CAN FLAT RACING SURVIVE UNDER THE BHA?

[richard]

I’m prompted to put this question by the John Gosden interview in the RP, which didn’t come any near to what he said in an interview in the October issue of Thouroughbed Owner and Breeder. I’m sorry I can’t post a link to that , but here are a couple of quotes:

In response to: how quickly do you think racing has to move on this ( change and re-strucure the fixture list) the response was:
"I think it is in terminal decline right now, I think it is that bad….. we have got one year to 18 months to re-structure this fixture list… or we are just a marginalised game of the past"

And in response to: is this a message which is understood by racing’s leadership?:
"No, i don’t think they get it, I find them too detached, there are too many people who do not understand racing"

I wouldn’t want to to take anything he said out of context and would recommend anyone who is interested to read the article to form their own views. But from my point of view as an owner and someone who first went racing as a nine year old fifty years ago, I think he is dead right.

For too long has the BHA been the executive arm of the off course bookies, for too long have they assumed that most owners are bfs who will continue to pay large training sums with little prospect of noticeable financial return and for too long have they assumed that betting shop punters will happily lose the more through the increase in unfathomable low class racing the BHA provides. One example, It’s noticeable I think that the likes of McNae and Luck can’t even take the Kempton BAGS racing seriously, even though they are paid to promote it.

In my view, the BHA are not fit for purpose. Can they change? Or is the only way to resurrect flat racing to clear out the current mob and set up a BHA structure whereby the industry: owners , trainers, breeders, racecourse run racing, rather than a self appointed and self serving, unaccountable elite?
Can that change even be brought about?

If it isn’t brought about , then in my view, JH is spot on, flat racing is going to hell in a handbasket as the Yanks would say. We’ll be left with a small clique of international owners competing in pattern races (if they want to bother with the UK) and low level bookmaker paid for races, not much left in the middle.

I post this, not as a rant, but a someone who is an avid racing fan and who, as a relatively modest owner, talks to other ownes of the same ilk and would hate to see flat racing be destroyed by the BHA, which it will be if they don’t wake up and change tack.

richard

[Cav]

One question, Richard. Why did you get involved in racehorse ownership and what financial recompense did you expect back from the sport before you got involved? Thks.

[Drone]

I’d suggest that the lack of replies thus far to your questions is due to them being discussed on TRF – without the Gosden angle admittedly –

ad nauseam

in the recent past

For what little it’s worth I’ve come to the conclusion that we should just let nature take its course and let old lady racing’s heart fail without preventitive adipose removal undertaken by unskilled, unpracticed and unqualified surgeons who can’t differentiate a flabby belly from a healthy round rump.

Once dead and summarily cremated we can look forward to a young lean nymph springing from the ashes, after no doubt a lengthy period ruminating ‘if only’

[Glenn]

The only way to go with The Rabble in charge is to sell stocks in racing and buy the following:

Mothercare Shares

Yorkshire Water Shares

Phones 4 U (Nicosia branch) shares

[robnorth]

Well, it managed to survive a couple of hundred years being run by the Jockey Club! I can’t beleive anybody would ocntend that the BHA is step down from the JC.

Rob

[Author]

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