I do understand that running any major enterprise is a complicated exercise, and racing is no exception. But how long does racing in Australia have to continue to operate under the disjointed and completely inexplicable regime of having differing integrity rules and practices in each jurisdiction? Put bluntly, it simply makes a complex task become ridiculously complex and quite impossible to understand. Surely it’s way beyond time for the parochial and outdated State-based jurisdictions to be brought together under one national controlling body and bring an end to the confusion, let alone bring an end to the “mine is bigger than yours” bickering.
Let me take just one area of racing operations as an example – and here is where the how long is a piece of string question pops up.
Riding in races isn’t for the faint-hearted, nor is it an easy job. Every jockey in every race should make split second judgements, and every jockey will get some of those judgement calls wrong. When that happens, the stewards have to protect and preserve the safety of the sport by handing out punishments in the form of suspensions. Nobody, not even the jockeys, will argue that the system is inherently unfair. There has to be some form of “crime & punishment” to stop unwarranted risk-taking in races.
But what is unfair is the discrepancy between the application of penalties for careless riding from State to State. Do a web search and you will find some really weird things going on – but don’t look to find details of suspensions given to jockeys in Queensland, Tasmania, or the Northern Territory, that data just isn’t there. Doesn’t need to be to have the points I’m about to make proven.
Here is the situation that currently applies in the other States:
- in New South Wales, 4 riders are serving suspensions for careless riding, with the average suspension period being 10 days;
- in South Australia, no riders are serving suspensions for careless riding, although one is out for 5 days on a whip offence, and another has copped a couple of weeks for giving false evidence to stewards;
- in Western Australia, 5 riders are serving suspensions for careless riding, with the average suspension period being 15 days; but
- in Victoria, 16 riders are serving suspensions for careless riding, with the average suspension period being 11 days, another 2 are out for 10 meetings on whip offences, another two have copped a 1 month and 4 months respectively for banned substances and 1 is out for 3 weeks for “failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures”.
Here’s the question – can we assume from those figures that riders in Victoria are 4 times more careless than riders in New South Wales? 3 times more careless than those in Western Australia? Immeasurably more careless than those in South Australia?
Or can we assume that the stewards in Victoria have better eyesight than the stewards in other States?
Or can we assume that the application and interpretation of the careless riding rules are different and tougher in Victoria?
But why should they be? The risks caused by careless riding are the same no matter whether an offence happens at Flemington or Randwick, so, allowing for degrees of carelessness, the penalties for similar offences and, more importantly, the methods of detection of those offences, should also be the same in different places.
It’s well known that the relations between the Chief Steward and jockeys in Victoria have been a little strained from time too time, to say the least. Is that an indicator that the policing of the Rules by Racing Victoria is harsher than elsewhere? Certainly looks that way. Is that a good thing for racing? Not in my eyes.
It is just an example, though, of the ways that racing administration varies from State to State. There are others. Look at the programming clashes between major races in New South Wales and Victoria as another example, and also at the bickering about The Everest and its’ importance relative to the Cox Plate.
Surely it’s time for racing in Australia to grow up and grow out of the parochial past. Let’s have a national administration for a national pastime. Surely we are big people now!