Trainers’ threat to boycott TV interviews would ‘inflict harm racing can least afford’
Trainers’ threat to boycott TV interviews would ‘inflict harm racing can least afford’
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Talk about timing. Just as racing is preparing to unveil its ‘shop window’ – Aintree and Cheltenham are no longer specs on the horizon – Peter Savill reprises his role as the sport’s disruptor in chief. This time, Savill’s renegade Professional Racing Association has demanded that trainers – of which the group claims to represent 170 – be paid for TV interviews.
The deadline for agreement is this Saturday, and Savill, who points to the fact that jockeys have been paid for TV interviews since 2008, insists that the threat of a blackout is “no idle threat”. Print journalists are not being asked to cough up, so I’ve no dog in this particular fight – and I’m not opposed to the idea that trainers should be remunerated for talking to the cameras, even though some of the interviews can be like watching paint dry.
But this issue is already being covered in the negotiations currently taking place for racing’s commercial agreements and there’s no need for the PRA to stick its oar in now. You’d need to have lived on Mars for the past couple of years not to be aware of the difficulties facing racing – including the fight to arrest a downturn in attendances at the Cheltenham Festival.
The next few weeks are crucial and it won’t help our cause if those tuning in to watch the action are told trainer X won’t appear because there has been a fall-out over pay. Savill obviously feels the Thoroughbred Group, which seeks a fair deal with racecourses on behalf of owners, trainers, jockeys, stable staff and breeders, isn’t doing so effectively – or the PRA wouldn’t exist in the first place.
