And Another Thing

September 2008

Horse Racing and Jockey tactics

FOUR ITEMS dominate the Racing Post today. Three of them represent the dark side of our game in my view. By that I don’t mean to infer they are concerned with skulduggery, more that they are rather like the idiot who moons from the back of a coach when you are driving home after a long hard day losing money at the office. It is just the time when the last thing you want to see it a white bottom staring implacably at you. I have a mirror and a bottom so I know what one looks like. On a scale of one to ten, on the basis that by giving it a zero you are stating looking at one is no worse than say, someone urinating through your letter-box, my bottom – pretty standard as they go – would be worth no more than a rating of one. So I can’t see why I would want to see anyone else’s, unless it happened to belong to J Lo. Following a male bottom along the motorway when I am tired and wondering whether to cook dinner or stop somewhere is not my idea of a laugh. It is enough to make you want to branch off at a service station and pay a tenner for a plate of steak and kidney and chips as cold as a can of Fosters.

So item one… The BHA are to quiz Johhny Murtagh and Aidan O’Brien over the allegation of team tactics. We all know the story and frankly, it is boring. Aidan O’Brien trains for the most successful racing empire in recent years. They have won an unprecedented number of Group Ones this year – is it eighty-six or sixty-eight I have lost count? In most of these, they have installed a pacemaker to ensure the races in question did not develop into three-furlong sprints and because horses like Duke Of Marmalade are bred to race over ten furlongs. On the assumption that the Duke’s rivals are similarly bred, you would have thought the inclusion of a horse that is going to make it a true gallop would be something approaching a boon to all concerned. The problem comes when the field approach the point at which the pacemaker is tiring and begins to drop back. In fact, pacemakers have a habit of dropping like a stone through water from about three furlongs out. According to the BHA – a body on all known evidence that seems to be no further down the racing line of education than the equivalent of someone sitting his GCSE’s, – Johnny Murtagh instructed Colm O’Donoghue on Red Rock Canyon to ease off the rail and let him through on Duke Of Marmalade in the Juddmonte International.

Oh Dear! Oh Dear! Is it necessary to make a meal out of this? Opposing jockeys are not clueless. The race was run over Newmarket’s July course, which, in case the BHA needs reminding, is essentially straight. It is not as if O’Donoghue was in the process of spinning off a rail and taking fancied runners wide. And the practice of jockeys calling for room happens in nearly every race every day. What we don’t want is the BHA trying to clamp down on the one outfit that has lifted an otherwise pretty drab Flat racing season from being just that – flat! What if Messrs Magnier, Tabor and Smith suddenly called time and decided, having lost their one-time stable jockey Keiren Fallon as a result of this body, that they would prefer to take their empire to America, which is a lot closer to Barbados and Sandy Lane where they spend a good deal of their time? Not very likely, but this is hassle they do not need. Put your trousers back on BHA and see if you can find any cans of Stella in the jockeys’ changing rooms.

Next, jockeys are angling for more money in riding fees. They say they are not earning enough. Note this money is for riding fees. They want some sort of sliding scale based on the importance of the race they are riding in. What if they cock it up? Can the owner push for a substantial refund due to negligence? The current riding fee is a £100 a shot. The average Flat jockey rides between seven hundred and a thousand horses a year. Assuming none of them win, that means he grosses between £70,000 and £100,000 per annum. But even Henry Puffington-Smythe would have to ride a few winners if he got that amount of rides, meaning, taking into account his percentage for so doing, he could expect to earn anything up to a quarter of a million pounds. I am sorry if that is not enough. Yes, we all know that Bruce Springsteen gets that for playing Madison Square and Wembley but, I am not sure anyone wants to pay up to two hundred pounds to watch the Hills brothers on guitars, Jimmy Fortune on bass and Richard Hughes on lead vocals. And it is no good comparing racing with football because football generates more money. When England plays at Wembley, the attendance can easily reach 70,000. When was the last time spectators reached a third of that figure at Newmarket or Ascot? Maybe during Royal Week Ascot comes close, but 70,000 or more is unheard of. Being a jockey is a highly skilled job and one most mortals would make a complete pig’s ear of if they tried it. But the same applies to surgeons and bricklayers. Each to his own. Jockeys riding in the better races are lucky to be in with a chance of carving a slice of a huge pot. So long as they don’t follow the O’Brien pacemaker, on the law of averages, there is a good chance that most of them will do so at least once a year.

One jockey that is a breath of fresh air at present is Hayley Turner. She gives a cute girly interview in the Post today. She is cute but she is no ordinary girl. Even wizened curmudgeons like me have to grudgingly admit she is rather good. In fact she is better than rather good, she is top class. She might be a girl but somehow she can galvanise a horse as well as any man and she is the exception that disproves the rule. She is also very likeable, a bit of a pin-up and, yes, she deserves her success.

Back to the dark side of the moon: Today we have mammoth fields at Redcar and Goodwood. The racing seems to start at lunchtime and just keeps going, a bit like that dance competition that goes to the couple that are the last to remain on the dance floor. I am not so sure I want to be shuffling around for such a long time listening to racing presenters wish me good luck with my selections – unless we all back the same horses, we can’t all have good luck now can we. And during this mammoth event they will be trying to get me excited over events this weekend. Look, never mind about Ascot, let’s get today over with first shall we?

As for today, you start looking at the cards with the best of intentions but end up with the conclusion that only the names have changed. We can all come up with a 6/4 shot: Latin Tinge ought to win the 6.20 at Kempton having finished behind Rainbow View last time but from her draw; it is not a foregone conclusion. Redcar makes about as much sense as a newspaper article written in Mandarin. Goodwood poses the sort of questions that have bookmakers rubbing their hands and phoning their travel agents. There are too many unraced hoses on the card, the fields are too big, too crammed with moderate horses and when we get to the Listed event (assuming we are still vertical) we have seven runners who make a living out of taking the proverbial. Well, I take that back as Many Volumes seems straightforward although he has had a long season. They say Purple Moon needs the run – after a year off that seems reasonable – but as a course winner, he could still surprise. We are told Meydan City will be better over this shorter trip but in my opinion his form needs improving upon anyway. Tranquil Tiger will only win if he feels like it, so maybe some compensation for his consistency awaits Pinpoint. Maybe not; I don’t know! Thumbs Up should win the 4.55 but at 6/4 so what?

Now I do give Riverscape a chance in the 5.30. From a mark of 76, dropped to a more suitable trip and trained locally, he should be okay on this fairground ride of a track. But of course there is a catch. He has not run for forty-two days, so where has he been? Perhaps he has been on his annual holidays. Maybe he has the representation of a good lawyer, hassling on his behalf for an extra portion of oats before he makes his next appearance.