Wikipedia defines ‘communication’ as the activity of conveying information. The word ‘communication’ is derived from the Latin word ‘communis’ meaning ‘to share’. Communication requires a sender, a message and an intended recipient. Communication can occur across vast distances in time and space. Communication requires that the communicating parties share an area of communicative commonality. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Feedback is critical to effective communication between parties.
New Brooms?
With Phumelela taking the reins as of the first of Feb and our new brooms no doubt wanting to sweep clean, perhaps now is the time to address what appears to be a glaring hole in our armour and look at a few issues of good old communication.
It seems the new bosses have not got off to a particularly auspicious start. There was a board meeting on Tuesday where all sorts of resolutions were passed. Obviously, no need to share any of this with the general racing public – we’ll just keep quietly pumping our money in on horses, training fees, betting, etc – don’t mind us.
On Wednesday, another meeting was called for the trainers, but it was so last minute one has to wonder whether the planning can genuinely be that appalling (I’m allowing for the benefit of the doubt and assuming there was any), or whether the last minute notification was deliberate? The jockeys I spoke to weren’t even aware there had been a meeting and one would think that they are quite important members of the community. But it is not my intention to open an X-files dossier. I’ll leave the conspiracy theories to those who are good at it.
99 Lead Balloons
Even overlooking the quite stunning disregard for people’s time and schedules, to the best of my knowledge, the independent press weren’t notified or invited. To be fair, it was probably not deliberate. It is entirely possible that no-one even thought of us at all! But again, that should be just fine. I mean, it’s not as though anyone in the industry is actually interested or cares about the future, eh? Just go ahead and keep ignoring us like you always do. In the meantime, the Bush Telegraph appears to be alive and well.
My favourite bit of the week was a letter from our new head office with an, um let’s allow the benefit of the doubt and use the word ‘directive’ to the WC trainers to pull themselves together and ensure that they nominate and run more horses. No mention of concerns for the cause of the small fields, or any proposal to consult with anyone about how to mend things or, you know, generally encourage people to participate and help out. There also appears to be no quid pro quo or a counter offer of how to support and help our owners and trainers make this happen. Nope, simply run your horses folks, because if you don’t, we’ll have to review your stable rentals. I expect that went down like a lead balloon.
Fees, fees and more fees
Of course another shock to the Cape system is the introduction of nomination and acceptance fees. It will be interesting to see how much this motivates people to nominate and accept horses. Given that trainers can only bill those costs back at the end of every month, I expect that this might hit some of the busier yards quite hard.
So, on the surface, not a great example of winning friends and influencing people (that’s a literary reference for those who missed it, or think that I’m inferring some underhand dealing).
But this may all be good and well. We want our industry to be run in a more business like fashion and it seems that in that regard we’re off to a good start. However, we all know horse racing does not run like a normal business, so where’s the attention to the horsey side of it ? It shows a gross lack of thought and empathy to simply dish out instructions without consultation as to what the running problems might be. And I must confess to being rather puzzled by the dismal start as I have had nothing but excellent and exceptionally prompt dealings with Patrick Davis to date. I can only imagine that all the above are simply teething problems that will disappear as the new management settles in.
Some more definitions
I checked my trusty on-line dictionary which describes an operator as ‘a person who manages a working or industrial establishment, enterprise, or system’. Hmm, perhaps the term ‘operate’ is a little better? My dictionary describes that as ‘to act effectively, produce an effect; exert force or influence or alternatively to perform some process of work or treatment’. With the name Gold Circle all too easily adjusted to the more popular ‘Gold Circus’ it is perhaps no bad thing to rebrand. I believe Phumelela means ‘to succeed’ in isiZulu and one would think that Phum would want their name added to the Cape product at some point. However, it seems the WC is going to be known simply as Western Province Racing for the time being. Probably sensible. Best not to get anyone’s hopes up. And with the GC press release about regarding the recent KZN farce stating their hope that ‘the old wives tale that “bad luck goes in threes,” is now a thing of the past’, it seems the bar has been set achievably low.
Bad luck travels in three’s
With a Clairwood meeting abandoned after the first race due to a substandard racing surface (I honestly don’t know whether to hope that people actually carried out a pre-race inspection or not) and then some mischievous electrical equipment turning the Greyville starting stalls into shock boxes in the 7th race, one doesn’t quite know what to think. Last week you couldn’t buy electricity for love nor money down in the Cape, but it seems to be running free in KZN. How bout that?! The bits that receive rather less publicity include the fact that a horse ‘fell’(don’t you just love that term) during that 7th race from what looked to be a heart attack. The Stipes report may state otherwise, but given the fall, there’s no real way to tell whether the broken scapula occurred pre or post mortem. While it is impossible to speculate whether the electricity leakage had anything to do with it, considering that the heart is, in effect, an electrically stimulated device, it is not a difficult leap to make that the loose voltage in the stalls may have played a role. And by the way, it wasn’t just ‘a horse’, it was Jack Hobbs, a precocious son of Right Approach who was 2nd to Brilliant Cut in the Cape Nursery as a 2 YO. And one of our top jockeys suffered a nasty fall and was incredibly lucky to get away with minor injuries. But don’t you fret folks, bad luck happens in threes, so we should be A-OK now – ho ho ho.
