Connections of Highland Reel show off their prizes© Photo Healy Racing
Any lingering hope that racing’s disciplinary process isn’t destined to become a near-automatic exercise in reaching for the most expensive solicitor seems to have vanished since the Turf Club is reaching for its own full-time brief. The position of Head of Legal & Compliance at the integrity body has at least been advertised. But it is a dispiriting sign of how the imposition of even mildly debatable racing penalties has become a fraught juggle with burden of proof. And it isn’t going to stop there.
Nothing is set in stone but the process is under way by which the 226 year old Turf Club will become a private limited company by the start of 2018. The reasoning behind such a move is simple. If the Turf Club continues as a private entity its members can incur the financial brunt of potential legal action. As a company its liability is limited. The move will bring the Turf Club, and the INHSC, into line with most integrity entities around the world but it is another depressing indication of how hair-trigger the current atmosphere is in terms of legal action.
The average number of disciplinary hearings being heard annually has risen to 60, an increasing number of which now feature representation. Up to now the Turf Club didn’t need a qualified solicitor to oversee the rules of racing but it has had to change. And the cost of employing a solicitor or barrister is going to come out of an integrity budget generally regarded as being a long way from flabby in terms of money to spare. Considering the broad and extensive spec of the advertisement too, any suitable applicant won’t come cheap either.
There’s one element of that spec however which will hardly encourage sceptics to believe any appointment will alter the fundamental clash between the necessarily subjective interpretation of the rules of racing and the law’s burden of proof requirements. Any successful candidate will have “a positive, collegiate approach in dealing with key stakeholders.” Collegiate looks a significant term, it being about belonging and relating after all. And no matter what, always bubbling underneath is the legal instinct to advise to leave out when in doubt.
Such problems are relative however. The future Freddy Tylicki and his family face after confirmation of the jockey’s paralysis is a scenario to make most of us despair. The 30 year old Group 1 winning rider has in all likelihood encountered such despairing moments already and almost inevitably will face them again. What’s been striking about the descriptions of the man over the last week however is the quiet resolution and determination Tylicki has shown throughout his career, qualities that will be invaluable to him now.
Jim Bolger gave a flavour of that determination when outlining how the new teenage arrival from Germany came to his Co. Carlow yard without a word of English yet within a few years it was impossible to tell that it wasn’t his first language. A lot of people left impressed by the articulacy Tylicki showed in interviews after Speedy Boarding’s Group 1 triumphs this season will have been surprised by that background. Hopefully we will be able to benefit from such fluency and expertise again soon.
It certainly provides context to news of the top chaser Vautour having to be put down. The triple-Grade Cheltenham festival winner sustained a broken leg when grazing in a field at Willie Mullins’s yard on Sunday.
It’s sad, especially for those closest to the horse, and it emphasises the fragility of the thoroughbred creature in general. But it’s moments like this which thankfully illustrate the absence here of some of the more hysterical anthropomorphic tendencies which can crop up in the UK in such circumstances. And it surely can’t be heartless to ponder already if a King George appearance by the mighty Douvan this Christmas could now be on the cards.
The Breeders Cup saw the Argentinean filly Corona Del Inca put down after sustaining leg injuries in Friday’s Distaff. The reality is that sad news will fade a lot faster in most people’s memories than the superb finish fought out by Beholder and Songbird, as good a top-flight encounter as has been fought out in a long time.
From an Irish point of view Highland Reel’s Turf victory, and the outstanding ride he got from Seamus Heffernan, was a highpoint. Heffernan mightn’t have been a natural fit for some of the LA razzmatazz but whether its Santa Anita or Sligo he has always performed with the sort of professionalism which makes no one doubt he realises that what really counts is what happens out on the track. This though was an inspired effort.
Maybe it’s the contrast then that made Victor Espinoza’s Classic effort on California Chrome seem so ineffectual. Obviously it’s easier to criticise a jockey based 6,000 miles away but for someone with such an illustrious big-race CV Espinoza looked pretty ineffectual. It surely isn’t hindsight which encourages a view that California Chrome could have been long gone long before Arrogate eventually cranked into top gear.
Instead his rider chose not to take the initiative and sat and waited until Arrogate was a couple of lengths off before accelerating. It’s not like there were stamina concerns. And even if there were, California Chrome had enjoyed an easy and uncontested lead. Riders get the plaudits when they win. But if there’s no flak when they mess up then what are such plaudits worth?
And finally, the Anti-Doping Task Force is set to review the implementation of its report recommendations from last February, one of which was that a minimum of 8,000 blood and urine samples should be analysed each year in order to achieve operational efficiency. That’s well over twice the current analysis rate.
With integrity budgets already stretched, and soon a new lawyer to pay, it does invite the question as to how such an increase is to be achieved and when. And it will be interesting to find out too what the state of play is in relation to the proposed protocol with the Breeders Association about testing on stud farms.
