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Vincent Finegan

Latest Blogs from Vincent Finegan and "My Racing Story"

Mon 13th Mar 2017

Some Real Cheltenham Rivalry

Cheltenham's Anglo-Irish rivalry carries some edge this week on the back of those 'post-Brexit' spats with the BHA handicapper. However the curio that means Irish racing's most high-profile festival is run in England means flag-waving is mostly an affectation: caring what winner is trained where is a luxury for most punters. What's notable about this festival is how some proper home-grown rivalries are going to be transplanted to Gloucestershire and in all likelihood dominate the week.

8.33AM

Mon 6th Mar 2017

The Diluted Olympics

The hoariest Cheltenham cliché of all is that it's 'Our Olympics.' Except it isn't. Not if you judge it by true 'Fastest, Highest, Longest & Strongest' standards. Because for an ultimate championship event it's remarkable how many questions are likely to be left hanging after next week's action. And they'll hang because the logistics of mounting a four day festival have resulted in a degree of filler which continues to dilute competition.

8.39AM

Mon 27th Feb 2017

Support Your Local Sheriff

It appears there's a new sheriff in town and its name is the new Rule 212. Armed with an amended wording that requires jockeys to be seen to make a reasonable effort, it seems there's a new willingness among officials to actively pursue running-and-riding rules. It's a badly needed development and while many will ultimately judge its seriousness in relation to some of the industry's big-hitters it appears to be a framework within which officials can effectively operate.

9.02AM

Mon 20th Feb 2017

Negotiating The Future

Andy Warhol said every social action is a negotiation but he might have looked at the discussions between the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the Turf Club as an exercise in social action for its own sake. The point is supposed to be the implementation of an urgently needed drug testing protocol to help protect the credibility of Ireland's bloodstock industry. Except you'd hardly know it.

8.57AM

Mon 13th Feb 2017

What If Punch-Bag wins Gold Cup?

The horse that emerged with the most enhanced reputation from Leopardstown's quadruple- Grade 1 card didn't even run. Any notion Douvan may have been a playground bully in repeatedly beating up Sizing John can be binned with the latter successfully stepped up to three miles in the Irish Gold Cup. Now Sizing John goes for the real thing at Cheltenham. Who knows how much he might improve for further again: and who knows how the Douvan camp will feel if, having taken the prudent two-mile route this season, their former punching-bag actually wins the ultimate prize?

9.04AM

Mon 6th Feb 2017

Cash In Hand - No Questions Asked

Many within racing have been quick to dismiss TD Clare Daly's Dail declarations about the industry containing wholesale illegality as simply a leftie rant by another disaffected Trot. Some of them are probably also bemoaning how difficult it is to get good staff. They seem either unwilling or unable to make the link between that and how much staff get paid and how they're treated. That has got rather lost in all this.

8.32AM

Mon 30th Jan 2017

'Hare' De Bromhead

George Harrison isn't an immediate spot as Henry De Bromhead's doppelganger but it's been forcibly pointed out to me that the media has been so myopic in its John & Paul love-in with Messrs Mullins and Elliott this season that we've overlooked the third virtuoso on Irish racing's magical mystery tour. One respected racing professional, who isn't from Waterford, and insists he barely knows the trainer, seethed indignantly on Sunday : \"He's the real story, how he's stepped it up; but it's just like George in the Beatles, always in the shadows.\"

9.12AM

Mon 23rd Jan 2017

Just Turn Off The Tech

I once made No.51 in someone's online 'C--t of the Year' chart. Louis Walsh was 52. Joe Brolly was only 64 - what ya think of DAT! Did it constitute abuse? Hardly. There are a few within racing who'd have me Top Ten at least. I made the indulgent error of 'googling' myself and found out what some nut with time on his hands thought of me. So there's the tip for the boys and girls of the jockey's room: if you don't want to feel abused, don't go on social media. It's not renowned for kindness.

8.43AM

Mon 16th Jan 2017

An Irish Solution To An Irish Problem

Proof of just how litigious the policing of racing has become is stamped all over the Turf Club's radical new running and riding regulations. They cover a multitude of angles and scenarios to an extent unparalleled anywhere else in the world. The pity is that they have come to be so necessary but kudos to the expertise that's clearly gone into them. The regulations are in place - what counts is how seriously they are enforced. And ultimately the greatest signal of seriousness is likely to be that final fateful step towards professional stewarding.

8.54AM

Mon 9th Jan 2017

One More Thing...

