A DREARY GAME TAKING A TURN FOR THE WORSE

It’s not being alarmist to suggest that we are approaching a new year that holds more uncertainties and fears for horse racing than any other year in the memory of those still on this earth. For while other industries may carry treatable wounds, racing was already beginning to wobble long before the Covid crisis struck.

The certainty of a prolonged financial crisis that threatened to bring the sport to its knees and will still leave behind lasting damage as it deals blows to all areas of the game has been tirelessly discussed, but there is also an undercurrent of a different sort of negativity that is filling the sport - at least in the UK.

Something is being sapped away from the game. Call it an energy, a buzz, or the increasing lack of anticipation as we look ahead in the programme. What has happened to the progressive, potential top class chasers that go on a roll in November and December, keeping all in suspense of how far up the ladder they will climb?

Why does Bachelor’s Hall spring to mind four decades on from when, under Martin O’Halloran, he showed a rare turn foot for a staying chaser to take the Mackeson, followed by the  Hennessy then on to the King George, carrying the Harris colours that recently won a Breeders Cup event.

Timeform described the Peter Cundell trained gelding as possessing ,“ a rare and highly desirable combination of speed, staying power and surefootedness.” Weights and measures ratings may sometimes  look more kindly on many one sided conditions events but these type of visually pleasing, on a roll animals, draw far more new fans to the game - well, at least they did when the sport was still capable of attracting new fans.

They came along regularly, probably one every two seasons, and while not many had the Bachelor’s Hall’s burst of speed or bagged what is a rare same season treble, never repeated since, there were many of similar ilk that have altogether become rarer in recent years. 

In more recent times, Diamond Harry was a buzz horse that added something to the game right from winning the Fixed Brush Final at Haydock, until he took the Hennessy, looking a potential Gold Cup winner but alas his ceiling had been reached. Since then we’ve had two subsequent Cheltenham Gold Cup winners and an above average Grand National winner take the Newbury race, though we are on a consecutive four of Total Recall, Sizing Tennesse, De Rasher Counter and Cloth Clap, who you would all safely rule out at the time of developing into genuine Cheltenham Gold Cup contenders.

It is rare for something to stir up the excitement as much as a second season chaser that has ‘arrived’ in the first few months of the season proper. Those that travel comfortably all the way, particularly at Newbury, the fairest track in the country. 

Like Bachelor’s Hall, Bright Heighway added a Hennessy on the back of his Mackeson, creating such a favourable impression that he went to the head of the Gold Cup market, but his career was then cut short when he sustained a tendon injury a month before Cheltenham.

Brown Chamberlin looked the part when given a made to look simple ride by Francome in his Hennessy, and during the following decade we can never forget the impressions created by three greys who took the Newbury event to announce themselves on the scene; future King George winners in One Man and Teeton Mill,  and Sunny Bay who needed a flat left handed track and would go on to produce one of the best weight carrying performances since WW2 in the Grand National on the second occasion he was runner up.

It’s not just the Hennessy that you’d find something scything up through the ranks - Burrough Hill Lad must in hindsight have been the biggest handicap certainty the day he won the Welsh National with just   10 st 9 lb  on his back, no one knowing that he would soon be one of the best post war Gold Cup winners. Master Oats too ran away with the same event, rescheduled at Newbury, and he’d soon trounce his Gold Cup field.

The Chepstow race has consistently been a fruitful source of future Grand National and Gold Cup winners but it’s now becoming concerning that like the Newbury race, it may be losing it’s mojo. In the nine runnings since Synchronised won, Gold Cup winner Native River and the classy Elegant Escape stand out    amongst some ordinary renewals with this season’s delayed running already looking  as though it will be decidedly downbeat.

The there are those who use these handicaps to consolidate what they’ve achieved in championship races, to show they can achieve the same level of merit when the traditional handicap system penalises their merit. These events match no other - Burrough Hill Lad was the handicap snip whose true merit we could only guess at when winning at Chepstow, but when he won his Hennessy he was the reigning champion producing a weight carrying performance that had him being mooted as the best since Arkle.

