THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - LOOKING FOR IMPROVEMENT. A SMALL STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

By Graham Potter | Sunday, June 26, 2016

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.

At long last the racing industry appears to be looking inward at the role of its participants and where it can improve the lot of the players who make any race-day possible.

Currently there is a two-fold push to achieve this improvement.

Firstly, Racing Victoria (RV), after meeting with their trainers and jockeys associations, has made a big decision regarding ‘the wellbeing, workload and development of apprentice jockeys in the context of the current racing program.’

RV has announced that all parties had unanimously agreed on a series of short-term initiatives in the best interests of apprentice jockeys. These include:

* Reducing the number of consecutive days an apprentice can ride from nine to six days.

* Apprentices being banned from riding at two meetings on one day.

* A commitment to educate and reinforce the importance requiring apprentices to receive a 10-hour break between their commitments from one day to the next.

Obviously it is not only riding at a large number of meetings that can grind a rider’s physical and mental well-being.

The vast distances that some riders cover travelling to and from race meetings is an inherent fatigue factor in their lifestyle, an element complicated by the wasting regime that some of them have to undertake to be able to keep their riding weight intact.

The perception is that the ‘bean counters’ of racing have continually shown little regard for such matters.

Participants have seemingly been little more than pawns in their eyes and as long as a race goes off every four minutes the ‘bottom line’ watchers seem content.

So the reining in, in part at least, of something akin to a runaway train by RV is to be applauded.

Two questions! Will other states follow Victoria’s lead? Should these initiatives be really only be restricted to apprentices?

I guess there is a restraint of trade argument in there somewhere (particularly for senior riders) but there is also a necessary required safety level consideration regarding well-being and workload … and that, as always, should rate as the main priority.

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The second area under scrutiny relates to the time of day that horses work in the morning.

It has been touted, and the suggestion has already been supported by several leading trainers on a national basis, that the general 3am to 4am start be pushed back to a later starting time and that the various tracks be open for use by trainers until a later finishing time.

Advantages mentioned include attracting more people into the game, in terms of stable staff, and better health and safety conditions during track work … but this proposed change to the morning routine is very much still in an open discussion stage.

Is there any particular impact on the horse itself that needs to be taken into account? Could the finishing time be pushed back but the starting time remain the same for those who don’t want to change their training pattern?

Clearly, there is some way to go on this but, whatever the outcome, even considering possible improvements to the lives of racing’s participants is a much needed step in the right direction, particularly in an industry that only has two days off a year!