Away from the grandeur of Derby weekend at Epsom, there are hints of a power shift in the governance of British racing. Or is there?
It’s not unusual for new bosses to be in situ in the background just before the big occasion arrives.
It’s a useful distraction and a quiet introduction to the role while all the eyes are on the Oaks and Derby.
Jim Mullen is the new chief executive of The Jockey Club. They own plenty of the high-profile racecourses across Britain, including Cheltenham, Aintree and Epsom.
While watching top-class horses whizz around the tight bends of Epsom will be a source of delight, Mullen would no doubt have been more alarmed with the half- empty hill in the middle of the racecourse.
The Derby has been around for almost 250 years and it’s never felt more culturally irrelevant as it does now.
Racegoers enjoy the Derby but the atmosphere was notably quiet on Tattenham Hill
The rain put a dampener on things but ticket prices are just as off putting as the weather
Those in attendance enjoy the racing but the fun fairs in the background were quite sparse
This was a national occasion marked in the diary by pretty much anyone who follows sport. Not anymore.
Epsom looked and felt silent, its undercard to the Derby was all relatively uninspiring stuff. This race desperately needs to find its resonance again. So does the sport.
Charging kids £50 and £70 to get into the stands is shocking from Epsom’s chiefs. £85 and £165 for the Grandstand and Queen Elizabeth Stand hardly represents value. Access to the hill is free but, with everyone on weather watch and expecting a heavy rain shower, there isn’t much fun standing around the middle of the racecourse stuck and exposed to the elements.
It could be worse. You could have paid £40 to watch Scotland’s diabolical friendly defeat Iceland at Hampden on Friday night. The cost of access to top-level sporting events is sky high and racing faces challenges along with every other sport.
Rip off Britain is in full bloom. Ordinary punters, who are already being taxed to oblivion, are paying through the nose for everything between supermarket essentials and leisure interests. More and more are disillusioned with the political system and feel barely recognised in the sports they once adored.
Racing is no different in people paying more but getting less in return. But it’s also struggling to resonate with the general public.
The Derby undercard proved it. Two sprint handicaps you can watch any other day of the week and a couple of weak Group Threes is not befitting of the main event.
Punters take so much time and energy to spot the right price and get the right value in the right races. It also applies to gate prices.
Don’t be so shocked when people that spend most of their spare time poring through race form and weighing up whether to back a horse at 9/4 or wait for 5/2 are astute enough to not pay over the odds for the entry fee or £14 for a bad burger.
The rails down the side of Epsom racecourse were busy at the front but not that deep
Racing’s core audience has been insulted for too long. More and more people and voting with their feet and keeping their hard-earned in their pocket.
Credit to Hexham for being one of too few exceptions to the rule. You can get in for as less as £12 at the independently run course who had a royal visit earlier this week.
A chief executive at Ladbrokes-Coral and newspaper group Reach, Mullen is no stranger to making brutal decisions.
Speaking this week, the 54-year-old Glaswegian said: ‘There will be hard decisions that have to be made.’
Too right. The Jockey Club, and indeed racing’s finances, have been taking a whacking. Attendances have fallen and profits have tumbled due to the gambling regulation that is being impinged on punters and declining attendances. Only a cursory glance over the hill yesterday would tell you that.
Nevin Truesdale was in his position before Mullen took over last Sunday. It wasn’t so long ago that Epsom was invaded by animal rights protestors, Truesdale took out a court injunction against them and they’ve not been seen since.
He also started the petition that engaged a parliamentary discussion against affordability checks and their impact on the racing industry. Those two public acts of valour were greater than any chief executive or chairman in anyone in any body of British racing’s absurdly bloated governance structure.
Truesdale left with some frustrated parting words at the system’s dysfunctionality and, quite understandably, rode off into the sunset. Mullen facing a major task in taking up the mantle and is destined to meet the same obstacles.
The hope for real change is racing’s governance curiously sits with the position of Mullen’s fellow Scot Lord Charles Allen.
JM Jungle leads them home in the five-furlong dash sprint handicap at Epsom
He was supposed to take up his position as chairman of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) last week but delayed his arrival. He was appointed to the role he has not yet taken up last November.
A double bluff to get exactly what he wants or one look into the shambles in the corridors of power and doing a runner? Time will tell but it’s the kind of initial unorthodox move that might finally jolt signs of life into a paralysed governing structure that he wants to change.
The BHA, for instance, are powerless over the bloated fixture list in Britain that sees massive races such as the Derby given precious little wriggle room from lesser meetings elsewhere.
A Labour peer, Allen, 68, has voiced concerns about British racing’s governance model.
Mullen said: ‘When and if he starts he’s got my support because if we don’t have proper governance of the sport it all falls off. I wouldn’t dare to speak on his behalf but when and if he’s here I will look forward to working with a fellow Lanarkshire man.’
Allen has sent out a soft marker and needs to feel that the sport is willing to change for the better. If not, then he doesn’t need the hassle. And he wouldn’t be the first to walk away if racing’s chiefs take the easy option and continue with the rudderless status quo.
Even the insular racing bubble can burst. One look at the hill at Epsom yesterday tells you that.
Lambourn was not for catching from the front in the Epsom Derby, an 11th winner for O’Brien
PERFORMANCE OF THE WEEK… LAMBOURN produced a relentless galloping display from the front to make all in the Derby. An 11th victory in the race for trainer Aidan O’Brien, jockey Wayne Lordan set solid fractions and was never going to be caught in blowing what looked like an open Classic apart.
SELECTIONS OF THE DAY… It’s Perth Gold Cup day but the outstanding play lies in the Silver Cup (3.22). SCHMILSSON (6/5, William Hill) won nicely over course and distance last month and is open to further progress for the Olly Murphy-Sean Bowen trainer-jockey combination that have such a successful strike-rate at the racecourse.
Bowen can double up in the Gold Cup (Perth, 3.57) with last year’s winner STATUARIO (7/2, William Hill) back for more in the feature. he’s still reasonably treated at the age of 10 and can at least go close again at a venue he adores for trainer Micky Bowen.
