FALLING FLAT
Racing must open up to change
IN a month the Derby and Royal Ascot will have been and gone. Twenty years ago the one thing that you could guarantee about the finish of the big races at Epsom and Ascot was they would be on the TV evening news.
You wouldn't bet on that now. However you cut it, the Flat is slipping rung by rung down the ladder of public and media interest.
It is perceived as an increasingly outdated and exclusive sport unwilling or unable to adapt to 21st century expectations.
Yes, racing has a high toff factor. But the truth is racing's engine room has always been populated by working folk.
But racing shoots itself in the foot so often it's a source of wonder that we can stagger about at all on these bleeding stumps.
My kids do not deal in yards, feet and inches, they measure in metres. So what what the hell is a teenager supposed to make of furlongs?
This is a sport that, when a stewards' inquiry is called to settle a result, they go behind closed doors to decide the fate of millions of pounds of the public's hard-earned.
No cameras, no insight, no respect for the sport's fans, just a bland announcement of the outcome of a disgracefully secret session.
Worse still is the behaviour of some of the big names who treat the public with little less than contempt. Minutes after a Wimbledon final, a Lord's test, or a golf Major, the players talk to the public.
It's in their contracts but there is none of that in racing. Talking this week to BBC's John Inverdale he said: "Civility costs nothing but the attitude to the media of some major players in racing is beyond belief."
He's bang on. The media is the gateway to the public - both established fans and, vitally, those half-interested folk who would get more involved if they understood a bit more or were made to feel even vaguely welcome.
It should be a condition of entry to a race that trainers and jockeys have to communicate with the public, whose betting cash helps keep the whole spluttering vehicle on the road.
But racing has ever been led by people keener to be members of the club and curry favours with the training fraternity in particular.
Last year I clashed on Channel 4 with Julian Richmond-Watson, the owner of Oaks winner Look Here - and the Jockey Club's Senior Steward - just before she ran in the St Leger.
She had a training problem and I asked what the issue had been. Richmond-Watson repeatedly refused to answer, thus leaving the public in the dark.
We have templates for involving the public, Paul Nicholls over the jumps, John Gosden on the Flat.
The public are about to wreak revenge on MPs. If we don't change they will exact a similarly high price on racing by drifting off to somewhere they feel more welcome.
Read Alastair Down every week in the Racing Post
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