Dan Skelton - Is he correct?

Dan Skelton has caused a stir with comments on social media, but is he right?

My day started early today, and as I groggily checked my phone an X notification appeared at 4.32am. It was a jockey, who shall remain nameless, liking my tweet about him that I posted on Friday evening. It wasn’t abusive, but it was critical. I actually stated that I rate him as a jockey, but his ride was bad and when he gets it wrong, he really gets it wrong. I can only assume it was a sarcastic like, but my immediate thought was ‘Why on earth are you searching your own name at 4.32am on a Sunday morning?!’. It will never end well given people’s disgusting comments about jockeys, usually when they’ve lost a bet, and you gain nothing from it.

I think Dan Skelton went too far the other way, as many in racing do. It’s bizarre that nobody can say anything even remotely negative, it must the only sport on the planet where critical analysis is frowned up and discouraged, and it’s bred a culture in racing where things are swept under the carpet. Plenty of jockeys rush on immediately after the race and bite so hard at comments about their rides, and it’s pathetic at times. People are allowed to have an opinion on their rides, albeit most of the time it is pocket talk and tactically incorrect. As a professional, you NEED to accept that, just like footballers get caned every single week for bad performances. How many of them do you see rushing on social media to sarcastically like your post or argue with you? Very few. They’re bubble wrapped from such a young age in an industry that is immune from bad comments, and in my view need training on how to ignore/deal with that.

On the flip side, Dan Skelton had a huge point about the abuse side of it, and there is a major difference to the above. It knocks me sick to my stomach reading people wishing broken necks, cancer, death, falls, horse deaths etc all because they’ve lost a bet. My favourite, in a really bad way, is when they google the yard and send an email! Imagine doing that, your gambling is so bad that you actually email a trainer wishing death and all other unspeakable things on them because YOU spent too much. It’s mind blowing. That needs stamping out, I’m not sure you can because gambling breeds addicts and an addicts mind spews things that they wouldn’t say in any other walk of life. They wouldn’t wish death on Dominic Calvert Lewin for missing a penalty, they would swear and be abusive which I think comes with the turf, but they simply would not aim the same vitriol at people like that as they do jockeys.

These guys are human, and whilst they need to accept that people spend hard earned cash so are entitled to a view as unsavoury as it is for them to read it, the betting public need to realise that and treat them as human beings

For what it’s worth, I think Skelton was the worst person to wheel out for this given how much he takes the piss out of your average punter, I’m not against what he does but it will always rile people backing a not off or backing against his 12-1 into 7-4 handicap blot. The sports needs wholesale changes in just about every aspect, and we can all start by remembering it is simply animals running around fields/tracks and to not let get it to you that much.