Racing Quango

I am writing this on Monday 11th October 2010.

Yes I know it isn’t the usual thing to begin an item with the specific date it is being written, however in this case it is significant.

Earlier this morning I popped over to our local supermarket, the one where the colour orange predominates. It is a modern supermarket with two floors of underground parking and some snazzy moving walkways to whisk you from the car parking to the store itself.

I was half way to the store when I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, I was hallucinating surely?

But I wasn’t – looming in front of me was a 12’ tall, fully decorated Christmas tree.

There was worse to come, when I reached the shop floor the entire supermarket was festooned with Christmas decorations and, yes, it is only October 11th

Christmas seems to be beginning earlier every year.

OK I know winter is approaching as the evenings are getting darker noticeably earlier.

Also this weekend heralds, what for many is the traditional start to winter, Cheltenham’s first meeting of the season.

This weekend also sorts out the National Hunt followers from the flat followers as Newmarket hosts Champions Day, or at least the last Champions Day in its current format.

This year, as in previous years, it is a no brainer as to where I will be this weekend – it will be amongst the rolling hills of the Cotswolds rather than the open plains of Suffolk / Cambridge.

Although actually it isn’t quite true about it being a no brainer as, originally, I was not going to either. It was going to be a week long holiday, taking in Amsterdam and Brussels.

However with both sets of parents giving us assorted health concerns we have decided to remain in the UK. So Cheltenham it is.

Next year, however, it will be a major dilemma as to where I will be.

Next year Cheltenham’s first meeting of the season will not clash with a Champions Day in name only it will (no pun intended) be clashing with the Real McCoy, the new all singing, all dancing Champions Day at Ascot, featuring Britain’s most valuable card ever staged.

Part of the Racing For Change initiative it is designed to provide a fitting end to the flat turf season and, in theory, I have no great issue with the initiative.

However I do have a couple of concerns with regards the timing.

Firstly is it the most intelligent planning decision to have such a major fixture on the same day the jumping season has its first major fixture?

Some, but not all, racegoers are polarised into the flat and NH camps. There are many like both codes equally, or almost equally. For people like me, having two big, contrasting, meetings on the same day will produce a major dilemma as to which meeting to attend.

I have a suspicion I may have to compromise and do Cheltenham on the Friday and Ascot on the Saturday.

My other concern, and it is one I have touched on previously, is the proximity of the meeting to the Arc meeting at Longchamp.

For me we already have a championship day here in Europe, held the first Sunday in October where Longchamp stage six Group One races – culminating in the Prix de l’Arc deTriomphe.

Could having the British Champions Day just 13 days after Longchamp end up diminishing both?

Part of the fixture changes relate to having a “narrative” throughout the season, to this end a champions series of races has been formulated.

To me it looks suspiciously like the ill-starred Sovereign Series in just another guise.

More worryingly a new company called British Champions’ Series Limited (BCS) is being created to oversee the marketing and media rights for the entire series.

Is this not an incredible waste of money and does it not add yet another level of unnecessary administration into a sport which is already bloated with far too many vested interests.

Frankly the industry should be looking at rationalising not further fragmentation.

By creating BCS are the powers that be suggesting Racing Enterprises, who are supposed to be marketing the sport are not capable of marketing the Champions’ Series.

Or is it yet another example of unnecessary expense to line the pockets of the marketeers?

Another criminal waste of money along the lines of Racing For Change, money that could be better spent, for example, on prize money.

Looking at Racing For Change, what has all the money invested actually returned.

As far as I can see the only “benefit” I have seen has been the larger number cloths.

We had a week of free racing, by all account well received by courses and punters alike, yet what has happened to that … or are we awaiting responses from focus groups?

Then there was, in my view, the excellent suggestion to look at decimal odds. In the end there was a half-hearted “experiment” at one meeting, which was doomed to failure.

One enduring, and I mean enduring in the painful sense, aspect of Racing For Change is the “enhanced” on-course presentation. Usually hosted by Derek Thompson, Matt Chapman or, for reasons which defy all logical explanation, James McQuillan.

