Air Force Blue© Photo Healy Racing
Tuesday is budget day when racing can reportedly look forward to a significant finance boost. Compared to that, a Turf Club meeting on the same day looks small beer. There certainly won't be any big figures emerging from it. Nothing at all might emerge publicly. But with government determined to press ahead with their Horse Racing Ireland Bill the mood and tone at the regulatory body meeting could be potentially much more significant in the long term than another short-term slice of state largesse.
Even a cursory examination of the proposed Bill reveals the meat of it is fundamentally the same as which set Turf Club alarm bells ringing earlier in the year, provoking vehement public declarations that sections of the legislation would be contested in court should they remain unchanged.
Well, they are essentially unchanged. Money is still set to be routed through HRI. And fears that the Turf Club's regulatory independence might be diluted can hardly have been eased by the word "consult" still there in terms of any proposed future rule changes. Earlier in the year this was enough to threaten High Court. Is the Turf Club mood the same now? A lot has happened. Personalities may have shifted the dynamic. Is there still a will to fight what many regard as an unwinnable war?
Momentum seems to be remorselessly moving in the direction of HRI effectively running the whole show anyway so maybe resistance is futile. Acknowledging that could very well be a simple acknowledgement of reality. HRI pays the piper so gets to call the tune. The principle of keeping promotion separate from police is still valid but there appears to be little desire among the industry as a whole to fight for it, especially since the principle can appear so removed from everyday reality on the ground.
So when everyone knows who calls the shots, it is a substantial individual who sticks their head above the parapet and risks firing back.
To not do so will of course be interpreted as an effective white-flag in what has been a lengthy and bitter internecine conflict between racing's two bodies. And when financial clout is so resolutely one-sided, gestures of resistance may ultimately be futile. But there's 225 years of history behind all this and whatever the mood, it's hard to believe history's hand is irrelevant to all concerned.
What kind of future the Turf Club ultimately aims for will be fascinating. The present reality though is that it doesn't get a mention by name in the new legislation, merely being referred to as 'Racing's Regulatory Body.' So it seems even the language of the future may be fluid and open to interpretation.
Racing can breed as much scepticism as it does horses so it was refreshing to be reminded how sometimes something that appears too good actually can be true. People invariably bitch about being kept in the dark but Michael Tabor's pre-Dewhurst comments were notably and unambiguously positive about Air Force Blue. In fact they were so obvious they provoked one punter of our acquaintance to be immediately suspicious.
"Must have laid it," he sniffed: which only shows how sometimes you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
As for Aidan O'Brien's post-race comments about Air Force Blue being the best juvenile he's ever trained there was an inevitable element of 'ho-hum' to the reaction since rare is the year when a colt isn't acclaimed as resetting the parameters of Ballydoyle excellence. But even rarer is the two year old champion who lands a hat-trick of Group 1's while possessing the size and scope to make expectations of even better to come appear entirely reasonable.
Air Force Blue certainly doesn't look a two year old champion in the mould of Johannesburg who won four Group 1's as a juvenile yet faded to little at three. He clearly possesses vast classic potential. But it's important to remember so did St Nicholas Abbey who was similarly acclaimed. And if you really want to dampen expectation, all that's required is a mention of One Cool Cat. That's not to say Air Force Blue isn't a cracker. But odds-on quotes for the Guineas look off the wall.
It was interesting how Paul Townend's immediate reaction to getting a ten day ban for dangerous riding at Tramore last week was to indicate the likelihood of an appeal.
It's got to the stage where appealing decisions is as inevitable as feeling sore at getting suspended in the first place. Seamus Heffernan appealed his ten day In Salutem ban for dangerous riding a month ago even though the details looked cut and dried. The real story here however is surely how dangerous riding gets a jockey only ten days.
The rule defines dangerous riding as a rider purposely interfering with another horse or rider or riding in a way which is far below that of a competent and careful rider and where it would be obvious to such a competent and careful rider that riding in that way was likely to endanger the safety of another horse or rider.
In other words, that means knowingly endangering the safety of a rival. You don't have to be alarmist to ponder the implications of that, and you don't have to be naive to ponder how it must be a pretty blatant case for stewards to reach for that definition when others are available. So in that context is ten days really a sufficient deterrent?
And finally it has been pointed out to this corner how it sometimes doesn't differentiate often enough between here and Britain in terms of steward's decision. It's a valid point. The theory and principle behind the rules are similar in both countries but crucially there do appear to be occasions when interpretations differ.
Now that can be a problem in itself. But there's no doubt that some decisions, such as Sovereign Debt at Tipperary a week ago, have been notably correct here. So credit where it's due: they got there in the end but still, why did it take so long? In a proper system, that call was so straightforward a decision could have been made and announced before the horses had even pulled up.