Having finished up last week proclaiming there's nothing more boring than hacks talking hackery the obvious indulgent thing to do this week is talk journalism, or at least the comic-book version that is racing journalism which gets routinely dismissed as a gravy train from which us frauds and fakes trading under the media label loudly slurp while a poor, downtrodden betting public is forced to exist on fresh air and indignation.

9.09AM

Mon 2nd Jan 2017

2017 A Critical Year For Turf Club

The New Year is set to be a critical one for the Turf Club and its future credibility. If 2016 saw focus switching from the beleaguered regulatory body to Horse Racing Ireland then 2017 is likely to see it return to how the racing and bloodstock industries are policed. A number of new initiatives in terms of drug-testing and rule-changes are in the pipeline. But as is often the case with regulation, the key question isn’t rules but how they are enforced.

9.55AM

Sat 24th Dec 2016

Racing's 12 Tales Of Christmas 2016

1: Ride of the Year - Harzand’s Epsom Derby was Pat Smullen’s most important victory of this or any year. But his effort last July when riding Xsquared for more than a circuit of Killarney with the saddle slipping ever further up the horse’s neck was exceptional. Ireland’s champion jockey is renowned for his professionalism: this was proof of his brilliance.

10.44AM

Mon 19th Dec 2016

Quality Racing Actually Matters Sometimes

All eyes can now focus on the upcoming Christmas action — Friday’s unloved Dundalk fixture apart — when tradition has it that even those with no interest in the sport go racing on St Stephens Day. The cartoon is that these once-a-year racegoers cram in to Leopardstown in particular and are barely aware of horses outside. And that may be true. It’s reassuring though how Christmas attendance figures indicate how the quality of the actual racing can matter sometimes.

9.21AM

Mon 12th Dec 2016

We Are Where We Were

We are where we are: a phrase as banal as it is unarguable. But it pretty much sums up where Horse Racing Ireland is right now. Having slalomed its way around public guidelines over Brian Kavanagh’s reappointment as chief executive, become the focus of public criticism over its governance, got dragged before the Oireachtas to explain itself only to display braying unrepentant arrogance in doing so, and manoeuvring with startling expediency throughout, we now appear to be where we are - which is exactly where we were before.

8.52AM

Mon 5th Dec 2016

How To Be Seen

As a rule, problems with rules are to do with enforcement rather than the rules themselves. But Irish racing’s ‘non-trier’ regulations are an exception. They can be both restrictive and too open to interpretation. They also have to be applied in an environment where proving intent up to Burden of Proof ‘M’Lud’ standard is all but impossible. So the rules need a rewrite if stewards are to have any chance and either literally or figuratively they need to include two words - ‘Be Seen.’

9.09AM

Mon 28th Nov 2016

Dare To Think, Dare To Act

I’ve been asked where I stand on the plight of racing’s middle tier and its economic struggle for survival against the industry’s elite players. And the answer is I don’t know where to stand because it’s very complicated. What is noticeable though is how such an otherwise conservative and self-consciously hard-nosed private enterprise sector has suddenly got so welfarist, maybe even, God Forbid, a touch Maoist; who’d have thought?

9.04AM

Mon 21st Nov 2016

Heart Warming

It was freezing cold at Punchestown on Sunday but only a truly cold heart couldn’t respond to the circumstances surrounding First To Boogie’s success. He was a first winner as a trainer for Madeleine Tylicki. She took out a licence in June and for most of the last four weeks she has been at the bedside of her stricken brother Freddie. Racing is famously a magnificent triviality but First To Boogie’s otherwise mundane handicap hurdle success was proof once again how winning and losing remain anything but irrelevant.

8.58AM

Mon 14th Nov 2016

Almanzor The Obvious Choice

Racing’s awards season has began, a big deal in many other racing jurisdictions, but which in this part of the world is generally regarded as the sport’s silly season, a view that won’t have been altered by the decision to make Minding Europe’s Horse of the Year at the Cartier Awards. The task of investing any semblance of relevance or credibility to these things along the lines of America’s Eclipse award won’t have been helped by ignoring the bleedin’ obvious - Almanzor is Europe’s top horse of 2016.

9.00AM

Mon 7th Nov 2016

If You Can't Beat 'Em - Join 'Em

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.

9.32AM

Mon 31st Oct 2016

Horse & Greyhound & Harness & Flapping Fund

Long ago when the Horse & Greyhound Fund first started I remember pointing out how Irish racing generated about 15 per cent of bookmaker turnover yet, along with the dogs, it got 100 per cent of the tax revenue. Might not other sports have something to say about such a gap, I wondered? And wasn’t the theoretical basis of it all fundamentally, and perhaps dangerously, dependant on political whim?

