An­dre E Bap­tiste

Mar­tin Luther King Jr ut­tered these fa­mous words as he en­vi­sioned a dif­fer­ent fu­ture for the Unit­ed States-a fu­ture with greater racial har­mo­ny among oth­er things. Trinidad and To­ba­go could prob­a­bly use such a vi­sion­ary and a leader at this time but in the ab­sence of such let me share some of my dreams for the horse rac­ing in­dus­try in this twin is­land state. I have a dream that the gov­ern­ment will recog­nise the im­por­tance of the rac­ing sec­tor as an em­ploy­er and the im­por­tance of the lo­cal breed­ing in­dus­try to the suc­cess of the sec­tor. Land will be made avail­able to the in­dus­try for the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal rac­ing stock. A well main­tained nurs­ery for the care of the young rac­ing stock will be es­tab­lished along with a na­tion­al stud. The gov­ern­ment will al­so pro­vide in­cen­tives for the im­por­ta­tion of fresh but qual­i­ty blood­li­ness through the waiv­er of du­ties and tax­es. Re­sources will al­so be made avail­able to im­prove the qual­i­ty of care at the quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties and ex­pand the ex­ist­ing quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ties to ac­com­mo­date the in­creased in­flux of hors­es. I have a dream that the coun­try's rac­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors will be­come uni­fied in their pur­suit of what is best for the in­dus­try. Gone will be the days of sec­u­lar­ism, nepo­tism and au­toc­ra­cy.

The Bet­ting Levy Board (BLB), the Trinidad and To­ba­go Rac­ing Au­thor­i­ty (T&TRA) and the Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) will com­bine their ef­forts and not seek to up­end each oth­er. Ad­min­is­tra­tors will not pur­sue their own self­ish in­ter­ests or those of their friends and fam­i­ly but will put the wel­fare of those who de­pend on the sport for their liveli­hood at the fore­front. Ad­min­is­tra­tors will not adopt Moses-like ten­den­cies but would recog­nise that progress is on­ly se­cured by in­clu­sion­ary be­hav­iour. The views of the many must al­ways take prece­dent over the views of the few or those of the ONE. I have a dream that Ari­ma Race Club would move from an am­a­teur as­so­ci­a­tion to a pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­a­tion. Key po­si­tions such as Stew­ards and Ex­ec­u­tive Man­age­ment would be staffed by qual­i­fied in­di­vid­u­als. These in­di­vid­u­als will car­ry greater ac­count­abil­i­ty for mis­takes made and be prop­er­ly re­mu­ner­at­ed in keep­ing with in­dus­try stan­dards. The club's fa­cil­i­ties will be prop­er­ly man­aged and the now lame ex­cuse about fi­nan­cial con­straints will be ban­ished to where it be­longs.

A pro­fes­sion­al starter will be em­ployed to en­sure that all hors­es are treat­ed equal­ly at the start­ing stalls, whether they are per­ceived to be good or bad by the starter. Good man­age­ment will be achieved not through talk but through de­ci­sive and ac­cu­rate ac­tion with­out fear or favour be­cause of con­nec­tions.

In oth­er words qual­i­fi­ca­tions would play an in­te­gral role in the job spec­i­fi­ca­tions for any hir­ing. Per­haps ide­al­ly a pro­fes­sion­al Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment team would be utilised in the hir­ing pro­ce­dures to pre­vent jobs for "boys" be­ing the or­der of the day. I have a dream that the book­mak­ers will recog­nise that their fu­ture is in­ex­orably linked to the fu­ture of the lo­cal in­dus­try. Book­mak­ers will co­op­er­ate and not com­pete with the lo­cal rac­ing in­dus­try. Book­mak­ers will stop plac­ing im­ped­i­ments in the lo­cal rac­ing in­dus­try and in­stead at­tempt to work to­geth­er in the in­ter­est of all par­ties. The Bet­ting Levy Board will see an in­crease in its rev­enue as few­er book­mak­ers at­tempt to beat the sys­tem and dis­guise the lev­el of their turnover/prof­its.

This ad­di­tion­al rev­enue will be ploughed in­to the in­dus­try in the form of in­creased prize mon­ey to en­cour­age more own­ers to come in­to the sport and ex­ist­ing own­ers to in­vest in a bet­ter qual­i­ty prod­uct and there­fore en­sure there is qual­i­ty com­pe­ti­tion to bring the crowds back to horserac­ing at San­ta Rosa Park, Ari­ma. I have a dream that the Stud Farm As­so­ci­a­tion will re­alise that pro­tec­tion­ism does not im­prove the qual­i­ty of the lo­cal stock but on­ly serves to pro­mote medi­oc­rity. As a re­sult, rather than races ded­i­cat­ed sole­ly to lo­cal­ly bred hors­es, a bonus will be paid to lo­cal­ly bred hors­es win­ning spec­i­fied cre­ole races. Af­ter all, horserac­ing is gen­er­al­ly like most sports, where re­wards should be based on qual­i­ty, not mere­ly on quan­ti­ty. I have a dream that the race­horse train­ers will present a unit­ed voice when it comes to is­sues that im­pact on their liveli­hood. As a re­sult, we will have more full time train­ers and less part time train­ers since it is pos­si­ble to make a suc­cess­ful liv­ing as a race­horse train­er.

