On Track- The Going’s Good for Clerks

DESPERATELY short of water in the West Country, soft going across the Bristol Channel at Ffos Las; good ground at Musselburgh one week, abandoned because of frost the next: who would be a clerk of the course?

The Clerk of the Course is responsible for ensuring a safe running surface for every race meeting (Fontwell Park pictured)

More people than one might expect is the answer, judged on Charlie Moore’s recent experience at Windsor, where he interviewed eight candidates for a trainee clerk’s position, having compiled a short list from an original entry of more than 20.

Moore, who began the year by taking on a new role as Arena Racing Company’s Group Head of Clerking after 30 years as a fulltime official, says: “I suppose a lot of people have the romantic idea of what a clerk of the course does. They see the more experienced folk like me wandering around, field glasses over their arms, racecard and mobile phone in hand and smiling at everyone, but they don’t necessarily realise that some of the time we’re like the graceful swan, calm on the surface but paddling like hell underneath.

“We’re the circus ringmaster, up there at the front, which is great, but as soon as the big top falls down, we earn our corn. Not everybody is born with the ability to communicate and have the necessary authority and command control.”

The Windsor appointment to replace Eloise Quayle, who has moved into Moore’s old job at Uttoxeter, will take ARC’s roster of trainee clerks to four, following former jockey Michael Naughton at Sedgefield, ex-point-to-point rider Dai Jones at Ffos Las and jockey-turned-trainer Philip Hide at Brighton and Fontwell Park. The tally reinforces how the training of clerks has become more formalised under a process overseen by the BHA and RCA.

Charlie Moore shares his years of experience with Eloise Quayle who has taken over Clerking duties at Uttoxeter Racecourse (image credit Nigel Kirby)

Moore explains: “There was a phase when some people put themselves through training independently, but the Joint BHA/RCA accreditation panel found that when they came to be questioned, they didn’t know enough about how racing actually operated, because they weren’t full time occupied. So, it became a prerequisite that you could only train as a clerk if you had the long-term prospect of a job to go to.”

The end game for an aspiring clerk of the course is to pass the BHA’s accreditation process, working through a training programme divided into three modules – groundsmanship, raceday clerking and race planning – and including a number of days shadowing various officials. Reports are compiled and a mid-term written paper and formal interview have to be negotiated before candidates press on to the final stage of accreditation.

The process was very different when Moore took the plunge in the spring of 1989, before being appointed at Market Rasen. Clerks were licensed by the Jockey Club but there was no formal training that he can recall.

“Along with Jane Groves and Johnny Fenwick-Clennell, I went on the first turf management training course organised by the RCA,” he adds. “It was held over three days at Cheltenham, and we ended up scattering grass seed on the carpet of the National Hunt rooms.

“There might have been some form of training, but I wasn’t aware of it. I certainly didn’t have to fill in any forms; there were no reports on progress, and my final interview was a fairly informal affair, followed by lunch.”

The process became more formalised in the 1990s when it was decided that racecourses should be responsible for appointing an appropriately trained and qualified clerk of the course.

Moore regards his new position with ARC as an extension of his previous advisory role, which began before he joined Northern Racing nearly 20 years ago.

“At Racecourse Holdings Trust (RHT), as Jockey Club Racecourses (JCR) was known then, I helped those who were training to be clerks, including Lisa Hancock and Barney Clifford,” he says, “and at Northern Racing, I took over from David McAllister, who was at Uttoxeter and in the process of training Jon Pullin, James Armstrong and Jason Loosemore.

“I’m very lucky that ARC appreciate I have a certain amount of experience and value to bring to a central role. A lot of our clerks haven’t been doing the job for very long, and even those that have still appreciate the support that this role can offer. The joy of working within a group is that it provides the variety of racecourses and surfaces that aren’t immediately available to people training at the smaller independents. We like to think we run a good academy.”

Among Moore’s proteges at RHT was Kirkland Tellwright, who as well as being clerk of the course at Haydock Park is responsible for training new clerks for JCR, and who also highlights the differences from his own early experience.

As one of the Jockey Club’s most experienced Clerks, Kirkland Tellwright is now responsible for training the next generation (image credit Racing Post)

“There’s vastly more detail to the training nowadays,” he says. “Accreditation started shortly before I was appointed in October 2000, and it took me three months to get accredited, so my first fixture at the helm at Haydock Park was in January 2001.

“At the time we thought it was all a bit too soon. I look back and it’s clear that I was very well looked after by a more than competent team, from the chairman, managing director, finance director and head groundsman to the doctors and vets. Everyone knew what they were doing, and I’d got time to work myself up to pace. I definitely appreciate that now.

“It was a fairly ad hoc process when I started. Andrew Cooper is senior to the rest of us still clerking by several years, but Simon Claisse, Barney Clifford, Michael Prosser and I were appointed within a 12-month span around 2000.

“Formal training started with Ed Gretton in about 2002. Andrew Cooper was his mentor, but I was involved, and I was certainly responsible for the next trainee, Nick Patton. I’m just a little fearful that the reason I’m still doing it is because I’ve come across so many howlers that the Jockey Club know that anyone I train will at least learn about risk management!”

JCR’s general policy to recruit a clerk to fill a vacancy was amended in the case of Jack Prior, although he was appointed at Market Rasen before he completed his training, and the process has been repeated with Dan Cooper, nephew of Andrew Cooper, for whom there is, as yet, no immediate vacancy.

“For that reason, we’ve taken Dan’s training rather more steadily than might have been the case on other occasions,” Tellwright says. “He’s the only trainee we’ve got at the moment, but once he’s appointed to a course we will probably take another.

“It’s very difficult to rush them through these days. There’s no soft introduction. It doesn’t matter whether you’re at a small or a large course, there are certain things you have to be accountable for and you need to be ready to face the challenge if, say, there is a serious accident in the course of a race. So, you’ve got to recruit people who think they are up for that.”

Not all JCR clerks stay with the group, but Tellwright sees that as a positive. “To a degree, the larger groups are doing the training for the smaller, independent courses,” he says, “and there’s a certain satisfaction in seeing clerks whom you’ve trained go on to the larger independents after working at one of JCR’s smaller tracks.

“Given the lack of turnover at our large courses, it would be slightly worrying if people didn’t come and pinch clerks from our small courses. It shows we’re doing a good job.”

A sound racing surface is integral to providing a strong racing product which in turn enhances the raceday experience (image credit Lingfield Park)