Fixture List Delay

With all the brouhaha surrounding the changes to whip rules sight has been lost of the 2012 Fixture list.

Traditionally the fixture list was published in the summer although last year it was delayed until September.

A delay was also announced for this years fixture list as a result of the declining levy and the seeming inability of the Horsemens Group and Racecourses to agree a program with the BHA.

The announcement of the 2012 fixture list was delayed until September, then mid October, which has now come and gone. So I contacted the BHA to enquire about the fixture list, to be told by a spokesman,

"We’re looking at mid-November.

"This is what the Racecourse/Horsemen requested as a timescale to complete their discussions."

So it transpires the sports regulator, the BHA, is impotent when it comes to fixture allocations and the decision as to the structure of the racing calendar lies in the hands of disparate vested interests.

This sums up, in a nutshell, everything that is wrong with British racing - there is no clear leadership.

This is another PR own goal for racing. How can a sport withhold publication of its fixture list until six weeks before it comes into play?

There is also the knock-on effect.

One of the Injured Jockey Fund's biggest money raisers is their Racing Calendar, which includes the fixture list - how many sales will they lose because of the late publication of the fixture list.

Many people rely on racing diaries to plan their racing, will the publishers of the diaries bother waiting for the fixture list to be issued. Probably not and having not bothered to print the diaries this year will they decide not to bother in future years?  More loss of publicity for racing.

Diaries and calendars are a side issue, more fundamentally this delay underlines the current of structure and "organisation" of racing in this country is not fit for purpose.

We have a regulatory authority whose authority is being continually undermined by the factional self interests of those who take part in the sport. be it from the PJA, Horseman's Group or the RCA.

Indeed with all the factional in fighting it is amazing the sport manages to carry on in this country . . . . no that's given me an idea for a film Carry On Racing.

The trouble is the reality is so far fetched nobody would believe it.