'Ah Shag It, T'Will Do'

Racing is hardly unique in Ireland in sometimes adopting a rather 'ah shag it, t'will do' attitude towards the boring business of administration. But it is rather more different in having received almost €64 million in state funding this year with an even greater allocation expected for 2018 when next week's budget is announced. So it's in that context that the relatively haphazard system in use here for the traceability of thoroughbreds simply won't do at all.

A flavour of what is the widespread reality on the ground came last week when owner Patrick Coffey was 'warned off' for two years after it was established that four horses were being trained at his unlicensed premises while returned in training with permit holder James Coyle.

The Referrals Committee panel suspended a one year disqualification of Coyle's licence on the basis that he had immediately held his hands up and told Turf Club officials where the four horses actually were rather than where they were officially supposed to be.

It was just one example of a hardly uncommon practise on the ground. If the theoretical measure of what constitutes the racing population is Horses Returned in Training then the practical reality is very different. And if greater accountability in relation to a number of areas, particularly doping control, is to be meaningful a new administrative system when it comes to tracking horses whereabouts is urgently required.

For instance it simply isn't good enough for someone who has been preparing a horse to ring up a trainer who wouldn't know anything about the animal a week before a race and get them to make an entry. The horse gets moved for that week, ticking the official box, and no one's the wiser when it goes home after the race.

You would imagine trainers wouldn't play ball. Often they don't know the first thing about such a horse even though they're the ones in the frame if it fails a dope test. Except they're in the business of trying to generate patronage too so sometimes must feel that they've little choice. After all if they don't play ball someone else will and it's become accepted almost as part of the deal since the chances of being caught out are slim.

And that's because effective traceability isn't in the horse game. As pointed out before there isn't a cow or a pig that the state can't trace. It's not the case with horses, some of which can disappear from official radar for months or even years before showing up again with seemingly no one accountable for what's happened to them in the interim.

Formulating and implementing a system that makes someone accountable in relation to every horse no matter where it is and what it's doing is no one's idea of a good time. It's certainly no recipe pie for quick positive headlines.

But it would hardly be an unreasonable request from the Department of Agriculture that in return for substantial state aid a billion Euro industry racing would attempt to pinpoint animals properly rather than effectively turning a blind eye to a widespread game of pass the parcel.

It's hard not to suspect much of the discontent among trainers in the North of Ireland regarding racing's old stable staff pension and death benefit scheme would be assuaged by a straightforward and comprehensive declaration from those in charge as to its current status.

There's a Dance of the Seven Veils feel to what's been going on recently in relation to the old fund which was wound up in 2010 with everyone entitled to money out of it paid. That controversially didn't include employees in the north because they had never been entitled to benefit as they're in a different jurisdiction.

That has long been a source of resentment in the north considering racing here is a 32 county industry. But with the fund wound up it seemed a futile grudge. Except a letter in March 2012 indicates there was then €1.36 million left over from the old scheme, apparently kept in reserve to pay members - some of them from overseas - who hadn't claimed their entitlements.

Then last week the Turf Club confirmed stable staff in the north have in fact been covered under the life assurance element of the old scheme since 2012 after advice that there was no issue with employees in the north being covered.

That came as news to almost every trainer in the north and to many others too. Bernard Caldwell of the Irish Stable Staff Association said he thought northern staff had always been covered. It also came as news to many in the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association. Both bodies had been represented on the old pension's management committee.

In the midst of such confusion it's hardly surprising that trainers in the north who feel that qualified stable staff there are entitled to a dividend from the old scheme are still interested in the current status of the leftover money.

Queries to the Turf Club as to that status were referred to Irish Pensions Trust, the trustees of that money kept in reserve for unmade claims. They confirmed there are funds there but not unreasonably said they can't reveal details to anyone who isn't a plan member.

All this sounds right and proper but the lack of information has inevitably created a vacuum. So it seems an obvious step to find out how much money is there now and what is going to be done with it.

Then after that maybe questions can be asked as to the bizarre situation of how a sector of workers can have been covered with life assurance for five years without seemingly anyone knowing about it.

The question of how good Enable already is - and where she ranks in the list of modern Arc winning greats - will occupy handicapper thoughts this week. Others will even dream of her being even better again if allowed to race as a four year old. She didn't beat a vintage Arc field on Sunday but no one can argue about the style with which she put them to the sword.

There's been no question for a long time however that her jockey ranks at the very top of the finest natural talents the old game has ever seen. An attempt at putting Frankie Dettori's record breaking fifth Arc success in context is in the following link: Irish Times article - Dettori the cream of the crop

As for Aidan O'Brien's weekend Group One double-double taking him to within four top-flight winners of the world record, this is turning into perhaps a season of seasons for the man who has steered the Ballydoyle ship for just over two decades. It's no coincidence it took a champion like Enable to prevent an outrageous clean-sweep of the Irish and British classics in 2017.

And finally, the famous line uttered by Nicole Kidman in the 'To Die For' movie - "You aren't anybody in America if you're not on TV" - came to mind at Tipperary last week after it appeared the horse, Sarah Ash Calum, was punched around "the nostril area" in the parade ring. A hearing into the matter is expected at the Turf Club later this week.

Unlike the notorious Davy Russell case at Tramore in August however, this wasn't caught on film. So the response has been, to quote one official, absolutely nothing.