TIMING is crucial in sport.
Whether it’s Ben Stokes trying to hit a fast bowler for six, Lewis Hamilton attempting a fastest lap or Ryan Moore bringing his Derby ride with a late challenge, it is the difference between success and failure. It separates the good from the brilliant, the greats from the not-so greats.
When you’re running a sport, it is a hell of a lot easier to pull it off. Rather than split-second timing, all that is required is a glance at the calendar and a bit commonsense.
The BHA’s implication of the latest amendments to the whip rules have just gone live and no one involved seems to have twigged the timing might be, to say the least, a little awry.
Set aside whether the changes are necessary, workable or welcome and simply focus on the timing.
The jockeys were always going to find them a bit tough to get used to so to bring them in at this time of year seems to lack any sense, common or not.
The Cheltenham Festival and then the Grand National at Aintree is racing’s chance to promote the sport to a wider audience.
Jump racing’s greatest meetings are a rare chance to grab the media spotlight outside of the normal pages and dedicated TV channels.
Those in power should be bending over backwards in a way that would put the most flexible yoga practitioner to shame to make sure there’s as much positive coverage as possible.
With racecourse attendances on the slide, the annual opportunity to showcase the sport cannot afford to be derailed in any way, let alone by a spot of foot shooting.
To bring in the new whip rules now would inevitably lead to headlines of jockey bans making the sport an easy target for those who would rather it didn’t exist.
Quite why, if the rules needed changing, they couldn’t be brought in at the turn of the season in May when the spotlight is reduced to a dim glow, is hard to fathom.
This week, the noises coming from the weighing room have been getting louder and louder with riders increasingly worried about losing their livelihoods for long periods of time as they struggle to adapt to the rules.
I’ll leave it to others to chew over the technicalities of the amendments as it seems everyone has had their say on the matter.
One high-profile racing media personality has been at the forefront of the campaign against the changes.
Using social media he has stated the case against for the defence highlighting the lengths of bans jockeys have been supposedly advised by stewards that they would cop for winning rides when the rules are introduced.
The BHA clearly disagreed with some of the ‘Tweets’. Rather than pick the phone up to voice their displeasure the official BHA Twitter account engaged in a rather public spat.
If there’s a blueprint in how to handle such matters in a professional manner this wasn’t it.
Personally, I’m still unsure who the changes are meant to appease.
If there are flocks of people waiting to rush through the gates of racecourses as soon as they’re happy with the way the riders are waving the wand about, they’re going to heading for the exit at five-furlong pace as soon as they see any horse suffer an injury.
If there is concrete evidence continually tinkering with the whip regs would serve racing well then I’m all for it. I’ve not seen any compelling enough for it to take top billing on the BHA agenda and that’s just the point.
Racing’s chiefs have shouted themselves hoarse over this subject but there’s barely a peep about matters far more crucial to the long-term health of the sport.
If no one at the top has the appetite to tackle the issue of prizemoney in British racing, which lags way behind the world’s other main jurisdictions, then they need to make way for people who can.
Continually whipping up a storm while ignoring the critical problems cannot be allowed to continue or the sport will go past the point of no return.
