Cape Town – if you don’t like the weather, wait 5 minutes
They say if you don’t like the weather in Cape Town, wait a few minutes’. It’s beginning to feel that the same can be said for our NHA rules. Well, some of them, anyway.
October saw the announcement of our new, dramatically hiked fee schedule. The intention appears to be good (I’m all in favour of meting out punishment where it’s deserved), it’s the application I’m less convinced about. I went and put the popcorn on and had just finished adding the salt when out came the backlash with trainers and jockeys banding together to protest the move.
I am not criticising – it’s downright thrilling to have active interaction so well done to all concerned. In my opinion there has been a sore lack of dialogue between parties for far too long, so long may it continue. However, it does rather make a mockery of our rule setting process, but maybe that’s a good thing.
At the moment the good folks at the ‘White House’ sit around a boardroom table and on Monday morning the rest of us wake up to the latest Registrations and Changes report. While I think strong leadership is imperative to keep the sport going, there aren’t many other sports or organisations in which the rules change overnight as ours do. Also, rule changes seem summarily effected without any apparent consultation or collaboration with the rest of the industry, which then gets everyone on the back foot – as we have just seen.
Change – always a good thing?
Change is undoubtedly good – when it’s for the better. But we seem to be changing things just for the sake of it and everything at the NHA seems in a state of flux. Mr Barends hadn’t been in office 5 minutes before his job description wasn’t even what he’d applied for anymore and he went from CEO to MD. I’m not sure why or what the title change means, but one assumes it to be significant, or why bother? Mind you, after previous CEO Colin Hall disappeared without trace into the NHA Bermuda Triangle after decades of service, I’d probably feel safer behind an MD title too. Adv Joubert was booted out after just one year in the Chair, so perhaps that seat should come with a warning as well.
What goes up doesn’t always come down
What goes up doesn’t always come down
Getting back to my point, much like the Merit Rating system, it seems a great deal easier to put things up than it is to take them down. So what happens when a new rule is simply not workable? It seems when there’s mass action, there is a reaction – the rest of us have to wait for the next AGM.
One of my favourite illustrations of this is Rule 21.3 which states, “Without the WRITTEN permission of the SB, no JOCKEY shall enter or visit any registered betting premises where members of the public are able to place any bets or wagers of any kind whatsoever.”
Registered betting premises would surely include racecourses? None of the jockeys I’ve consulted have received any written documentation on the matter, so why is the NHA allowing jockeys to enter race courses when rule 21.3 clearly states that they may not? If rules are there to be applied, then surely racing should be stopped until the matter can be rectified? Or will every single jockey that has set foot on a track since 11 July 2016 (for that is when this rule was changed) be fined?
Or, are we simply going to ignore this rule? If so, that raises the question which rules are ‘real’ and which ones are not and how are we supposed to figure out which is which (particularly given the fines for transgressing?)
In case that sounds nitpicky – I have emailed the NHA repeatedly about the matter, so there is absolutely no doubt they are aware of a) the existence of the rule and b) their non-application of the same. So what now?
Regulation Mechanism or Revenue Stream?
Also, what of the claims that these fees are simply a mechanism for the NHA to generate income for its own coffers? With the Benevolent Fund recently being scrapped, all those whopping fines now go straight to the NHA’s bottom line and it certainly seems as though there is suddenly a great deal more freedom for the NHA to do, well, quite a lot really. There’s the updated website (which I think is a step in the right direction), lots more communication coming from the NHA offices (again – excellent work), lots of new posters with corporate slogans plastered on walls and, it seems, a commitment for our executives to have a physical presence at as many race courses and meetings as possible – both locally and abroad.
Again, this is commendable, but it seems a far cry from the austerity measures that were in place when Adv Joubert and Denzil Pillay were at the helm and every staple and paperclip had to be accounted for.
Airmiles
Clocking up those air miles
I’m not a big one for putting my every move on social media, but luckily for me, other people feel differently and it allows for some interesting cyber snooping. According to Twitter, our NHA MD (who – for the record – I am positively disposed towards) has recently been to all of Korea, Germany, France and Australia. Bearing in mind he’s not been in office for a full year yet, one has to wonder.
Racing Control Executive Mr Arnold Hyde also seems to have a generous travel allowance and is regularly seen all over the place, including Cape Town – while overnighting at the rather nice Vineyard hotel. And that’s picking just two names out of the hat. Chairman Mr O’Connor seems equally busy on the travel front.
While it’s all well and good and I’m sure they’re doing fine work, we know that the NHA is mostly funded by the Operators. We were told categorically that the reason there was no full time Stipe in Kimberley was due to budget constraints, but it seems these constraints do not apply to travel – at least not anymore. As the funding has not changed to my knowledge, one has to ask how and why the stitching has suddenly come loose on the Operators’ purses? Or is the new lease on life due to the new penalty fees?
Spending
If so, it is even more difficult to be comfortable about this level of spending when the NHA scrapped the National Benevolent Fund, so all these hiked fees no longer go to the good cause they were originally designed to and are now contributing to the NHA bottom line. Then we’re in danger of ‘fine hunting’ and engaging in the equivalent of fundraising for a ‘traffic cop’s Christmas party!’
Whoops, must be careful of that other new rule, so I am speaking in jest, obviously. But on that subject, I was under the impression that the law of the land supersedes all, so where does that leave free speech and the power of the press (although putting ‘power’ and ‘press’ together in the same sentence can seem something of a misnomer). Rule 72.1.43 says people may not “at any time publish, communicate or utter words or statements or post on any social media platform or channel any material, content or comment or conduct himself in a manner which could reasonably be construed to be either obscene, offensive, defamatory, racist, threatening, harassing, discriminating, sexist or abusive to any other person or entity involved in the racing industry or bring the good name of any person or entity in the industry or the NHA into disrepute.”
What is disreputable anyway?
I get that most of that is fairly standard social media T’s & C’s, and that’s all good and well, but of course the tricky thing comes in the application. It may sound a little subversive, but firstly, to bring something into disrepute, it presumably has to have some sort of reputation to begin with, so perhaps we ought to define exactly what racing and the NHA’s reputation is before we can start judging whether they are in fact being dissed. Secondly, who gets to make the decision of what is crossing the line and what isn’t? Because surely that’s subjective (and therefore, open to interpretation and therefore open to misinterpretation?) And what if a person or entity in the industry or the NHA IS doing something disreputable? Who gets to call them out (and what will the fine on THAT be?)
You can’t make some rules and enforce them rigorously and then make other rules – such as folks on the defaulters list not being allowed on racing premises – and ignore them completely. It smacks of either some serious oversights, or – possibly more sinister – inventing reasons to fine people on pretexts that rival Arthur Dent’s notification that his house was going to be bulldozed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. “But the plans were on display…” “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.” “That’s the display department.” “With a flashlight.” “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.” “So had the stairs.” “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?” “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Why make rules if we’re not going to follow them? As per a recent high profile case, if we’re content to impose large fines, but not ban people, it questions our motivations. In which case one has to ask whether the rules are in place for the good of the horse and the sport or the NHA bottom line?
