The horse racing industry in T&T was thrown into further disarray this week when the Arima Race Club (ARC) announced that it had once again revised the dates of significant Classic races and in fact, cancelled completely two of them.
Unexpectedly, the ARC which earlier this month had announced that its Triple Crown series of races had been rescheduled with, most importantly, the Trinidad Derby now being run on Boxing Day (December 26), alongside the Gold Cup, changed course and brought the Derby forward to November 28 while cancelling the TT Breeders Classic (confined to horses bred in T&T) and the Caribbean Champion Stakes (confined to West Indian-bred three-year-olds and over).
The reason put forward for the cancelling and switch of date appears to be the continued poor finances of the Club. This reason was also put forward to explain a further reduction in the prize money for the remaining feature events.
While the reason put forward can explain the cancellation and reduction in purses, it does not quite explain the relocation of the Derby. The only plausible reason for the rescheduling must be to enable Derby contenders to contest the Gold Cup on Boxing Day.
While this is an unobjectionable reason, there should be no smoke and mirrors about it. The Club’s willingness to accommodate connections of the Classic crop would be commendable if it were consistently displayed.
This lack of consistency and the penchant for those in authority in this country to abuse their positions does raise several questions over the motives of the Club in making this move and whether there are other forces at play in that change of heart.
This suspicion is made greater by the lack of transparency and consultation in arriving at this decision. From all reports, the Club’s management made this decision without discussing it with the owners’ and trainers’ associations, who are the two groups most affected by the decision. Therein lies one of the major obstacles to the sports’ ability to battle the effects of COVID-19 – no togetherness.
All the players in the sport in this country continue to pursue personal agendas and those agendas do not appear to be consistently in sync, resulting in decisions that any one player is rightly suspicious of. The uncertainty of COVID-19 demands flexibility on the part of everyone and so nothing is wrong with constantly re-thinking solutions.
It is particularly important, however, that this re-thinking is part of a combined consultative effort so that there is buy-in from everyone involved in the sport. That did not happen on this occasion and that must be regrettable and another setback for the sports’ fortunes, sadly there is consistency in this sort of behaviour.
The decision to cancel the TT Breeders Classic and essentially replace it with a vague reference to some sort of incentive for locally-bred horses that compete in the Derby and Gold Cup is insincere at least. No doubt this incentive will cost the Club considerably less than the staging and prize money associated with the race itself, but it will cost the local breeding industry considerably more.
Whether the ARC considered the impact of their decisions on the local breeding industry is hard to say, but if experience can be relied upon, it is highly unlikely that the sphere of thinking extended that far. And once again, this is regrettable since it betrays a myopic mindset, which is insufficient to chart a long-term future for the sport amidst uncertainty.
This sport will only survive if the local breeding industry survives – Jamaica, Barbados and most other racing jurisdictions have recognised that. We need racehorses for a racing industry, and over 75 per cent of any horse population will always comprise those born in that jurisdiction. If that population declines, the sport itself will decline irreversibly shortly thereafter.
Hopefully, there will be a further re-think in the not too distant future. Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, any horses from overseas may be restricted for years, not months, to come.
The other area of contention now must be the fate of the two-year-old crop of horses. The 2020 two-year-olds face the most uncertain future of all of the horses currently stabled at Santa Rosa Park in Arima. A large contingent of horses bought at the 2019 Yearling Sale in Jamaica continues to be stabled in that country and there is no indication as to when that status will change with the borders continuing to be closed.
The two-year-olds stabled in the paddock would have been significantly affected by the lockdown and many would be much more backward than in prior years, and in prior years, the quantum of two-year-olds ready to race in their two-year-old season was already very low.
As it stands, there are just four two-year-old Classic races in the Diary, the Nursery Stakes on October 17, the SFA Breeders Stakes on November 21 and the St Ann’s and St James’ Stakes on December 12. The latter two races were rescheduled to accommodate the staging of the Trinidad Derby on Boxing Day.
With that race having been switched to November, it is certainly possible that those two two-year-old classics can be reverted to their original dates and that an additional two-year-old classic can be added to the Diary. Such an addition to the Classic Diary would certainly be welcome by connections of the 2020 two-year-old class.
All-in-all, survival depends on all parties pushing in the same direction. This is only possible through involvement and communication. If those two ingredients are not present, any solution will not be sustainable. And now, more than ever before, we need sustainable solutions. It is sad to witness the amount of egocentric behaviour that purveys in horse racing.