It is of­ten said that change for change sake is not a good thing and it seems that horse rac­ing in T&T must once again con­front this "change" phe­nom­e­non now. One for which we re­main to­tal­ly un­pre­pared.

Al­though the de­par­ture of key rac­ing of­fi­cials over the last few weeks has gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic­i­ty in the lo­cal me­dia, the rac­ing pub­lic re­mains in the dark as to the rea­sons be­hind the de­par­ture.

While we have heard one side of the sto­ry, it is es­sen­tial that the oth­er side of the sto­ry is al­so placed in­to the pub­lic do­main so an in­tel­li­gent as­sess­ment can be made as to the mer­its of the var­i­ous ar­gu­ments put for­ward.

In the ab­sence of both sides of the sto­ry be­ing pre­sent­ed, lo­cal rac­ing will con­tin­ue to be sub­ject to ru­mour and in­nu­en­do, nei­ther of which is good for the sport giv­en our del­i­cate po­si­tion.

Lo­cal rac­ing des­per­ate­ly needs some good news at the mo­ment and it seems as though the on­ly place we can find that at present is the per­for­mance of some of the three-year-olds that have graced the lo­cal race track so far this sea­son. In this re­gard, we have wit­nessed two very smart colts – one lo­cal­ly bred and one Ja­maican bred. Both of which promise to make this year's "Triple Crown" se­ries one to re­mem­ber.

The cham­pi­on two-year-old colt of the year, Re­gal In­ten­tion has con­tin­ued this sea­son from where he left off last year with com­fort­able vic­to­ries against all gen­er­a­tions. At the same time, lo­cal­ly bred Mak­ing Head­lines, who showed great po­ten­tial in his two ju­ve­nile starts has con­tin­ued his im­prove­ment with two facile vic­to­ries, first in the Roy­al Colours Clas­sic in which he es­tab­lished his su­pe­ri­or­i­ty over his lo­cal­ly bred con­tem­po­raries and then against the old­er gen­er­a­tion over 1,750 me­tres. A match-up be­tween these two colts is ea­ger­ly await­ed by tur­fites.

If we add to the spice, the cham­pi­on two-year-old fil­ly She’s So Spec­tac­u­la, who has yet to race for the sea­son, then the three-year-old crop of this year might prove to be one of our best in many years.

In ad­di­tion to this year's three-year-old crop, there are a num­ber of pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments with re­spect to the im­port­ed class, which could re­sult in a very com­pet­i­tive se­ries of rac­ing among the top class. We have the re­turn on the high­est rat­ed an­i­mals in the coun­try, Thisones­for­ron and Whis­per Light and they will al­most al­ways give their sup­port­ers an hon­est ef­fort.

Last year's Gold Cup win­ner, Nu­clear Pow­er, has al­ready shown that she will re­main a sig­nif­i­cant force over all dis­tances of ground with a pow­er­ful fin­ish in­to sec­ond place over 1,200m, a few weeks ago.

Then we have hors­es such as Pause­fora­coors who start­ed off last sea­son very bright­ly be­fore fad­ing away in the lat­ter half, who could be much more the fin­ished ar­ti­cle in this year. Thisones­for­ron’s sta­ble com­pan­ion, Awe­some April, the win­ner of the Sian’s Gold Sprint on the turf, looked equal­ly ef­fec­tive on the main track and could be an­oth­er one to set the puls­es rac­ing this sea­son.

If con­nec­tions of Princess Suri can al­so get this fil­ly back to her best for a cam­paign this year, we could wit­ness a num­ber of very com­pet­i­tive races for the top class hors­es.

With the hors­es do­ing their part to sus­tain in­ter­est in the lo­cal sport, it is es­sen­tial that the ad­min­is­tra­tors get their act to­geth­er. The spate of changes at the lead­er­ship lev­el of the sport is not good and needs to be reme­died im­me­di­ate­ly. Gov­er­nance in the sport must be im­proved sig­nif­i­cant­ly and im­me­di­ate­ly if the gains be­ing made by the per­for­mances on the track are not to be wast­ed.

It might be time for the T&T Rac­ing Au­thor­i­ty and the Bet­ting Levy Board to get in­volved in the man­age­ment of the Ari­ma Race Club if the club can­not prove to all and sundry that they are do­ing what is in the best in­ter­est of the sport.

As it stands at the mo­ment, as the de­lays con­tin­ue in terms of pay­ments to per­sons in horse rac­ing, there is a sense of in­evitably, which can­not au­gur well for the fu­ture of the sport. Of course, all of the above pre­sup­pos­es that grooms, jock­eys, train­ers, own­ers and horse rac­ing staff are crit­i­cal to this coun­try.

We all know that the gov­ern­ment of the day has oth­er ur­gent mat­ters to deal with, rather than wor­ry about horse rac­ing. But do they, have the hon­est con­science to ad­mit that horse rac­ing has lost its birthright and bene­fac­tor in terms of the lot­ter­ies sys­tem, which was tak­en away on the premise of re­al sup­port but which has turned in­to a das­tard­ly lie.

As the fu­ture looms dark, sad­ly we could lose the chance to all be privy, of what promis­es on the race track to po­ten­tial­ly be one of the best years of horse rac­ing, the planned Jet­sam Awards at the end of March, may give a hint of the state of the sport, with a low at­ten­dance and lack of in­ter­est an­tic­i­pat­ed. It has been stat­ed, that soon, tick­ets may have to be giv­en away free for any­one to at­tend.

Let us hope, that what­ev­er sig­nal comes for­ward, it is recog­nised and ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Enough of the male ego­ma­ni­acs, time for team­work in horse rac­ing.

Time is now; Time is here; Time is run­ning out.