THE END OF THE RACING DAILY

Dwindling, heartfelt interest in horse racing allied to the across the board decline in hardcopy newspaper sales followed by LBO closures from the FOBT ruling, was always going to prove to be an insurmountable force for the printed version of the Racing Post to withstand. 

Covid -19  has only gone and speeded up what was inevitable. It must be now be in grave doubt whether the publcation will go to press ever again - particularly when you take into consideration that it had even been acknowledged from within that at some measurable time in the future a switch to a fully digital format was on the cards.

You cannot sugarcoat the fact the publication has been going downhill for some time. Admittedly, the database is excellent and the layout of the online form book is far more comfortable and easy on the eye than the ATR version. It is also a dream for those who like to lose themselves delving deep into pedigrees.

However, it is a sign of the times that the recently replaced editor Bruce Millington is first and foremost a football fan who had worked in the greyhound industry, and who confesses to not being truly gripped by horse racing until little over a decade back.

One must suppose that this mirrors the recognition that horse racing has had to concede a portion of its share of the betting pie to sports betting, with the emerging generations more inclined to bet on football.

The acceptance of this trend could be seen in the short life of the Post's last rival, The Sportsman that sadly lasted for a period of only six months during 2006.

Millington's long tenure was subject to heavy criticism on free speech forums for failing to address bookmaker related concerns, including refusals to stand decent bets at advertised prices, closing down of accounts, and not least a refusal  by the paper to criticise those cancerous FOBT machines.

The latter issue was never more apparent when there was a feature following Alastair Down into a high street betting office where the widely recognised journalist appeared to be giving these trashy machines the seal of approval.

There was also that fall out between Millington and Paul Haigh, after the Stockport based writer, arguably the most talented the paper had in its thirty four year spell in print, refused to abide by in house rules in which free reign writing was shackled by the bookmaking industries influence, linked to the lifeblood revenue the paper was receiving from advertising.

Haigh's departure was followed by an airing the dirty washing slanging match between the pair on social media, the tone of which indicated that the end of their association was terminal.

In recent times the editorship has been taken over by the young Scotsman Tom Kerr, a racing fan, but one who represents the modernist agenda as is evident in his views on welfare issues and a belief that the sport must continue to modernise.

The database and bloodstock desk apart, the paper has been turning a bit weird. They even have a Scottish comedian writing a weekly piece. Not to mention some 'kids' writing who may just be old enough to remember Cue Card. One was writing for the paper when on a 'work experience' placement, something indicating how tight the available budget must have been.

Thing is, those who were still purchasing the newspaper would be over a certain age and many would be of a kind who would want to be able to nerdily discuss how far The Dealer would have gone if he'd not suffered a setback after his Embassy Premier Chase Final success; would Golden Cygnet really have been the second coming, would J O Tobin have won the Guineas if his owner hadn't moved him to the States on Noel Murless's retirement, and whether Noddy's Ryde would have gained revenge on Bobsline in their planned Cheltenham re-match.

Fact is, social media along with its racing forums renders most modern racing journalism dead save one or two bold, out of the clique free minds from the indies. And while the Betfair Forum has been blighted lately by a couple of private spats involving characters who may genuinely have mental health issues, there are some gems of threads that appear every now and then. One of the long standing contributors was Brigadier Gerard's stable lad. There is still a glimmer of hope this forum may return to its former glory days.

Then there is the slower moving but less vulnerable to idiot sabotage, The Racing Forum, containing some excellent posters. It is baffling why there have not been more full tme defectors from the other forum.

In addition to the Racing Post, one must be concerned whether the future of the once esteemed Timeform organisation is under threat. Warning bells were sounded when the Halifax operation was purchased by Betfair, who are now owned by Paddy Power - or Flutter Entertainment plc to be precise.

The crush in the level of incomings through the plague follows on from the FOBT decision, so during the inevitable inward examination of the areas in which costs may be saved, the future of this once independent and treasured part of the sport must surely come under the microscope.

And on the heels of the loss of the sport's remaining daily UK publication, that would be a potential bombshell. It really would.

image from Seattle Municipal Archives  CCA

A SURPRISE AMONGST THE CASUALTIES ?

Many of us are convinced that the football led boom in general sports betting has inflicted untold long term damage on horse racing, depriving the levy of monies as the emerging generations would rather bet on wall to wall football, and even during the summer would, on arriving home from work, much prefer to get stuck into the Sussex v Kent twenty-20 televised game rather than the Windsor card on ATR.

