Foot-Dragging

In January 2012 Department of Agriculture inspectors raided Philip Fenton's stables and cured Irish racing of its drug-free delusions by finding banned animal medicines including anabolic steroids. Ensuring industry credibility by provision of a new anti-doping regime has supposedly been a priority almost ever since. That's almost eight years now. Still nothing is in place on the ground. It begs the question as to how much of a priority the fight against drugs actually is.

An Anti-Doping Task Force report, with representatives from all sectors, was issued at the start of 2016. Its recommendations were extensive but central to it was the rather obvious requirement that every thoroughbred should be traceable throughout its life. Since there isn't a bullock in the country that can't be traced like that it doesn't seem to set a particularly high bar.

Fulfilling that means being able to trace and test animals in both licensed and unlicensed premises. So the Task Force recommended a protocol be agreed with the breeders body to allow Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board officials enter stud farms and with provision for testing in relation to sales companies.

In theory the maintenance of a sector's credibility, one we're assured is vital to the Irish economy generally, should have resulted in real urgency to come up with an effective model. Instead years of foot-dragging ensued over minor sectional self-interests that left the industry overall wide-open to suspicions it is ambivalent at best about cleaning up its act.

That has only been underlined since a reconvened Task Force came up with a jurisdictional solution called a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which would allow IHRB officials to be involved in random and intelligence led testing on premises such as stud farms.

Despite the incongruity of prior day notice for out of competition testing the SLA model did at least pave the way for the much-lauded Industry Wide Policy on Prohibited Substances & Doping Control that promised lifetime traceability. That policy was approved by the HRI board in July of last year.

The SLA plan was for it to be operational in time to register the 2019 foal crop in the second half of this year. In fact an SLA still hasn't been agreed and by most accounts won't be by the start of 2020 either.

Throughout this glacial saga the default response has been that it's better to get this done right rather than done fast. So far neither has occurred.

There are some valiantly trying to do what should be obviously in the entire sector's ultimate best interests. Yet the current impasse seems to reflect a lack of overall urgency that unfortunately suggests satisfaction with all this being little more than a cosmetic exercise. A not particularly high bar has been set: too many seem content to limbo their way underneath it.

The HRI board meeting that signs off on the following year's budget is always of interest but perhaps especially so this time. The government's decision to leave racing's allocation of state money for 2020 unchanged at €67.2 million means something has to give at the next HRI conclave on December 16. All its commitments can't be met by projected revenues.

We've been assured everything is up for consideration when it comes to pruning but certain elements such as funding for the Equine Centre and RACE look impregnable. The same should be the case for integrity since cuts there would send out the wrong kind of signal. Maintaining or increasing prizemoney levels continues to seem the holy of HRI's holies.

That reduces options and in such a scenario provision for a second all-weather track by 2021 seems to lift right out.

An evaluation committee is due to give a report on its recommendation - which nobody but everybody knows will be HRI's very own Tipperary - in time for December 16. There is widespread demand for a second all-weather to ease the pressure on Dundalk. In the circumstances though a 2021 deadline is starting to look optimistic.

Racing in this part of the world has been urged to get real by upping minimum weights for jockeys by 7lbs. A study in Britain has revealed how the vast majority of flat apprentices can't make the current 8st minimum. As such they sometimes can't claim their appropriate weight allowance. Such an outcome only tells us what we already know - people are getting bigger.

Dramatic evidence of that is how Ireland's reigning champion jockey, Donnacha O'Brien, happens to be a reed-thin six-footer.

There have been cautions about simply increasing minimum weights and expecting that to be some kind of silver bullet. It will always be the case that fat jockeys will be as rare as hen's teeth. The demands of the job mean riders always strain to get to their minimum. But the call for racing to get real still rings true. Otherwise declarations of concern for rider health ring hollow.

There was much to take out of last Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, most of which revolved around Frankie Dettori's frustration at once again being denied in his 17th attempt at the race. The fact he had salt rubbed into his tears by getting slapped with a hefty suspension for interference that on this side of the world would barely have provoked an enquiry was interesting in terms of different regulatory cultures.

But perhaps another element to else to take out of the controversial finish that saw Dettori's mount Master Of Reality demoted to fourth from second was how it underlined how irrelevant jockeys testimony at enquires almost invariably is.

Aidan O'Brien's Il Paradiso was an unlucky loser anyway. He badly missed the break and got stuck at the back of a tepid pace. Half a mile out he only had a couple behind him as the tempo quickened. But Il Paradiso carved his way through the field up the straight and for a moment looked like he might pounce on the line.

That was when Dettori veered left and for a split-second Il Paradiso was the meat in a sandwich between Master Of Reality and the winner Vow And Declare. Il Paradiso finished only fourth, subsequently promoted to third. But considering he was beaten just a head and two noses, it's hard not to suspect even the slightest impediment to his momentum might have been crucial.

Il Paradiso's jockey Wayne Lordan didn't object and at the enquiry backed up Dettori by saying it happened very close to the line and he wasn't sure how much difference it made. To their credit the Flemington stewards came to their own conclusions and did what they felt they had to do. But they could have done it without listening to Lordan or any other jockey for that matter.

Lordan was in an unenviable position. The horse who'd interfered with him is trained by Joseph O'Brien who just three days before had given Lordan a first Breeders Cup success. O'Brien's father, and Il Paradiso's trainer, is Lordan's main employer. It wasn't like he was going to get the race. So he slalomed through the diplomatic minefield and surprised no one by effectively saying nothing. And good luck to him.

But it's just more evidence of how 99 per cent of what jockeys declare at any interference enquiry is predictable and just how irrelevant such evidence usually is.