What A Carry On

The “Carry On ……..” films are something of an acquired taste and were based on a standard formula where there wass incompetence, misunderstanding and innuendo.

The saga of the 2011 fixture list certainly fulfils the first two of the above criteria.

According to the latest pronouncement from the BHA it looks like being late September before the 2011 fixture list is published – which will not be good news for printers of racing diaries and calendars.

The delay in publishing the new fixture list, normally published in July, is the result in a catastrophic drop in the Levy.

By all accounts those in the industry were expecting a levy yield of £150m, whereas the actual yield will be around the £70m mark.

Talking to individuals closely involved in the negotiations, those in the BHA were so certain of there being a £150m yield they had no “plan B”. Indeed it was actually put to a senior director of the BHA that the yield was not going to be as expected and when asked what the alternative would be, the somewhat worrying response was along the lines “the Levy will yield £150m, we do not need a contingency plan.”

If this assertion is true, and I have no reason to doubt either the reliability or integrity of my source, then it does not auger well for the future of the sport when the “leaders” adopt such an arrogant stance.

The press release detailing the delay in announcing the fixture list had one very telling paragraph in particular.

“…………. meeting of the British Horseracing Authority Board and the subsequent meeting of the Levy Board, together with detailed dialogue with the Racecourse Association and Horsemen's Group.”

Therein lies the problem, there are too many diverse, vested and often contradictory interests involved in the running of the sport.

More fundamentally the Levy is an unfair and anachronistic means of funding the sport.

Why should horse racing alone benefit from a bookmakers levy?

Why shouldn’t soccer, rugby, tennis, golf benefit from a levy as well? Indeed should the BBC not get a Levy payment on the Strictly Come Dancing betting turnover?

When the Levy was introduced almost 50 years ago bookmakers bet almost exclusively on horse racing and the Levy model had some credence.

Now, however, the environment is completely different and horse racing is just one of many sports vying for the punters pound.

Love them or hate them and I have to confess I am no fan of bookmakers, they are canny operators. Most have moved offshore to maximise returns and decrease their Levy liabilities and who can blame them for that. Most are shareholder owned businesses and they have a legal obligation to ensure maximum returns for investors.

To “protect” the Levy they made voluntary payments from the offshore betting and, culpably, racings leaders rolled over without a fight.

If offshoring was not enough to fatally damage the Levy then the introduction of the betting exchanges really threw everything into disarray.

Bookmakers complained because, overnight, their monopoly on laying had disappeared. No longer did they have exclusive access to and were able to utilise insider knowledge to make a killing.

Of course the bookmakers cried foul, saying individuals can benefit from inside knowledge, not known to the public at large.

That complaint is, of course, somewhat disingenuous as bookmakers have for years made use of information not generally available to the general public. Whether the information comes from schmoozing connections or, more sinisterly, overlooking defaulted accounts in return for information.

But of course the real objection the bookmakers have to the exchanges is it has hit their bottom line and profit.

For all their faults bookmakers are run by accountants who know exactly what they are doing.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the BHA.

It only needs a quick read through the CV’s of the BHA board of Directors to realise how weak it is and what little grasp of running a multi-million pound business there is.

Far too many of the Executive are racing insiders with no experience of running a major business. With all due respect to the individuals concerned how can a former trainer, formster and TV pundit, Clerk Of the Course and Cop as well as other lifelong racing insiders effectively control a multi-million pound enterprise?

Even those bought in from outside the industry do little to inspire confidence with only Paul Roy boasting any credible experience and that is only in merchant banking.

Even the Finance Director’s only previous experience was effectively as a departmental head of finance within the BBC – not the perfect financial model for horseracing.

With such a weak management structure it is little wonder the wiz kids n the bookmaking fraternity are able to run rings around the BHA.

Of course the lack of significant “real world” business expertise amongst the BHA executive is only part of their problem.

More significant are the other vested interests pulling in different directions. From the Racecourse Association (RCA) representing the racecourses, through to the Horseman’s Group representing trainers and the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA) representing owners. All of whom have differing and often contradictory agendas.

With such a fragmented industry, full of self interested bodies, it is actually a wonder racing has actually survived as long as it has.

Now it is approaching decision time.