Alas, what should have been the opportunity for this theory to be proven has now been lost when the decision was made to abandon the bold intention to carry on racing behind closed doors in circumstances where the only alternative betting opportunities would have been Greyhounds, some Stateside racing, Australian racing during sleeping hours, not forgetting those trashy numbers games.

Mind you, the comparison would not have been quite that straightforward for we have reached the stage that we cannot speak of younger generations being' weaned off ' betting on horses, for they have started their punting on football and other sports from the very beginning.

It is doubtful whether the light can just be flicked on whereby they go into racing mode, just moving over into another sport at a whim and, if racing had gone ahead behind closed doors, no objective thinking person would have  gone into a state of shock if those dreadful numbers games took more of their punting cash.

Martin Cruddace, C.E. of the Arena Racing Company raised a few eyebrows last weekend when sharing his thoughts on the prospect of racing behind closed doors. He explained that at the Arena venues , a typical year will start with most of the revenue coming from the levy and media rights payments until they get to the height of summer, when revenue from attending crowds will take centre stage. Then, as the autumn months come along, the levy and media rights payments will again takeover as the chief earner.

Cruddace, who was a guest on ATR's Racing Debate, was doubtful whether it would be viable for Arena to put on meetings behind closed doors and expressed hope that if these fixtures were held, the bookmaking fraternity would increase payments for a period during which other live sports have ceased. In short, the impression he left was that he had no relish to go down the racing without spectators pathway.

One facet of  the sport that was not touched upon is that most of the fixtures at Arena tracks are mediocre, many extremely so. If Cheltenham had been staged behind closed doors then the amounts generated through off course betting would not have suffered greatly. Neither would that of Aintree's Grand National meeting if, as some hoped, it had gone ahead without an attending audience.

Quality racing will always attract greater turnover. It may seem to be stating the obvious but you will hear many making generalisations about the players in America treating the horses as numbers as opposed to living entities.

This is total nonsense. You only need to look at a card with a Grade One race included to note that the main race or races, with equine names that will be familiar, will generate the biggest pools. This explains why those dull cards that are the bread and butter of the Arena courses are not the greatest levy generators.

It is a solemn consideration to wonder whether the affects of this plague that is holding up the country will change the whole look of the racing landscape. Many of us who want the fixture list radically downsized with the emphasis on quality could be pleasantly surprised once the dust has settled and life starts to resemble normality again.

The downdside of course is that numerous people who have spent a lifetime working within the sport, including breeders and licensed trainers, will be out of a job and/or out of business.

Racecourses will also be forced to shut. That is not just a possibility it is a certainty. We all must have courses that we would delight in seeing them get their comeuppance. Most of us who remember Chester in the 1970's and 1980's, are no doubt appalled to see how it has sold its soul to the corporate model.

Tented villages lining the inside of the home straight, bars and drink stands with presumptious names, audiences not interested a jot in the sport of horse racing who pay the inflated prices to be a wanna be yuppie for the day.  And not to forget the brusque course staff who pick their targets carefully, with tales of racegoers even being ludicrously asked why they are carrying binoculars.

As a harsh, unrelenting recession is now unavoidable, the majority of the businesses that use Chester race days for functions will, at the very least, have to cut their cloth accordingly. The whole business model of the course may have to go back to basics and cater for those who have long washed their hands of the place and who find a visit to the historic venue more of an ordeal than a privilege.

Lack of sponsors money, a massive drop in money from the levy, and a plumet in the numbers willing to pay overpriced entry fees along with inflated prices for food and drink - they search you at the gate and don't even allow you to take in a small, homemade ham cob.

Well, once they have lost the air headed suited and booted with huge self egos to flirt with, they may regret all the flat capped Billy's and Harry's and Frank's they have upset and who don't have plans to return anytime soon, if ever.

And if large sporting crowd bans are extended into the summer and autumn, which seems very likely, as does the continuation of racing being on hold in the UK after May 1st, then surely we cannot safely rule out the possibility that this trumped up out of proportion venue will go to the dogs.

image Pixabay license

SHOCKWAVES SENT THROUGH THE SPORT

It may be still be the posh daily read for the bearded, duffle coated, fashion Trotskyists calling for revolution, most of whom are not doing too bad for themselves in a free, capitalist society, with their regular holidays to exotic far away continents, nice homes and cars, who would risk being taken away and tortured in the communist 'utopias' they sing the praises of, but it cannot be denied that The Guardian newspaper is prepared to rock the boat of officialdom, even having been the cause of concern for the security services.

While I am sure that a few inside the confines of the publication do not approve of gambling or horse racing, there can be little doubt they can boast of having the arguably the boldest writer in the business in Greg Wood.

