What is left?
All the arguments made, slowly enervated, we limp along, aware of the imminent demise. How do we break through the cloistered cathedral at the Jockey Club and track management headquarters? Has the Alliance failed? In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question; these are not those times.
What is the cost of deferment? If the respective parties cannot agree that the greater good is more important than individual concerns, then there is nothing to be salvaged. If, however, the crisis is accepted and confronted, these days will mark the reversal of a flagging standard bearer and marshal a new day for this game.
What is needed? Convergence and relentlessness. No longer can we accept the platitudes and prevarication of those looking to buy time. If change is to come, it must come. It cannot be hoped for or wished upon, like a child with a recently lost tooth.
It appears as if two contrasting views have been held on what ails this game. The first is that this is essentially a reflection of the global circumstances and that if we can just patch together a temporary solution, we can ride this out until the markets recover, liquidity starts flowing and we can all return to the heady days of N3L horses, fetching millions at auction. The second, this is a margin call on business as usual.
There is no mystery regarding what needs to be done. The fundamental dysfunction is easy to solve, it might not be simple or pleasant; but it is easy. The changes on the margin, while nice, are not necessary, right now. Actionable efforts must be implemented. There needs to be a standard of account and a dispensation of obfuscation. The moral turpitude, suffusing this industry, is redolent with special interests and the mephitis of indulgence.
What are the discussions among the elite, sequestered within their walls? Are they ignorant of the sea change? These are not the good old days and the game is mired in legacy costs, too burdensome for this era.
Why then does it appear the leadership is making a gross miscalculation? It may be that it is hoping for the best but I would suggest it is asking the wrong questions. It has not asked what needs to be done to assure a resolution. It has asked itself, instead, what is the best it can do given three supercilious, self-imposed constraints: no nationalization; no losses for management; and no compression of product. But why does this group of so called stewards, confronting a gargantuan crisis, not attempt to alter the framework of the debate? The pusillanimity is worrisome and their attempts to impose captious solutions on bloated institutions is misguided and, ultimately, destructive.
We are entering a time when the focus shifts to the Derby and the distraction it engenders is a siren song. The prep races and the expectations, the attraction of the future pools and the preparations, for the one day the rest of the world turns a half-lidded eye to the game, make it easy to succumb to the hype. Like a teardrop in the ocean, we forget the precious fragility of that unbridled spirit we need to keep this game alive.
We are running on stolen horses and borrowed time.
"Against the run of the mill, static as it seems,
we break the surface tension with our wild kinetic dreams."
-Neil Peart
Posts
