Category: Sports News

A solution must be found in the simmering dispute between racing’s rulers and jockeys over the removal of track saunas

Battle lines have been drawn and trenches dug in the latest dispute between the British Horseracing Authority and Britain’s Flat jockeys, and the two sides seem set for a protracted struggle.

At issue is the racecourse sauna, which was, for generations of riders, a daily point of call until Covid-19 prompted to their closure, as a measure to prevent spread of the virus when racing went behind closed doors. The Professional Jockeys’ Association insists that a majority of its members now want the saunas back, while the BHA is equally adamant that it is not going to happen.

Before joining the rush to suggest that a 22-year-old conditional rider with 94 rides to their name should be banned for life, it is probably best to wait for the investigation to conclude

It is, as they say, a very ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the organisers of the Wacky Weekender Festival at Worcester racecourse this month must be quietly ecstatic that the handicap hurdle for conditional jockeys, which they sponsored at the track last Wednesday, has turned out to be one of the most talked-about races of recent months.

For the rest of us, though, it remains a horrible watch, as Dylan Kitts, the rider of Hillsin, sat stock-still all the way up the straight on a horse that looked to be travelling like a surefire winner, and finished third, a length-and-a-quarter behind the winner. It was, in Timeform’s typically understated view, “an unedifying ride that failed to get the best out of him, to say the least”, and the local stewards promptly banned Hillsin from running for 40 days while referring Kitts’s ride to the British Horseracing Authority for further consideration.

• Horse suspended for performance at Worcester on Wednesday
• Trainer claims jockey Dylan Kitts went ‘to an extreme’ in race

Chris Honour said he would “never tell someone not to win” and revealed his family have been caught up in the fallout from Hillsin’s controversial performance at Worcester on Wednesday evening.

Hillsin was making his first start for trainer Honour in the two-and-a-half mile conditional riders’ handicap hurdle and looked to have a fine chance of notching his first career victory, in the hands of conditional jockey Dylan Kitts, when moving into contention up the home straight.

• Forty-one of the top 60 in the weights trained in Ireland
• BHA handicapper calls for ‘English challenge’

The steady evolution of the Grand National into a contest dominated by runners from Ireland seems certain to continue in April. As few as a quarter of the runners in the world’s most famous race may arrive at Aintree from British stables.

Ireland supplied a majority of the field for the first time last season, with 21 of the 40 starters and after Tuesday’s publication of the weights to be carried in this year’s race on 15 April, 41 of the top 60, and all but one of the top 10, are Irish-trained.

• BHA panel found Brock deliberately stopped horses
• Case concerned three races in late 2018 and early 2019

Danny Brock, a jockey on the Flat from 2009 to 2021, will face a significant ban after the British Horseracing Authority’s independent disciplinary panel decided on Tuesday he had deliberately stopped three horses as part of a conspiracy to profit from betting on their races.

The BHA’s case against Brock and five other individuals, including Sean McBride, the son and assistant of the Newmarket trainer Philip “Charlie” McBride, concerned three races at all-weather tracks between December 2018 and March 2019.

Authority may be ready to make adjustments to proposed regulations after recent lobbying from jockeys

The British Horseracing Authority indicated on Friday evening that it will look at amending its new rules on the use of the whip, which are due to come into force in February next year, following “public and private representations” from riders in recent days which focused in particular on a proposed ban on use of the whip in the forehand position.

The BHA published the amended rules in mid-July, following an extensive review and consultation process which included two senior jockeys, Tom Scudamore and PJ McDonald.

New structure to run the sport could end the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the Turf for decades

British racing took a significant step towards what it hopes will be a brighter and more harmonious future on Monday, as the British Horseracing Authority unveiled a new governance structure for the sport which Julie Harrington, the BHA’s chief executive, insists will “enshrine the BHA board as the ultimate authority for the sport as a whole.” If the new structure works as planned – which, of course, remains to be seen – it could finally end, or at the very least significantly reduce, the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the sport for decades.

The new regime, which was finalised when the Racecourse Association signed up at an EGM on Monday morning, means an end to the previous “tripartite” structure in which the BHA tried to balance the interests of the racecourses, on one side, and the Thoroughbred Group (ie. owners, trainers, jockeys and stable staff) on the other.

Simply throwing money at the top tier of Flat racing is likely to have unpredictable and irreparable consequences

Several months after the first rumours of its existence emerged in the Racing Post, some fairly sketchy details of Peter Savill’s latest scheme to transform racing’s fortunes emerged this week, suggesting that Savill and a number of other “industry heavyweights” want to “restructure” the Flat and boost prize money and field sizes at the highest levels of the sport.

Savill, for the benefit of younger readers, was a very hands-on chair of the British Horseracing Board, the forerunner of the British Horseracing Authority, from June 1998 to July 2004, a six-year reign that was never dull and, at times, highly controversial.

Although disqualification for excessive whip use is now on the table, its enforcement is likely to be vanishingly rare

David Jones, the chair of the British Horseracing Authority’s whip consultation steering group, was keen to stress on Tuesday that its 20 recommendations on one of the most vexed issues in the sport should be seen as “a package” of measures, and one that all of its members – including those opposed to use of the whip for encouragement – could support.

None the less, two proposed changes in particular inevitably leapt off the page when the group’s report was published on Tuesday: disqualification of horses when riders commit an “egregious” breach of the rules, and a ban on using the whip in the “forehand” position.