The focus on next years fixture list centres around the 250 BHA funded meetings, of which 150 are in doubt.

The 16 fixtures allocated to Ffos Las, as a new course are safe, which is a relief as without them the course would not have been sustainable and it may well have followed that great white elephant Great Leighs although, unlike Great Leighs, Ffos Las is a course which deserves to succeed.

The main reduction will be at weekends with funding for four Saturday and two Sunday meetings each weekend. I agree with the four meetings on a Saturday but would prefer to see three meetings on a Sunday at the cost of having a blank midweek day, say having Mondays (apart from Bank Holidays) as blank days.

Of the surviving BHA funded meetings even some of these are in doubt as most of the meetings are the all-weather twilight meetings and these will only be allowed if the courses can guarantee an average prize fund of £3,000 a race, a sum significantly more than is on offer now. Better still, bearing in mind these meetings are run for the benefit of the bookmakers, perhaps the bookmakers should fully fund them.

In my view a reduction of 150 meetings in 2011is nowhere near enough. This equates to an approximate 10% reduction in fixtures against a drop in predicted revenue of around 50% ….. even a a grasp of basic schoolboy mathematics (or as I believe it is called now – numeracy) will tell you the figures will not add up.

There needs to be a greater drop in the number of fixtures and if that means racecourses having to close or the number of horses in training and the number of trainers operating being reduced then so be it.

Sure there will be posturing saying the industry could not survive such cuts, that is a parochial view. Is it not better to have a smaller more efficient industry than no industry at all, which is what will happen if drastic action is not taken.

In all other industries and walks of life drastic cuts are having to be made, racing should not be an exception. Yet one is left with the strong impression racings rulers think the problems can be addressed with the application of a sticking plaster rather than drastic surgery.

Perhaps it would be a good thing if racing as we currently know it failed. It would be painful but it would also give the opportunity for a new, leaner, better managed sport to emerge.

Personally I would like to see the sport run on the Hong Kong model, where all aspects of the sport are run and controlled centrally. There would be a Tote monopoly with all profits being returned to the sport. Broadcast rights would be managed more efficiently and professionally.

It is absolutely absurd and a damning inditement on the ability of the sports management that the sport actually ends up paying a broadcaster to cover the sport.

In the short term the 2011 fixture list should be cut to a maximum of 1,000 fixtures.

I have just spent a week away from racing and have survived it reasonably well, although the week off was far from relaxing.

It was also bought home the nothing should be taken for granted.

My final days racing before my break was Shergar Cup day at Ascot, another successful renewal of the contest with the atmosphere not even spoiled by the showery weather.

The excitement lasted all afternoon with neither the team, nor jockeys title being decided until the final race.

Indeed, going into the final race, any one of the four teams could, mathematically, win the contest. Although, realistically, it was a two horse (or should that be two team) race with Ireland and Europe battling for the final honours.

Europe won the final contest but with Ireland finishing in three of the points winning positions they ensured sufficient points to claim the title and Fran Berry’s second gave him enough points to win the riders title, prompting him to say “I have never been so pleased to ride a second.”

There was, however, a dark cloud over the meeting and it wasn’t from the weather. Shortly before racing news began to filter through that this years wonder horse, Harbinger, had suffered a career, possibly life, threatening injury.

Here was a horse who had astounded the packed Ascot stands with an awesome performance in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes just two week earlier. Now his career was about to end.

In a moment his canon bone suffered a hairline fracture, ending a career in an instant. He left good memories but also left unanswered the question, how much better could he have been.

At least he did not pay the ultimate price and he can, hopefully, look forward to a future at stud.

The fragility of life and how everything can be changed in an instant was re-enforced less than 48 hours later.

On Monday afternoon I received a text from my nephew in Australia saying he and his wife, who is English, would be returning to the UK in the next couple of days as his father-in-law had passed away.

The news was completely unexpected and a shock to all, even worse for my nephews wife being the other side of the world and unable to get back to her family quickly.

Her father was a lovely man, a gentleman in every sense of the word.

He had parked his car opposite his place of work and was about to cross the road when he collapsed and died. No inclinations of ill health, it just happened – he was only sixty.

In a split second his whole families life was turned upside down, never to be the same again.

The above also tie in, loosely, with my week off and that too has an indirect racing connection.

