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Interesting analysis there Ivanjica.
Totally agree that it’s not possible to reach conclusions from small amounts of data and in fairness I think many have suggested that some changes
may
have increased certain types of risk rather than stated it as a fact. We’re all, quite sensibly trying to think of anything that may help to make the race safer. Mick Fitzgerald referred on ATR the other day to the way that the very recent changes to the Becher’s drop may encourage more riders to head for the inside than would have been the case. This may lead to crowding which may lead to more B/Ds if anything makes a mistake. Seems a logical conclusion but there is not yet sufficient data to reach hard and fast conclusions.
Personally I would have thought that the increased quality of participants could also lead to more intense competition in the race for longer periods which could exacerbate crowding and collision risk but I can’t prove that of course.
Increased speed could be an issue but it should also become apparent in terms of race times if there is a correlation. In fairness to those pointing to safety improvements increasing speed the point is not speed alone but speed specifically over these obstacles and the way speed may effect grouping and crowding and collision risk. The idea that other fast run races over fences elsewhere are safer is not really relevant is it? The point is does the National become more dangerous if 40 horses race around Aintree at higher speeds than they used to surely? That’s the point that is made re lowering fences. The argument is specific to this course.
I can’t imagine anybody that follows racing would be surprised to know that the National is considerably more dangerous than other races would they? I would certainly have assumed that the National is the most dangerous race run here by some margin and would have thought that’s obvious to anybody who watches racing. It should also be obvious shouldn’t it that this is the hardest jumping test we set in racing. Again the faller rate being higher can’t be a surprise can it?
The ultimate question is what is an acceptable degree of risk I suppose. The international audience has a huge appetite for the National. But so too does the domestic one and many times more people tuned in to watch the National than watched the Gold Cup. There’s lots of reasons for that of course but that’s a hell of a lot of ground for our next most popular race to make up and the idea that a 10 or 12 runner race at Cheltenham with a 6/4 favourite is going to match the appeal of a 40 runner 10/1 the field thrill fest is optimistic I think.
I agree with you that reducing field size
may
help (I think it will help counteract the increased intensity I think we’re seeing) but would be less sure about shortening the distance improving either safety or the race’s appeal.
Had to chuckle when Gary Wiltshire exclaimed ‘they’re backing everything, what a race!’
The markets are available to punters all morning and with the place concessions and price competition they offer excellent value.
Come the race time the on course market will make hay while the sun shines. There are 70,000 once a year punters on course happy to take any price they offer, for once the ‘machine’ is irrelevant.
Is it cynical profiteering? yes, of course it is but it’s no different to what happens in any other business in any other walk of life. It’s supply and demand. In the morning there is competition. In the run up to the race there isn’t. What would you do? Bet to 1/2% per runner because it’s the right thing to do?Steeplechasing, none of my observations was meant to be personal, I enjoy your contributions to this discussion. They’re clearly well considered.
I’d suggest that maybe it would be helpful to think less about how the RSPCA (& it’s fewer than 40k members) sees, and categorises, things and more about how the layman, the outside world and, most importantly, the law sees things. As I say, there has been one attempted prosecution of a jockey which didn’t even make it to court.
I would be -genuinely – amazed if the RSPCA went after racing on the basis of cruelty in terms of stick use. It would be massively expensive, would split their membership and could destroy their reputation if they failed.
More importantly such a crusade on whip use grounds would, in my view, be wrong and should be countered on the basis of beingwrong
not on the basis of whether or not the argument might be won or lost. Attempts to conduct politics by focus group is what got the BHA into this shambles.
"With just 12 weeks to go until the 2012 John Smith’s Grand National meeting, Aintree Racecourse reported that ticket sales for Grand National Day, Saturday, April 14, remain 16% ahead of sales pace"
"Aintree and John Smith’s have long shared an ambition to see the Grand National carry a £1-million prize fund and I am confident that we will achieve our goal within the lifetime of the new sponsorship agreement.”
"Grand National winner Tony McCoy has been voted the 2010 BBC Sports Personality of the Year.
The 36-year-old has been the champion jump jockey 15 times and becomes the first rider to win the BBC award after claiming 41.98% of the vote."Yep, backs against the wall time.
it would fail because only 1 case was ever brought, where the jockey had already been found guilty of deliberately hitting his horse repeatedly in order to get banned, and that failed to even make it to court.