9.25AM

Mon 24th Oct 2016

Normal Service Will Be Resumed

Racing’s perspective can be remarkably short term so the idea that Willie Mullins might face a struggle to maintain his grip on Ireland’s trainer’s title is gaining quite a bit of traction. And it’s rubbish. Of course Gordon Elliott is banging in the winners, and there’s always the danger of a rogue bug invading any yard. But just because Mullins is relatively quiet right now doesn’t mean normal service won’t be resumed soon - and with a vengeance.

9.19AM

Mon 17th Oct 2016

Same As It Ever Was

Last week I argued racing couldn’t be seen to emerge unscathed from the controversy surrounding Brian Kavanagh’s reappointment as Horse Racing Ireland’s chief executive — WRONG. It was based on an assumption that the Dail’s Agriculture Committee might have more in their armoury than harrumphing — WRONG. And that receiving public money behoves transparency — WRONG. Instead racing has emerged with a few minor reputational scratches but also record funding and everyone still in situ; effectively, an invitation to carry on as normal.

9.21AM

Mon 10th Oct 2016

Time To Go Joe

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.

9.20AM

Mon 3rd Oct 2016

What Price Genius?

If the 2016 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe wasn’t a vintage renewal, Aidan O’Brien’s achievement in saddling the first three in Europe’s most prestigious all-aged race can be regarded as perhaps the greatest singular result in an epic career which continues to redefine racing’s statistical history. Along with the Derby at Epsom, the Arc defines European racing. Never before has it been so dominated. The likelihood of such a clean-sweep ever occurring again must be as remote as any one trainer having the resources to realistically consider trying.

8.55AM

Mon 26th Sep 2016

Racing's Bread Is Buttered On The Public Side

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.

9.11AM

Mon 19th Sep 2016

Douvan The Sentimental Gold Cup Pick

It isn’t just the Autumn chill that’s making race fans shiver. Listowel traditionally refocuses attention towards the jumps, provoking familiar anticipation about the impeding return of National Hunt racing’s greatest stars. The flat has its qualities but the jumps always trump it for sentiment. And it’s that sentiment which makes the idea of Douvan not being targeted at the Gold Cup this winter so infuriating.

9.04AM

Mon 12th Sep 2016

Flip-Flopping Bullets

As is the way of such things there will be reviews of ‘Longines Irish Champions Weekend’ which will include microscopic examination of the little details we are always assured are vital to the make- up of every major sporting, and indeed corporate, event. No doubt there will be bullet-points aplenty. So while as a rule ‘Top Ten’ presentations really should be bulleted, here are some random shots at the weekend action.

9.25AM

Mon 5th Sep 2016

Hate To Put A Dampener On Things

Racing gets flak for failing to ‘bill’ its biggest races. But the reason is simple — too many variables. For instance if Minding, Harzand, Fascinating Rock, Almanzor, New Bay and Hawkbill do indeed all line up in Saturday’s QIPCO Irish Champion Stakes, then ‘Irish Champions Weekend’ will have Europe’s ‘Race of the Season.’ But hanging the centrepiece to Irish racing’s €4.25 million shop-window on that is to be a hostage to fortune. Variables take over, illness, injury, loss of form and unquestionably the greatest of them all — Ireland’s weather.

9.07AM

Mon 29th Aug 2016

Rouget Raid Will Reward Champions Weekend

Internationalisation has been an ambition for ‘Irish Champions Weekend’ from the start and in the third year of Irish flat racing’s shop-window event it is the unlikely figure of top French trainer Jean-Claude Rouget who promises to deliver that vital element. Rouget’s ambition to run his Prix Du Jockey Club winner Almanzor in the Champion Stakes, and his star fillies Qemah and Ervedya in the Matron, indicate how this €4.5 million concept has already carved out a niche for itself. Reward for Rouget now could significantly reward the event in the long term.

9.18AM

Mon 22nd Aug 2016

Playing Peek-A-Boo

Whatever else can be said about Tony Martin — and it seems many like to say plenty - no one can deny he has stood the test of time. Neither has there ever been doubt about Martin’s resilience or capacity to produce winners. However after a tumultuous year Heartbreak City’s Ebor success might just represent the most satisfying moment of his career. It was certainly timely and in the circumstances Martin could have been forgiven for giving two-fingers to his detractors.