Denman was the exciting second season chaser confirming the impression he’d created as a novice when winning his first Hennessy, then in the same season winning the most anticipated renewal of the Cheltenham Gold Cup in recent history - then returned to Newbury two seasons later, putting up a similar level of performance to Burrough Hill Lad when winning one of the most enjoyable and memorable races in history -  he did one hell of a lot for the winter game but unfortunately new fans to the sport had already dropped to a trickle - how much more a horse like him would have been appreciated two or three decades earlier.

Cyfor Malta was rapidly in the ascendancy when winning his first Mackeson as a five year old, after winning the John Hughes over the National fences earlier in the year. He had a rare wow factor and was promising to become that elusive Gold Cup winner for Martin Pipe when after beating the subsequent first     and second in his trial race, sustained an injury that kept him off the track for two years. Still, he destroyed the myth of being just a precocious French bred and reared chaser who wouldn’t last when at the age of nine he won his second Mackeson.

The winter sport has taken a turn for the worse and at least it is now widely recognised that we have a fixture list top heavy with soft conditions races, along with an underlying feel that races are created to come out to a narrower, specific groups of animals from mares only novice events to veteran only races, rather than horses having to be honed to suit the programme. 

Furthermore, with Ireland holding the edge at the quality end of the spectrum allied to their fixture list now jam packed with valuable graded races it has become an owner’s dream for those operating at the top end of the scale, while at the same time sapping the enthusiasm of racing fans - not least those in Ireland itself.

Added to this, there is the now almost across the board ability of the modern racehorse trainer to produce horses in tip top condition after long absences. Long gone are the days when punters would cross out horses without a recent run and when you could count the trainers on the fingers on one hand who could turn out animals fully tuned up after a long absence.

We are told about horses only having a certain amount of mileage in them. Henrietta Knight use to hammer this in to anyone criticising the light schedules for Best Mate. Maybe there would not have been three Gold Cups if he’d been campaigned vigorously but despite the gelding performing a fine service to the sport, his input and popularity was a shadow of what Desert Orchid did for jump racing, seeming to turn out every few weeks for many years, over wide variations of distances and courses, and running his heart out each time, often enduring some gruelling looking experiences. 

One regret about this legend was that he was a grey, as it riles when those with just a passing interest in the sport say, “ Ahh, people got too carried away how good he was because of his colour” - no they never! Anyone in doubt just needs to spend some time thumbing through form books from the beginning to the end of his career. And he still is very much in the mix in arguments over who is the best since Arkle.

Sadly, the sport has lost so much of its fizz that for many long term fans, thumbing through old form books, watching old races on You Tube and Twitter, and building up collections of old, out of print books have now become their main areas of endearment with the game. 

image from scrapbook

This song, a stirring anthem still celebrated by Anarchists, was from an album released a few weeks before Charlie Potheen won the Hennessy, and would who go on and finish third in a vintage renewal of the Gold Cup. Lead singer Ralph Mobius rests in the same Berlin graveyard as the Brother’s Grim that curiously has a quaint little coffee shop inside the entry gate.

MEDDLING WITHOUT BENEFITS

While it may not be wise to dive in throwing opinions around on safety issues when you yourself are not putting oneself in harm’s way, it would surely not be wide of the mark to assume that a majority of jockeys, along with trainers and owners, are against this seasonal dolling off of obstacles that we are now becoming accustomed and which has the affect of changing the nature of some cracking looking events.

Racing has never been more on edge over outside perceptions so there will be plenty of professionals who may have an urge to speak out over what they see as healthy and safety interference, but feel their observations may be construed in the wrong light.

It’s a sad fact that for the anti racing brigade, a situation which compromises the safety of riders is secondary by a very wide margin to any injuries sustained by their mounts. It’s something that produces that righteous nonsense about the riders having a choice, the horses not.

But is there any data that proves that horse and rider are at an increased risk racing into a low sun ?  Fences have clearly marked take off boards which the animals will see until they disappear from their vision on take off. Jockey’s are able to wear tinted sun protective goggles. 

From the top of the head it is difficult to recall a race being lost due to the dazzle of the sun, in fact the only faller I can recall where the sun was blamed was a Jimmy Fitzgerald novice chaser at a weekday Ayr meeting in the late 1980’s, who did albeit take a nasty looking somersault.

