The Jockey Club has seen betting turnover drop and yet it turns away customers and makes life difficult for others. For a business centred solely on betting, the Jockey Club has shown a manifest lack of understanding when it comes to actually knowing what many of its customers, large and small, actually desire. It's called anonymity. And that is not another word for skulduggery. It is said, probably tongue in cheek, that you can criticise a man's wife but not his horse. It certainly is bad form to inquire about a man's betting business because it is very much his own affair. There are plenty of loudmouths on a racecourse who will be happy to tell you what they are doing and how much they are winning. It is usually advisable, if it is of any interest at all, to divide the amount they say they bet by at least five and any winnings by 10. The point is that the majority of punters who frequent our racecourses and others around the world are discreet. Their betting business is their own affair and they go about it quietly and diligently. The introduction of cash betting vouchers was an excellent idea because it made the whole process of placing a bet much more efficient and less time consuming. Likewise, the Jockey Club's vast Telebet operation made it possible for punters to remain at home and bet in comfort. And it was also possible to bet from overseas. Now overseas accounts have been effectively terminated and customers turned away just as turnover declines. It is illogical. The Jockey Club's attitude to computer syndicates, as they are termed, is also mystifying. Let it be said immediately that I do not know the people who run these syndicates nor do I care a whit about them. In fact, any person or any operation that manages to reduce the sport of racing to numbers, facts, figures and whatever else goes into a computer, strikes me as utterly boring. However, it may well be profitable and it is not illegal. Nor has it been suggested, as far as I know, that any of those involved in these computer syndicates have been doing anything underhand. The biggest threat to racing has been illegal bookmakers and their operators who do attempt to influence races by bribing jockeys, as recent court cases have made us all too aware. The Jockey Club does not act as a bookmaker. It operates a totalisator system and takes its cut of the turnover. The more that goes in, the better for everyone involved. There is now a ceiling on cash vouchers with the nonsensical situation where if bets over a certain sum are placed, or winnings collected, it cannot all go on one ticket. Essentially, all that does is annoy customers. The Jockey Club is there to run a racing service, not a police force. This is not to suggest that there should not be checks and balances in place. But much of what has happened recently smacks of an over-reaction to a problem that scarcely exists. And it's costing the Club in terms of cash and goodwill. The racing media and, by extension, the Jockey Club's customers can give the most sincere thanks to the stipendiary stewards' department for a quite superb innovation. Starting from last Saturday's Valley meeting, the department is producing on the day following declarations extracts from previous racing incidents where they affect horses involved in the upcoming race meeting. It is a tremendous aid to all and it is being done officially. We can therefore be guaranteed that nothing will be missed. There have been few more worthwhile initiatives in quite some time. Not all departments are as forward-looking and it is beyond time that changes were made in relation to the raceday telecasts in English produced by the Jockey Club. Presumably through cost-cutting, the format has changed this season so that there are now three personalities involved rather than four. Presenters, as such, have been dispensed with so that we have four hours of voiceovers. There are no regular interviews, no faces. Just an endless display of tote boards and horses. It is invidious to get involved with personalities but only the presence of Mark Richards with his lucid, highly informative and very personal opinions of horses in the paddock go any way to saving this show. He has built up an immediate base of support and been a real success because he knows what he is looking at and talking about. And everybody loves a few big-priced winners. Or a thumbs-down to odds-on favourites. That never happened in previous years where the easy way out was to stick with the fancied runners. Sadly, the rest is endless waffle. Criticism is unheard of, topics of current interest are never debated, sycophancy reigns. It is very poor television. Clearly, it cannot be too high on the Jockey Club list of priorities. But it had better not be foisted on the world come the International Races. That's when English-language television does come into its own.