9.12AM

Mon 15th Aug 2016

No Exit For Entry System

Arguing against the economic bottom line is usually an uneconomic use of time and energy so Richard Hannon’s complaint about Ireland’s “farcical” early entry system is likely to wind up lodged in a ‘like it or lump it’ account. Whether it should be is a different matter. The English trainer’s comments about how it is unrealistic to know in April whether or not to enter for the Phoenix Stakes in August reflect the view of many others. But the bottom line is that the Irish system is a cash generator: so good luck changing it.

9.31AM

Mon 8th Aug 2016

Bad Will Beat Worse

The story about that Charles Byrnes treble at Roscommon has contained plenty to get stuck into for the last week even including it seems an interesting insight into racing linguistics. There were those relishing a good old-fashioned betting ‘coup’ while others less impressed employed words like ‘plot’ instead. It all depends on which angle you’re coming from and as with most gambling stories the real angle is whether or not you’ve been in on it.

9.31AM

Mon 1st Aug 2016

Time To Dream It Up Again

To paraphrase Bono racing has to go away and dream its disciplinary process up again because it isn’t working. Pyromaniac’s Galway Hurdle appearance was a slap in the face to the authority of the integrity services here. If the Turf Club was spared the indignity of a horse technically suspended winning Ireland’s richest jumps race it didn’t prevent the ever increasing perception that racing can’t make its penalties stick. And credibility wise, that is unsustainable.

12.52PM

Mon 25th Jul 2016

Will The Empire Strike Back?

For those of us lucky enough to see it an abiding memory of the 2015 Galway festival was the look on Willie Mullins’ face when informed that the leading trainer award isn’t judged on winners alone but a system based on points for first, second and third. It’s what ultimately allowed Dermot Weld secure the prize for a 30th time - by a single point - despite having had five winners in comparison to Mullins’ eight. Weld always looms over the festival but, for many, this week’s major Galway question is will the Rosewell empire strike back?

8.47AM

Mon 18th Jul 2016

Mares Are From Mars

Plenty are ready and willing to squeeze the sexism trigger but Seamus Heffernan’s post Darley Irish Oaks comments after Seventh Heaven surprised some shorter-priced opposition were undeniably interesting - “They’re fillies: some of them turn up on the day and some of them don’t.” It suggests an element of Russian-Roulette when it comes to form which from a punting point of view has obvious implications.

8.47AM

Mon 11th Jul 2016

No One's Bullet Proof

The thing with surveys is that the questions are often as important as the answers. But no matter which way you look at it, the Turf Club’s questionnaire which threw up a result of 49 per cent of surveyed jockeys exhibiting symptoms of depression is startling. That’s twice the national average and almost twice the rate among elite athletes in other sports. So there’s an obvious question here for racing about the demands put on riders and how reasonable or otherwise they are.

8.49AM

Mon 4th Jul 2016

Footfall Freestyle

The Irish Derby’s dramatic attendance dip has produced quite a lot of twisting and turning which ordinarily could be categorised as little more than movement for its own sake. After all, when the real racecourse money is in telly, the gate becomes mostly superfluous. Except there’s €65 million going into redeveloping the Curragh, largely on the ‘Field Of Dreams’ hope that if you build it, they will come. And the evidence rather starkly suggests that they won’t.

9.27AM

Mon 27th Jun 2016

Success Is Slutty

Harzand proved himself a worthy champion by completing the Epsom-Curragh Derby double. There’s nothing flamboyant about him, nothing flash, but after looking Idaho in the eye inside the final furlong Harzand was well on top at the line. This is a colt full of substance and with the priceless ability of being able to rise to the occasion. His partnership with Pat Smullen looks a marriage made in heaven.

9.07AM

Mon 20th Jun 2016

Times Passes & Things Change - Or Do They?

Never thought I’d quote Eminem but time does indeed pass and things do usually change. A couple of years after dire predictions of Irish Derby doom on the back of another Aidan O’Brien clean-sweep led by Australia at 1-8 comes a potentially enthralling and competitive renewal of Ireland’s premier classic. And there’s a notably boosted €1.5 million prize-fund too, which indicates how time does pass but some things don’t change, such as racing’s ferocious focus on prizemoney.

9.18AM

Mon 13th Jun 2016

The Psychedelic Cleric

Aidan O’Brien needs only two more winners to achieve a haul of 50 Royal Ascot victories, a notable tally in every sense, even more so for a trainer based in Ireland, and especially so considering the first of them, Harbour Master’s Coventry Stakes, came in 1997. At this rate even Sir Henry Cecil’s record of 75 winners will be under threat. O’Brien’s 2016 Royal Ascot story however is going to be inextricably linked with his son. Plenty believe it will be the start of a much longer-term narrative.

