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Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor's Latest Blog

Circling The Wagons Is Futile

Santa AnitaSanta Anita
© Photo Healy Racing

For debate not to descend into a shouting match it always helps to argue on point. Racing's future isn't tied up in 'appeasing' a tiny minority vehemently opposed to it. Instead it lays is in continuing to reassure a large, silent and mostly oblivious majority that it's not cruel. So a lot of people need to stop being so defensive about steps being taken to ensure that. Simply circling the wagons is futile.

Such defensiveness is stamped all over some of the more kneejerk reactions to welfare steps taken by the BHA in particular but also here in relation to the IHRB's new eight-stroke whip limit set to come into force on April 9.

In relation to a beleaguered BHA, and the seemingly widespread belief that they're leading British racing towards disaster, it was noticeable how indignant so many got at Nick Rust employing comparisons to other animal based activities.

The BHA chief executive's argument that racing needs to stay ahead of the game in terms of welfare and learn the lessons of history provided by "hunting, coursing, circuses, sea life, dolphins" got a lot of people very hot under the collar.

Apparently such comparisons are off the wall. Racing is a sport, not a blood sport. And along with breeding it constitutes an industry employing thousands and generating billions. It is very, very important. How dare anyone link it to a circus.

Really? That's nuts is it? Getting your head around such a link is impossible? Joining the dots between these other activities and thoroughbreds being employed for the purposes of human entertainment is too big an imaginative jump?

Yes horse racing is distinctive to a crucial degree. But it is stubbornly disingenuous to pretend all of this can't be fundamentally parsed down to animals being utilized for our entertainment.

Yes racing and breeding is a business. It's part of the entertainment business. And what constitutes entertainment is a very personal thing.

Some get their jollies from hunting for instance whereas most people today find that ridiculous at best. The state broadcaster RTE recently ran a report from the national coursing finals. To a lot of people it was remarkable to see that allowed on the airwaves at all.

These were entertainment pursuits that once, and not that long ago, wouldn't have raised an eyebrow. Now they're beyond the pale in terms of most public sentiment because they're perceived as exercises in cruelly exploiting animals for nothing but sport.

The thoroughbred breed exists for the purposes of human entertainment as well. But those of us who love the game can argue hand on heart that cruelty doesn't come into it. Racing's future is fundamentally bound up in preserving widespread public sentiment that that actually is the case.

It doesn't mean pretending that accidents and injuries don't happen. It does mean being seen to take every reasonable measure to reduce them to as little as possible. And if that requires a certain amount of culture change then that's surely a small price to pay in terms of the big picture.

What isn't sustainable is this attitude of inviting everyone to basically f--k off and watch something else if they don't like it. For one thing what kind of a culture can't bear a little inspection. And for another it's so dispiritingly negative from a sport that's got so much that's positive to offer.

Dismissing mainstream public opinion on the grounds of a lack of understanding is seriously tone-deaf.

Little understanding was required to admire how Sir Erec conducted himself before the Triumph Hurdle. Or to feel more than a little uneasy at the misfortune he suffered in the race. Anyone's entitled to feel perturbed about how jump racing's risk-challenge pendulum swings sometimes.

Nevertheless the reasons for standing over this sport are well-known and hardly require reheating again. In the wide, complex and often fraught relationship between man and the animal kingdom racing in this part of the world can claim an overwhelmingly positive influence.

What it can't presume on though is the vast majority of public sentiment staying the same. The ethics surrounding the use of animals for entertainment purposes are altering all the time. Racing's self-interest rests in being able to refine itself in response.

If you doubt that then look at how the owners of a beleaguered Santa Anita have decided on banning the whip by jockeys for anything but corrective safety measures from this week.

It's an intriguing step and one that has already been labelled an overreaction. It will certainly be dismissed by many as more loony tune California. Except seemingly loony tune California today has a habit of becoming the norm everywhere tomorrow.

That's why some of the criticism pointed at the IHRB about new whip regulations coming into play here on April 9 feels way over-egged.

What the IHRB is proposing is hardly radical. In fact the idea of nine strokes automatically triggering a stewards enquiry simply formalises what really should be the case anyway since it's hard to imagine what a ninth or tenth stroke is going to really achieve compared to eight.

It brings us into line with the rest of Europe and it's a tacit acknowledgement that even Irish racing can't fully exist in its own cosy incubator divorced from the wider world.

Nevertheless reaction to the move has been predictably negative, most of it along the lines of nothing to see here, plaintive cries about pandering to the ignorant, and, inevitably, that failsafe Irish position about us having a lot more cop-on in such matters than the Brits.

Most of which ultimately is simply a variation on the theme of f--k off and watch something else if you don't like it.

In such a small and incestuous world as Irish racing it would have been easy for the IHRB to row in with that sentiment. To their credit they haven't. And even though the IHRB is full to brim of racing people, no doubt when, or if, whip bans start accumulating they'll be accused of being out of touch.

Finally, the idea of being out of touch with an Association of Irish Racehorse Owners AGM is one that wouldn't normally keep anyone awake at night. However it promises to be a much more lively affair than normal on Tuesday night at the ITBA offices near Goffs.

In the context of James Gough's High Court action against the AIRO's 2014 constitution change to how it selects its HRI board representative, three seats on the owners association's council are up for election this Tuesday.

Gough, whose term as the AIRO representative on the HRI board is due to end this month, has challenged the constitution change which means only the 12 council members can propose and second candidates for the HRI role.

That legal move, and the subsequent involvement of the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, has seen the stalling of Caren Walsh's appointment to the AIRO seat on the HRI board.

Three outgoing AIRO council members are now up for re-election in a process that might ordinarily get only the very committed or the very bored to pay attention. This time though, bloodstock agent James Mescall is among three candidates reportedly prepared to make a fight of it for the seats.

He has been critical of the AIRO and appears to have painted his candidature somewhat in terms of a protest against an arrogant elite. This, not surprisingly, is rejected by many others within the organisation.

The upshot is that a date at which attendance can usually be counted in the tens is instead expected to have hundreds at it. The outcome will be interesting in a political intrigue backroom kind of way. Here too however it might ultimately be to everyone's benefit to stay on-point.