AN EVASIVE REPORT

Formula One is a sport of narrow engineering precision. When a mechanical malfunction suddenly arises, the root of the problem can invariably be traced back to the exact culpable bolt, wire or valve, sometimes involving an input of human error in a climate were honesty is essential.

It's near to rocket science from which it has benefited greatly. In the fascinating book 'Dr Space', about the life of Wernher von Braun, it is revealed that the rocket pioneer made it of high priority to promote a culture of honesty in the pursuit of perfection.

The book's author Bob Ward writes of an incident in 1953 when a Redstone missile, being tested at Cape Canaveral, suddenly failed in mid flight. Test after test followed on the area in which it was believed the fault existed but no answers were found.

Then, one of the test engineers came to von Braun's office to say that during the preparation for the launch he had touched a contact which produced a spark. As the procedural checks he then carried out produced no faults, he did not think the incident was significant but thought it should now be mentioned just in case there was a link to the malfunction

This information resulted in a further analysis being conducted which revealed the cause of the missile failure. Von Braun then sent the engineer a bottle of champagne so that the message cascaded to his team that total trust and honesty is essential in missile development.

With horse racing administration, the hope of a culture of honesty and trust with the aim to benefit the greater cause is something that can only be dreamed of. For it doesn't know its Aft Unit from its Jet Vanes, something that is apparent reading between the lines in the Horse Welfare Board's five year welfare strategy titled  'A life well- lived '.

The one hundred and thirty page report which can be downloaded from the BHA website contains a section with the heading ' Growth and maintenance of trust.'  It states that ' To achieve trust, particularly with outside audiences, we must also consider issues of perception '.

A concerning aspect of this section of the report is that it soon becomes apparent that it advocates that in order to change some negative perceptions, compromises may be required which would result in long established traditions being challenged.

This leads on to section 11.1, ' The future of the whip'  which is yet more time spent on what should be the non issue of an area that it is needlessly discussed live on air every couple of weeks.

The whole underlining mood of the report is of apology and appeasement to factions whose ultimate aim is to wipe out the sport and who are patient enough to do it by a process of small steps that chip away until, they hope, that the whole structure will be dismantled.

In the section on safety, there is a timeline diagram, highlighting improvements made from the 1960's to the present day. Some we must be thankful for, such as replacing the concrete posts and wooden rails during the 1970's, and the banning of jump racing on hard ground in the 1990's, while the disguised abolishment of the race that was the Grand National, will not have been similarly welcomed by traditionalists - in fact, the report has some of the 'modifications' missing from the timeline.

To many, the most anticipated section of the report relates to responsibilities of the racehorse owner in relation to aftercare along with the tracking for life of all horses bred for racing.

Section 9.4 of the report, ' Understanding responsibilities ', speaks of the owner being put on an 'education scheme' so they will understand that they are, ' ultimately accountable for the horse, particularly when its racing career is over, and to ensure they are equipped to exercise that duty of care. '

You cannot help but conjure up an image of pot bellied, snappily dressed wide boy, who was on a good run through making some dodgy property developing deals but is now suddenly having to cut back on excesses after high risk investments came up tails and placed him deeply in the red.

Is such a character going to give two hoots about aftercare for the horse he splashed out on that can't run fast enough to keep itself warm ?  Of course not, and owners with similar profiles are aplenty within the sport. These are the ones trainers are forever chasing for unpaid bills and are often cited as part of the reason why they end up calling it a day and handing in their licence.

Section 9.5 of the report ' Funding of aftercare', provides  lightweight suggestions but no solution. In fact, in it the HWB concedes, ' we lack specific expertise in this area', which hardly gives encouragement that things will improve. It suggests that responsibility is in the hands of the whole industry and that an expert funding review should be conducted. This basically means they haven't a clue what to do.

Section 9.6  ' Euthanasia' , talks of the potential for greater scrutiny of the use of euthanasia in the      ' breeding, pre-training, sales and aftercare sectors'. It mentions the introduction of a 'clear decision process or decision tree, that is adopted and clearly communicated by the whole industry. '

It's hard to see how this will alter anything. Just a case of ' car is a write off, give me x amount for scrap and we'll both sign here', though our vehicle may be a fit, healthy and manageable young horse whose crime is not being able to run fast enough.

Regrettably, the whole gist of the report, presented with lots of bold highlighting and the use of in vogue buzzwords and phrases, is that it has been selectively crafted.

It's all well and good displaying charts that show that racecourse fatalaties are low in percentage terms, but when they do not give the figures of how many of the four thousand odd horses that leave training in Great Britain alone each year are unaccounted for, then it shows the project is one to stall time while they work out what to do over the next few years.

