FORWARD thinking, quick to embrace change and transparent and open in the way it operates.
These terms are rarely used to describe the Jockey Club, the former regulator of British horseracing which is the largest commercial organisation in the sport in the United Kingdom.
The London-based body, founded in 1750, owns 15 racecourses in England including Newmarket, Cheltenham and Aintree.
Often derided as a bit of an old boys club, the Jockey Club yesterday announced that it will end formal dress rules at all of its courses to make horseracing more “accessible and inclusive”.
You what?
I’m assuming this change to its rules is an attempt to appear modern and up-to-date.
I think it is completely the opposite.
Visit any racecourse across Britain and you’ll see a diverse cross-section of society.
Here is a sport that attracts kings, queens, princes and paupers – and everybody else in between.
If you walk into the corporate boxes at a big race meeting, or the champagne tents around the course, or the betting ring or bars serving beers and burgers, one thing links them.
All are full of people who have dressed up for the occasion.
Whether they’ve paid thousands to be there or a tenner, they have made an effort to dress up for a good day out.
Now the Jockey Club is telling racegoers visiting all its 15 venues to “dress as you feel most comfortable and confident”.
The change takes place with immediate effect and follows a review of dress codes and feedback from racegoers.
I find that odd, because Ladies Day at the Grand National meeting at Aintree is an occasion where people love getting dressed up and I doubt relaxing the dress code will mean they will all turn up in tracksuits and onesies.
What I find strange about this change in the rules is that strict dress codes are really only enforced at the big summer flat race meetings such as Epsom, Ascot, Newmarket and York.
The bread and butter of the sport are meetings at smaller courses such as Market Rasen, Wetherby, Market Rasen and Thirsk.
There are no dress codes for people attending these meetings.
For those brave enough to attend the Boxing Day meeting at Wetherby on a freezing December afternoon, the only rule is to wear as many layers as you can.
Explaining the decision, Nevin Truesdale, chief executive at The Jockey Club, said: “Horseracing has always been a sport enjoyed by people from all different backgrounds and it’s really important to us to be accessible and inclusive.
“We hope that by no longer placing an expectation upon people of what they should and shouldn’t wear, we can help highlight that racing really is for everyone.
“While The Jockey Club has a rich heritage and history, it is also a forward-thinking organisation which places a great emphasis on diversity and inclusion and always seeks to reflect modern trends.”
Diversity, inclusion and always seeking to reflect modern trends.
That doesn’t sound like the Jockey Club described by Delia Bushell, its first female chief executive, when she resigned in 2020 after just 13 months in the role.
She stepped down following allegations against her of bullying and racist remarks but the former BT and Sky executive described the investigation into these accusations as “flawed and biased” and “a deeply unpleasant stitch-up”
She said the Jockey Club was “a male-dominated organisation that has a troubling history of ignoring serious complaints against senior men and which seeks to discredit and ostracise anyone challenging its status quo”.
When it comes to modernising, perhaps the organisation has a bit more to focus on than just the relaxation of formal dress rules.
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IT was good to catch up with Garry Wilson over lunch this week.
Garry, who co-founded Yorkshire-based private equity firm Endless with Darren Forshaw, will soon take the role as chair of the British Private Equity & Venture Capital Association
The organisation, better known as the BVCA, has been the voice of private capital in the UK for four decades.
It supports and lobbies on behalf of its members to help companies grow and achieve their long-term ambitions, which it points out creates value for the country both economically and socially.
Given that most private equity firms are based in the capital, the BVCA is a London-centric organisation.
But when Garry takes over as chair in April, he will become the first person based outside of London in the role in 40 years.
That is some achievement anyway, but Garry, who grew up in a council house in Belfast, has never been one to accept conventions.
When he and Darren left EY to launch Endless in 2005 it was against a backdrop of plenty of scepticism from the financial and business “establishment”.
But a series of successful deals involving big businesses including Peter Black and Crown Paints and more recent investments in the likes of Hovis and American Golf have seen the firm, which values its Northern heritage proudly, gain national prominence and the backing of major investors across the world.
Over lunch in Sous le Nez, which is next to the new Endless headquarters, Garry outlined how he plans to not just promote and support the private equity industry during his time as chair of the BVCA, but also to highlight what it contributes to the UK in terms of investment and jobs.
This is an industry which has sometimes faced criticism for being populated by “fat cats” and “private equity barons”.
It couldn’t have a more genuine and passionate advocate to help change that outdated and incorrect image.
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DID you read that it is 50 years since “that try”.
That’s all you need to call it when talking to rugby union fans.
Gareth Edwards’ try for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 at Cardiff Arms Park, is regarded as the greatest try ever.
Growing up as the son of a fervent Welsh rugby fan, there was no question that that try was the best ever scored – and my Dad was quick to point out that it was made in Wales too.
The video of the match was the most watched VHS tape in our house.
You’ve probably seen it.
After a kick from New Zealand, the ball dropped towards Phil Bennett near to his goal line.
Bennett sidestepped and evaded three tackles, in turn passing the ball to JPR Williams.
It next passed through four pairs of hands (John Pullin, John Dawes, Tommy David and Derek Quinnell) before Edwards, slipping between two teammates and seemingly intercepting the last pass, finished with a diving try in the left-hand corner.
In a UK poll conducted by Channel 4 in 2002 British rugby supporters voted Edwards’s historic try for the Barbarians No. 20 in the list of the 100 Greatest Sporting Moments.