Really? A whole meeting has to be abandoned, a horse died, a jockey had a near death experience and the response is ‘bad luck happens in threes?’ A friend of mine who has raised two wonderful children is in the habit of inserting the phrase ‘bad word’ whenever she is tempted to swear in front of her kids. Well, all I can say is ‘bad word’. Bad word bad word bad word!
Despite unsafe, uninspected (or simply unnoticed?) track conditions and shocking starting stalls (in both the figurative and literal senses of the word), just make sure you get your fields full folks. No slacking now, we have a business to run. Jocks, sorry for you – perhaps get some insulated, extra padded body protectors and you should be fine. In fact, there’s a company called Hit Air that produces body protectors that inflate before impact – perhaps now’s the time to patent something that is electrically insulated too ?!. Horses, well no-one worries about them, there are always plenty more where those came from. Owners? Too bad, so sad. Please collect your horses once the vets, trainers and operators are done with them. Assuming they get off the track alive of course.
Now all smile for the cameras.
We demand that our horses should come out and run and these are the sorts of facilities and service we offer? It’s simply not good enough. No wonder our best horses can’t wait to leave for greener pastures. I dare say much the same applies to our punters.
A for Effort, 0 for Execution
A fairly high ranking GC official once upbraided me for being so critical about how racing has changed and the fact that the channels of communication seem to have deteriorated so dramatically. His argument? ‘It was no different back then you know!’ Well, apart from the fact that I know differently, imagine actually floating that as a counter argument! Richard Bach once said – Argue for your limitations and they are yours. Well quite. No wonder the good Lord spares us from progress….
With corporatisation having neatly disposed of any competition and any incentive to strive for improvement, the rot seems to be endemic and on a national scale. Horses incorrectly loaded in starting stalls. Horses carded as maidens when they’re not. Equipment left on the track. A Met runner jumping from the stalls still wearing its hood. Sloppiness? Blatant disregard for health and safety? Or is it simply that the folks on the ground have absolutely no idea what they’re doing? And that’s (literally) at grass roots level.
Further up the food chain, even generous initiatives such as the substantial stake offered for the juvenile race on L’Órmarins Queen’s Plate Day are mismanaged. It was a wonderful initiative, but where was the consultation with the industry? Were the trainers asked whether it would be appropriate to add such a prestigious and tempting prize so early in the season, or was it simply rubber stamped by management?
The fabulous prize for the Jockey Championship is another example. It is wonderful that our industry big hitters are adding their support, their muscle and more importantly, their money to what is always a hotly fought and closely watched contest, but was there any consultation with the jockeys or even perhaps the Jockey Academy? While it is commendable to reward excellence and sportsmanship, a more considered approach may have been to divide the ‘stake’ to several places, or possibly award excellence in different categories – champion jockey, champion apprentice, champion work rider or even perhaps jockeys who had shown real dedication and work ethic with regards to number of rides, time on the gallops, etc.
Who are we kidding?
Another great example of communication failure in a different facet of the horse world is the practice of sales- buy backs. Sure it happens. It’s a fact of life. Whether we admit it or not, we all know it happens. And to be frank, it is totally understandable. A breeder who has spent the best part of R100k getting that baby into that sale ring should have every right to do so if the bidding is faltering a bit short of expectation. So what? If you’d paid for your kid to get through med school, you wouldn’t want him flipping burgers at McDonalds, would you? The issue is not so much with the fact that it takes place, but more with the fact that it is covered up and all the associated implications of fraudulent dealing, artificially inflating the value of the stallion and his progeny etc if it is registered as a bona fide sale. I only need to mention the name Devine Jet / Divine’s Jet / Divine Jet as a case in point. All that will all go away if the vendor simply declares it a buy back, the sale is not reflected on the sale aggregate, it does not enhance (or damage) the stallion’s CV, and everything stays clean and tidy. Crazy idea perhaps, but why the heck not?
Why do it?
A friend asked me recently why I am so angry at racing and, if it makes me so angry, why do I stick with it so determinedly? Firstly I was quite taken aback. I didn’t realise that I came across as angry (and now is a good time to correct anyone else who thinks that I am). So for the record, I am not so much angry, as sad and terribly terribly disappointed, because I KNOW we are all so much better than this. So why do I stick around? Because I’m stubborn, I guess. And stubbornly loyal. More than anything I want for racing to be better, to do better, to pick itself up, be a success and show the world quite how fantastic we are. We – and I use the plural very deliberately – all share this wonderful industry and we are all a part of what makes it great. Every one of us. There is no-one who is more important than anyone else and no-one who does not have an important contribution to make.
To go back to my Wiki definition – ‘The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the message of the sender. Feedback is critical to effective communication between parties.’ If we’re going to move forward, we need to do it together.
So, we are on the threshold of a new era. Will the new broom sweep clean, or will we merely be seeing the same donkey wearing a different saddle? I guess only time will tell.