These are aimed to enhance the racegoing experience – take it from me they don’t, for every person the approach attracts you will alienate many more. Choosing two of the most Marmite characters in racing, Derek Thompson and Matt Chapman, for these presentation roles is a short sighted decision.

Those who like them will accept what is happening, those who do not will be alienated and driven away. Unlike the television where you can press the mute button or switch off, on-course the only escape is to go home.

It seems Matt Chapman has been employed to host Towcester TV, making his first appearance last Wednesday.

Now if you meet Matt when he is not near a microphone he is a pleasant, personable enough chap.

Put a microphone in his hand and I am afraid his ego takes over and he becomes unbearable. His performance at Towcester was, to say the very least, excruciating last Wednesday and, despite it being my local course and very convenient for me, I’m afraid I shall not be returning to Towcester as long as Matt is doing the course presentation.

Perhaps racing should take a note from the coalition Government who are cutting back on Quango’s – perhaps racing should begin the cull with Racing For Change and, even better still, put BCS out of its misery before it even sees the light of day.

Catch Up Time

This week I thought I would revisit some of my recent musings.

A few weeks ago I was making the point, regarding the mooted 150 cut in the 2011 fixture list, it would not be enough and a cut of around 500 fixtures would be required if the sport was to become financially viable.

Last week the 2011 fixture list was finally published and what did we see, a cut of 23 fixtures after, it seems, racings rulers caved into pressure from the Horseman’s Group, one of the many self-interested faction sin racing, who seem to lack either the ability, desire or intellect to see the parlous state the industry is in.

Can racing really survive with the current levels of prize money?

As I write this I am on my way to Newcastle races where three of the contests offer first prize money around the £1,500 mark, yet the BHA are saying courses should be aiming for a £3,000 minimum – why is this being allowed to happen.

Those who disagree with me will point out these low value races are oversubscribed. That’s as maybe but they are oversubscribed by frankly useless horses, who should not be seen on a racecourse.

The 2011 fixture list is not all bad, there are some good initiatives coming from it.

I like the idea of season Champions Day and especially at Ascot rather than Newmarket. My one reservation is the timing as it looks to be planned too close to Arc weekend, which is fast becoming the fitting climax to the European season. It is a pity the BHA have seemingly ignored French concerns.

I also like the idea of weekend Premier fixtures, providing a focus for weekend racing.

I would however like to take the initiative a step further.

I would like to see a two tier system of racing in this country.

The top tier would roughly equate to the current Class 3 or better with the lower tier the current Class 4 and lower.

The top tier fixtures would be fully funded. There would be at least one top tier fixture each day from Wednesday to Sunday, with a minimum of two each Saturday and Sunday. In addition there would be a minimum of two top tier fixtures on a Bank Holiday. Provision would also be allowed to retain existing Monday or Tuesday Festivals.

There would be additional top tier meetings allocated subject to a) sufficient funding and b) sufficient horses in the population.

For the tier two meetings there would be one half-funded meeting every day with two scheduled Monday and Tuesday’s.

Other tier two meetings could be scheduled but they would have to be fully funded by the racecourses and / or bookmakers.

Opponents of a wholesale slashing of the fixture list point to the knock on effects in terms of trainers going out of business and the associated job losses.

Whilst such losses may be distressing at a personal level, it should not be a reason not to introduce such swinging changes.

Nobody has a God given right to be in business as a racehorse trainer, the racing industry should be subject to the same financial constraints as the rest of the world. If a business is not viable then it has no right to survive.

If a training establishment cannot be viable then it should shut down.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It seems I managed to upset the Racing Welfare Charity when I railed against James McQuillan’s performance at their fund raising day at Huntingdon on August Bank Holiday Monday.

In one comment it was implied that by criticising McQuillan I was also criticising their fund raising efforts.

Let me put on record here and now I have the utmost respect for the work carried out by Racing Welfare and I wish them every success in all their fund raising ventures, which are for a worthy cause and I would encourage anybody with an interest in racing to support them.

They also pointed out that McQuillan provided his services for free at Huntingdon that day. For that he is to be applauded, although I would expect anybody providing a service for a charity to provide their time for free.

The worthiness of the cause nor the “celebrity” providing their services free of charge does not, however, change my view that McQuillan is wholly unsuited to carry out MC duties at any racecourse, regardless of whether it is a charity day or not.

