STRANGE comments drift though your timelines when you are scrolling through social media. Cliff Richard was in the trending box on Thursday prompting one wit to comment “Cliff Richard is trending only by the fact that people are tweeting that he is trending.”

It seems a bit similar to some of the current attention racing is getting. Are more mainstream media jumping on a “Just bash racing” agenda, as negativity piles on negativity even though little has changed in the sport.

There is a bit of bad stuff around, let’s jump on the bandwagon, get a bit of attention and write something negative about horse racing. On the eve of the Belmont Stakes – an Irish Times column was headlined ‘US racing faces a reckoning as horse deaths continue to rack up’.

Now, elements of American racing did need a very large light shone in murky places and American racing can still be filed in the ‘A lot done, more to do’ slot for horse welfare.

Every racing nation seems to have its low points. Racing is huge in Japan and Australia, the latter country also having to overcome scrutiny and drug bans in recent years but is now thriving again with huge prize money, syndicate ownership to drive participation, driving the sport onwards.

American racing has a motley crew of characters training horses and that can be good and bad for added attention. It has addressed many of the drug issues, none of them to be proud of, that came to light in recent years.

Positive results

The launch of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority’s safety initiatives continues to deliver positive results in eliminating many injury risks.

Forte’s removal from the Kentucky Derby, due to tenderness in a foot, should be viewed as a positive not a negative. And far from ignoring the issues, it is addressed on pretty much every NBC broadcast by racing professionals.

Santa Anita had issues with excess deaths in 2019 that led to the track shutting down for a little more than three weeks to try and determine the cause. Causes for the rise in Churchill Downs deaths this year have still to established but the overall fatality rate recorded has dropped for the fourth consecutive year.

It was a record-setting summer at Saratoga 2022. All-sources handle for the 40-day meet was $878,211,963, a 7.7% increase over last year and up 28.7% in five years. Attendances also increased and field sizes held up. US punters bet $1.39bn in May according to figures published by data provider Equibase. Average wagers per race day amounted to $3.8m in the month, up 6% compared to a year previously.

You can never eliminate risk when a horse is galloping flat out. Flightline was sparingly raced because his trainer knew there was a fragile element in the colt’s make-up.

Ruffian, Go For Wand and Barbaro are as much part of racing history as the Triple Crown winners. Half a tonne of horse racing on four legs of nine-inch bone will always be susceptible to injury, at the track or in the field. It’s easy to go to a website that has an agenda of trying to stop racing and cite their general stats.

The first Belmont Stakes was run in 1867. Its 1973 renewal provided one of the most iconic races and images of horse racing in Secretariat’s 31-length success to win the Triple Crown.

‘Many Americans are wondering why the Belmont Stakes will go ahead this Saturday’, ran this week’s sub headline. Many Americans may not have bothered to engage back in 1867 either. But ‘many Americans’ will be looking forward to a top class race in the Belmont, just as many did centuries before. Tune into the US coverage on Virgin Two from 9pm.

THE British stewards’ consistency was shown to be no better than you often expect in Ireland last weekend

We had highlighted last week the ban given to Irish apprentice Paddy Harnett at Haydock for ‘improper riding” .The Luck On Sunday show highlighted in its Epsom recap the incident that prompted an enquiry to consider interference in the 2.45 race, the three-year-old Dash approximately a furlong after the start.

Marco Ghiani was “suspended for six days for careless riding as he had shifted right-handed towards the rail when insufficiently clear, resulting in [Harry] Davies having to take a severe check and Russet Gold and Davies becoming unbalanced.”

It clearly looked a dangerous manoeuvre, certainly more towards ‘improper’ in cutting someone off, in contrast to the incident at Haydock where no one was forced to check or stop riding despite the report that “Dettori was barged off his intended racing line.”