New Year’s Eve brought the end of an era as David Muir, who has spent 21 years as racing consultant to the RSPCA, completed his final shift by overseeing the action at Haydock, his avuncular appearance as ever disguising the sharpness of his perception. The news had just broken that he was to be honoured by the Queen with a well-earned MBE for services to racehorse welfare.
Muir has had a difficult task and he has handled it with such skill that attention has hardly ever been called to his presence, somewhere between the sport and the charity. For decades he has sustained dialogue between two groups inclined to be suspicious of each other, knowing there are individuals on either side who would rather have nothing to do with those opposite.
Asked about the RSPCA’s attitude to racing, which has an equine fatality rate of 0.22% per runner, Muir said: “It’s difficult for them to work with an industry where we do have tragic circumstances. However, if they didn’t ...
“By standing outside and shouting, you don’t have the same effect as being in there, dealing with the issues. That way, you can progress welfare, not by seeking enmity but seeking to be listened to.”
For racing, he has acted as a kind of conscience. “You go to a racecourse and look at where the fatalities were, then you say: ‘That jump, the fatality rate is 80% higher than all the others. Don’t you think you should be looking at that?’
“I never tell them what to do. I say: ‘Are you happy with that?’ And walk away. And they look at it and they usually find what you’re not happy about, without you claiming you’re better than them.
“That’s one of the difficult things, if somebody thinks you’re trying to tell them their job. Sometimes we just go through life, becoming a little bit complacent until somebody brings our attention to something and we revisit it. That’s how I’ve tried to play it over the years.”
Muir says he has had “an element of independence” from the RSPCA and his approach has not always found favour with its senior figures. Some have taken a belligerent line towards racing, as in 2012 when Gavin Grant, then the chief executive, demanded a list of changes to the Grand National, including the removal of Becher’s Brook.
Muir’s pragmatic approach (discuss, advise, steer, cajole, urge) has always prevailed. This week, he drew glowing praise from his employers, the RSPCA’s current chief hailing him as an exceptional professional and from the British Horseracing Authority’s spokesman, who tweeted from his own account that Muir was a “top man”.
He has been succeeded by Dr Mark Kennedy and it will be interesting to see whether Kennedy is as prepared to risk his standing at the RSPCA in order to keep the dialogue going in difficult times. Muir will stick around to advise him and will also be a consultant to the new Horse Welfare Board set up by the BHA.
It would be tricky to unravel where the credit should lie for sundry improvements made in racing and Muir is not interested in claiming them. But he is gratified as he reflects on the changes to hurdle design and to tongue ties and the rule that ended mid-race remounting. His own revolutionary design for a new hurdle, distinctively coloured to make it more visible to horses, is perhaps two years from a racecourse trial. “They will go to trainers’ yards, where they will knock the living daylights out of them and come up with any issues.”
One of his frustrations was that the traditional hurdle panels respond differently to being clouted by a horse, depending on the type of soil and prevailing weather. “This hurdle behaves exactly the same in whatever weather and whatever ground. You can school over it and then the horse knows exactly what it’s going to meet.”
Though Muir’s role has changed, he is not walking away. He plans to continue doing his bit to further racehorse welfare for as long as he is able. “I enjoy horse racing. I like the physical aspect of horses being tested over fences. When a horse jumps a fence well, it looks great.
“There’ll always be risk and everybody has to accept that. But that risk has to be minimised and it’ll only be done by people keeping on looking at things.” The next change he can foresee is a ban on jockeys using the whip to encourage a horse forwards. “The vast number of jockeys don’t misuse the whip but the ones that do bring the whole thing into the realm of contention. A limit of hitting it eight times is not good enough; it’s how you hit it. If you hit it with force eight times, that is unacceptable. And to differentiate by stewards is difficult.
“In the end it will come that they will be able to carry whips and be able to use them in circumstances where safety issues are involved and that’s all. Or they may go for keeping the whip in the rein hand and flicking it down. But I don’t see them being able to bring it down on the hind-quarters at 90 degrees. I think that’ll go.”
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