The inaugural episode of Head of Communications Paul Struthers' blog
Had a shocker this morning. Changed the time on my Iphone on Saturday night and all was fine yesterday, but got to the station in Andover this morning to catch the 7.05 train to see that the time was actually 6am. The poxy phone must have knocked itself forward again overnight last night, which is irritating to say the least, so I’m now on the 6.25am train to London.
This week starts as well as the last one ended. A little birdie told me I had hit the front pages on Friday, though any excitement was shortlived, when I discovered it was only the front page of the Madgwick Chronicles, or ‘Frontrunner Newsletter’ as it’s more commonly known. It’s a bit like a racing version of Private Eye, in that it’s written in English. I’m not sure what I’ve done to upset the bespectacled IT programmer who writes it, but he sure doesn’t like me.
Apparently I didn’t make the shortlist for the Director of Comms role when it was advertised over two years ago. That is true, but it’s where the accuracy of the story begins and ends. Apparently my boss, Nic Coward, told me the job “wasn’t for me.” That’s simply not true.
Secondly, I apparently failed to communicate any comment after the collapse of the Miles Rodgers trial. Midgwick might not have liked what I’d had to say, but I remember reading our statement live on Sky News surrounded by racing’s finest scribes, then answered a load of questions. Fair comment perhaps to say I was useless, but it’s absolute tosh to say I communicated no message.
Midgwick then goes on about our BHA Xtra service at Cheltenham, which no one knew about apparently or could find on our website even if they did know about it. That’s strange, I thought, because we press released it and, whilst admittedly our website may not be the easiest to navigate, you could access it from the home page, so I'm surprised an IT specialist couldn't access it. Moreover, we had over 40,000 ‘listens’ to the audio clips uploaded at Cheltenham, mostly by Robin, our online editor (he of weak bladder fame, for those that read my blog at Cheltenham last year). It would be irritating if it wasn’t so amusingly inaccurate.
Last week was busy, particularly as Midgwick points out I’d been out of the office the previous week at Cheltenham. Speaking of The Festival, it was a fantastic week with phenomenal coverage in the lead up to the week generally, and in particular the Gold Cup, and following Imperial Commander’s seriously impressive victory. Whilst I was personally disappointed that Denman and Kauto hadn’t won, I was pleased the Commander won, not because I’d backed him but because his owners – ‘Our Friends in the North’ – were so gracious and easy to deal with over the alleged ‘fuss’ over the Betfair Chase photograph scandal-that-never-was.
Simon Claisse and his team did a fantastic job with the ground over a frighteningly difficult winter, and it’s just a shame Hurdlegate and Binoculargate got in the way a little. On the former, Simon’s publicly admitted he should have informed the public sooner and has apologised. I found out about it on the Sunday before Cheltenham when a colleague told me I might get a call from the Racing Post. I have to say, it never crossed my mind about there being any possible issue. There’s no doubt in my mind that it should have been communicated earlier, and of course the shape of certain races might well have been different, but I don’t believe people who fancied Get Me Out Of Here, for example, wouldn’t have backed him if they’d known about it sooner. That being the case, it may well go some way to explaining why I’m such an average (ie rubbish) punter.
As for Binocular, he was never scratched from the race, so there was always a chance he would run. The betting was checked and the exchanges had no integrity concerns, none of the High Street bookies complained to us about being stung, and our view was that Nicky Henderson was simply trying to be helpful in a changing situation.
Events at Lingfield then took over the headlines and we’ve dealt with it swiftly and the hearing is today. Some questioned why the police were not involved, and the simple explanation was that the individual concerned was bound by the Rules of Racing so the Stewards were able to deal with it, and those involved could have called the police themselves. I spoke to several of those involved, including Elna Bright’s owner Peter Crate. It surprised me when he said that I was the only person who’d asked how the horse was, but fortunately it’s not a serious injury and Elna Bright will only need a few weeks off.
I had an entertaining email exchange with a member of the public who thought we were burying our heads in the sand by not calling the police. I pointed out to her that we don’t call the police on the rare occasion when jockeys hit each other, not did we after the incident at Beverley involving Kieren all those years ago. She said this was different and referred to Duncan Ferguson being jailed for his infamous onfield headbutt. I thought that was hypocritical, and declined the opportunity to reply saying that the FA now have an agreement with the police that they will deal with onfield violence between players. We agreed to disagree, though I’m surprised we even agreed on that.
Talking of entertaining, Colin Russell elucidated for the second time on his race planning ideas in the Racing Post. I felt like I’d been transported back to 2004 with his comments about racecourses in close proximity racing on the same day. Perhaps he thinks we made up the OFT agreement, whereby we had to do away with the old 50-mile rule. I wouldn’t mind so much but it’s not like he rang us up to check the facts, nor did he ring Doncaster or Wetherby to get their views on why they would wish to race on the same day. When I lived north of the Trent the phones always seemed to work fine, but perhaps something’s changed since I moved down South.
