THERE’S a line in the musical play I Keano from over 15 years ago, about the build up to Roy Keane’s walkout on the Republic of Ireland team in Saipan at the 2002 World Cup. It was always guaranteed to get a few laughs.

The Keano character is on a rant over the lack of squad preparation and rants on,

“Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail”, to which the Packie Bonner character, Packie Bonnerus, replies innocently, “But if we prepare to fail and we do fail, have we not succeeded!?”

It came to mind last week after we saw a succession of errors by the IHRB, all adding up to giving a vague sense of laissez faire over the implementation of the rules of racing and thereby its governance.

But maybe there’s method in the madness! If you lower the bar of expectation then it filters back in other areas, we’ll expect less and be satisfied? Or give up asking?

While so many sports and activities are suspended, racing has benefited from increased exposure but it also puts it under more scrutiny from hungry journalists wanting a story to get their teeth into. And at a time when we need all the acquired goodwill for the future when the after-effects of the pandemic will bite across the country.

Can we turn a blind eye to an inaccurate race distance in Tramore, a race start in Punchestown without the field being lined up on the track, the stewards ‘no change’ inquiry in Navan when every onlooker expected it to be changed, the start in Naas with flag and tape operators not in sync and three runners left at the start, (one unruly before even the starter’s flag was lowered), and a ‘winner all right’ who was not yet ‘all right’, all in the same month as a referral where it emerged that a wrongdoer could not be identified due to the lack of closed circuit television pictures?

Shure if we can’t see anything wrong, maybe there’s nothing wrong! No one can prove we’ve failed.

Racing’s defence in the wake of questions being asked on the integrity and drugs issues has been – “you show us the evidence”. But then if the authorities themselves cannot find any, can we say there’s nothing to see?

The accumulation of errors in the last few weeks, the majority called out by racing professionals with the words ‘barbaric’, disgrace’, ‘shambles’ used, even if some were genuine mistakes, doesn’t give you too much faith in actually finding and prosecuting any wrongdoers on a larger scale.

But it’s not good enough. We cannot take for granted how lucky racing has been to be allowed continue through the pandemic.

If you can’t be seen to get the simple things right - and by right we mean by taking the opinions and experience of some of the best jockeys and broadcasters with a long history in the sport on board - then how can we trust that the tougher questions or actions will be investigated?

We are all feeling a bit lethargic these days but those in charge need to take things a bit more seriously.

Maybe it’s a ploy -– “Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail” – that’s where we are, move on.