If for some reason the financial bubble fails to burst and the numbers of horses in training are maintained, then they'll have to work on another document to explain why so many 'tracked' horses that have left training end up being euthanized. Hardly a true culture of trust and honesty.is it ?

Image Apollo 11  - in the public domain

A WORRYING SATURDAY FOR THE MAKEOVER MERCHANTS

With a reduced Premiership football schedule allied to no other eye catching sporting events being broadcast, one would expect that more casual viewers would have tuned into ITV racing last Saturday than would be the norm for the third weekend in dreary February.

The viewing numbers would have been comparably low with past decades but there would still have been enough following proceedings to make you realise that racing 'got away with it'  in times when incidents are easily amplified out of proportion by social media.

Just imagine if prospects for racing at Haydock Park had been so remote that they had called the meeting off on Friday. Without doubt, Lingfield would have been called upon to be the saving grace, providing a theme of its own with the return of Kachy, arguably the most popular All Weather horse in the thirty one year history of this arm of the sport in the UK.

Such a broadcast would have been presented as a star double billing, the highest rated chaser in training Cyrname attempting to put his disappointing King George run behind him, and the best AW horse, Kachy, having his prep for his swansong race.

Even those who rightly believe that where welfare issues are concerned racing yields too much to outside interference instead of standing its ground, cannot deny what a public relations calamity it would have been if both of these animals had not returned safely back home.

As things transpired, ITV racing did not have to turn to Lingfield to make up their schedule, leaving the casual viewer oblivious to the fate of Kachy. Rightly or wrongly, the ITV team made no reference to the tragedy knowing that racing fans would of been aware of what happened, while it served no positive purpose bringing the news to the passing viewer.

Fortunately, these viewers would have shared everyones relief as Cyrname appeared from behind the screens minutes after the solemn expression carried by Harry Cobden appear to foretell of news far gloomier. It may not have endeared them to the sport but at least would have shown the high degree of affection these unique creatures are held in by those closest to them.

On the subject of Kachy, even those of us who believe the introduction of AW racing in this country has done little to attract new fans to the sport but has done plenty to interfere with the assumed priority of the winter jumping programme, became quite fond of this animal.

His run in an up to standard Diamond Jubilee at Royal Ascot last summer reminded everyone that he  could mix it in with the best on the turf and it would have been fascinating to see how connections would have marketed him as a stallion in the sense that he could have attracted a new niche of breeder with the focus on AW  racing - that of course would have been dependant on the sport itself not imploding through lack of funding.

One area in which last weekend was a reminder of, was that hostilities still exist towards the image of strung out animals finishing exhausted in testing ground. Those over a certain age will probably struggle to remember criticism on a similar level as to what you read now, either from journalists or posters on racing forums.

The first time I can remember the media having a dig at what has been forever a traditional sight in National Hunt racing was in the late 1990's when a couple of writers confessed that they much more preferred watching an AW race to a tiring slog over the sticks with the runners appearing to finish in slow motion.

Many stupidly make comparisons with the Battle of the Somme, which is not furthering the point they are trying to make. Records show that the most dangerous surface for jumpers to run on is firm ground. Horses travelling quicker, putting the shock absorbing tendons under strain on landing, with the falls more likely to result in a life ending injury.

One of the most unedifying spectacles came at the beginning of the old jumping seasons, which more often than not use to clash with the Saturday of Glorious Goodwood.

Cards littered with three and four runner fields run on going sometimes described as' hard ', horses commonly finishing lame, nothing to like at all. They eventually prohibited racing on such surfaces and not before time.

Whenever a Cheltenham Festival has a fatality total that raises concerns outside of the normal hostile bodies to the sport, the word 'soft' tends not to play a part in the going description.

It's ironic that the drainage installed forty years ago was an end product from the shortened, thirteen race 1975 Festival, which was staged in conditions so testing that it was questioned whether the final two days should have gone ahead after the Tuesday was abandoned.

They took the bails off after Ten Up won the Gold Cup on part waterlogged terrain but history tells us that there was not a single fatality at the meeting. Neither was there any losses from that comic strip Grand National won by Red Maurauder.

The old fashioned mud loving slogger, once part and parcel of the winter months, will soon be finding itself redundant if the image freaks have their way. And this will be part of a continuing, blinkered sanitation process, that will ultimately lead to the death of National Hunt racing as we know it.

image cc attribution Simone Bisotti

RACING SITS ON CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS

The news that the average racecourse attendances for 2019 had again dropped when compared to the previous year should not have been unexpected. What the plain figures fail to translate is the true extent of the fall off in real engagement with the sport.

This is because the numbers are propped up by the theme meetings, summer Saturdays, and in vogue festivals. A truer barometer would have been to compare non -themed, weekday meetings only. I fear that comparing these attendances down the years would make grim reading.

