The position is new within The Thoroughbred Group as the organisation develops its remit to provide representation of its five members under UK racing's new industry structure–the Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), the Thoroughbred Breeders Association (TBA), the National Association of Racing Staff (NARS), the Professional Jockeys Association (PJA) and the National Trainers Federation (NTF).

“We are pleased that Jack has agreed to join us as we seek to develop the role of the Thoroughbred Group at industry level,” said Thoroughbred Group Chair Charlie Parker. “We are confident that his analytical expertise and previous experience working with industry stakeholders will make him a great asset to us.”

Added Connor, “I'm delighted to be joining the Thoroughbred Group at this pivotal time for the sport. I'm very much looking forward to working closely with the five participant bodies and their members as we help shape and deliver on the industry's strategy.”

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The NTF was also restructured during the AGM, with the intent to introduce a consultation model, so that the views of trainers are always accurately reflected in industry discussions. British Horseracing Authority (BHA) Chairman Joe Saumarez Smith, Neil Hayward (Industry People Board, Chair) and BHA Chief Operating Officer Richard Wayman also addressed NTF members regarding how the BHA will fulfil its leadership role in the new industry structure.

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NTF Chief Executive Paul Johnson said, “This video series is an excellent initiative by GBRI on behalf of British trainers, as it showcases all the elements that we do so very well in Britain–the heritage, the facilities, the training environment, the behind-the-scenes experience and the raceday experience. Exhibiting each of these elements to prospective international investors can only be a positive for the industry.”

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“I think he's changed a few people's minds, even among our owners,” Beckett admits. “One in particular, who hasn't sent me a colt in I don't know how long. So, yes, I hope it will have made quite a difference.”

Conceivably, perhaps, this horse may even have changed his trainer's own self-image. It's not as though Beckett has ever been remotely uncomfortable with his reputation as a trainer especially proficient with home-bred stayers, especially fillies. After all, a congenial environment for the nurturing of a filly is one of the selling points of the tranquil downland sanctuary of Kimpton Down Stables, on the Hampshire-Wiltshire border. And besides, no horseman could ever object to being considered something of a Henry Cecil for his generation, in showing a similar flair for one of the more delicate challenges of their vocation.

“Maybe it bothered me a bit more 10 years ago than it does now,” Beckett says of any stereotyping. “But as I've got older, it's bothered me less and less. Okay, so if you're pigeonholed as a trainer of fillies, you might miss out on one hand. But it's not a bad business model. You'll always have a chance that somebody, among those great owner-breeders—whether it's Miss Rausing, or Jeff Smith, or someone else—will keep sending you nice fillies. And one of them is going to step up.”

Regardless, Angel Bleu has now left no doubt of his trainer's versatility—albeit Beckett recalls the gamble of turning him round for Goodwood with wry self-deprecation. Reflecting on his Ascot run, Beckett and his old friend Jamie McCalmont, agent and manager for owner Marc Chan, had been on the point of suggesting the colt be gelded for export to Hong Kong.

“It was only when I fed him in the morning, and he nearly knocked me over, that we even started thinking about it,” Beckett recalls. “We jogged him up, and he just bounced up the yard. And I said would we be mad to run him again, and my headman Adam Kite—who's actually just retired, after 15 years with us—said it was going to rain, and that we should at least declare and see what the weather did. But what the horse did was obviously a real tribute to his constitution.”

As such, the people who keep asking Beckett whether Angel Bleu will go for the G1 QIPCO 2000 Guineas, or head back to France for the local equivalent, are asking the wrong question. If favoured by suitable conditions, a colt like this is perfectly capable of running in both.

“Absolutely,” replies Beckett, asked whether that possibility might be in the back of his mind. “No reason he couldn't. Last year we didn't even gallop him between the two races in France. And we never worked him on the grass between Goodwood and his race on Arc weekend. He'd have done one or maybe two bits on the all-weather, that's all. He didn't need more. Some horses are just made that way.”

Rain will probably end up determining Angel Bleu's ultimate schedule, as Beckett feels that he might benefit from a preliminary spin in the G3 Watership Down Stud Greenham S. at Newbury on Apr. 16. That would potentially put him on a schedule almost as hectic as the one followed by Poetic Flare (Ire) (Dawn Approach {Ire}) last spring—but at least we already know this horse to be made of the right stuff.

