Old Habits Die Hard

Politics is about power but maintaining wriggle-room is vital in exercising it. No one becomes Minister for Finance by not being good at keeping their options open and Pascal Donohoe can clearly wriggle it more than a little bit. So it will be fascinating to see what he does in Tuesday's budget in relation to Irish racing's annual plea for an increase in betting tax which always gets represented as some sort of self-financing silver bullet for the industry.

A lot of racing's brass don't like the government's financial allocation being described as a subsidy. Words like incentive or stimulus get employed instead. But while the arguments underpinning this semantic two-step are substantial there's no point splitting too many linguistic hairs: a subsidy under any other name is still a subsidy.

That's not going to change even if betting tax gets increased to two per cent. Even if it's somehow ring-fenced it's not going to change. Even the hardest-nosed free market merchant can't convincingly argue a sector which produces just 12 per cent of turnover on horse racing betting - never mind everything else - isn't being subsidised when it gets the bulk of what's generated in tax.

That won't stop another pitch to increase betting tax from one per cent to two per cent with punters picking up the difference. And since the worst that can happen is for the Minister to say no you can't blame anyone for asking. There's even presumably strategic suggestions that this could be the year it happens. That in turn has provoked warnings of 1,500 job losses in betting shops here.

So far, so predictable, you might say. But there's the political element too, and how many TD's, particularly in the independent alliance, are pushing for the proceeds of any potential increase in betting tax to be put towards the provision of services for those with gambling and addiction problems.

That's a tough argument to counter and given the composition of the cabinet such demands have to be taken seriously or risk much wider implications.

So Donohoe needs wriggle room. He's got warnings from the bookmaker lobby of job losses if the tax rate increases. Except that sector is hardly flavour of the month in terms of fears relating to the wider social consequences of their business. And he's got a racing lobby coming at him looking for an even bigger slice of a financial pie even though they have only a marginal role in baking it.

Of course all this is of only tiny relevance in the overall budget scheme. But in its own terms, and with divergent interests pulling at him, it's difficult to imagine the Minister pinning his colours definitively to any mast by ring-fencing anything. Governments tend not to commit themselves unless they have to and there doesn't appear any such imperative.

In fact with different agendas pulling at him the leverage Donohoe can command from making sure he continues to control the purse strings, and deciding who gets what and when, seems a logical use of wriggle-room. It mightn't make one particular sector happy but not so unhappy as to make his life difficult. And that's always a political result.

So how many of you were aware that Enable was only "85 per cent" for that epic second Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe success? Or that John Gosden endured a "nightmare" getting her to Longchamp at all? Racing and betting types dread any idea of being seen to somehow not be in the know but judged by the market confidence in Enable not too many seemed to know a whole lot.

There wasn't anything said publicly about a temperature, or her blood not being 100 per cent, or missing a piece of work, on the run up to the Arc. Yet both Gosden and Frankie Dettori subsequently presented the circumstances of the victory in touch and go terms. Dettori even acclaimed his boss in terms of "what a genius John Gosden is - to win an Arc with that interrupted preparation."

And over the years Gosden has indeed proven himself a master of his profession. He has also appeared to be a notably fluent and available figure, often pointing out how important it is for racing to sell itself to the outside world. Which made his post-race revelations of the job required to get Enable to Longchamp at all seem even more notable.

Trainers are on a hiding to nothing when it comes to public information about how horses are training. Whatever they say can be interpreted negatively by a betting public predisposed to believing the worst. Just think back to last winter and the brouhaha that blew up over Nicky Henderson's updates on Altior before the Tingle Creek Chase.

The everyday trials and tribulations of getting any horse to the races for any race make ridiculous the idea of somehow informing the betting public of every single detail of how their preparation is going. There is also the reality that any trainer is going to prioritise their own interests, and the interests of their owner, before letting any amorphous blob like the public into the loop.

Except Enable was the hot favourite for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, a filly billed in some quarters as a 'name' to hang an industry's profile on, and in a race that's the most high-profile, valuable and prestigious in Europe. That nothing seemed to get out says a lot about racing's much vaunted grapevine. It also says a lot about some habits dying hard when it comes to dispensing information.

News of Enable's preparation put a different spin on what was an Arc finish for the ages. Sea Of Class produced a superb finish under a fine James Doyle ride. It's hard to know what else Doyle could have done. But any immediate impression the runner up was a little unfortunate has to get placed in the context of how she still wasn't able to beat an 85 per cent Enable.

It was relatively meagre pickings for the Irish over Arc weekend with the notable exception of Gavin Cromwell's inspired race-planning which sees Princess Yaiza with a potentially career-defining Group Two Prix de Royallieu success on her CV. This is an unfashionably bred filly who before Longchamp had been beaten in Galway's Listed Oyster Stakes when racing off a mark of 103.

Her French victory is just the latest big-race example this year of how effectively many Irish trainers can do the job given sufficient ammunition. Cromwell has proved umpteen times how he's able to exploit whatever level of talent might be in a horse, be it over jumps or on the flat. But in terms of identifying opportunity and executing a plan this takes some topping.

Onto more mundane material, though just as vital to those involved, and someone a lot more on the ball than yours truly has pointed out how at the Naas 'industry' fixture last Tuesday there were 18 horses running in handicaps that were rated below 45.

This interested observer also informs me that 374 horses have been rated below 45 this flat season which is a significant slice of the in-training population whichever way you cut it. And since they probably prop up a lot of smaller yards, and keep owners in the game, he reckons a case can be made for running a few 0-44 races during the season to keep things ticking along.

Horse Racing Ireland's focus on maintaining quality has been consistent over the years and catering for bad horses in bad races inevitably risks accusations of a race to the bottom. But since demand for pictures and the TV money it generates has become the beating financial heart of the game, who's to say there won't be an angle yet in bad beating worse.