Had a shocker this morning. Changed the time on my Iphone on Saturday night and all was fine yesterday, but got to the station in Andover this morning to catch the 7.05 train to see that the time was actually 6am. The poxy phone must have knocked itself forward again overnight last night, which is irritating to say the least, so I’m now on the 6.25am train to London.
This week starts as well as the last one ended. A little birdie told me I had hit the front pages on Friday, though any excitement was shortlived, when I discovered it was only the front page of the Madgwick Chronicles, or ‘Frontrunner Newsletter’ as it’s more commonly known. It’s a bit like a racing version of Private Eye, in that it’s written in English. I’m not sure what I’ve done to upset the bespectacled IT programmer who writes it, but he sure doesn’t like me.
Apparently I didn’t make the shortlist for the Director of Comms role when it was advertised over two years ago. That is true, but it’s where the accuracy of the story begins and ends. Apparently my boss, Nic Coward, told me the job “wasn’t for me.” That’s simply not true.
Secondly, I apparently failed to communicate any comment after the collapse of the Miles Rodgers trial. Midgwick might not have liked what I’d had to say, but I remember reading our statement live on Sky News surrounded by racing’s finest scribes, then answered a load of questions. Fair comment perhaps to say I was useless, but it’s absolute tosh to say I communicated no message.
Midgwick then goes on about our BHA Xtra service at Cheltenham, which no one knew about apparently or could find on our website even if they did know about it. That’s strange, I thought, because we press released it and, whilst admittedly our website may not be the easiest to navigate, you could access it from the home page, so I'm surprised an IT specialist couldn't access it. Moreover, we had over 40,000 ‘listens’ to the audio clips uploaded at Cheltenham, mostly by Robin, our online editor (he of weak bladder fame, for those that read my blog at Cheltenham last year). It would be irritating if it wasn’t so amusingly inaccurate.
Last week was busy, particularly as Midgwick points out I’d been out of the office the previous week at Cheltenham. Speaking of The Festival, it was a fantastic week with phenomenal coverage in the lead up to the week generally, and in particular the Gold Cup, and following Imperial Commander’s seriously impressive victory. Whilst I was personally disappointed that Denman and Kauto hadn’t won, I was pleased the Commander won, not because I’d backed him but because his owners – ‘Our Friends in the North’ – were so gracious and easy to deal with over the alleged ‘fuss’ over the Betfair Chase photograph scandal-that-never-was.
Simon Claisse and his team did a fantastic job with the ground over a frighteningly difficult winter, and it’s just a shame Hurdlegate and Binoculargate got in the way a little. On the former, Simon’s publicly admitted he should have informed the public sooner and has apologised. I found out about it on the Sunday before Cheltenham when a colleague told me I might get a call from the Racing Post. I have to say, it never crossed my mind about there being any possible issue. There’s no doubt in my mind that it should have been communicated earlier, and of course the shape of certain races might well have been different, but I don’t believe people who fancied Get Me Out Of Here, for example, wouldn’t have backed him if they’d known about it sooner. That being the case, it may well go some way to explaining why I’m such an average (ie rubbish) punter.
As for Binocular, he was never scratched from the race, so there was always a chance he would run. The betting was checked and the exchanges had no integrity concerns, none of the High Street bookies complained to us about being stung, and our view was that Nicky Henderson was simply trying to be helpful in a changing situation.
Events at Lingfield then took over the headlines and we’ve dealt with it swiftly and the hearing is today. Some questioned why the police were not involved, and the simple explanation was that the individual concerned was bound by the Rules of Racing so the Stewards were able to deal with it, and those involved could have called the police themselves. I spoke to several of those involved, including Elna Bright’s owner Peter Crate. It surprised me when he said that I was the only person who’d asked how the horse was, but fortunately it’s not a serious injury and Elna Bright will only need a few weeks off.
I had an entertaining email exchange with a member of the public who thought we were burying our heads in the sand by not calling the police. I pointed out to her that we don’t call the police on the rare occasion when jockeys hit each other, not did we after the incident at Beverley involving Kieren all those years ago. She said this was different and referred to Duncan Ferguson being jailed for his infamous onfield headbutt. I thought that was hypocritical, and declined the opportunity to reply saying that the FA now have an agreement with the police that they will deal with onfield violence between players. We agreed to disagree, though I’m surprised we even agreed on that.
Talking of entertaining, Colin Russell elucidated for the second time on his race planning ideas in the Racing Post. I felt like I’d been transported back to 2004 with his comments about racecourses in close proximity racing on the same day. Perhaps he thinks we made up the OFT agreement, whereby we had to do away with the old 50-mile rule. I wouldn’t mind so much but it’s not like he rang us up to check the facts, nor did he ring Doncaster or Wetherby to get their views on why they would wish to race on the same day. When I lived north of the Trent the phones always seemed to work fine, but perhaps something’s changed since I moved down South.
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