Ruby Walsh: The world has changed and sport must do the same if it wants to keep up
I read between the lines, and so did many, but I only asked because the rumour mill was already in full flow about the U-Turn Frankie would make about his retirement, something which he did this week.
The long goodbye had begun to grate on some, while others had taken the opportunity to go and watch him for what they believed would be the last time Perhaps they now feel short-changed, but when you go all in it becomes boom or bust. Ultimately, the decision about what he did was his.
For anyone - not just sports people - the decision to retire is final, but for sports people it comes when you are too young not to have some purpose in your life. The question of what to do next is a stark reality for many, but as the saying goes, a change is as good as a break.
Frankie has the luxury of a change, and the USA will be that for him. He feels the summer past, littered with so many big successes, has given him the fuel to carry on, and I just hope the emotion of success hasn’t tinted his view of his body.
Recovery is the only thing standing in the way for the Irish rugby team tonight, as they hope they still have enough in the tank for the All Blacks. Andy Farrell wants them to have a pep in their step and not one fueled by adrenaline. Frankie will be 53 in December, and at some point last Autumn, he felt his body couldn’t recover quickly enough for the demands he was putting on it.
That’s sport, and that’s why a physical one is a young person’s game, yet Frankie is embarking on a new career as a freelance jockey in California, where the key to success will be an increased workload.
I hope it works out for him, but if the adrenaline goes with a bad run or change of fortune, I hope he hasn’t wasted the glorious send-off for green hills that may never have existed. He is taking a risk, and I will never knock anyone for having no regrets, but the reality of what comes next hasn’t gone away, it is only deferred.
That was only a part of Thursday’s news as the Grand National changes followed hot on the tail of Frankie’s press release, and they both followed the news earlier in the week of the changes to the British Racing Calendar for 2024.
The Grand National hasn’t changed - it has changed again, for at least the fifth time. It doesn’t suit everyone, but change never does, and GAA fans can add weight to that. Whatever way you look at it, the world has changed, and sport must do so if it wants to keep up.
n recent years, rugby, soccer, and GAA have all modified rules around tackling, aggression, and retaliation to change how their sport is viewed and for the safety of its participants.
Racing has had to do the same, and the most radical changes came in 2013 when the fences were altered entirely for safety reasons.
Ten years on, the data of the Nationals run since have led to the latest changes. Those 2013 alterations have completely changed how the race shapes, and with nobody using the outside half of the track, because the inside is no longer riskier, a field size adjustment was required.
Forty runners used to spread out over Aintree. Now, 40 try to fit into half, so 34 will be the new number. The reality is that a standing start will force riders to line up across the track, where they won’t stay but will do for the first three to four furlongs until the race takes shape, thus creating more room for the whole field to negotiate the first few jumps. That’s the theory, but only time will tell the story.
If some feel Aintree have gone too far, I don’t feel the BHA and the British racecourses went anywhere near far enough with the restructure of its fixture list. It has merely window-dressed the issues, taking a sword to the National Hunt fixtures, which was required, but it used a butter knife instead of a chain saw with the Flat one.
The number of horses in training can easily be pointed at to justify this action, but equally pointing at the quality of the majority is, too. Giving every horse a chance creates the ‘everyone’s a winner’ theory.
The knock-on effect is the ever-expanding breeding pool and the dilution in the quality of what is being produced because fillies who never would have been bred from in the past are now winners or sisters to winners and are going to stud. Expansion doesn’t always generate growth, but oversupply devalues a market. The British fixture list needs axing to regenerate itself to what it once was.
