THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - COULD THIS BE A NEW, GROUND BREAKING, WINNING STRATEGY?

By Graham Potter | Sunday, December 20, 2015

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The decision by Racing Victoria to abandon all race meetings in the state yesterday because of the forecast of extreme heat conditions is to be applauded.

For once the bean counters had to take second place as good old fashion common sense and simple logic kicked in to protect the position of the racing participant, both horse and human.

By taking this action Racing Victoria might well have shown racing authorities in Australia, in general, the means to overcome many of the industry’s problems.

It would seem that few have prioritised the use of old fashioned common sense and simple logic to help determine outcomes these days when those very factors could, in themselves, provide the path to many solutions if the same mindset shown by Racing Victoria this weekend was to be brought to bear on a wider range of issues.

Keep it simple and look after racing participants first.

Sounds like a new, ground breaking, winning strategy to me!

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Two protests have been lodged at the Sunshine Coast in recent times against horses whose riders had allegedly breached the whip rule. Both protests were dismissed.

The general view is that no whip protest will be upheld because of the difficulty of assessing just what difference those extra strikes or outlawed whip action had on the result in terms of a margin. Certainly, it would seem a safe bet that no steward would want to be the first to uphold such a protest, because of its controversial nature.

Stewards might dispute that point but perception is reality until proved otherwise.

John Schreck, the vastly experienced former Chief Steward of Sydney and Hong Kong, has strong views on the subject. He has said, “I would defy anybody to uphold a whip rule protest for all sorts of different reasons. It is so terribly intangible whereas with a protest involving interference you can actually measure it. You can’t do that with the whip rule and the protest option should be taken out of the book straight away.”

Schreck’s implication is that, if this is indeed an unwinnable protest, the procedure is a waste of everybody’s time.

Rightly or wrongly, that is currently the majority held view with regard to whip rule protest.

Infringement of the rule should have consequences though. As leading jockey Damian Browne has stated, “If you don’t have that protest option to challenge the outcome, what do you tell the owners of your horse ... the other rider broke the rules and beat us, but there is nothing we can do about it!”

Which begs the question, has this particular aspect of the whip rule created an unmanageable law ... and, if so, what are the rule makers going to do about it?

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While empty chairs signalled the absence of the Premier and the Racing Minister at the Rally For Queensland Racing meeting on Wednesday, Opposition representatives were there trying to convince everybody they were right behind the industry.

Weren’t they the ones who announced the Eagle Farm upgrade that turned into a debacle when they failed to sign off on the promised funding in a positive timeframe, a fact which arguably has contributed more to the current demise of racing than anything else?

Maybe racing needs to start its own political party.

Neither of the main two parties appear to be worth much to the industry!