Churchill after his Dewhurst win© Photo Healy Racing
It’s interesting to ponder just how solo Joe Keeling can have been in his endeavours to get Brian Kavanagh reappointed as chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland. It’s hard to credit the HRI chairman simply got a brainwave and ran with it. Maybe we’ll find out more when he faces the Dail’s Agriculture Committee on Thursday. What’s unarguable in this hive of political activity is that it is Keeling who is firmly in the firing line. So it’s hard not to conclude his credibility as chairman of Irish racing’s ruling body is a busted flush.
Keeling has given no indication of falling on his sword. Neither has government indicated yet it wants him to. Irish political instincts often lean towards steadying the ship rather than tossing people overboard. Except these are unusually unstable political waters right now, bumpy enough even to have some doubt expressed apparently over the extent of another boost to the Horse & Greyhound Fund in Tuesday’s budget. And in such a climate it is even more unrealistic for racing to presume it can be seen to get caught on the brazen arrogance stamped all over this sorry matter and still emerge unscathed.
It is the privilege of rank to take credit when things go well and heat when they don’t. Keeling can be credited with much that is positive since taking over as HRI chairman from Denis Brosnan. But HRI has got itself into a very public predicament and its chairman has been central to that. Racing is its own insular little world but it is reliant on public subsidy and its administrative credibility is on the line. It isn’t immune from real world realities such as the nature of leadership sometimes meaning having to take the rap, and be seen to take the rap.
In expedient realpolitik terms, should the HRI chairman step down it could take some of the heat out of an uncertain situation, heat which so far has seen a pair of cabinet ministers put on the defensive over an appointment that countered government guidelines in the first place and which has subsequently seen some rather desperate PR fire-fighting that has done little to dampen widespread disquiet. One senator has proclaimed the controversy has caused “irreparable damage” to the image of Irish racing.
Whatever about that, it has cast a notably piercing light on what at times can seem to be racing’s near-dysfunctional administration, an issue that surely demands urgent forensic examination from mandarins within the Department of Agriculture.
There are more immediate concerns however, and it is about more than just expediency. Racing hopes to receive record levels of state funding in Tuesday’s budget. Broad cross-party support for that funding indicates the case for that money is hardly unreasonable. But in return it behoves the industry to adhere to public expectations of governance. The public interest cannot be regarded as an inconvenient obstacle to the exercise of racing’s own realpolitik.
Should Keeling remain as HRI chairman, with the inevitable attendant baggage that accompanies such a move, it would send an unmistakable signal to Joe Public that we should know our place. And that isn’t realistic, credible, or right.
Aidan O’Brien is 6-4 to finally break Bobby Frankel’s long-standing world record of 25 Group 1 victories in a single year. Churchill was O’Brien’s 20th on the flat in 2016 and Paddy Power at least make it 21 as they are counting Ivanovich Gorbatov’s Triumph Hurdle success as well.
So theoretically O’Brien could actually break the record this weekend. He’s got a Caulfield Cup contender in Sir Isaac Newton, Idaho in the Canadian International, Best In The World in the EP Taylor and there are four Group 1 races at Ascot’s ‘Champions Day’ to play for. In current form no one’s going to dismiss anything he runs anywhere.
Except it’s not 21 wins, is it, not really: O’Brien openly acknowledged what everyone knew at Cheltenham when pointing out how his son Joseph actually trained Ivanovich Gorbatov. He just hadn’t got his licence yet. Nevertheless he was technically in charge so technically...
But in terms of the Bobby Frankel record, is it really fair to count National Hunt? And if you do, should that make Willie Mullins the real benchmark: after all he won 34 Grade 1’s during the last National Hunt season which backed on to a haul of 33 in the previous campaign. That is perhaps the most interesting element to all this - what it all says about the prestige of top-flight success in the different disciplines.
It’s easy to imagine a lot of queasy tummies among TV execs right now over reports that Britain’s culture secretary is keen to ban adverts for online gambling on daytime television. This is amid concerns about the influence such ads have on children and the likelihood of some of them developing serious gambling problems later in life. Already the BHA has started arguing the case for racing to have an exemption for any such ban on TV advertising by bookmakers.
Any such ban has the potential to radically alter the landscape of televised racing with various very expensive business plans potentially being barely worth the digital space they’re written on. Arguing that racing has a strong and traditional interdependence with betting is one thing: successfully arguing that it is sufficiently different to warrant special status is quite another. And, of course, when British racing sneezes, it’s usually not long before Irish racing catches a cold too.
Finally, Churchill has been undeniably impressive through his juvenile campaign and goes into winter-quarters as a clear favourite for the 2017 classics. Physically he is a magnificent slab of a beast, to the extent that some are pondering whether or not his two year old superiority can be maintained when others among his generation start to catch up in terms of maturity next year.
Mind you, similar sentiments were apparently expressed too about a certain former Dewhurst winner called Nijinsky. He didn’t wind up a bad three year old!