These are the category of meetings attended in the main by racegoers who have horse racing as their number one sport. When they return home, the large majority of their punting will be on things equine as opposed to the plethora of other sports that your long session on the booze, summer Saturday attendees will speculate in rather than scanning the Sunday card at Ponty or the Monday evening one at Windsor.

If we accept that the figures would raise more alarm if those returned from the non- cult days were examined in isolation, then the situation becomes even gloomier when we ask why this is so.

The harsh truth must be repeated again and again, which is the percentage of horse racing fans amongst the generations under thirty five years of age, is massively lower than the generations before and that there is not enough of them to replace the genuine fans of the past as they become ill, infirm, and pass away.

And with a shortfall in funding due to racing's share of the betting pie decreasing, the sport will have no option other than to downsize.

In my area of employment, I have for many years been in a daily e-mail exchange of opinions with a colleague over sport, politics and 1970's television. I am dismayed by the fact that horse racing has changed for the worse. He holds similar sentiments over his first love, football.

He still retains his season ticket at a world famous club that has experienced a resurgence of fortune in recent years. He has been a regular at the games for forty five years, has lived three miles away from the stadium for his entire life, but feels his club is now just a franchise like Burger King and McDonalds.

He has attended less than half a dozen matches this season, even missing a showcase fixture with a famous club from a rival city for the first time since the 1970's, and will either sell his ticket at face value to people in work, or sell it back to the club at a loss.

When the latter happens he cites it as evidence that no locals are interested in the club anymore due to it being hijacked by the assortment of fictional characters he uses to state his case. Josh from Solihull, Jeremy from Cirencester, Cecil from Woking, Farquaar from Harrow, Seamus from Sligo, Fritz from Bonn, Jan from Oslo, Jason from Chicago and Ming from Singapore.

On the now rare occasions he attends, he sits quietly in his speck on the halfway line hoping his team get beat. He dearly hopes their fortunes will take a steep downturn, they get relegated, and that what he terms as the 'modern fanbase' evaporates, returning the club to the locals to re-build from scratch. He cringes when he hears what he refers to as 'numpties' singing continental sounding songs, and is dismayed that Sky portray football as not existing before the advent of the Premiership, with their presenters towing the line as they ' know what side their bread is buttered on.'

I told him that that such an eventuality would be most unlikely to occur in his lifetime. He disagreed,
 " Who would have thought United would get relegated six years after beating Benfica !," was his response, "And Leeds have taken two major nosedives since then...and what about Forest and Villa."

As part of his lone crusade, he has been travelling to watch games from lower leagues, watching home games at the likes of Wigan Athletic, Tranmere Rovers, Salford City, Preston North End and Fleetwood Town. He met some Rotherham fans while on holiday in Benidorm and confesses he was in awe of them. " I have so much respect for them," he enthused. " Faithful to their local club through good and bad times."

He also wishes to experience how the ' hijackers' or ' parasites' feel. Twelve months back he joined a members club of a mega rich, rival city club, who have been experiencing heady times. Being a member entitles him to apply by telephone for a season ticket in a short, few hour time period. He tried last summer but could not get through. He will make another attempt this close season.

His general rules on supporting a club are that you have to satisfy two criteria. Firstly, you have to be within close travelling distance, have ties with the locality and can't have passed by other clubs on the way to the ground; and secondly, you have to have paid into the club for many, many years. According to his rules, all of this criteria has to be satisfied.

As he is vehement in these views, they can sometimes upset people. A few years back a work colleague asked him to come down to the basement car park for a fight. He declined, saying he had no wish to put his job at risk but felt that this level of reaction vindicated his beliefs.

There are some parallels that can be drawn with racing and what he believes is happening to his football club. He talks of ' links' being broken in the sense that locals are unable to obtain tickets meaning fathers can't take sons to the game resulting in a new generation believing that it is normal for fans to support a team through a television set.

Racing is suffering because a link had been broken whereby the father would be in the household betting and watching horse racing. This has now been a rarity for some time now leaving a generation who have been brought up to link betting with football, who are now fathers themselves. Link terminally broke.

Whether racing's fans should wish for the sport to hit a crisis, downsize, then operate on a scale with a manageable fixture list, with theme meetings something of the past, I'm not so sure.

It probably will happen sooner rather than later but where you can't make comparisons with footbal is in the sense that while a football club can be reborn with a new stadium built on a different site, once a racecourse is lost to a housing project, as so nearly happened with Kempton, then it has gone for good.

One wish my controversial work colleague hopes will come true is for betting to be banned on football. He claims it's not in the spirit of his sport. Unfortunately, it is too late now for the sports betting explosion to be put back in the box. It's even more unfortunate for racing as such a circumstance would have been a positive game changer.

image - creative commons zero