Businessman Derek Chin was recently appointed chairman of the T&T Racing Authority. In part two of this interview with Andre Baptiste, Chin continues to discuss his vision for the sport, how he got involved and how he plans to transform the industry.
Q: There are mixed signals on the new rating system. Will it last?
DC: I spoke with Mr Kennelly (Irishman responsible for the system) and others, and asked if they know about the system and conflicts between the European system, like the British type form, similar to the QC classification system, where you can foretell or know where your horse is and what levels he is to run at and you felt better to frame races.
At the same time, there is a conflict between the dirt and the turf. How do you distinguish that? He did not have an answer...you are now caught in a scenario as to what type of racing we are.
Are we British, European or Canadian or North American? We see that conflict right through. We bring a guy from Europe to deal with an American system. If we look at the tracks he's been to-Ireland, Hong Kong, Africa, all are British system, so he is unable to really deal with the US system or the way we are running as effective as we would like him too. But that's still an area that needs to run, try it out on a three months basis. There are pros and cons, certain trainers like it, certain don't, and again we would have to see how that comes out. The claiming system having worked well, it's been allowed now to be abused.
The rules have not been something that should have gone through some modification as time progressed. You look at it, saw what the weakness were and tighten those things, but those things are still not being tightened, so you have a lot of manipulation, and that's what has cause his downfall but I am hoping that Mr Chris Armond comes. He is very interested. He is meeting the Minister shortly. I would like him to be my advisor, you know I don't have much time to spend at the race track so I need to have people there most of the time.
Paul Cozier is well respected. He was the track and paddock manager. I asked him to take a look at what we have going on at the paddock, stabling, the horses that are injured and give me the statistics and let's see what we can do. I have had Dr Ali who is on our board look at issues with medication and how best to go about it. Also Mr Armond is coming to look at the whole racing product to see what we can do with the short term, medium term and long term problems and solve them.
Q: What else can be done?
DC: Horseracing has to look within itself and admit it needs help. I don't think anybody can say things are honkey dory and moving in the right direction. We are not here to knock anybody, we are here to assist them. It's everybody's business to ensure that the racing moves in the right direction. Unfortunately some people feel it belongs to them and is for their keeping. Once you say something that may not be in their best interest or against them, you are considered their enemy.
To be continued tomorrow
