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That’s the thing.
It’s one rule for officials, another for participants.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The jockeys and trainers have signed up to compete in a sport which in theory can provide considerable riches, and where the incentive to break the rules is high. Part of the mechanism to prevent this is that they agree to abide by a set of rules where fines and the like are a possibility if they break these rules.
The officials do not have the same potential upside to their jobs, nor the same incentives to deviate from what they are supposed to be doing.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a way to hold the officials to account for messing up, but their situation is vastly different from that of the jockeys and trainers.
This split screen issue in this case seems to be on the doorstep of Epsom (not running to scheduled time) & RTV not applying common sense to go full screen on the Derby, especially when you consider the following comments on what the Irish courses did to accomodate the Derby having a clear run of things:
A 41-minute gap between Listowel’s sixth and seventh race had been designed to give spacing around the world-famous Classic. Listowel Race Company chairman Pat Healy said: “Our secretary’s office had no official correspondence from anyone requesting to delay the start of our seventh race here on Saturday.”
There was also frustration over the move among racegoers and officials at Tramore.
Having scheduled Saturday’s card to begin earlier than usual at 12.45pm, and concluded racing at 4.10pm in order to avoid a clash with the Classic at 4.30pm, Tramore manager Owen Byrne described the incident as “a bit ridiculous”.
Byrne said: “We did everything to try to accommodate the coverage, and I think that’s only right given the race it is – we have no problem rowing in behind it.
“When we go to the trouble of extending our day and broadcasting the race so that people can stay here and watch the Derby – spending more money in doing so – to see it go up as a split-screen was a bit ridiculous.
“I know Listowel needs to have coverage of its race, but at the same time this is the Derby. If there’s going to be a clash, I feel something has to give. We had racegoers asking what was going on with the split-screen.”
Byrne added: “Logistically we had to keep [television services firm] IRIS here for a period of time after racing, and we brought in a large screen for our two days of racing here on Friday and Saturday.
“We don’t typically do that for this meeting, but we brought it in because we wanted people to have a good day and to be able to watch the Derby. It’s just frustrating and I’m sure there’s a way it could be managed. I think people have to be able to react to these things on the ground and roll with it.”
Surely it is about time fines are issued where course fail to meet or get close to start times – we have seen in the past when something has happened and a serious delay has put back race times that by the end of the meeting a lot of time has been made up, so getting a race off on time or a minute or two late shouldn’t be too difficult of an ask.
The Derby was partly delayed by protestors on the track.
But there is always the possibility of the Derby going off late given the parade, the distance they have to go to get to the start (much of it uphill) and all the sights and sounds of Derby Day.
It is hardly surprising some jockeys take their time getting to the start when the stakes are so high and the potential for their horse to boil over is huge.
There should be a 20 minute window either side of the Derby, as suggested on RTV on Sunday.
I can’t believe anyone who knows horses would think letting off fireworks at any point during a race meeting is a good idea.
The fact that the Listowel manager didn’t delay the race until The Derby finished because his office didn’t receive a phone call telling him to,just sums it up for me.
Just sums it up because he didn’t receive a call?
Or
Just sums it up because Listowel should’ve used their own initiative?
Or
Both?Value Is EverythingI would imagine Listowel felt that they had provided sufficient time for the Derby to be run without a clash (probably something that had to be put in place in advance of race day) and in any case I doubt they could just decide off their own backs to delay their own race further without getting the go ahead from the Powers That Be…..who it seems can’t pick up a phone when realising things were (as could be predicted) not running to time.
Once again it shows a lack of fore thought not to have better contingencies in place, at the very minimum they should have someone who has the authority to act on the fly with a direct line of contact to other courses where potential clashes are likely to simply ask for a delay in starting a race……..afterall races clashes isn’t a new problem.
But we are talking about an industry that seems to continually shoot itself in the foot going from one PR blunder to the next…so why would we expect them to be able to sort something out this basic – i.e. making sure that races are actually run to time.
Like a lot of things I won’t be holding my breathe for a fix to be anywhere close to being on the horizon.
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