Industry must work together and get in step with the new labour market

Frost and snow present headaches for British trainers every year but remain, for the time being at least, seasonal and bearable. Now well established as more of an ongoing problem is staffing, the difficulties of which seem set to be with us for a long time and show no signs of easing.

Society is changing, its expectations are growing, traditional working practices hold increasingly less appeal and animals merely complicate the issue. Trainers are finding it harder and harder to find employees with the right levels of skill and commitment to enable them to cope with – and want to cope with – racing's unique demands. Long hours, short weekends, bad weather and lack of recognition increasingly colour the perception of working life for those expected to look after valuable livestock in an environment where the money may not trickle down to the shop floor.

"You've got to remember that riding and looking after a racehorse is a very skilled job," says Dan Skelton from his yard in Warwickshire. "Horses are getting more and more highly bred and I think the work is probably more difficult than it was ten or 15 years ago in terms of riding ability and the levels of care that are necessary, with social media and public expectation of how horses should be looked after.