9.23AM

Mon 6th Jun 2016

Weld Joins Derby Elite

Prior to Saturday’s Epsom Derby, 18 horses trained in Ireland had won racing’s greatest classic. The 1907 hero Orby apart, the others had been produced by just half a dozen trainers, an elite comprised of figures ranging from legendary to enigmatic, even mysterious, all of whom however possessed of that priceless capacity to make top-class racehorses run fast. No one can argue Dermot Weld isn’t worthy of inclusion in such an elite.

9.06AM

Mon 30th May 2016

Any Chance Of A Start?

Paddy Payne got into hot water when suggesting his injured Melbourne Cup winning sister, Michelle, might jack in being a jockey in order to go and have babies. Much of the indignant response neglected to factor in frayed familial nerves contributing to an unfortunately blunt quote. But if the bare words were regrettable they did kick off more debate about female jockeys. And that got me thinking of another successful female jockey down under.

8.58AM

Mon 23rd May 2016

Open All Hours

Has it come to this, that flat racing, populated by Sheikhs, royalty and billionaires, is actually more of an open shop than the salt-of-the-earth National Hunt game? Can it be true? An awful lot of egalitarian notions will have to be binned if it is. But ponder this — could a trio of top-flight prizes have been spread around over jumps to the extent, and the manner, in which the Curragh’s Guineas weekend features were?

8.36AM

Mon 16th May 2016

Derby Twistin'

If the 2,000 Guineas is famously the last two year old race then the Derby’s problem is being the first major three year old race. Not that it’s much of a problem for those in thrall to the sport. But since the Derby is racing’s ultimate classic prize, it’s position so soon in the season makes it a hard narrative sell to a public used to its sporting highlights presented in terms of a cumulative climax.

9.02AM

Mon 9th May 2016

Girl Power

There are obvious commercial reasons for Minding not to run in the Epsom Derby. But there’s no actual racing reason why she couldn’t become the first filly in a century to win racing’s ‘blue riband.’ From a purely racing point of view all that’s required is a willingness to stray from the beaten path, one of the game’s many ‘Cosan Deargs,’ which in this case suggests a filly taking on colts in a classic to be a bridge too far. It isn’t.

8.50AM

Mon 2nd May 2016

Sunday Silence

There was a record-breaking 114,438 attendance for Punchestown last week and with 30,035 on Saturday’s ‘Family Day’ and a 29,419 ‘Ladies Day’ crowd on Friday there appears to be a trend towards people congregating at Ireland’s National Hunt festival towards the weekend. That begs the question as to whether or not a trick is being missed in not maximising that trend and finishing the festival on a Sunday.

9.18AM

Mon 25th Apr 2016

Kill Or Cure

Racing justice is essentially cosmetic, an exercise that racing’s stakeholders choose to buy into. History shows us the real justice system is turned to when it really counts. Even if it doesn’t get to the High Court, its spectre looms, always the elephant in the steward’s room. Trying to make racing justice more than merely cosmetic requires a lot more than more cosmetics. But it should be done because the current system isn’t fit for purpose.

9.14AM

Mon 18th Apr 2016

The New Tone In Town

Distinguishing a ‘no-try’ from a ‘not able to try’ is a requirement of any competent race-reader, not to mention the different degrees of ‘easy’ in between. Even so, much of it comes down to individual interpretation, which is just a fancy way of saying hunch. But when it comes to horse’s weight, often an important element to when a horse is ‘off’ or not, there is an opportunity for hard statistical fact to be employed. Yet there appears to be no urgency about employing it.

9.08AM

Mon 11th Apr 2016

The Burden Of Judgement

Lots of legal ‘brass’ are reportedly girding their loins for next week’s Referrals Committee appeal into the Noble Emperor affair. That is simultaneously both their clients’ entitlement and a weakness in racing’s integrity system. If High Court burdens of proof are required to nail down what are essentially judgement calls, it leaves ample room for sharp legal minds to manoeuvre in. It can also mean the spectre of the High Court itself in the background.

8.58AM

Mon 4th Apr 2016

The Ripple Effect

It’s an old racing cliché that they — and by ‘they,’ read stewards — only go after the little guy. But no one can accuse Limerick’s officials of having one rule book for minnows and another for big fish. Suspending Barry Geraghty, one of the finest jockeys ever produced by this country, for 30 days and banning a horse owned by JP McManus, unquestionably the country’s most powerful and influential owner, for 60 days qualifies as big guy stuff in any vernacular. So we’ve had the big splash: what everyone’s waiting on now are the ripples.

9.37AM

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