It was not unexpected that Wood would be the first journalist from 'within' the sport to break ranks and provide an unrestrained opinion on the Fact Finding Judgement released this week from the family court case involving Sheikh Mohammed, UK flat racing's largest investor over the past four decades.

The bizarre and quite disturbing events that the court believed on the balance of probabilities had occured will now be familiar to everyone who follows the mainstream news.

From a racing viewpoint, it is no surprise that those who have a platform to air views on racing politics chose in the main to either be non-committal, or to not even touch on the subject.

In ' Luck On Sunday'  it was agreed by all those present that the Sheikh and his family had been a positive influence on the sport in the UK, and that in some way or another, everyone working within the sport had benefited from his involvement. Richard Hoiles doubted whether the BHA  would subject the Sheikh to the ' fit and proper person's test' , adding that the question was whether the member of the Dubai Royal family would now decide on his own accord to move his large scale interests out of the country.

Wood went further in his piece in The Guardian, touching on an area that seems to be taboo for those reporting from within the industry ; namely, the case of the name now never discussed, Mahmood al- Zarooni.

When al- Zarooni received his seven year ban for steriod use, the official conclusion was that he was acting in his own capacity. This finding was, in Wood's words, ' ..without any meaningful investigation of the concerted doping operation at Godolphin's Moulton Paddocks stable in Newmarket.'

The reliance racing has on Sheikh Mohammed's financial input into the sport is put into perspective by Wood when he writes that, 'no individual is bigger than racing itself - so they say, but Sheikh Mohammed comes mighty close.'

Those tuning into Attheraces for Sunday morning's ' Racing Debate' may have been hoping for at least a small amount of time to be segmented for the topic to be  discussed.  The programme is after all billed as being,' hard- hitting, honest, critical, opinionated.'

Not a single whisper was uttered on the subject. No doubt the producers would point out that as we are on the the eve of the Cheltenham Festival, then it was apt for the show to concentrate solely on the meeting but one has to doubt whether the court's findings would have been alluded to in even the quieter times in the fixture list.

Returning to 'Luck on Sunday', during which the potential logistical difficulty of moving a whole, large scale operation out of the country was raised. In truth, it is probably not the mamouth task it would appear to be. The horses in training could be dispersed to trainers already on the payroll in Ireland and France, with the stallions also transfered to their studs abroad.

Their two Newmarket based in house trainers could be moved to newly purchased bases abroad, even though teething problems could initially surface from the trainers reading and adapting to home gallops they were not familiar with.

And what of the other Maktoum family members ? Hamdan has his own modus operandi,  keeping the number of animals to a relatively limited number, with loyalty shown to the trainers on his payroll.

At points of time in the past, the likes of the once mighty Peter Walwyn, Robert Armstrong, Harry Thompson Jones, Ben Hanbury, and Clive Benstead would have to have called it a day earlier than they eventually did, without the support of Hamdan.

The potential catastrophic consequence of the whole extended family cutting ties with the sport in the UK, is separate to the issue of how the sport would have fared if they had never entered the fray all those years ago.

We often wish for the days when the jam was spread wider, with all those select owner/ breeder operations who were the patrons that formed the backbone of the big flat yards in the 1970's. The Sobel and related Weinstock families, Lord Howard de Walden, Dick Hollingsworth, Louis Freedman, Arthur Budgett, Paul Mellon and Jim Joel.

Apart from the Budgetts', all of the above named standing dishes of British flat racing were still strong when the Maktoums really started to expand their racing empire in the early 1980's. The 1982 Epsom Derby made one realise they had arrived at the top level.

Sheikh Mohammed owned the second favourite, the John Dunlop trained Jalmood. The colt disappointed but the Hamdan owned Touching Wood finished runner up to the impressive Golden Fleece and would go on to win the St Leger.

Did the aforementioned owner/breeders have relatives ready to step into their shoes who considered that the emergence of the Maktoums had changed the landscape for the worse, or were there no willing and able family members keen enough to take over at the helm?

We shall never know. But if they did decide to cut ties with the UK, how would it impact on national hunt racing, a sphere in which Sheikh Mohammed had a small but successful dabble with approximately thirty years ago, but who had sold on some stallions who have made a tremendous impact in the winter game, such as Fleminsfirth and Old Vic.

Those who ply their trade exclusively in the winter game may not feel much of a negative after current. However, they are unlikely to have cause for opening a bottle of red and partaking in ebullient singsong.

  image reproduced under CCO