What is a turn off for the winter game is spending some time trying to unravel a tricky but impossible not to get involved in event, then to find late on that the animal you supported knowing that he was a safer conveyance than one or two of his dangers would now have his chance reduced. Imagine being on a flawless lepper such as a Dublin Flyer, a Villierstown, a Collingwood or a Panto Prince, then having officialdom invading the course with their cones taking out crucial obstacles that could produce race result changing moments, not necessarily with falls but with momentum creating or busting negotiation of the obstacles.

The other area of the sport that has been marked with health and safety interference is basic horse hydration and cooling. Has veterinary science changed in this field or have there always been different theories adopted ?

Forty years ago your horse would arrive at the racecourse stables and be muzzled at least a couple of hours before a race to prevent any chewing and ingestion of bedding, along with water intake - by christ how simple it really is to stop a horse 

A similar build up would happen now but where things seem to have changed is that back then, I know at least one yard, a classic winning one, who would dab a wet sponge in a blowing horses mouth but not provide a proper drink until the heart rate had slowed, the water being lukewarm in the belief that it would lessen the chances of a bout of colic. Now, the staff seem happy to allow their charges to guzzle down half a bucket of water within minutes of finishing a race. 

And then there is a new intrusion into the Grand National, yet another development that does little to benefit the image of the once great event. The terrestrial coverage of the immediate aftermath of the marathon now has an underlying theme whereby it is pressed into the viewers conscience that the competing animals have a time window by which to reach equine showers.

These animals are athletes who naturally sweat to assist the cooling process. The first quarter of April hardly attracts dangerously high temperatures and while exhausted horses can wobble, this panic infused process brings in an unnecessary extra angle to the welfare issue.

I have witnessed a lady in a workplace on the Monday after the Aintree event, declaring to everyone within earshot that as the runners past the post she was shouting, " Quick, quick - get some water on those horses.Get them straight to the showers!"

If this is now a typical post race reaction, one which replaces a what would have once been normal racing fans desire to watch a replay to see again for themselves how well the horse they backed that came down second Bechers was travelling, whether it be an Andy Pandy, Uncle Merlin or West Tip, then maybe it really is time to put the race to bed, a situation brought around by a self destructive push to change the image of the sport. 

Moreover, an even bigger fear that could irreparably damage the sport on welfare grounds is the wastage issue, one that is surprisingly unknown to the majority of the public. Not surprisingly this -  call it whatever you like whether it be an achilles heel or the sport's dirty secret - area of concern that the financial workings of the sport deem to be a necessary sacrifice is something that has up to now been effectively hidden away from the gaze of the wider public

However, with the monetary fallout from the plague not yet in full flow in the wider world let alone racing, the sport must brace itself for a surge of owners exiting the sport, leaving behind a mass of unwanted thoroughbreds, a crisis in itself that for the first time will not be able to be hidden away and will sully the sport until it is addressed, or the sport radically downsized.

image from pexel.com

The furthest you could remove yourself from cones infront of fences and hurdles. A classy performance from a Russian /German singer who is a household name on the European continent.

A BLEAK SHORT AND LONG TERM OUTLOOK

 

While yesterday's press release on the Gov.com website is geared in the main towards issues arising from online casino style and number games, along with the National Lottery and underage gambling in general, the inclusion about the prospect of carrying out so called affordibility checks appears intended to apply across the board and is not welcome news for the horse racing industry.

It has been mooted that there will be a loss limit of £100 per month unless a punter is able to provide evidence that demonstrates they can afford to splurge away a higher amount, which presumely would involve filling out an income and expenditure sheet, with evidence of incoming income via bank statements, along with copies of bills.

When many of us welcomed curbs on those highly addictive, trance inducing FOBT'S, others who saw the bigger picture sounded out a warning that 'they' would not rest on their laurels and that it was the first of many planned intrusive steps into the personal choice world of betting.

