A SPORT THAT HAS COMPLETELY LOST THE PLOT

That we really do finally seem to be returning to normality after seventeen months in the doldrums may be the much sought after lifeline that many involved racing have been holding out for in a sport which has taken a bigger hit than most and in which the majority of participants away from the very top spheres will not have been financially equipped to withstand a continuation of the restrictions.

But for many it will already be too late as pre-covid this was a sport much in need of a solution to provide a better funding model and it must be remembered that some racing professionals even took strike action in protest against what they considered to be meager prize money levels at the ARC courses - though some may say that amid a fixture list too big to thrive, the prize money was befitting of the general low quality of animal that filled the cards.

Those pesky protesters probably wish they could turn the clock back as the financial state of the sport is now a tier deeper in the mire with many bracing themselves for the fall out from the covid crisis that will have a detrimental affect for many years to come. 

There has been no plus side. When the circuit started back up last June to deliver a topsy turvy, asterisk season, marked by one of the most forgetful runnings of the Epsom Derby ever, some saw it as a big opportunity for the sport to pull in new viewers with less competition from the other traditional midsummer sports and a postponed Euro Championship in the football, a postponed Olympics, a cancelled Wimbledon, and cancelled Open Golf.

In reality though horse racing lost its mojo long ago and has fallen behind the other major sports of which it once could compete with. And let no one kid themselves - the  type of people who would become smitten watching the sport on TV during the lockdown are the same category who have been following the Olympic coverage over the past few weeks and familiarising themselves with names the general public are not familiar with and sports of which the general public have no grasp of the rules.

Certain races are fair barometers to guage the engagement level with the sport. One is the traditional midsummer highlight of the King George V1 Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes. This years renewal  promised  to be a cracker and as things turned out the event received a boost by falling to the present Epsom Derby winner - it was once an expected target of any Derby winner who aspired to go on to stake his claim to top the all aged middle distant rankings and the race had been much the poorer that it's now skipped by many, though it was only the underfoot conditions that hastened Golden Horn's withdrawal, the last above the norm Epsom Victor.

This year was the first running that I have not seen in real time since 1975. I would guess that many other maturing long term racing fans are beginning to gradually put many things racing lower down the order of priorities, as they find it is morphing into something they neither get a buzz over or respect very much anymore.

I recall, around fifteen years ago, recognising that my enthusiasm for the game must be waining when I was in the stands as the runners entered the stalls for the Chester Vase, reading a preview of the forthcoming Player's Championship at Sawgrass, and finding the prospect of settling down in the house to watch all four days of the Golfing event preferable than being at a course that has changed for the worse, hosting a sport that too has seen better days.

Since then Chester had continued to slide downwards thanks to the business model that dictates how the course operates. A modus operandi to take advantage of the cult status that the course holds for large throngs of people who could at anytime be enticed away from visiting racecourses to any rival attraction with a good supply of alcohol, that becomes fashionable.

Back to King George day - I was going from pub to pub in and around a Welsh town, packed with citizens proudly wearing  British and Irish Lions shirts. No sign of anything racing anywhere, no hearing of conversations anything racing, and in all the pubs with screens, only Cricket was showing apart from the dominant Rugby - and this from as early as 1pm, four hours prior to the starting time down in South Africa. 

The decline of horse racing's popularity in the UK is picking up pace, masked in parts by the large crowds that frequent the cult venues. They say one of the barriers to the sport halting its freefall is that the main stakeholding bodies are unable to blend in harmony, as the only aspect that seems to be consensual across the board is the toleration of a blatant sell out to the modern woke trends.

The appalling Ladbrokes advert, the just know you know one, seems to infer that betting on horses is more popular than it really is, with the masses involved daily as though every day was Grand National day, and with it spread equally across racial groups, sexes, and orientations. It's also damn annoying, even more so than that group of odd characters which were in those cringeworthy ' the Ladbroke life'  commercials.

Then we have these adverts for ' Diva Racing'  which is a very curious name indeed for a horse racing syndicate. The characters portraying the owners are seen hovering around a yard, probably to the frustration of those carrying out their tasks, that is, if you pretend they are real or maybe they are. Then there is that character in the green T shirt who appears to have taken up a hands on role or why else would he be opening the door on a horse transporter? Have never seen so called owners cast like this but of course they could not resist a shot of them drinking glasses of bubbly though I've no idea why they would do this walking around the stables.

This is the image that all the influential parties in the sport wish to beam out. It fits snuggly with the increasing tendency to give every gimmick a try - the doomed to fail team competition being the latest. No doubt there will be further attempts along the line to bring in ' city racing'.  They'll not give up on this idea, a frightful one which really does have the potential to produce a catastrophic accident, warts and all, that will make the sport appear crueller than any of the historic Grand Nationals ever could.

It would be a sin to take a glass half full attitude to the present state of UK racing as wherever you look, there are a shadows in every corner of the sport. It can't be repeated enough that not only has it seen better days that won't return, but that it could be on its way out.

This from an album that was released three days before the mighty Mill Reef won the 1971 King George. Since then music has gone down the swanny to the same degree as racing. This track is typical of what would be playing when you wander inadvertently into some Hell's Angels bar abroad.