What's so encouraging is that even the alacrity he showed at two doesn't rule out further progress in his second season. Angel Bleu is out of a sister to none other than Highland Reel (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), while his sire—despite being carted off to stud prematurely himself—has produced plenty of horses that thrive with maturity.

“Which is why some people say Dark Angel isn't a sire of sires,” Beckett remarks. “This horse was actually his first 2-year-old Group 1 winner. To look at him now, he's probably lengthier, he looks like a horse that's developed from two to three—as his pedigree says he should. Remember that Highland Reel also won the Vintage, and just got better and better with racing.”

Having sent out over 1,100 winners since taking out a licence at the turn of the century, Beckett is a trainer in his prime. Mentored in his youth by a series of great horsemen, from Jimmy FitzGerald to Arthur Moore to Martin Pipe, he has become an assured and accomplished presence on the English Turf, with a clientele commensurate with the excellence of his facilities—ranging from Juddmonte to Qatar Racing, from John Gunther to Julian Richmond-Watson.

The latter has been a stalwart supporter all the way through, and Beckett felt corresponding delight when Angel Bleu's G1 Grand Criterium de Saint-Cloud was complemented, the very same weekend, by the G1 Prix Royal-Oak success of Richmond-Watson's homebred Scope (GB) (Teofilo {Ire})—a bespoke fit, as a maturing stayer, for the stable's more familiar modus operandi.

Beckett had originally hoped that Scope might be the type to give him a second St Leger. Unfortunately the Lingfield trials day, a trademark learning experience for the stable's best 3-year-olds, was followed by a three-month lay-off and he had to be rushed into the G2 Great Voltigeur S. to have any chance of making it to Doncaster.

“I really had no idea how he'd run at York: if he'd been a furlong last, I couldn't have been surprised,” Beckett recalls. “I just hadn't been able to get the work into him. So he had a rather fraught preparation for the St Leger, and on the day he never got into it after missing the break. I'm not for a moment pretending he might have won, in different circumstances, but I'm sure he could have finished a good deal closer.”

As it was, everything clicked into place next time when Scope won a listed race by seven lengths at Ascot, emboldening a roll of the dice at Longchamp. With ongoing maturity, Scope will now be trained for the G1 Gold Cup at Royal Ascot, ideally resuming in the G2 Yorkshire Cup on May 13. His penalty there is confined to 5lbs, and Beckett likes the intermediate distance as a starting point.

But if Scope exemplifies the merit of those owner-breeders who entrust the same family to the same trainer, so that its traits become familiar, he also reminds us how very precarious is any Thoroughbred's path to fulfilment.

His dam, Look So (GB) (Efisio {GB}), is a half-sister to Look Here (GB), who became the only Classic winner ever trained at Whitsbury in the 2008 G1 Oaks.

“Look So was a 3-year-old when Look Here was a 2-year-old,” Beckett recalls. “She'd won a couple in the summer but had then gone off the boil and we'd sent her back to her owners. Of course we had no idea at that stage what Look Here was going to be, she probably hadn't even galloped. And Julian said, 'Don't forget to enter her [Look So] in the Horses-in-Training Sale.' But I did—I completely forgot! So then he said that I'd better come up with another plan. So I said, 'Why don't you cover her with Compton Place (GB), and we'll run her in foal, and sell her in July?' She came back, won, didn't get in foal, won again—and then cracked her pelvis. And a month later Look Here won the Oaks. So somebody was really looking after us that day. Because she'd have made, what, 15 grand at the horses-in-training sale? And of course she has become the better broodmare of the two.”

Remarkably, even in excluding the three Group 1 prizes exported from France, Beckett ended 2021 with the best domestic haul of his career, falling just short of £2 million. Yet he still feels that 82 winners represented a shortfall in quantity, when measured against that undoubted quality.

“In a funny sort of way, I enjoyed 2020 at least as much,” he says. “Because although we had only had three winners by the time everything restarted on June 1, we ended up getting to the other side of 100. Whether the whole hiatus suited me, and the way they then laid out the programme, I don't know. But it was a year when everything went right. We didn't get a Group 1 but everything that should have won, did win. And don't forget that the 'quantity' is typically driven by the people who have always looked after you. If you're training a lot of winners, it's those owner-breeders who will tend to benefit.”