It would also fail because the implications for all livestock related industries – and don’t forget we’re talking about working livestock here not pets – would be disastrous for the economic wellbeing of the nation.
It would fail because the RSPCA knows all this already and wouldn’t dream of throwing it’s reputation under a truck by trying it. If enough of the lunatics have made it to the top of the asylum for the RSPCA to try it, it will be the end of them as a respectable organisation and their rank and file know that.
Racing is not bloody illegal dog fighting or bear baiting. It’s a massive world class industry with an almost entirely blemish free welfare record and I wish to God some people would stand up for it on that basis. Anyone who thinks it’s anything less has no business being any part of it.
Actually Yeats you’re right. Opinion was more divided on previous tweaks on reflection.
As, I say I hope I’m wrong and that the latest proposals will ‘fix’ the broken rule but logic tells me there is a fundamental issue with attempting to apply discretion regarding offence whilst maintaining a rules and penalty structure based primarily on counts of individual strokes.Corm, I think Bittar is much more open and communicative and receptive than any of his predecessors and that’s a positive. It’s true that knowing who to speak to on behalf of punters is hard but the Racing Post has had two surveys that I know of and ATR has received 1000s of viewers e mails on the subject. People from both organs would be happy to debrief anyone on the views coming through I’m sure.
The latest RP survey shows popular support for the amendments. The jockeys seem to have welcomed them too. I don’t mean to be a gloom monger, and I may be wrong, but every other tweak that has been made got the same positive welcome initially from everyone. Usually, I’m sorry to conclude, because people hadn’t actually thought it through nor grasped the real underlying problem. It’s only once the tweak fails to work (which could have been easily anticipated in each case) that unrest returns.
In fairness to the BHA there is a wide range of opinion on this amongst punters/trainers/pundits etc. There will always be an element of not being able to please all of the people etc.. That’s why regulation has to be based on sound principle not opinion polling. That’s the fundamental flaw at the heart of this whole imbroglio. The changes the BHA made to an arbitrary low stroke limit don’t work. They’re not fit for purpose and need to be removed, as Mark TT puts it the object needs to be replaced not the symptoms tinkered with. The fact that they haven’t been is what makes me fear this latest change is merely a fudge and won’t move us forward substantively at all.
Happy to be proved wrong.
Hi Cormack,
I think it’s good and bad news for those who hold your position.
The good news for fans of the arbitrary low stroke count is that the low stroke limits remain. The idea that there will be much latitude given to jockeys is, I suspect, a red herring. In practice the circumstances under which a steward will be confidently able to disregard individual strokes are very rare indeed. The number of enquiries won’t go down and I’d be willing to bet that upwards of 90% will result in bans.
The bad news is that reduced penalties added to uncertainty over what might be permitted by ‘discretion’ will lead to a larger than ever number of frequency offences. This type of offence has gone up under these revised penalties it looks set to climb higher.
What is clear from recent comments by John Maxse is that the PJA was the
only
group consulted prior to the latest changes. Given that every other – failed – tweak also followed representations from jockeys that’s an amazing admission.
Trainers, owners, breeders and of course punters have strong views on this but none of those groups views’ was taken on board. Nor, it seems, was the original ‘fundamental flaw’ of a number based approach considered sufficiently flawed to be done away with. The result is a fudge which has – probably temporarily- placated jockeys prior to Cheltenham but failed to tackle the underlying issue and not even entertained the concerns of owners, trainers, breeders and punters.
We have very different views on the stick Corm but the fact that the BHA have managed to underwhelm and frustrate you, me and the RSPCA is some feat!
“In hindsight we would like to have given more thought and consideration to the new rules before commenting. We didn’t give them properly informed approval and we really do wish the BHA would stop saying that we did.”
A.P. McCoy/L Dettori (Sept 2011).
I wrote an open letter to Jamie Stier.
In it, I made this pointThe new regulations have not worked. They are too easy to break, they do not give horsemen and women sufficient scope to ride well in all circumstances.
Four months on and the rules are still not working. They are still too easy to break by riding well rather than badly and offences for excessive frequency (despite swingeing penalties) remain up.
No amount of tinkering, discretion applying, or penalty tweaking will address the fundamental flaws in the new rules. They were based on opinion polling of people with no interest, no knowledge and no experience of the sport. They have no logical, moral, or practical foundation. It’s hardly surprising therefore that they have not worked.