What to some of the 'we know what's best for you' brigade may seem to be an out of proportion risk with a resultant loss that affects the monthly ingoings and outgoings of the household finances, may to those having to readjust for the rest of the month be felt as nothing more than a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

Those of us who have reached the age where we are walking across the firing range of all the nasty diseases and who regularly check for lumps, starting with the neck, on to the armpits and so on, not only object to having the daily routine restricted due to the moderate to medium worry of picking up and having a severe reaction to covid, but find it totally ridiculous that some would deem us in harms way when the wine may be a Toro Loco from a lower shelf, or the cider a Taurus, as we are on a month of budgeting due to golfers missing fairway after fairway, or a poor day on the horses when after the planned bets went down, you tried to smash your way out of the red on the Kayf Tara in the bumper run in testing ground, and maybe even go in one more time on the Oppenheimer owned maiden on the AW in the evening.

It is crucial to remember that for thousands following these events are lifetime hobbies and four days entertainment from taking annual leave to watch the Cheltenham Festival, or to spend four consecutive evenings watching  a PGA Golf tournament, can be more entertaining and in most cases less costly than lying on a packed beach in Benidorm, which to some can be their idea of pure hell.

So, for the many who don't possess the best money management skills but manage, when the month starts on the wrong footing, to feed ourselves and are wise enough to keep something aside for a few bottles of red a week, what happens when we look at the total win and loss balance, then decide we might put something aside each week to pile into a plus and loss lifetime balance changing wager, whether it be an ante post Guineas bet on that Cheveley Park filly with Russian Rhythm as the second dam that beat only trees at Chelmsford the other week but looked the bees knees, or Patrick Cantlay for one of the majors, or how about the prospect of Elegant Escape loving Aintree and lobbing along without hitting his flat spot.

Well, anyone thinking on such lines better be landing one of these bets sooner rather than later as if the modernists who know what is best for you have their way, you may be unable to speculate with your own money and if the 'protection' rules  decide how much you should be spending on sensible things like food and clothes, you may find that the couple of hundred quid you did on the first weekend of the month warrants an enforced sabbatical.

The irony of all this is that the horse racing industry needs your contributions more now than at anytime in recent memory and would love you to bet to your hearts content, leaving you with a Hardys rather than a Barolo, but are involuntary compelled to voice welcome announcements to these planned nanny state moves.

Where will this end? I know people who during the early years of New Labour rule managed to run up credit debts over £30,000 while earning a wage well below the national average. The debts were accumulated by what could be classed as an addiction to shopping. A need to snap up every new electronic gadget along with designer label clothing, and footwear costing hundreds that impress nobody.

If, as is likely, such impulses continue within these characters, then even if there is no credit available for similar sprees it is very likely that when their monthly wages go into their account they will exhaust a disproportionate amount on non essential shopping.

And what of alcohol  -  we already are told on every bottle of wine or beer we purchase within what the government medical guidelines state that you cross to the wrong side of the safety barrier once you consume the equivalent of a bottle and a half of red wine in a week!  

At one time, if asked what would constitute a character with drinking problems several would cite that bloke from the Pogues as an example - needing to drink two bottles of Martini in the morning to instill in him the confidence to leave the house, when he would then head straight to the pub and stay drinking to last orders.

In fact, it's not far fetched to envisage that there will come a time sooner rather than later when alcohol will have to be purchased on your debit card, and where a buying limit will be forced that will be in line with the stupid guidelines. Though I guess your first venture over the limit may warrant a word of advice by the off licence or supermarket worker scanning the purchase, which would then be put on record.

And returning to racing, those in power who feel compelled to play along with this unwelcome interference, embracing it on the outside but underneath deeply worried about the consequences for racing's finances, are going to have to find a way of addressing the financial shortfall that will result if they are unable to make a separate case for the sport, to free it from the threat of the shackles being put on the casino style games.

Racing's balance sheet was suffering long before coronavirus took hold. Now, not only is the sport bracing itself for a severe financial fall out that the Government loan will only put a temporary plaster on, but an attempt to gradually recover the lossess incurred through the plague could be facing yet another budget buster. Both the short and long term implications are very bleak indeed.

Christmas theme continuing. This character represented Austria in the 1976 Winter Olympic skiing team but has long since established himself as a volksmusic singer and household name who incredibly retains his mullet, never seems to age, and is on the telly over there every time you switch it on.