Each August my parents come and stay with us for a week. It gives them a complete change of scenery and it gives my Mum a complete break as she is not allowed to lift a finger or do anything when they are here.

Normally we spend the week going on day trips but these were to be limited this year as my Dad, sadly, is in failing health so long days out were out of the question.

I did have one very special treat in store for him though.

I know we have had glorious weather in the past few weeks and it is easy to forget just how bad the weather was back last January and early February, when racing was decimated.

All-weather racing did come to the rescue but I don’t know about you, there is only so much AW racing I can take so I had to find something else to fill in the time, so I decided to work on my family tree.

I don’t come from a huge family. My mother was an only child and neither her maternal Aunt or Uncle had any children. On Dad’s side he had a elder sister but had lost touch many years ago.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I managed to trace the family back six generations in the three weeks I worked on the research.

More importantly I actually managed to track down my cousins on my fathers side and, even better, discovered his sister was still alive.

I visited my cousins and met my aunt for the first time since I was a baby (and believe me that was an awful long time ago) – it was before man in space, indeed even before the first satellite had been launched. Before jet passenger aircraft. Dad had not seen his sister for, at least, 44 years.

My cousins and I then decided we needed to get Dad and his sister together again.

Plans were progressing well but then had to be put on hold when Dad became ill. The biggest problem my parents live on the South Coast and his sister and her family live up North.

Anyway we decided to try and aim to arrange the meeting for when my parents were staying with us and we decided the best compromise would be to meet halfway between my house and theirs.

A look at the map showed Wolverhampton to be an almost half-way house.

We seriously considered Horizons Restaurant at Wolverhampton races but the only meeting last week was on Monday afternoon and it did not fit in with everyone’s schedule.

We decided to aim for Wednesday and a well known rose gardens just north of Wolverhampton.

The meeting was in doubt until the actual day but luckily Dad was having one of his good days on Wednesday and we set off.

Neither Dad or his sister, nor indeed my Mother, knew what was in store that day. All they knew is they were going to visit some rose gardens.

We arrived about ten minutes before the northern party, indeed they drove past us as we were walking in from the car park but Dad was oblivious to the discrete wave my wife and I gave them as they drove past.

The meet was contrived by us walking into the gardens then doubling back before “accidentally” bumping into one another in the gardens.

When they finally met it took a few seconds for the penny to drop but there were then soon tears all round and the plan had come to fruition.

All the worries and sleepless nights had been worth it.

We had a table for twelve booked in the restaurant and to see 85-year-old Dad and his 90-year-old sister sitting at the table holding hands, and with huge grins on their faces was absolutely priceless.

I am so pleased we have managed to get Dad and his sister together again after all these years and we all hope we can get them together again soon.

I know I really moaned and complained when all the racing was cancelled back in January and February – now I am so, so glad it was – it has resulted is something very special – something money could not have bought.

Goodwood Glorious?

Well as I mentioned in last weeks epistle I was making my first ever visit to Glorious Goodwood last Tuesday.

Was it worth it? Did it live up to the hype?

Sadly the answer to both was a resounding no.

The one positive is I managed to get to the course avoiding the worse of the traffic, entirely due to Lee McKenzie’s route which he has been using, probably, more years than either of us would care to remember.

In hindsight I should have turned back as soon as I arrived at the course as what laid in wait was evident in the car park. There is usually a large amount of free space in the car park that is assigned for members of the press. When I arrived, over two hours before the first race, it was almost full to capacity.

Indeed I was asked to park towards the outer extremities and was requested to reverse into a parking space with my boot as close to the tree trunk as possible. Sounds easy but the manoeuvre entailed reversing up a somewhat steep slope, which meant a somewhat fast approach, with a rapid stop as the tree trunk loomed. To add drama to the parking there was a distinct burning aroma coming from my clutch as I reversed up the slope.

Walking through the car park I was confronted by a sea of cars with the distinctive blue “P” label in the windscreen, indicating a lady or gentleman of the press being the owner of the car.

My worse fears were realised when I finally arrived in the press room, which at Goodwood is not insignificant in size. Not only was every space taken, people were crammed in almost three to every two places.

Needless to say most of the seats were occupied by people who wouldn’t normally be seen dead at a run of the mill midweek meeting.