Richmond-Watson, of course, has generously contributed time and expertise to the service of the industry, notably with the Thoroughbred Breeders' Association and Jockey Club. And Beckett, too, is striving to do his bit, having recently been appointed President of the National Trainers' Federation. (Though he doesn't say so, you get the impression that he has limited regard for those who complain shrilly about the state of the racing nation, without being prepared to do anything about it.)

“My hope and belief is that there's a real chance for the Horsemen's Group to work more cohesively than has been the case in the recent past,” he says. “And we need to take that opportunity. I'd really like the Levy Board to take a stronger line—and a more independent line. It was set up to be independent of the different constituents, and to distribute the money to the benefit of the sport. And there are people in there who are capable of pulling that off.

“As for the BHA, let's say I'd like it to 'strip fitter'. They keep introducing new layers of regulation, rather than applying the rules already available. Nobody, for instance, has been sanctioned for their behaviour in the sales ring since the Jockey Club handed over regulation—but they were before. Instead, the BHA has gone out there to make a few headlines; to say, 'Look what I'm doing!' Everything is already in place to police the sport, I'm just not quite sure they have the will or the wherewithal.”

Like so many, Beckett is anxious about the sustainability of a sport effectively banking on heritage and the export market as a substitute for prizemoney.

“The only way to survive as a trainer is to be a good horse dealer, really,” he says. “The 80-to-100 horse, the decent handicapper, just isn't here anymore. We saw that in the Spring Mile [eight runners only] at Doncaster the other day. The idea that a horse rated 86 could get into the Lincoln! I was told that the last time that happened was 2002. And the race then was worth the same as it is now.”

In terms of his own business, however, things are plainly flourishing. True, he's always a little nervous of April, with pollen counts rising and the weather so fitful. But for all the additional excitement of launching a top-class 2-year-old at the spring Classics, the bedrock appears secure. Because the horses Beckett most enjoys training also happen to be owned (and, often, bred) by the patrons he most enjoys training for.

“When I started out there was a perception that the waters weren't quite so deep over longer distances,” he reflects. “Perhaps that isn't quite so true anymore. Probably all that really happened was that I inherited David Oldrey from Peter Walwyn and everything just rippled out from there. If you're training light-framed middle-distance fillies, I suppose it tends to be a bit easier on them at a place like this. But the set-up works for me too. I wasn't great at sharing, in Lambourn. And yes, definitely, I do enjoy being able to take my time. You need the right clients to be able to do that, obviously. But the whole beauty of it is that those are the people who are in it for the long haul.”

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In an excerpt from a joint statement issued Tuesday by The British Horseracing Authority (BHA), National Trainers Federation (NTF), Professional Jockeys Association (PJA), National Association of Racing Staff (NARS), Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), Thoroughbred Breeders' Association (TBA) and Racecourse Association (RCA):

“It is essential that horseracing remains a progressive, modern industry when it comes to the conduct of our people. We must prioritize the wellbeing and development of our workforce, stand against discrimination of any kind in British racing, and invest in making racing a safe, fulfilling place to work…We must encourage a culture of openness and seek to support anyone who faces problems or has found themselves in difficulty. We must promote a culture of respect in how those involved in racing interact with one another and promote more diversity and inclusion at all levels of the industry.”

All groups will take part in a working party which will report to the industry People Board and will assist in promoting the positive elements of conduct within the industry, education, deterring poor behaviour and discrimination while empowering people to call out conduct which falls short. The group will be chaired by the BHA and include representatives from the BHA, NTF, NARS, PJA, RCA, ROA and TBA.

The working party and resultant action lead the effort to introduce a new industry Code of Conduct, which will introduced in Spring 2022. The Code of Conduct has been developed by the signatories, who are also signatories of British racing's Diversity and Inclusion industry commitment. Among the working party's chief objectives is to ensure that the new Code of Conduct is properly communicated in addition to the introduction of the sport's new Safeguarding policy and regulations, which are also close to being finalized.

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Appointed to the role in August of 2000, Arnold has overseen a significant expansion in the range of racing industry issues covered by the NTF and its services to members.

Rupert Arnold said, “I have had so many amazing opportunities in my time at the NTF and for that I will be forever grateful to trainers. Although it brings many challenges, nothing can surpass the range of experiences in this role.

“I would like to thank all the NTF Presidents who have helped me so much by imparting their knowledge and understanding of racing. But most importantly, I want to thank the NTF executive team. We work so closely together and each one of them is incredibly dedicated to helping the membership; the service they provide is second to none. This is epitomised by their response to the Covid pandemic. They deserve the highest praise because they left nothing in the locker in how they supported trainers through the crisis.

