BERNARD Caldwell, chairman of the Irish Stablestaff Association, said he’d “have no fear whatsoever” of organising another protest similar to the ‘watergate’ incident at Kilbeggan last month if he felt that it was necessary.

At a Kilbeggan race meeting last month, stable staff delayed racing by just over 20 minutes because there was no free drinking water made available to them.

There was no enquiry held by the stewards but a meeting was arranged to take place at Galway racecourse where Caldwell met with IHRB chairman Daragh O’Loughlin and personnel from the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, Restricted Trainers Association and Association of Irish Racecourses.

The meeting was called to reduce the chances of a raceday dispute causing a delay to racing again and was described as constructive by an IHRB spokesperson, who also said that all parties agreed to engage with Horse Racing Ireland’s industry standards committee. It was also agreed that there should be a protocol for raceday disputes.

What happened

Speaking to The Irish Field this week, Caldwell said: “At the meeting in Galway, initially, they didn’t want to speak about what happened at Kilbeggan but I said to them, we’re here to talk about Kilbeggan and if we’re not here to do that, we’re going to leave here, we’re not going to sit down here and be spoken to about other improvements.

“They asked would we do it again and I said, look, we don’t want to do it again but if we had to do it again, we will do it. We’re not going to close the door on ourselves or anybody else in the industry.

“They tried to tell us in Galway that you could have drank the water out of the taps (in Kilbeggan). That was an insult, a complete and utter insult to stable staff. We’re not going to tolerate that carry on. It’s living in cuckoo land. “I’d have no fear whatsoever (of protesting again).

Backing

“We have the backing of the stable staff and that was proven in Kilbeggan, and not just stable staff, but the trainers as well and a lot of owners. They were quite willing to support us.”

Kilbeggan held their first meeting since the incident last Saturday and Caldwell attended the meeting and reported there were no issues for stable staff, with plentiful supply of drinking water supplied.