Betfair Official Blog

Jockeys Championship? Load of rubbish...

It's all about the horse, says The Assistant

There's been a whole lot of hoopla in the last few weeks about the supposedly exciting climax to the recent Jockeys' Championship.

For those that missed it, it was a tie this year, with two jockeys each riding 190 winners. One of them took 952 attempts to do it, the other 1,121. However, neither of them won the most prize money; that was left to a guy who finished 11th in the table.

And of all the Group Ones contested in Britain this year, our swashbuckling rivals won two of them. Put another way, on our 31 biggest occasions, when eyes outside the immediate confines of the sport might wander a glance in our direction, the two characters hailed as our best were largely conspicuous in their absence.

And what of the reputation of our joint champions? Well, one is a journeyman known in betting shops by the moniker "keep it simple". The other got a job riding for the most powerful stable in the world and only lasted in said job for a year.

Are these two really our champions?

It's become a cliché, but ask any layperson to start naming jockeys and they'll likely come up with a television sports' quiz captain, an ex-con and Kieren Fallon - none of whom owe their fame and notoriety to having been champion jockey.

The result of this Jockeys' Championship brouhaha is lots of industry-types proclaiming how great this year was, wishing every year could be so fabulous and asking what changes can be made to the championship structure to make it so. Because, they think, it is jockey rivalry such as this that takes racing to the wider populace.

(I should apologise at this point. I've recently become attached to the words "hoopla" and "brouhaha". It was, therefore, inevitable that they found their way into an article before long. In a synonym-tastic period of favourite words, I'm also using "hubbub" and "hullabaloo" a fair bit, but have managed to refrain from overindulgence here.)

Let me make an alternative suggestion. Instead of changing the Jockeys' Championship, let's get rid of it altogether. Let's assign it to a manure-heap for the monumental waste of time that it is.

Because if anyone thinks that promoting jockeys, and any rivalries therein, is the best way of marketing horseracing to the masses, they are as short-sighted as they are senseless.

Walking past the weighing room at Lingfield the other day I saw a group of jockeys - some of them supposedly "top-flight" - huddled together smoking. Are these the creatures that we want to promote as our sports' finest?

The reality is that jockeys are not the stuff of heroes. Ask any of your friends outside of racing (if you have any) what they think. The answer will be that they see jockeys as curiosities. As circus-sideshow-freaks; there to be gazed on with a puzzled bemusement. So let's not waste our time and money on promoting them.

To Joe Public, jockeys they are short, skinny, pallid-faced dorks who steer a horse. Those in the game might know this assessment to be unfair, but common man's links with the horse ended when the Industrial Revolution started, and so they will never appreciate what positive attributes a jockey may possess.

Even those who understand horses seem unsure. I was talking with a three-day eventer last week who felt peeved that jockeys earned more than riders from other horse disciplines who, she felt, required a greater level of skill. If we can't convince someone who rides horses of the majesty of our jockeys, then how are we supposed to convince others?

Horseracing is a difficult sport to sell. It has a language and lore impenetrable to the uninitiated. But there is one thing we can explain: some horses run faster than others. And some of them run so consistently fast that they become our champions. So let's make that our message to the masses.

I'm sure some of you midget lovers disagree with me. If you do, why not let me know by posting your comments below.