one.  For fans of National Hunt racing, irrespective of their thoughts on hare coursing, the Altcar event could be viewed as a protective buffer between jump racing and the animal rights alliances.

Admittedly, racing had to fasten up for a rocky ride for a couple of weeks after the occasional Grand National weekend, but overall it was a sport in the clear if not quite in the untouchable zone.

When Dark Ivy fell to his death at Bechers in the 1987 running of the Grand National, the fall out that followed and the authorities response to it, shows by comparison how the racing powers have now become jittery and over reactive to almost all incidents that they feel cast a negative image on the sport.

As was the norm during the 1970's and 1980's, decades when the numbers opposed to racing far outweighed those of today, the Sunday newspapers each carried a picture of the deceased animal, along with quotes from those who demanded change.

Criticism of the most feared obstacle in the sport was not confined to those on the outside. John Oaksey had long been of the opinion that the fence was a trap, and once, during a Channel 4 broadcast, added that all drop fences were traps. The Timeform organisation too were of the belief that the slope on the landing side of Bechers needed levelling with the brook filled in.

The Jockey Club held an investigation involving Aintree officials and the RSPCA. The resultant finding was that racing's ruling body concurred with the course committee that the obstacle was a fair one and did not require any modification.

So the race that formed the window to the sport in the UK looked a long way away from becoming the 'Grand National In Name Only Chase ', the future of National Hunt racing was safe and secure, the buffer that was the Waterloo Cup was still eighteen years off being stripped away, and from a global perspective the sport of horse racing had far more years ahead of it than behind.

Oh Jesus how things have changed !  And this in an environment that the opposition to the horse being used for sport is grossly exaggerated by crafty utilisation of social media, akin to a small posse of Gremlins gaining access to the control room of the national electricity grid.

Those rocky rides for the sport now occur weekly instead of annually. These meticulously organised opponents of horse racing are firing bullets from all angles in all corners of the globe, doing untold damage by stirring fear into the authorities who give them credibility by backing down and attempting appeasement.

The impression given going into the Breeders Cup meeting last weekend made you think that a full force of the the anti racing brigade were somewhere near with an artillery of bulldozers, cranes, lorries and freight containers, ready when given the signal to go in and dismantle Santa Anita. They had to wait until the very last race for a fatality to arise, so the whole saga will continue on to its next chapter and there is much to be worried about.

In Australia, the powers that be ridiculously stating a belief that the way forward for the sport was for the whip to completely go, does not yet register in the light of the fall out of the secretly recorded footage of healthy racehorses being abused prior to being slaughtered in an abattoir.

Let's face it; we probably knew this sort of thing happened. The gruesome  case involving the top class globetrotter Exceller, was an eye opener for many, though just like when we dig in to our meat, poultry and offal, we really don't care to think about these matters. But it should not surprise many; I would guess the mental balance of those wishing to work in abattoirs is overall less stable than, for example, someone striving for a position as a librarian.

Then back home we have a journeyman rider chipping away, hoping for a break, who is now left wondering whether his career is over after an oversight caused an elastic band to remain on his whip which caused marking on his mount.

The rider has not only been disciplined but has had to endure threats to his self on social media including a wish the he ended up in a wheelchair. In retrospect these should not have been alluded to by both the rider and the media, as it is almost certain that the intention was to give the perpetrator a feeling of achievement by putting his deed in the limelight, something for his scrapbook.

Finally, if all this hasen't been enough, there was then the stupid city racing issue, something many hoped would go away, raising its ugly head again. And this time the omens are not good for those vehemently opposed to the concept, for it would seem they have progressed far more than we could have imagined.

They now are far enough down the line to name the first venue which is The Strand on Liverpool City centre waterfront. This is a total recipe for a grim happening that would do untold damage to the sport.

The iconic location is capable of pulling in large summer weekend family crowds from a highly populated catchment area. Any sensible racing affiacionados will keep clear but will rightly fret over the possible consequences of it all going pear shaped.

What happens if there is a fatality amongst the horses ? This cannot be hidden. The venue is surrounded by high buildings in which the mobile cameras will be clicking away. The pictures will be all over social media, and what better click bait could you find for a newspaper website -  a time frame montage. Pictures of children laughing and sharing an ice cream with their parents, then disaster strikes,  glimpses of a horse carrying a catastrophic  injury, then the children again, now with tears replacing the laughter.

The prospect of city racing could not be summed up better than by that of a poster on the Betfair Forum who warned the idea is " ....rolling the dice with the whole future of the sport." Hopefully those in power will take heed before it is too late.

image in public domain