Realising how impossible it was going to be, I stopped a bemused (and also deskless) John Hunt and asked to borrow his Racing Post to see if there was another meeting I could get to. Alas the only other meetings were Beverley, Perth and Worcester and even my driving is not that fast.

Just as I was about to slink off, somebody produced some more chairs. Accepting I wasn’t going to get any desk space I found a pitch next to the photocopier, which had the bonus of a spare power socket so I could plug in my laptop, and made my home there for the afternoon.

I managed to grab a few newspapers to rest my laptop on so I didn’t get second degree burns as it rested on my legs. At least I was able to file reports on the racing.

I had always been led to believe that Glorious Goodwood had something of a special atmosphere. To be honest the atmosphere was little different to any other Goodwood meeting.

Now don’t get me wrong, the atmosphere at Goodwood is always pretty special but I was disappointed that the atmosphere at the Glorious meeting wasn’t even better.

Of course one thing which cannot be faulted is the quality of the racing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We are coming to the end of the concert season for racecourses. It now seems obligatory for courses to hold at least one post-racing concert a season.

Some like Newmarket, Epsom and Haydock are turning it into a cottage industry.

It used to be that virtually every concert was by a tribute band and, even now, tribute bands form the core of the post racing fare.

Increasingly headline acts are also performing and JLS have performed at more than one post racing concert this season.

There is no doubt the concerts get bums on seats and racecourses will have attendance figures they can only dream of in other circumstances.

But are these concerts actually any good for racing?

When the tribute bands perform admission prices generally remain the same or attract a small premium.

When the “headline” bands perform prices go through the roof. Newmarket have been charging £32 for their Newmarket Nights concerts, Epsom have been charging £32 and Sandown £35. Even children, usually admitted free, are being charged admission.

Well the courses are selling out most concert nights, so from their point of view they will consider the exercise a success, especially when you add on extra bar and food income as well.

However these meetings do nothing to attract those who just want to go for the racing.

In the last week I have been to three meetings with bands performing Sandown (Razorlight) at £35, Epsom (Madness) £32 and Newmarket (James Morrison) £32, yet on all three evenings the actual racing was what can only be described as absolutely dire.

The dedicated racegoers, with no interest in the concert, cannot be expected to pay over £30 for six low grade races.

Also how many of those going to the racing a) actually bother to watch the racing and b) will go racing again in future?

There is also another issue and that concerns horse welfare. I wasn’t at Epsom the week before last when JLS were performing but by all accounts the course was packed with pre-pubescent and teenage girls screaming their heads off, not only during the concerts but during racing.

There were genuine concerns the screaming could have spooked the horses.

If racecourses want to become concert venues as well as racetracks then all well and good – but why not keep the two separate?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I get very annoyed when the armchair critics start criticising commentators and I am quick to defend the men who call the horses.

Asides from the jockeys they have one of the most difficult jobs at the racecourse.

The quality of commentating in the UK has never been higher and, thankfully, mistakes are few and far between. The trouble is when mistakes are made there is no hiding place for the perpetrator.

Even the best commentator can have a bad race.

At the last Ascot meeting Richard Hoiles, arguably the best current commentator, almost missed Frankie Dettori ploughing a lone furrow against the stands rail …. It wasn’t only Richard who missed it, so did the cameraman, director and those of us watching from the press balcony, so mistakes can happen.

However, occasionally, there are mistakes that commentators make which are inexcusable and that relates to not doing their homework and getting the basic facts right.

At Newmarket on Friday evening the commentator was also doubling up as the course MC, something I thought they were not meant to do. He seemed more concerned about “entertaining” the crowd than concentrating on his commentating duties.

In one of the contests there was an odds-on runner, so very likely to be involved in the contest. Throughout the commentary he referred to the horse as “he” yet the favourite was one of two fillies in the contest.

That is a basic error and an unforgivable one, it almost shows contempt for the listeners …… “I can’t be bothered to do even basic research.”

OK it is not as bad as calling a wrong horse and nobody died but it was sloppy and a very basic mistake.

I know, for example, Richard highlights the fillies in yellow on his racecard and I believe most of the other commentators do the same or something very similar. So it isn't rocket science.