Racing Welfare also tell me they had more positive than negative feedback regarding McQuillan’s performance …. It would be interesting to see the demographic breakdown of those commenting. How many of the positive comments came from those who were really interested in the actual racing.

If he was fund raising at a village féte or at an event away from an actual race meeting then, by all means, use him.

There people are attending an event, in this case a horse racing meeting, where the charity fundraising is secondary to the main event, then those attending should not be subjected to such asinine utterings … especially when the onslaught was relentless.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I also mention my attempt to visit all the UK racecourses in 2010, which floundered when transportation issues thwarted a trip to Redcar.

With two further Redcar meetings scheduled it was still theoretically possible to complete the “full set” but other events have now prevented the achievement.

Ironically the course that finally prevented the goal being achieved was Perth, ironically one of the courses I also failed to visit last year.

I was all set to visit their final meeting of the season. My flight was booked, car hire was arranged.

I even went to bed early as the alarm was set for 04:30. A hour into my slumbers the phone rang, the type of call one always dreads, to hear my Father had just been taken into hospital.

So that finally was the end of the full set quest for 2010.

I don’t think I will bother in 2011.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This weekend is the Arc meeting in Paris and it is fast becoming one of my favourite meetings of the year. Not only do we have the Arc itself but the undercard is now beginning to ooze class.

It was a close shave this year. Normally obtaining Press accreditation for the Arc has been a relatively simple process. You wrote to France Galop in July and you received confirmation within ten days.

This year, due to demand exceeding availability, they introduced an online system for requesting accreditation, with a closing date of mid-September.

All well and good but decisions regarding accreditation were not made until after the closing date, which means accreditation was only confirmed in the last fortnight. Somewhat difficult when there are flights and hotels to book.

Last weekend at Ascot there were some very illustrious correspondents complaining there were, at this late stage, no hotel rooms available in Paris for Arc weekend.

One often sees caravans parked up in the Bois de Boulogne and I understand the owners are very “accommodating” – perhaps some of the hacks could stay there.

Dumbing Down

Is it me or has Racing For Change quietly disappeared?

After the brash fanfares and bold promises, what has it delivered?

Well we had the week of free racing earlier in the year, which by all accounts was an overwhelming success but an initiative that does not seem to have been followed up.

We had the half-hearted attempt at experimenting with decimal odds, an experiment so flawed it was doomed to failure from the start.

They wanted to de-mystify the “archaic” announcements at racecourses – yet the announcements are more or less the same.

The resolution of photo finishes were going to be shown on the big screen, in real time – that hasn’t happened.

As is often the case hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on highly paid consultants yet there is precious little to show for it at the end of the day. Even more annoying is even better initiatives could have been achieved by putting a group of “ordinary” racegoers in a room and having a brainstorming session.

There is, however, one effect of Racing For Change and it is not a good one – the raceday “experience” is being dragged down and it is being done single handedly by one man – one James McQuillan.

“Who is James McQuillan?” I hear you ask – indeed!!!

In case you have forgotten or never even watched the program he was the goofy, stupid one in the 2009 series of The Apprentice.

I first came across him at a racecourse when he was a “guest” at a Kempton family day … harmless fun and he was the first to admit when interviewed that he knew nothing about horse racing. A seemingly insignificant interview and a harmless bit of banter which may be of passing interest to those with an interest in “celebrity”.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when I next visited Kempton Park to find him actually fronting the CCTV presentation, a task that was normally done, quite ably by Anthony Kemp.

Now this presentation includes previewing the races amongst other things and to his credit Mr Kemp often came up with some decent priced winners. The presentation from Mr McQuillan was somewhat different – it was more banal chat and his idea of tipping is summed up thus:-

“I haven’t a clue about the form in this race but I see xxxxxxx is in lovely pink colours, so that is our tip.”

Roll on to August bank Holiday Monday at Huntingdon, always a bumper crowd and it was charity day with funds being raised for Racing Welfare, a good cause and absolutely no problems with charity fund raising at a family race meeting.

They also arranged for some very spurious “world record” attempts – as I said very spurious but harmless fun in an attempt to raise much needed funds for a good racing charity.

