REVELATIONS from Racing Victoria Limited chief steward Terry Bailey this week of how to change racing in this state have managed, in just three days, to disenfranchise trainers and a large proportion of owners, reports Patrick Bartley in the Sunday Age.He says: Melbourne Cup lockdowns, the need for vast amounts of money to be spent on drug testing, and claims that if a core of leading trainers accept radical change ''the rest'' will follow is just a sample of what Bailey proposes.However, the qu
REVELATIONS from Racing Victoria Limited chief steward Terry Bailey this week of how to change racing in this state have managed, in just three days, to disenfranchise trainers and a large proportion of owners, reports Patrick Bartley in the Sunday Age.
He says: Melbourne Cup lockdowns, the need for vast amounts of money to be spent on drug testing, and claims that if a core of leading trainers accept radical change ''the rest'' will follow is just a sample of what Bailey proposes.
However, the question that has puzzled those in the corridors of power, owners, trainers and the industry at large is, as chief steward is Bailey a policy maker or a policy enforcer?
Is he, a paid servant of Racing Victoria, to be a steward or does his role overlap into the realms of a decision maker that has the same clout as a chief executive, or even the legal general counsel?
Stakeholders say the ''ideas'' Bailey has conjured on his recent world trip are largely unmanageable, unworkable and fiscally impossible. His most controversial suggestion was to lock down the 24 starters in the Melbourne Cup in one stable, outside of Melbourne, 24 hours before the race.
The howls of disapproval stretched from Bart Cummings' Sydney office to trainers in the south island of New Zealand.
Bailey is a disciple of former Sydney and Hong Kong chief steward John Schreck. In fact, many believe Bailey is cut from the same cloth. Schreck was known for going on the front foot and embracing newspaper headlines when controversy struck. He was also known both in Melbourne and Sydney for giving private briefings to newspaper men in coffee shops in both states. But this week Bailey has clearly indicated that the position of chief steward has changed.
There is no doubt that racing is an international sport and participants from all around the world can and do learn from each other but, clearly, practices in some parts of the world may have no application in other areas, and the suggestion that feature-race runners could be locked down for 24 hours before a race would appear to fall into this category.
One of the unique aspects of Australian racing is its different training environments, from the standard stable to open yards and even paddocks. Given that horses are creatures of habit, changes or disruption to routine have, in the short term, the potential to cause significant angst. But there may be people who would question the extent of any detrimental effect such a process would have on a fit equine athlete in such a short space of time.