Our columnist with his thoughts on the row regarding saunas at the racecourse and why it's the time to take a longer term view.
The current controversy about saunas at racecourses, which has been ongoing for a while, has really come to a head in recent weeks.
They were removed during the Covid pandemic, the British Horseracing Authority say with the approval of the Professional Jockeys’ Association, but at the time each rider had a two pounds weight allowance too.
From what I gather a lot of riders thought that leeway would remain in place with the saunas staying away and it hasn’t.
As a result, the weights have effectively dropped again, and it seems to have put a lot of pressure on a lot of jockeys.
While the intention may be to improve the work life, and long-term health of the riders by encouraging better practices, in reality that hasn’t worked out – mainly because of the unique workload of the profession.
They work seven days a week with lots of travelling and with more limited opportunities because of small fields, riding work with the aim of securing rides on the track has become even more important.
It means more time pressures on trying to get to the racecourse and adjust weight and to my eyes the saunas aren’t coming back, the BHA insisting as much only this week.
The long-term and sustained solution has to be to raising of the weights and in particular the median weights in maidens and pattern races.
Just look at the current bunch of young apprentices, very few of them are what you’d describe as natural jockey size. People are getting bigger and we’ll have to change at some time for the new and future generations,
Rather than sitting back and waiting for it to happen why not get proactive and provide a further two pounds weight allowance.
That should negate the need for saunas and take the pressure off most riders.
On the flip side the jockeys themselves need to be more realistic in what they’re doing and if the weights rise, they can let their own weight adjust accordingly.
Horses carrying more weight in races is inevitable – but they regularly carry 11 stone plus at home on a morning and when the allowances were in place through Covid both Battaash and Kameko broke significant track records.
In the Jump Jockeys’ Nunthorpe, connections are happy run a big field of sprinters for a decent prize from a weight range of 10st 7b to 11st 12lb.
Clearly, we’re not going to be talking about numbers anywhere near those as the norm on the flat but a small change now but could really help.
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