FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK: JOCKEYS SHOULD CURTAIL THEIR EXUBERANCE BEFORE THINGS TURN NASTY

By John Schreck | Wednesday, October 19, 2016

John Schreck, a former Chief Steward in both Sydney and Hong Kong, has seen both the colourful and the dark sides of racing. His wealth of experience and his deep knowledge of racing matters across the board is unquestioned and the reputation he built as a racing ‘lawman’ remains firmly entrenched in racing’s history. Shreck’s personal blog, ‘From the Sheriff’s Desk', appears exclusively on HRO.

I’ve always supported jockeys showing some exuberance after a nice win but I’m sorry to say one of these days there is going to be a nasty accident if over the top celebrations are not curtailed.

Last Saturday, in the Caulfield Cup, Nicolas Hall went up very early on Jameka, after ensuring he was going to win the race, and it would have been clear to all that he became quite unbalanced as a result of his display.

One of these days the jockey will become unbalanced, unbalance their horse and cause injuries to themselves or the horse itself ... or injury to someone behind him.

I can understand footballers, cricketers, tennis players and others showing exuberance to an exaggerated degree but they are all not on a racehorse worth millions of dollars in front of other horses worth millions of dollars.

Ryan Moore, the best rider in the world, doesn’t carry on like that.

Over the years the really good riders haven’t carried on ... to an extreme, I mean ... particularly before the winning post.

As I said, I’m all for riders showing some exuberance but things are getting a bit over the top here.

I think it is something that has to be considered by the riders themselves and they should start to curtail that exuberance ... even if their association does something about it, because, one of these days, it is going to be very nasty.

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Why is racing management so difficult to manage?

That is the interesting question posed to me by an HRO reader ... prompted by the current musical chairs situation in Victoria.

I can only attempt to answer that in a broad context.

To me, the bottom line of a successful racing management structure is that you have got to have people in management positions who are interested in the sport.

That might be an obvious point but it is a very important one.

Yet that very model also brings its own flaws in that, because those who are interested in the sport probably already had an involvement in a particular part of the industry prior to moving into a management position, perceived conflicts of interests abound which is one of the main causes of instability.

So any conflict of interest, perceived or otherwise, has to be carefully managed.

That is one part of the general problem.

Compounding that issue is the fact that they have tried in the past to bring in people from outside to run racing and that very seldom seems to work.

I know Brian Beattie came from Target to run Racing Victoria. He was a unique man in himself ... exactly what the sport needed ... because he was an absolutely desperate racegoer. He loved the sport and that probably assisted him to become an outstanding administrator.

But men like that are difficult to find.

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As far as the job of CEO of Racing Victoria is concerned, it is disappointing that such a high profile position in Australian racing is seemingly proving difficult to fill moving forward. (I must stress that I am only presuming it is difficult to fill given reports on the subject, but I are not privy to who is applying or the reasons that it hasn’t been filled).

The position in Victoria in particular is a difficult one with three prominent race-clubs plus Racing Victoria itself plus the government ideally all having to be forged into one compatible force with the overall best interests of racing in mind, so the person in the CEO position ... as Joh Bjelke-Petersen used to say ... really has to straddle the barb wire fence.

It takes a very unique person to do that successfully so perhaps any delay in finding the right person is not necessarily a bad thing.

You need to find that unique person to manage the sport ... which is itself a unique business.

The underlying truth, if racing is to hold its own, is that the person appointed to the CEO position in Victoria needs to be somebody pretty special.

*I’ve just touched on a couple of points in answer to the question asked about why management woes exist. There is obviously far more to it than that but, hopefully, these points gives enough of a lead to show how complicated and pressured a top management role in racing can be and the unique set of challenges it can bring.

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I’ve received some response to my comment in last week’s blog that I thought Winx was beatable in the Cox Plate and I’ve been asked for the reasons behind that opinion.

Firstly, the Cox Plate is usually a very difficult race to win.

Secondly, everybody has been saying how terribly impressive Winx has been and clearly she has been impressive.

I obviously could be wrong but I don’t believe that Winx has been as impressive as the rest of the racing world seems to think and in a race like the Cox Plate ... with Hartnell and the overseas challenge ... she is beatable.

There is no easy kill in the Cox Plate. It is a real test. I know Winx has drawn nicely and many people think she is over the line and they may be right.

We haven’t got long before we find out.

Either way, the Cox Plate, as usual, is set to provide another real racing highlight.