They should be torn up and replaced with rules based on logic, welfare, good practice and experience. Rules that protect the horse and the sport. It will have to happen sooner or later so better to get on with it straight away. We have the best horses and the best horsemen and women in the world, why should we settle for such poor quality regulation?
Corm, re other riding offences I’d be inclined to wait & see. Could be coincidence. Could be stewards so busy counting whip strokes and looking for other whip offences that they’re missing riding offences.
Those of us who opposed the introduction of the new rules had a number of concerns.
None
of us was concerned about seeing whips used less or fewer horses marked.
I had/still have two primary concerns. One relates to the direct impact of the rules. I’ll have to agree to differ with you Corm, as I see a clear difference to racing under these rules. Denis O’Regan is the latest jockey to tell me (and ATR audience) that he’ll give up on winning opportunities when race riding rather than
risk
getting close to breaching the rules.
My other concern is similar to Hurdygurdyman’s.
The BHA has made a deal with an advocacy group. No stakeholders were involved in that decision. No riders, owners, or trainers
agreed
to a
deal
between the BHA and groups like RSPCA/WHW. But that’s what we got.
Those at the BHA who did that deal probably felt it was a good idea. They are wrong. Racing is either sure of its ethical ground or it isn’t. By making such massive concessions on an aspect of the sport that is many many times less dangerous than the act of racing the animal itself , the BHA has taken an extraordinary and reckless gamble.
Whips don’t kill horses. Hurdles, fences and simply galloping horses in races can and does kill horses. I hope I’m wrong but I’m convinced that it’s a matter of time before activists and advocacy groups use the BHA’s appeasement against the sport. The logic is hard to resist. ‘You’ve reduced use of the stick but look horses are still being marked’ will be step one. ‘You’ve banned the stick but look horses are getting killed on jumps courses’ will be step two. And so on.
If the new rules reduce weals everyone would welcome that outcome but it doesn’t make the rules any better. Nor does it make the process that brought the changes into being any more tolerable. An industry and a sport of the size of racing absolutely must not allow a few individuals to mortgage its future on the say so of unelected unanswerable pressure groups. It should never have happened and it must be overturned on principle.
If, after real consultation with stakeholders and a full and objective evaluation of the science there is a case for reducing or banning whips so be it. I’d fall into line behind that decision in support of the sport. But. let’s be absolutely clear, that’s not what has happened. There was no case in law, logic, ethics or welfare for the changes. That’s why the rules are bad.That’s why they leave the sport so exposed and that’s why their architects should be held accountable and required to reconsider.
I am anti the new whip rules but would happily welcome fewer horses being marked.Nobody likes to see any horses marked. The improvements in whip design are to be welcomed for exactly that reason.
I would say, having looked at it in a little detail, that there was a case for the 10 month whip review to look at the issue in a little more detail. As there are some clear patterns that suggest work could constructively have been done on this particular area. Real work rather than gestures.
I don’t see in the offences detailed in the cases I found, by using the BHA stewards section search facilities, a clear link between frequency and marking. Most marking incidents were not actually accompanied by whip offences.
I would be wary therefore Corm of linking reduced stroke count with reduced weal instances.
Indeed, there is a chance that the desire to ‘make every stroke count’ will lead to increased force being used by some jockeys. There are a couple of factors which suggest that force, not frequency, is the key factor.
Firstly, as Paul points out, flat horses being marked are v v v rare. Also, amongst the cases of jumps horses being marked a very small group of jockeys are implicated in multiple cases. This is not to suggest these particular jockeys are guilty of heinous misconduct. Simply that either their technique, or more likely imho, their sheer physical strength makes it more likely that their whip use could mark. That also, again imho, would explain the flat/jumps discrepancy. Jump jockeys are physically bigger and stronger and capable of generating greater force.
Working on making racing as safe as possible is always a laudable aim.
There is always a balance to be struck though. Personally, for what it’s worth, I can live with a marking rate of one in 5000 rides which is what we have. That’s not to say further whip development, or more likely individual work with a small group of jockeys shouldn’t be done. The fact is racing is a dangerous sport. A superficial weal is to be avoided so far as is possible. However, it’s worth remembering that a horse is more than 10 times more likely to be killed whilst racing than it is to suffer a mark on its skin.I frequented betting shops around New Cross, Lewisham and Blackheath when at Uni in SE London. In those days you still couldn’t see into such places from the street outside.
