8 hours ago
I asked the Queen to help save horse racing
Inevitably the Queen's presence at the big meetings intensifies focus on her passion for horse racing. The fact that she is present becomes the story. The Derby, for instance, felt a little bit flat without Her Majesty or the King in attendance. But they will both be the stars of the show next week at Royal Ascot – even if Lady Posh and Sir Becks turn up.
But behind those welcome hours of support that Her Majesty gives a sport that is facing desperate headwinds right now, there is a deeply knowledgeable horsewoman who listens to those working at the coalface.
And there could have been no more suitable backdrop for her attention to the grassroots of the sport last week than Hexham, where Queen Camilla dropped in to talk to the team that care for arguably the most beautiful racecourse in England. The sun shone and the rain made an appearance just when it was not needed, but it was not hard to see the tangible pleasure that just a few seconds with her gave them.
I joined local trainers Nick Alexander, Michael Dods and Rebecca Menzies, who all punch above their weight, to articulate to her the issues that confront racing. They are workers, not whingers, but we did not pull any punches when outlining the problems the sport faces.
Top of the bill were this government's refusal to engage with horse racing and the outrageous possibility it should treat the sport, as far as betting tax is concerned, the same as addictive online casino games.
Falling betting turnover, which funds the sport, the rise of black-market betting and the wider issue of prize money in the UK – which is becoming increasingly uncompetitive compared to other countries – were also touched upon. So quite a lot to cram into a frenetic chat before we dug a couple of tips out of her.
The Queen is way too smart to be drawn into political conversations, but she listened assiduously. She preferred, however, to talk about the King's genuine fondness of the sport. Something that he probably kept under wraps when he was younger so as not to rain on his late mother's parade, while she was the monarch.
But do not forget that he put his neck on the line riding in hunter chases on a tricky customer called Good Prospect (who was anything but) in the early 1980s.
The unwarranted kicking the then Prince Charles got from a gleeful press after he was unseated twice from that brute probably hurt more than the falls. Meanwhile, the then Camilla Shand was having a better experience at the Southdowns point-to-point, learning a true love of the sport – possibly from the safety of the beer tent if the weather was anything like her day at Hexham.
Long after the Queen's departure, gratitude for her support was mixed with real anger at the predicament facing racing and the tens of thousands of jobs that rely on it. And the similarities with the bleak future of farmers are very obvious to the Hexham stalwarts.
Both industries are viewed with the same cultural disdain by this government. The unpredictability of what they are going to be beaten with next has become Trump-like.
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) was understandably not on a war footing to push back against the Government's consultations to raise betting tax on horse racing.
Only last week it was in a rush to appoint a PR company to help get its message across, which some would say is six months too late. But the BHA can be forgiven for assuming that Baroness Twycross, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) minister, would understand the difference between casino games on smartphones and betting on racing.
The former is highly addictive and mindless, the latter has been around for hundreds of years and provides a lot of jobs and a fair chunk of change to the Treasury.
If Baroness Twycross really does not get that, she should talk to Dan Carden, the Labour MP who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Racing and Bloodstock. He recognises that racing gives this country 'a unique diplomatic edge'. A point that we also made to the Queen last week. She was too polite to reply that she was well aware of that!
He is also on record as saying that 'ministers need to listen to racing' because 'recent government interventions have hindered, not helped'.
Of course the monarchy can never be seen to be meddling in politics, although there was a suspicion that our late Queen Elizabeth II might have 'had a word' with the odd prime minister from time to time to advance racing's cause.
One can only hope that Queen Camilla might be able to remind Sir Keir Starmer of the importance of horse racing to rural employment and the soft power of UK plc, should the PM cop an invitation to a barbecue at Balmoral this summer.
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