When I worked for the Western Mail in Cardiff I was invited to watch a club rugby match in a box at Cardiff Arms Park.
As we slurped Brains beer and scoffed pie and chips my eye was caught by a television over the door of the box, on which they were playing highlights of some of the greatest tries ever scored.
It of course culminated with “that try” – which I defy anyone to ever tire of watching.
As the move finished with Gareth Edwards launching himself, Superman-like, over the line, I shook my head in wonder and noticed that a visitor had entered the box and he had been watching the television.
We all realised that it was Gareth Edwards.
His tousled dark locks now replaced by neat greying hair, the rugby great didn’t need to say anything to us, just him being there was good enough.
He glanced up at the television and just said: “He wasn’t bad, was he?”
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FAREWELL then, Di Burton.
I wrote about the passing of the Yorkshire public relations doyen a couple of weeks ago after it was announced she had died at the far too young age of 68.
I attended Di’s funeral this week at All Saints’ Church in the picturesque village of Ripley, north of Harrogate.
Two things were no surprise.
One that the church was packed with people.
I was lucky to find a seat until I realised I would be wedged between the not insignificant frames of Sir Gary Verity and Kenton Robbins, who used to be the boss of the IoD in Yorkshire and now runs packaging business PFF.
Di was a well known figure in public relations, charity work and business through her Harrogate firm Cicada, her work with the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and universities and as a major figure within the IoD, both in Yorkshire and nationally.
Secondly it was also no surprise to hear that, once Di had been given a cancer diagnosis last year, she set about planning her own funeral with detailed precision.
Her husband Andy joked that as long he and the family carried out Di’s wishes to the letter, then everything would be fine.
I only really ever knew Di in a professional capacity, so it was fascinating to hear the stories of her early life in South Africa where she harboured acting ambitions.
Meeting Englishman Andy over a game of bridge in Johannesburg, the couple soon married and had two children but decided that apartheid South Africa was not a country where they wanted to bring their family up.
So they upped sticks to the colder climes of North Yorkshire where the whole family enjoyed great success and happiness.
Both Andy and his son Rupert, who now works in Silicon Valley in California, paid heartfelt, emotional, powerful and funny tributes to Di.
And then we were all invited to Ripley Town Hall – or Hotel de Ville as they call it in this corner of North Yorkshire – for a glass of champagne and a slice of cake.
It was lovely to bump into some of Di’s former colleagues, clients and friends and swap a few stories of a warm, dynamic woman who really was a force of nature.
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TO London this week for the annual CBI and Barclays Westminster Reception.
The yearly event brings business people from Yorkshire together with MPs and features a panel question and answer session in the grand surroundings of the Churchill Room deep in the heart of the Palace of Westminster.
You may recall that my visit last year did not end in glory, when, during a discussion in a West End restaurant about then Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s veracity with Conservative MP for Calder Valley Craig Whittaker, we found ourselves on different sides of the argument.
It culminated with him calling me “vile” and me using an earthy Anglo Saxon epithet to him.
I’d heard that one or two of this year’s guests, knowing this history, were offering to promote a boxing match between Craig and I on the terrace of the House of Commons.
Fortunately he didn’t make it to the event.
But I think I could have taken him in the second.
I invited Carla Stockton-Jones, the managing director of transport group Stagecoach to join me at the reception and, as we were queuing to get through security at the Cromwell Gate, Carla told me her son had gone on a school trip to Hull that day.
“Thanks to your blogs about your trips to Hull, I was able to tell the other parents how much there is to see over there, including all the amazing development they have done to the marina,” she said to me.
At that point, the person standing in front of us in the queue turned around and it was Dominic Gibbons, managing director of Wykeland Group…which has been responsible for developing Hull Marina.
What a small world.
Other guests at the event included James Mitchinson, editor of the Yorkshire Post, who introduced me to his young son who he brought down for a tour of Parliament.
When we were standing in the drinks reception before the start I felt a tap on my arm.
I greeted a familiar face warmly and then introduced “Dame Judith Blake”, the former leader of Leeds City Council, to Carla and Dominic.
She looked at me sternly and then smiled and said: “It’s not Dame, it’s Baroness!”
I didn’t think that recounting the words of “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” would be appropriate in the circumstances so I explained that Judith and I got to know each other on a trip to Israel with a group from Leeds many years ago.
She told us about the positive experiences she has had since being elevated to the House of Lords.
The event, which is well organised and hosted by Beckie Hart of the CBI and Karen Swainston of Barclays, featured a panel of MPs including Andrew Jones of Harrogate and Knaresborough, Hilary Benn of Leeds Central and Oliva Blake – Judith’s daughter – of Sheffield, Hallam.
When Andrew and Olivia had to leave on Parliamentary business, Hilary was joined by Jason McCartney, Conservative MP for Colne Valley near Huddersfield.
Jason is a former ITV Calendar news presenter and has the voice to prove it.
He said that when he gets the train from Huddersfield to Leeds to see his daughter, who lives there, he is always impressed.
“When I get off the train in Leeds and see the new Channel 4 headquarters and the Trinity shopping centre – it’s like Dubai compared to Huddersfield!”
Hilary glanced at the audience and pursed his lips.
“I have heard Leeds called many things but never that it is like Dubai.”
Have a great weekend.