In case, some of you have for­got­ten it can be stat­ed that many of these part time train­ers do not train them­selves and there­fore can­not give your horse the re­quired at­ten­tion, and as a con­se­quence they have more hors­es in their sta­bles than oth­ers (be­cause they have oth­ers do­ing their job), as com­pared to ded­i­cat­ed train­ers, who on­ly man­age the num­ber they can care for. It is ob­vi­ous from this, who is re­al­ly true train­er and who is a pre­tender.

I have a dream that train­ers will be less in­clined to adopt the "crab in a bar­rel" men­tal­i­ty and the wel­fare and well-be­ing of their hors­es will be their prime con­cern. Train­ers will al­so show a greater in­ter­est in the grooms who look af­ter their hors­es to en­sure that their wel­fare is al­so para­mount giv­en their im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the hors­es un­der their care. I have a dream that the knights of the pigskin will con­duct them­selves in a man­ner be­fit­ting of that ti­tle. Our jock­eys will de­sist from con­duct prej­u­di­cial to the best in­ter­ests of their mounts and of those who en­gage their ser­vices. Pro­fes­sion­al­ism will be their watch word. Jock­eys will pay at­ten­tion to their weight and rather than buy­ing two dou­bles every morn­ing, they will con­sume some­thing light but nu­tri­tious. The lure of the blue­back ($100) would en­cour­age them to hone their skills tac­ti­cal­ly rather than throw in the tow­el, metaphor­i­cal­ly speak­ing. I have a dream that the old­er jock­eys who have ill will on their minds will quick­ly leave the rac­ing cir­cuit and find a book­mak­er some­where and work with him, as a "run­ner" col­lect­ing cash and cheques.

These out­dat­ed jock­eys are evil to the fu­ture de­vel­op­ment of the sport and wage a lot of pow­er over the up and com­ing young­sters with a lot of peer pres­sure. My dream is that the Jock­eys As­so­ci­a­tion could be more out­spo­ken, trans­par­ent and even ef­fi­cient. I have a dream that the qual­i­ty of horse rac­ing in Trinidad is the best in the Caribbean. Own­ers from through­out the Caribbean want their hors­es to race in Trinidad ir­re­spec­tive of the sur­face and the au­thor­i­ty but for this to hap­pen, a lot of the ob­sta­cles which are be­ing placed in front of them need to be re­moved. I have a dream that the qual­i­ty of our turf and dirt tracks can ri­val the best any­where in the world as a re­sult of ex­cel­lent main­te­nance in­stead of per­sons break­ing their promis­es and not in­ter­est­ed in prop­er main­te­nance tech­niques. I have a dream that our prize mon­ey is ex­cel­lent and the sup­port in­fra­struc­ture in terms of the pad­dock and train­ing fa­cil­i­ties are be­yond re­proach. That grooms will be able to wake up one morn­ing and find that they have prop­er, healthy fa­cil­i­ties in a qual­i­ty en­vi­ron­ment, stalls will be clean and the en­tire at­mos­phere in the pad­dock will be one of re­fresh­ing calm.

I have a dream that our lo­cal­ly bred hors­es are in high de­mand through­out the Caribbean with the year­ling sales at­tract­ing tremen­dous in­ter­est from Ja­maican and Bar­ba­di­an own­ers. This dream how­ev­er is on­ly pos­si­ble if all of the oth­er dreams are re­alised. Mar­tin Luther King did not live to see his dream be­come re­al­i­ty, and while it is said that dreams die first, it is al­so ac­cept­ed that every great achieve­ment be­gan as an idea, a thought, a dream if you pre­fer. So I hope , that this is one dream that can be re­alised and that de­spite every­thing, I have a dream that all of this can be ac­com­plished if every­one in horserac­ing is on the same page and work­ing to­geth­er to achieve this dream of col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ac­tion. For any dream to ma­te­ri­alie , there must be buy in by all the re­spec­tive par­ties and with that in place, there is a strong pos­si­bil­i­ty that we can achieve the nec­es­sary re­sults to not on­ly im­prove the rac­ing prod­uct , but al­so to grow it as well. So if you ob­serve me sleep­ing..just re­mem­ber, I'm on­ly dream­ing. And pray that I'm not hav­ing a night­mare.