“As for the future, I will be doing some consultancy for the NTF and would like to think that my experience could be useful elsewhere in the sport.”

Emma Lavelle, President of the NTF, said, “The NTF is enormously grateful for the work that Rupert has done on behalf of all trainers over the last 21 years. He has helped us meet a range of challenges both at home and within the wider racing industry and has worked tirelessly in the process. We are very pleased to continue to have access to his experience and advice in his consultancy role and wish Rupert well in all future endeavours.”

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Organisations that have signed on to the Industry Commitment are: the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), Racecourse Association (RCA), Racehorse Owners Association (ROA), Thoroughbred Breeders Association (TBA), National Trainers Federation (NTF), Professional Jockeys Association (PJA), National Association of Racing Staff (NARS) and Great British Racing (GBR). There are five areas that underpin the Industry Commitment and each organisations will former their individual Diversity and Inclusion Action Plans:

• Leadership and Accountability–industry leaders ensuring and taking accountability for the creation of a more diverse and inclusive sport
• Good Governance–ensuring a better understanding of the racing landscape to influence policy, practice and procedures
• Education and Awareness Raising–giving everyone across racing access to learning about diversity and inclusion and why they're important to the sport
• Celebrating Racing's Diversity–showcasing the diversity that exists across the racing industry in order to create an inclusive sport where difference is embraced, and everyone is valued
• Engaging New Audiences–promoting racing as a sport for all and encouraging diverse communities to take part

Annamarie Phelps, Chair of British Horseracing Authority, said: “This is an important step forward for the sport. We have so much to celebrate in British racing, including men and women being able to compete on a level playing field. Equally, it is the responsibility of all of us in the sport to ensure we can showcase British racing as a modern sport which is truly diverse, inclusive and open to all. Being proactive about improving diversity is essential to the long-term viability of the sport, but first and foremost it is absolutely the right thing to do.”

For more information on the Industry Commitment, please visit www.media.britishhorseracing.com.

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• If a horse tests positive for a prohibited substance, in order to avoid a penalty the responsible person must establish the precise source of the positive finding and that they had taken all reasonable precautions
• Cautions are available for lower level breaches
• Suspended sanctions are available for breaches

More information and the reasoning behind the changes is available here. The new rules and penalties can also be viewed by clicking forthcoming on the www.rules.britishhorseracing.com website.

Tim Naylor, Director of Integrity and Regulation at the BHA, said, “The culmination of this project has followed consultation with the appropriate parties as well as legal advice in relation to the rule changes, and it is our hope that we now have a set of equine anti-doping rules which are clear both for those who enforce them and those who are bound by them.

“We have to ensure that our rules in relation to anti-doping are sufficiently robust, but also that as much as is possible in such a technical area everyone bound by the rules understands what is required of them. Whilst in places the requirements upon the responsible person have been strengthened, there have also been changes to allow more appropriate penalties for lower and mid-level breaches of the rules.

“We have communicated these changes now ahead of their implementation date next month to allow sufficient time for participants to ask any questions they may have prior to the rules taking effect.”

In response to these new changes, the National Trainers Federation released the following statement, which read in part: “Trainers have strict liability for the presence of prohibited substances in a horse’s system. In the light of Disciplinary Panel decisions since the cases that led to the BHA’s review, the NTF believes the existing equine anti-doping rules provide sufficient encouragement for compliance. In that context, the outcome of the BHA’s review into penalties in these cases is a mixed bag for trainers.

“The NTF is pleased that the BHA took on board the need to remove penalties where malicious administration could be proved. However, strict liability reverses the principle of “innocent until proved guilty” by putting the onus on the defendant to prove innocence – in this case by having to prove the precise source of the prohibited substance….

“To mitigate the burden of strict liability, the BHA and NTF have agreed restructured penalties. It is right that the Disciplinary Panel should have the option of cautioning a trainer instead of imposing a financial penalty (as required by the current rules), for the least culpable breaches.

“We disagree with the BHA about the minimum sanction of a suspended disqualification in addition to a financial penalty for the lowest level breach for substances prohibited at all times. If the Panel is satisfied the trainer had no knowledge of the substance’s administration and had taken reasonable precautions, a suspended disqualification is an unwarranted stain on the trainer’s reputation.”

To read the full NTF statement, click here.

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