ROYAL ASCOT - racing's rich pageantry, but does it mask its dirty secrets?

Naturally the fabled Royal Ascot meeting will take much of the world’s racing focus this week.

Rightly so, a real Everest to climb to summit at the elite equine level, aspirational to even get to base camp with a runner as an owner and get that exquisite name brooch Mr So and So Esq, or Mrs (insert surname) for the missus.

Top hat and tails of course for all those who have to fit into the royal requirements or just wish to feel more engaged and show respect for some 200 years of tradition.

A word - tradition - synonymous alongside Royal Ascot, but perhaps more so glibly used in racing generally to veneer from the everyday issues that runs alongside a massive global industry and sport.

So, while Aussie officialdom descends on Berkshire with their “fact-finding missions” as much as real fans tour with cheer leaders and enthusiasts, it doesn’t band-aid, let alone spark a remarkable recovery diagnosis of the alerted and ever presented ills that racing faces.

Perhaps worth noting then the well-rounded discussions of one of the UK’s latest big players, Kia Joorabchian, on the eve of Royal Ascot, in a weekend Daily Mail interview, loaded with runners this week but much more loaded with questions and hopeful loftier outcomes.

Kia Joorabchian (AMO Racing)

Why Kia even bought one at quaint Goffs Sales Monday in the Kensington Gardens for A$4.1m, hoping that Ghostwriter would win the Hardwicke on Saturday and get back A$294,000. 

Crash course in Joorabchian - who runs now under the Amo Racing banner (purple colours you will see well-armed mainly by jockey David Egan this week, including Ghostwriter.)

But just more a whim back in 2003 (yes a winner at Windsor - Persian Rock it was called ), ramped up to Karmaa Racing in 2018 when Freebe Rocks won a few, then Amo Racing was birthed, fast track and fuelled for success on the track and then a staggering multi-million dollar play at the sales eclipsing Coolmore and Godolphin last year, try about $50m of ours just to get serious.

And then, not to show off, but to say we are here and proud, buying Sir Michael Stoute’s Freemason Lodge Stables on the famous Newmarket Heath and investing into a thorough renovation though the ghosts of Shergar and countless Group 1 and Classic heroes forever permeate. 

You can sense that Kia is here for a serious play. His business acumen underlines that, and his words are measured and should be taken as such.

“I come from a different industry, and my own sporting industry does not allow me to sit down and just keep quiet,” Joorabachian said in his extensive weekend Daily Mail interview.

‘I am a different breed,’ said the 53-year-old, born in Tehran but of British and Canadian citizenship, hugely successful in the football world, sports and trading partnerships his de rigueur, try global names like Carlos Tevez, Brazilian superstars, Philippe Coutinho and Willian. (Google - Sports Invest UK if you need more credentials).

But his interests are not merely monetary or from that dreaded one-goer, self-interest.

“I absolutely love racing. I really believe in the growth of racing. I believe it has tremendous growth potential.”

“We haven’t got anywhere near touching the surface of what this industry can be. I want to see this sport grow in the right way. People love working in the industry, but they can’t make it work financially and that needs to change.”

But then he punches into the reality - the “deeper story that you don’t see” as he called it.

‘In racing a lot of things are hidden,’ he was quoted. ‘The real truth never surfaces. It is like a secret society. There is an unwritten rule.

“In football if you separate from a manager everyone knows why. But in racing if you separate from a trainer, you are not allowed to say why. You’d like to say it’s because two horses died, because two got fractures, but you can’t.”

He delves much deeper and to a chord that should matter to all and yet Kia has the power and podium to share it.

"In the last three months I have heard of at least two suicides in two yards,’ he said in the Daily Mail. ‘A sad situation. In one case the boy was discovered in the yard when people arrived in the morning. 

“Racing Welfare (The Jockey Club’s charity) was very active and made sure everything was handled correctly at the yard but there’s not enough done about this problem in the industry. You won’t hear about it. People don’t want to talk about it.’

To him it is about “proper pay.”

"There are people in the industry living week to week, let alone month to month,’ he says. ‘A huge chunk. Your general stable lads, for example, the boys who wake up at 4.30am and who are mucking out until 2pm. It’s tough and these people do not get the support they need. 

"You’re talking about people who have no happiness and who may need to take drink or drugs to find it. But what happens is, in some cases, they get discovered and they get sacked. But nothing is done to help them. The problem is not addressed.

