'Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa'

Hands up those who believe Irish racing is serious about anti-doping. Don't worry, no one's looking. Your arse is covered. Just privately ask yourself if you believe that this is a sport and industry making concentrated and meaningful efforts to fight drug cheats. That this is a sport and industry prepared to live up to its grandiose ambitions by doing what needs to be done. Fair play if you can: hope can clearly still triumph over experience.

The Turf Club changed its title to the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board at the start of the year. But the debacle over the false positive test results for anabolic steroids that have led to it terminating its long link with the BHP lab is just the latest example of how little changes about Irish racing's capacity to shoot itself in the foot over drugs.

Tying up the contractual loose-ends of this latest episode reportedly cost half a million of tax-payers money. There are those within racing and breeding who will reckon that's a small price to pay in order to continue spouting platitudes about doping without actually having to address the issue seriously. Sadly, experience tells us it's still the cosmetics that count.

It's not like there isn't a blueprint to do otherwise. The Anti-Doping Task Force set up on the back of steroid controversies involving Philip Fenton, Pat Hughes and his brother John Hughes delivered a comprehensive report, complete with extensive recommendations. over two years ago. Yet the pace of progress on implementing those recommendations has been glacial. And that's being generous.

It's now six years since six kilograms of nitrotain was intercepted at Dublin airport on its way to the retired Department of Agriculture veterinary inspector John Hughes. Six kilograms was described as a commercial quantity. It was in 2012 too that unauthorised medicines, including steroids, were found at the yards of both Pat Hughes and Philip Fenton.

This represented a fundamental threat to the reputation and credibility of both racing and breeding. That it required outside agencies to uncover it was one thing. But the sector's response has been in its own hands. And this latest fiasco just adds to the impression of a sport and industry which, deliberately or otherwise, continues to show a startling lack of urgency about implementing reform.

The IHRB is getting it in the neck now. It can hardly be otherwise even if it is always the easiest target. But the regulator is just the sum of bloodstock industry parts. So is Horse Racing Ireland. All these parts are connected to one extent or another. So theoretically at least they all have a stake in preserving the horse game's credibility. Yet the level of faffing continues to be remarkable.

It's over two years since the Task Force report was published. A sector serious about reforming itself, one capable of appreciating long-term, big-picture considerations, would have plenty achieved in such a timeframe. However this one is stuck in a quagmire of bluff and counter-bluff, accusation and counter-accusation. It's hardly been two years well-spent.

Yes, establishing a system that can effectively trace and test a thoroughbred throughout its life looks not so much difficult as downright impossible given current criteria. And yes there are some individuals genuinely striving to square this maddening logistical circle.

But it is six years since that Hughes shipment was seized in Dublin airport. It's four years since Fenton was disqualified. He has finished his ban and little if anything has changed in the interim.

This latest testing embarrassment comes on the tracks of the 2016 revelation that Irish racing's regulatory process was unable to test for 'milk-shaking' which has been a scourge in international racing for years. The Task Force has been reconvened in an attempt to solve the jurisdiction impasse. And all this is in a €1.7 billion industry that prides itself as a world leader.

The cumulative impact is an unavoidable impression of foot-dragging. There appears a glaring absence of people with sufficient vision to see the bigger picture. Just as glaring is an absence of imagination to navigate a way past technical roadblocks, or if that fails the clout to smash through them.

That we're constantly reminded of the talent and ability of those working in racing only makes the absence of movement even more stark. That it's the same parts who have the most to gain from being seen to keep drugs out of both racing and breeding doesn't seem to encourage any sort of radical initiative.

So after a while even the most hopeful might have to concede that nothing's happening because behind all the cant nobody really wants it to happen.

But not to worry, Cheltenham's just over a week away and that's perfect opportunity to wrap the green flag around team-Ire as it pursues the coveted Prestbury Cup.

This is the 13th year of the National Hunt festival moving to four days from three and if the scuttlebutt is to be believed it might see increased calls for the meeting to be extended to five days. Those predicting last year's Irish haul of 19 winners will never be repeated might want to keep that in mind.

Those who lobbied for four days will no doubt argue the prospect of a fifth day is simply a sign of a hugely successful enterprise commercially evolving even further. And commercially it's easy to argue that there can't be too much of a good thing. From a racing point of view it's just as easy to argue that advancement isn't synonymous with improvement.

By any reasonable measure some of the festival padding at the moment makes for thin gruel. Spreading it even thinner will not only make the week more of a grueller but crucially risks diluting the very credibility that makes Cheltenham unique. This is racing's championships, or to use the most abused Cheltenham cliché of all, it's Olympics. By definition that means quality, not quantity.

That doesn't mean festival can't and shouldn't change. The decision to move the Galway Plate card to an evening slot - with the Plate off at 7.20 - has copped some flak. But it's hard to see what's to lose. It might be hard to imagine stuck in the snow right now but summer time is a very different beast and what's a couple of hours here or there.

What we do know is that Plate attendances have been sliding noticeably in recent years. It's supposed to be one of the most attractive cards in the whole calendar yet the Friday programme, complete with its Bank Holiday weekend crowd, pulls a much bigger crowd. So where's the harm in trying something new?

Incidentally, the drive to increase attendance is one of the major reasons for the Galway switch which is an interesting point given how crowd figures regularly get dismissed as a meaningful gauge.