Putting The Cart Before The Horse Later today the Horse Racing Ireland board meets to sign off on their 2020 budget. Industry stakeholders are awaiting details with some trepidation. Cuts seem to be inevitable given that state funding is unchanged at €67.2 million from last year. Where they occur may reveal more about Irish racing's actual priorities than any amount of official statements. There's widespread presumption that plans for a second all-weather track - most likely at Tipperary - will have to be shelved for the time being. It will also be interesting to see if the traditional emphasis on prize-money levels is maintained. If it is that could put pressure on the integrity budget which last year was for €9.5 million. Were that to happen it would send out a signal loud and clear. One area already flagged by Horse Racing Ireland's chairman Nicky Hartery is that the organisation has no greater priority than equine welfare. At last week's HRI Awards he pointed to how beleaguered some racing jurisdictions are around the world, particularly in the US, on the back of various welfare controversies. He's correct in pointing to the importance of the welfare issue. Amidst changing social mores about animals being bred and employed for sport, racing's future credibility is fundamentally rooted in reassuring the general public that every step is taken, and seen to be taken, in relation to duty of care. In that regard Hartery's statement is timely and welcome. However there appears to be a stark contrast between the words and on the ground reality since the capacity to trace an animal throughout its life is a pretty basic prerequisite of any welfare regime. It certainly flags up a marked lack of urgency in the case of implementing the Anti-Doping system which was declared a priority years ago and yet remains mired in delay. Some reports suggest that the Irish Equine Centre will be a focus for improvement with the appropriate resources put into doing that. But welcome as that would be, improving a drug-testing facility without first prioritising the logistics of how to meaningfully supply it might strike some as putting the cart before the horse. Such contradictions are hardly unknown in racing though. Another instance came at the HRI awards when Billy Lee secured Ride of the Year honours for his Boomerang Stakes winning effort on Space Traveller over Irish Champions Weekend. Pat Smullen lauded it as "a ride that had everything; intelligence, strength, judgement: in my opinion it's the ride of a jockey riding at the peak of his powers." That opinion is peerless in its authority. But the fact of the matter is that Lee's ride, no matter how technically good, broke the rules. He subsequently got an eight day for his use of the whip. This isn't something novel. Last year Patrick Mullins got a 'McCoy' for a ride of the year effort on Rathvinden at Cheltenham despite it earning him a six day suspension for his use of the whip. That too was an example of a fundamentally flawed system which rewards breaking the rules, a quandary racing can't keep putting on the long finger. For such a self-consciously tough sport it's always notable how racing is so prone to fashion, something underlined once again when Bryan Cooper landed Sunday's Grade Two feature at Navan. Once the face of the future, Cooper replaced Davy Russell as Michael O'Leary's No. 1 jockey at the start of 2014 when just 21. Over three years of riding in the Gigginstown silks yielded multiple Grade One successes. Don Cossack's Gold Cup in 2016 tops a list of eight career wins at the National Hunt game's greatest festival. The reasons for Cooper falling out of favour with O'Leary have been widely speculated on with some believing a lot of it comes down to a case of 'too much -too soon' on the jockey's part. Or maybe the Ryanair boss simply felt like a change. But for someone who rode 94 winners in a season not so long ago, to now be in single figures this term must make maintaining confidence levels quite a task. To his credit Cooper has persevered and his victory on Latest Exhibition shows that technically he's still able to get the job done on a quality horse. He can also count on Paul Nolan's support which looks like being vital in rejuvenating his career. But the scale of that job can be gauged by how Latest Exhibition was Cooper's sole ride last weekend. It shows just how quickly a face can start not to fit, no matter how impressive the CV behind it. But Cooper might keep in mind how nothing dates faster than trendy. He has found that out already in his career. But fashion can swing back too when it comes to jockeys. When Cooper's star was at its brightest, Rachael Blackmore barely registered on the landscape. Now she is at the top of the tree, accompanied there by all the pioneering significance that goes into fundamentally altering perceptions of gender when it comes to race-riding. It's a context that makes her failure to make the long-list of contenders for RTE's sports person of the year awards so perplexing. Four jockeys - Oisin Murphy, Davy Russell, Donnacha O'Brien and Paul Townend - made the long-list and such recognition was well deserved. Blackmore didn't, perhaps because she was runner up to Townend in last season's jockeys race rather than crowned champion. The significance of that achievement though can hardly be over-estimated. It has changed the landscape of the toughest game of all which is something truly groundbreaking. These end of year gongs are mostly trivial things but this deserved recognition. Finally, Racing TV's statement that they plan to give Irish racing its own dedicated channel on December 26 has been widely welcomed. It's an attempt to stave off fears that the sport here would get swamped for coverage on the busiest day of the year when RTV plans to cover eight meetings in four hours. As a result, and for a first time, Down Royal will get covered alongside Leopardstown and Limerick. Bruised by recent criticism, including Noel Meade's claim that RTV has been a "disaster," the move is a short term piece of PR fire-fighting but also has the potential for longer-term significance. This is an environment though where sensitivities are hair-trigger when it comes to perceptions of Irish racing not being valued. The RTV statement outlined how "Irish racing will enjoy the uninterrupted focus of a dedicated Racing TV channel on Boxing Day." To which quite a number of observers were heard to shout: 'It's St Stephens Day in Ireland!' Actually, that's not totally true, but still, it proves that there's no winning sometimes.
