Each week I will tackle a sporting issue and challenge our in-house experts to weigh in. The gloves are off…
There is a line in Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s 2007 masterpiece Hot Fuzz where Paddy Considine, who plays a hapless local policeman, laments “Murder, murder, murder, change the f****ing record!”
While genius in its own context, this comment contains amusing resonance with the British racing news agenda. After some lean frozen weeks of a meagre all-weather diet, it was heartening to see some of the best Jumps horses going toe to toe for the big prizes once more.
Yet, a glance at the racing news would suggest that all is not well. Highclere boss Harry Herbert tells the Racing Post that British racing could be “torn to shreds” by intrusive affordability checks.
Meanwhile on Twitter, a remarkable back and forth ensued between the BHA and the ever-opinionated Matt Chapman around the issue of the new whip regulations and what bans might look like when said rules are implemented.
A glance at the racing news would suggest that all is not well
If that wasn’t enough to stimulate mild despondency, it was then announced that trainer Ronan McNally had been hit with a massive twelve-year disqualification after being found guilty of multiple integrity breaches. A revelation which was immediately followed by a column heavily criticising the ban.
And breathe. If I was an outsider to racing who just so happened to glance at this selection of these stories I would think the racing industry was, to put it mildly, a flaming pile of garbage.
The racing news agenda is unrelentingly negative. While affordability checks do present massive obstacles around which the industry must navigate, and productive discussion regarding the new whip rules is absolutely vital to progress, there are ways of exploring these issues without quite such a catastrophic tone.
Reading racing news is a scratched record. You can switch it off and switch it on again, but no matter where you press play you find yourself lodged in the same despairing cycle.
Where is the positivity? It was a full-throttle quality-laden weekend of racing. According to the Racing Post, a crowd of 21,054 gathered for Cheltenham’s nine-race Trials Day card, the biggest for that meeting since 2017.
You can switch it off and switch it on again, but no matter where you press play you find yourself lodged in the same despairing cycle.
Gold Tweet secured a “dream winner” for French trainer Gabriel Leenders, Supermare Epatante’s win in the Grade 2 Yorkshire Rose Mares’ Hurdle cemented the form of British Racing’s most exciting horse in Constitution Hill, while Edwardstone and Editeur Du Gite slugged it out in an absolute humdinger up the hill in the Clarence House.
On the Flat scene one cannot go a day without hearing about another Billy Loughnane winner. What a remarkable feat it is for the young man to be riding alongside his heroes and beating them.
All that only covers the tangibles. The reality is that much of the theatre of racing is captured in the intangible moments. The pound of hooves flying past, the moment of silence as a fence is cleared, the rising steam off backs of the first lot.
Admittedly it would be a challenge for anyone to aptly capture the joy of such ephemeral threads. But we must try. How, as a sport, can we ever hope to attract newcomers with such an unrelenting agenda of doom?
There is much to fear on the horizon for the sport that we love. But there is value in the present. Let us take a moment to enjoy what we have, to revel in present glories and empower ourselves to peek over the future’s parapet with a bit of optimism.