Smoke filled (not always just tobacco smoke either). Retired old boys, jobbing painters and plasterers, Irish lads, West Indian fellas, ocassional hardmen and gangsters. A drunk now and then and assorted wastrels and wagerers and whiners and bullshitters. No respectable citizen would be seen in one.
Happy Days!
John Samuels has a great book out which you can get from Racing Post books. ‘Down the Bookies’ the first 50 years of betting shops.
I have to admit I know John, (and my copy was free !) but it’s a great read for anyone with an interest in or affection for this great British institution.
Pompete
Their willingness to consider the ‘big picture’ was amply demonstrated I think by them being so keen to support and be seen to support the whip review document in the first place. It was only once they realised what it was they were endorsing that most had issues i think.Trainers and jockeys are no more or less self interested than anyone else i don’t suppose. They will want to see the sport survive in the best shape it can. Their livelihoods depend on that.
I honestly don’t believe there is a resistance to any change or any restriction on what they can do. The last set of changes to whip regulation were as recent as 2009 and there was relatively little resistance to them. Similarly the move to a pro cushion stick, whilst not universally welcomed, has been adopted without undue fuss. In Ireland jockeys use the pro cushion even though they are not obliged to.
I just think that, like me, they are concerned about changes that will do harm without doing any good. No jockey wants to get a ban and none of them want to see the sport damaged either. There’s a lot of talk about ‘win at all costs’ mentality but Brian Harding stood to make about £70 if he’d won on LIvely Baron. It’s not that these guys are being pig headed. They are just finding it tough to ride well and ride within the rules which (it seems to some of us at least) just goes to show that the rules aren’t any good.
The interviews I’ve conducted are documented either by having been broadcast or having been written up by me. Private conversations I’ve had with trainers and jockeys are precisely that.
I have yet to speak to anyone who works in the sport who thinks that the rule changes are an improvement. I don’t say such people don’t exist but I’ve not spoken to one so far.Not ‘any’ but
every
jockey I’ve spoken to about it has expressed concern about the rule changes. Every single one. And every single trainer too.
The only jockey I’ve heard specifically highlight the flawed logic of the report itself is Ruby Walsh. Being a very smart guy I think he’d read my blog postings on it
I don’t know why you sound so surprised Ginger. It’s a big document. Many people responded to what they thought was the ‘gist’ of it. Also, many people didn’t think through the process and what it would lead to. There is a tendency to trust authority in these matters. When one is told this is the fruit of 10 months of specialist work and consultation one is inclined to trust the headline summaries of such documents. This is especially true if one is already pre-disposed to a certain position. As we know, considerable work was done prior to the release of the report to lay the groundwork of the acceptance of the ‘something must be done’ theory. It’s no accident that articles ran in our racing pages and in the Racing Post which erroneously linked the bad publicity surrounding the Grand National to a single whip offence in that race. No accident either that our dedicated racing paper ran articles floating the idea of whipless racing. The report was the culmination of a lengthy strategy.
This sort of thing happens all the time in all walks of life. A report is produced which may or may not be a good piece of work. If people like the basic premise as given to them by whoever’s ‘spinning’ it they will support the report. Thus, everyone who wanted to see less/no whip use or who harbours some misplaced guilt about racing was ready to support it without reading it. It’s known as ‘confirmation bias’. The reason some continue to argue that the basic premise of the report is sound is not because this is a fact but because it is what best supports their own beliefs.
The people most likely to read it critically were those who have a confirmation bias that leans the other way. We sceptics were always likely to give it a closer reading because we were looking for reasons to challenge its orthodoxy.
Good science, good research and good governance would ensure that an objective critical eye is brought to the process. This didn’t happen in this piece of work. No critical analysis was invited. No challenge was made to judgements which were not based on evidence or data. No rigour was applied by those who should have taken responsibility for protecting the sport from bad regulation. It’s a failure of the report and, more significantly, the board that signed it off.
While many didn’t read it, some of us did. And we have been as vocal as we can be about the report’s shortcomings. It’s difficult to put those shortcomings to the BHA though when they repeatedly refuse to be interviewed on the topic.