"They get another job down the road. Then the same thing happens, and they go somewhere else, and it keeps happening because there are not enough people at that level in the industry. And it’s not just stable lads, secretaries, riders, general racing staff."

"I have to work every day,” he said to the Daily Mail.

“I make my money; I live in the UK. I work hard to do what I’m doing. I’m not from a privileged background. I’ve never had to starve but I have never been fed by a golden spoon.

“I’m not trying to disrupt the industry, look, all I want is for the sport to be open, non-hypocritical and to create a competition that can rise,’ Jooorabachin said.

With that comes the costs and returns which he suggests is beyond any reasonable fiscal explanation, especially in the UK - not that any would find such notion surprising.

 "When I see what is going on in America I come home and think ‘My God, how can we evolve?” he says. ‘I think of how much of a gap there is. There was a race here the other day, £2.5m worth of horses running for the first time. The winner took home two-and-a half-grand. No wonder people are afraid to invest. 

"In the US people will buy a horse for $250-300,000 because they know they have the potential of making that and then some in prize money. Over there you have a real chance of a return on your investment. Here, more money has to start coming into the sport from gambling than it currently does from the levy. 

“Why is a bigger portion of that money not coming back into the industry? And by the way, it should be the same with football. If you do it with football your Championship, League One and League Two clubs benefit. The races get bigger, you attract international runners, better competition, that competition creates a better vibe, more people, more money channeling to the trainers, the stables. 

'

It allows you to pay a stable lad more than just enough to survive that week

At the same time on the eve of Royal Ascot, a report called:  'Securing Racing’s Future: The Threat to British Horseracing', has been produced by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Racing and Bloodstock and will be launched in Westminster, says the Racing Post.

“It quotes polling which found that 53 per cent of British people said horseracing is an important part of British culture, more than 60 per cent believe the government has a responsibility to protect the UK’s international sporting standing and that 56 per cent support a law requiring greater reinvestment into British horseracing. “

As Joorabchian says: "To make that happen the gambling sites need to put some money back into the game. I am going to open a charity next year. I will go to every betting firm and ask them to put money into this or any charity which helps the welfare of the industry.

"When they don’t, I’ll have no problem exposing that. You made £600m – congratulations - two people committed suicide. You benefit from that yard, why are you not giving anything back? 

 ‘I am not trying to throw any individual under a bus, I just believe this needs to be out in the open. My investment and my goal in racing in the UK and Ireland is because I want to make it better.”

Joorabchian recalled an interview with respected UK presenter Nick Luck where he suggested many of the topics he raised for discussion were, in his mind, being diverted.

‘It seems the racing media does not want to be out there exploring. Racing has its beautiful side, the top hats and tails, Royal Ascot. The sport of kings and queens. But in the UK, it is hiding its problems. 

'There was someone from the Racing Post on the (Nick Luck- Luck On Sunday show. They had done a piece on our spend and where everything is. I called them and said I am absolutely open and happy you have done that but over the years there have been big companies who have spent far more than us but you’ve never done a piece about them.

"Amo spends this", but what about Coolmore and Godolphin Juddmonte and other big names? I asked the guy: “Why don’t you do it for anyone else?’ There was no answer.’

“They are afraid of someone new. This interview is a nightmare for the racing world.’

Which leads us nicely unto a Gai Waterhouse segue.  Luck hosted Gai Waterhouse over the weekend just as he had done with Joorabachian.

Gai being Gai, was infinitely Gai, interesting, interested, engaging and engaged, relatable and remarkably resolute, not that any Australian would label that as anything new.

She spoke of shattering glass ceilings (as if they weren’t actually there), using her imagination, because that’s what you did as an only child.

But like Joorabchian, Gai’s bottom line message was always the sport, the players, the fans.

Sure, there were mentions of “Cornflakes” the baldy pony in Centennial Park, looking for duck eggs and stray cats.

But of father Tommy (T J) and “gregarious mother Valerie - ‘second to Dame Joan Sutherland in an Eisteddfod she said, which led her to the London Stage, Dr Who, Patrick Scargill etc, even though she wasn’t a “Cate Blanchett.”

But as engaging, and how TJ rang the press, the owners and the staff religiously when there was no text, emails or Tik-Tok, it was all about information, as it is today for Gai, but also for the staff, the young people she brings through.

And how she, despite being a world away from his local racing coalface, was on the end of a phone herself to owners, her customers, "why wouldn't I - they are the paying customer."

One could sense Gai and Kia could make some formidable team both on and off the track.