The British Horseracing Authority has banished one of its most assured PR operators at a time of crisis and may soon be seeking a new chairman
Circling the wagons is a standard tactic for businesses and public bodies at times of crisis. It allows those in charge to feel they are doing something to defend themselves and draws a clear line between the good guys on the inside and the outlaws beyond. And of course, for as long as they have an enemy outside to preoccupy them, the waggoners are unlikely to ask too many difficult questions about the leaders who steered them into bandit country in the first place.
The British Horseracing Authority, though, added an interesting twist to the process on Friday evening when it circled the wagons and then expelled one of the very few people in the convoy who could be trusted to point the business end of a rifle in the right direction.
Rumours had been circulating for at least a week that Paul Struthers, the authority's director of communications, was being lined up as a scapegoat for the debacle of the BHA's new whip rules. And while there was no mention of the whip in the brief announcement of his departure, the only people at BHA HQ who are likely to deny that it was a major factor are the ones who actually want their noses to be six inches longer.
It is, of course, one of the occupational hazards of the PR business that messengers are expendable. It is true as well that, given the current economic climate, there will have been many other people who suddenly found themselves out of work on Friday evening and probably without either the payoff or the prospects for future employment that an effective operator like Struthers will command. In any case, under Paul Roy's leadership his role had frequently seemed to be little more than pooper-scooper-in-chief, trying to clear up the many unfortunate "accidents" that the BHA chairman left behind. Do that for too long and it will start to eat away at anyone's soul.
So perhaps he is better off out of it but racing is stuck with what is left behind, which gives every indication of being a "ruling" body that is beginning to collapse in on itself. If senior executives are now being sacrificed in the attempt to keep Roy in his job, the situation is pretty desperate. The BHA chairman told one interviewer this summer that he would not leave his post except by force but you do not need to have waded through the whole of Decline and Fall to know that when things get this close to the inner circle, it is usually just a matter of time.
A crushing defeat for racing in its misguided attempt to drag the Levy Board to a judicial review over the levy status of exchange punters could well be the final straw but, whatever mishap delivers the final blow, the likelihood must be that the BHA will be looking for a new chairman in the fairly near future.
And that, when it happens, will present a whole new raft of problems because Roy is the only chairman the BHA has ever had and the process to be followed when the post becomes vacant seems a little hazy. Will it just be a case of a vote among the remaining board members? Or will it be a job for a headhunter and, if so, who decides on the brief?
In the end there will be a role for the Jockey Club because that is still where the real power lies. The club owns significant tracts of Newmarket and Lambourn, as well as most of the top racecourses, while the obvious one that is outside their grasp is Ascot. That is owned by the Queen, who just happens to be the patron of the Jockey Club.
Perhaps it is too much to hope but, when Paul Roy finally does the decent thing, it might be time for the Jockey Club to make another, and perhaps more successful, attempt to restructure British racing in a way that works. Yes, we are back to Premier Racing again and a programme designed around the best of the Jockey Club tracks, plus Ascot, York and a handful of others. And as luck would have it, the current senior steward of the Jockey Club, Nicholas Wrigley, was once a very successful chairman of York racecourse.
The wagons are circled, the bandits are closing in. Now would be a very good time for the cavalry to appear.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/nov/21/pual-roy-circles-bha-wagons
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