HRI Chairman Joe Keeling© Photo Healy Racing
Racing is famously conservative. Throw in its sequestering instincts and you have a recipe for inertia. Certainly the reflex to keep things ‘in-house’ can make external examination an uncomfortable experience and the political spotlight which promises to shine on racing’s administration this week has the potential to stir things up. The rules of racing may be black and white but the primary rule of politics is that there are no rules, always a recipe for unease.
What had been a mostly ‘in-house’ spat over Brian Kavanagh’s controversial reappointment for a third term as Horse Racing Ireland’s chief executive has escalated to cabinet level with Dail questions to be asked this week about why two Ministers, Pascal Donohoe and Michael Creed, effectively put their heads on the block to ratify the appointment despite it flying in the face of government guidelines.
It has now emerged they weren’t fully in the picture about the HRI’s board input into this famous business case that helped them come to that decision. So it looks like the desire of those at the HRI helm not to upset the applecart has resulted in both Ministers being dropped in it. And politically that looks like HRI shooting itself in the foot with a howitzer.
You don’t have to be any political expert to suspect that government presumes their role in racing is over once they hand over the vital subsidy which finances the industry. It doesn’t expect to have to babysit those sitting around the administrative table, and it certainly doesn’t expect to find itself dropped in it by them.
It has also emerged that the HRI chairman Joe Keeling apologised to the HRI board in July over the way Kavanagh’s reappointment was processed. Despite that there has been a noticeable public silence from Ballymany, one presumably based in a hope that this matter would eventually blow over. Instead it might blow up, and on the eve of a budget too. And the reason is simple — this is public money we’re talking about.
You get the feeling that point often really doesn’t register with so many within racing. Instead there can be an attitude of give us the money, the more the merrier, and then kindly stay out of the way. Just applaud on cue and tell us how wonderful we are. And that’s not good enough.
In return for that state money there’s an obligation to be seen to take state procedures seriously.
Government guidelines on the tenure of chief executives at semi-state bodies had already been amended to give Kavanagh a second term. Presuming to move for a third in the manner that has occurred — not even advertising the position - reeks of arrogance and appears to contain an assumption that the normal rules don’t apply to racing.
Even now there’s a widespread feeling among many racing professionals that the only wrong step has been a failure to get this appointment through without drama. It is an argument which points the finger at Joe Keeling’s supposed lack of political nous as the major problem.
No one’s naive enough to think such nous isn’t important when it comes to traversing the corridors of government. But such thinking betrays a sense of entitlement that is pervasive in racing and simply doesn’t tally with the reality of an industry which is essentially state subsidised.
As a result racing is automatically subject to public examination. Now it looks like getting a potentially very public examination indeed. And it’s in such circumstances that someone usually gets to carry the can, something those who rise to cabinet status are usually expert in avoiding.
Joe Keeling appears to have invested a lot in Brian Kavanagh’s reappointment, effectively, it seems, going on something of a solo run. His successful private business career probably encourages such instincts. But this is a public show and it doesn’t look good. As it stands if there’s a can to be carried, Keeling shapes as the most likely candidate.
Whatever the outcome however there remains a sense that racing as a whole needs to get real when it comes to recognising where it’s bread is being buttered. Certainly an end-game which sees Ministers under pressure smacks of ineptitude, not to mention a sense of biting the hand that feeds.
The fingerprints of racing inertia are also all over the continuing failure in Ireland to test for excessive levels of cobalt and the process known as ‘milk-shaking.’ These tests are done in other countries. And yet in a country that ostentatiously prides itself on its billion Euro bloodstock industry, such run-of-the-mill testing processes are not in place.
The easy thing is to criticise the Turf Club. And of course it is the body that will eventually be charged with implementing these tests when they are inevitably rolled out.
But the Turf Club, like HRI, is simply a reflection of racing’s various sectional interests. If the will to implement these tests was there amongst those interests it’s not hard to think they would have been long since in place. On the face of things it’s easy then to suspect it’s been merely another element of maintaining the status quo and keeping things ‘in-house.’ So credit goes to Jim Bolger for highlighting the issue.
Quite a number of theoretical issues have been highlighted by the BHA investigation into betting irregularities arising on the back of Faugheen being ruled out of last season’s Champion Hurdle through injury. The BHA is examining a number of bets placed before that news was in the public domain.
An obvious one is what constitutes the ‘public domain’ these days? Or how is ‘inside information’ effectively defined? How is a licence holder telling someone something in conversation more problematic than selling it to a betting website or newspaper column? More importantly how can charges be proven beyond doubt, and be made stick?
One sure thing is that the exchanges have changed things completely and forever. Another is that those within a stable get to hear about injuries to horses before anyone else. Some people will inevitably attempt to use that edge too. That’s as old as racing. And it will continue to be the case no matter how algorithmically clever we get.
