Schooling in public

It's not that I don't agree with stern punishment (she says, sounding like Lady Whipaway), but that banning trainers doesn't work - thanks for reminding me, clivex. I was imagining their yard being unable to function without them at the helm, but of course, they would - and do. Even trainers who've been warned off for a year or three merely spread their charges around a few mates' yards and bounce back to resume ops when their penance is done.

Banning couldn't be the same as pulling a person's licence and depriving a whole yard of its livelihood. I've got no idea about Labour Law, but it might be illegal to deprive, say, 20 other people (just a figure out of the air) of their employment when they have done nothing wrong, and the business hasn't gone bust. I could see a legal challenge to that, and it being overturned as unfair to employees.

Horses having an easy run, whether they're debuting or coming back from a lay-off, aren't unusual. Most officials aren't over-worried when something that's got (240) after its name trundles in 6th, or when clearly tiring newbies are eased when out of contention for prizes. They recognise, as some punters seemingly fail to do, that horses aren't engines, and do need time to come to themselves. But 'schooling in public' is a different matter and yes, it should be addressed firmly. But 'banning' a trainer, I can now see, doesn't work when all he does is hand over the reins to his assistant for a few months, still working behind the scenes. On the other hand, pulling a licence and causing a yard to fail might be construed as unfairly affecting the right to livelihood of innocent others.
 
My issue with banning not working is when the banned trainer simply uses other trainers names to run the horses like Wigham did when he got banned a couple of years ago. The issue of owners and staff suffering isn't there for me, I wouldn't want a horse with a trainer who wasn't running horses in the yard on their merits and I wouldn't want to work for a trainer who wasn't running horses on their merits.

I appreciate it's not as black and white for the latter as staff can't simply chop and change jobs at the sniff of something fishy but trainers should be protecting their staff too and like others have said, if they know there is a very serious punishment coming round the corner affecting not just them but their employees then they may think twice before sending some inexperienced jock out to give one an easy time of it out the back.

I'd just warn them off full stop if the horse didn't run on it's merits though, no ifs, no buts, goodbye, you're not welcome in this game if you don't run racehorses to win races.
 
True, if you were an owner (who wasn't in on the game), you'd not want to be associated with a dodgepot trainer. But if you're a young lass or lad, or a foreign worker who desperately needs the money to support a huge family back home, just having a job they can do, and enjoy, is vastly important. Racing can't afford to make people jobless and homeless and not offer them an immediate, adequate alternative. And for staff - as Shadow Leader has said in the past - it's a lot easier said than done that you should report any wrongdoings. You can be blacklisted with all trainers if you're seen as a 'troublemaker', and that just shouldn't be the case. Workers, like young jockeys, are forced to be complicit in order to retain much-loved jobs in racing. That's just plain WRONG.
 
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