However Huntingdon had also bought in the aforementioned James McQuillan to be the racecourse presenter for the afternoon.

It was the most cringe worthy, embarrassing effort it has ever been my misfortune to hear at a racecourse.

There was an attempt to get as many jump jockeys in a mini car.

OK some of the more obscure jump jockeys are difficult to identify by seasoned racegoers, yet McQuillan could not even identify the more well known ones. Even after asking Dougie Costello who he was he still managed to get his name wrong.

That was the least of his mistakes.

He clearly loves the sound of his own voice as he hardly shut up all afternoon. If he wasn’t making inane comments, he was trying to chat up some of the female racegoers but his performance really plumbed the depths when he compared the John McCririck lookalike competition. I am not even give his comments the oxygen of publicity – suffice to say had I not been working I would probably have walked out and gone home, never to return.

If this is what Racing For Change mean by enhancing the raceday experience then I will hang up my binoculars now.

Derek Thompson gets a lot of stick for his raceday presentations but on Monday even his harshest critics were wanting him to take over the microphone. For all his faults Tommo does, at least, know something about racing.

Continuing on the theme of dumbing down.

I try to attend most of the big racing festivals but one I deliberately avoid is the York August festival. Yes it is great racing but I have to admit York is a course I hate with a vengeance.

Actually I should perhaps qualify that – I actually like the course, very much. It is the racegoers I really dislike – York is definitely a drinkers track and, sadly, far too many racegoers attend, not for the racing, but to pour as much alcohol down their throats as possible. Consequently by the end of the afternoon there is always an unpleasant edge to proceedings.

As I said though the racing itself is top quality and is certainly the highlight of the flat season in the north.

That week I was attending a couple of evening meetings so I was invariably travelling when the feature races were being run.

Radio Five, whose racing coverage can be sketchy at times, were at least covering the two feature races each afternoon and with the excellent John Hunt calling I, at least, knew I could expect a good description of the races.

One of the big races on the Tuesday was the Juddmonte International, arguably one of the feature races of the week. So as I made my way to Worcester I tuned into Five Live to hear commentary.

One of the runners in the contest was Dick Turpin and, inevitably, the BBC racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght made reference before the race to the demise of the highwayman after whom the horse was named. For those who do not know Turpin, the highwayman, was hanged on the Knavesmire in 1739, somewhere near the current two furlong marker.

No problem there.

The race started and John Hunt was getting into the swing of his commentary and I was forming a decent visual image of shape of the race when, all of a sudden, Lysaght interrupts the commentary.

The interruption was not to discuss some incident of the race but to interject with some meaningless comment about the original Dick Turpin.

What was the point of interrupting the commentary to make a totally irrelevant comment.

Was he trying to show how clever he thinks he is? Or does he just like the sound of his own voice?

He interrupted the entire flow of the commentary and ruined the coverage of the race.

If you enjoy anagrams have a play with Cornelius Lysaght and see what comes up.

Finally on the subject of driving to the races a gripe about motorway services.

We are lucky in the press that we do get fed at the races. What is on offer does vary from a plate of sandwiches to full blown meals, depending on the course. Whatever is offered is appreciated and accepted gratefully.

Obviously when only sandwiches are on offer we need to grab something hot to eat sometime during the day, in my case if I am not home by a decent time I will find somewhere to stop for a bite on the way home.

Yesterday I was at Ripon, where the press room fare was sandwiches, although I did grab a rather tasty portion of chips with curry sauce from the on course fish and chip shop.

I did, however, want something to eat and decided to stop somewhere on the 170 mile drive home.

Usually I will go home a slightly longer way and stop off at an excellent American diner on the A1 near Grantham. However yesterday I was tired and just wanted to get home.

Anyway the motorways were clear so I decided to plug on best I can before stopping.

I eventually stopped at a motorway service station at 8:45, I was hungry and wanted a “comfort” break also.

Having made the comfort stop I then went to get a hot meal, only to be told “we stop serving hot food at 8:30.”

What on earth is up with this country …. are we not expected to eat hot meals when travelling after 8:30 in the evening?

No wonder this country is a mess.