Nothing To Hide

It is twenty five years since the rest of Europe woke up to the fact that Dermot Weld’s old jockey wasn’t too shabby. Once it was found out subsequent demand for Mick Kinane meant Weld eventually had to appoint a new jockey. Fifteen years later the trainer must shake his head in happy disbelief that he doesn’t have to cope with similar demand headaches in relation to Pat Smullen.

There is nothing new in pointing this out. However Smullen notching up a first ever century of winners in Ireland, on route surely to a seventh jockeys title, is a perfect peg to hang the question about why the services of this most professional, reliable and cool-headed of riders isn’t being snapped up when it comes to the big occasions throughout Europe.

When you look at performances being put in by some supposedly more high-profile rivals, it almost beggars belief that someone of Smullen’s pedigree gets overlooked.

Weld and Moyglare Stud are hardly complaining and the job Smullen has with them is an enviable one. But they can hardly have runners in every race and there are plenty occasions when the day job wouldn’t be compromised by Smullen’s availability. Yet international demand that previously existed for the retired maestros Kinane and Murtagh doesn’t seem to exist at nearly the same level for the man who cut his teeth mixing it with both.

Smullen is now thirty seven, the age when flat jockeys traditionally start to peak. He is now the real deal. But he was always the real deal, as proved over a decade ago when he guided Refuse To Bend to a Guineas victory. Weld’s instructions that day were simple – “ride him like the top-class international rider you are.” And what characterises top-class international riders is the ability not to cock up when it counts most.

Smullen isn’t flash, either personally or professionally. But the times he has messed up when it counts are rarer than rocking-horse doppings. Weld’s standards are notoriously high and the length of the partnership Smullen has had with him is as fulsome a professional compliment as the jockey will ever get or probably wants. Cool, fluent, and a particularly good judge, it is a daily perk for racegoers here to be able to enjoy a top professional at the peak of his powers.

However for someone who is a proven top-flight winner from the Curragh to Ascot, and California to Paris, it can beggar belief sometimes that those powers aren’t being appreciated more on an international scale.

There’s plenty the world doesn’t know, but even the vast general public, with no knowledge or interest in racing, knows badly injured horses can get shot to end their suffering. It’s a sad reality but a reality nonetheless. So does a story about a hurt horse getting shot in the head constitute news? To anyone?

The reality behind a cross-channel tabloid leading on a story about the unfortunate Wigmore Hall getting put down at Doncaster is that they got a picture. In the media game, pictures are everything. And this is a striking one. Working out the reasoning behind running with it is easy, easier even than fitting the tragic angle, and the money angle, and the cruel authority angle, into the surrounding front-page straps. This is good tabloid stuff.

What it isn’t though is news. The actual image might shock some but this is the reality behind bloodstock. Some animal activist groups will suggest euthanizing horses is all about financial expediency but badly injured horses are almost invariably put down at racetracks because it is the quickest and most efficient way of preventing further suffering. And that is the perfectly defensible thing to do.

Racing in this part of the world can find itself shifting uneasily when it comes to welfare matters sometimes but it can look the world square in the eye on this one.

Thoroughbreds are bred to race. That’s it. They are mostly physically and temperamentally unsuitable for anything else. When thoroughbreds race they can get injured which involves a duty of care on those in charge of them, a duty that sometimes involves doing something no one relishes.

In this case the optics are hardly attractive but it is important racing is able to justify itself when put under a spotlight. Sometimes the industry can be much too defensive. In this specific case, dudgeon is justified. There may have been screens involved but there’s nothing to hide.

Current divisions within Irish racing are such that Turf Club satisfaction at the positive reception their submission received at the joint-Oireachtas Committee which is looking into the proposed new Racing Amendment Bill automatically mean frowns aplenty over the road at HRI. Those at the top of any administrative tree know better than anyone how an invitation to leave things alone is usually sweet music to political ears.

Sure enough a trudge through the transcript of last week’s hearing reveals considerable committee disquiet at upsetting racing’s integrity structure by fiddling with its funding structure. A general ‘if-it ain’t-broke-why-fix-it’ vibe appears to percolate through proceedings, especially when it comes to administering point to points, and also in relation to the significance of keeping promotion and policing at least ostensibly separate.

Of course these are second-division politicos making the noises. Since Simon Coveney has invested a lot of capital in his “appropriate governance structure” it is safe to assume the Minister for Agriculture will be disposed towards rolling over any uppity back-benchers getting in his way. There is also the reality that he who pays the piper calls the tune and the Minister is perhaps the single most important financial player in Irish racing.

Since the Turf Club’s financial situation is perilous enough to effectively cough up the Curragh racecourse in order to pay for its redevelopment, they look, on the face of it, to be drawing on a weak hand. But even the most inscrutable HRI mandarin might privately admit they look to have played that hand pretty well at the Committee.

Everyone’s condolences go to the family of Oliver Brady. Anyone believing the shouting on-track persona was the sum of him simply weren’t lucky enough to have known him better. He was a top man, a brave man, and perhaps most of all, a gentleman.