BHA chief sends a shot across the bows of racing's warring factions

Julie Harrington is a down-to-earth person and keen that her audience should know it. "I'm gonna put my lockdown glasses on," she says at the outset of her speech to the Horseracing Industry Conference, her first chance to address a major gathering of racing figures in person since she became BHA chief executive at the start of the year.

Her down-to-earth specs cost a fiver from a garage, we are told. "Probably the only thing you can buy from a garage at the moment," quips Oli Bell, instantly justifying his fee as master of ceremonies.

Bell queries whether a garage would stock prescription lenses. "I've not had time to get my eyes tested," says Harrington, who also mentions that her eyesight has "deteriorated massively in the last 18 months". It is an unsettling start. We came to discuss the sustainability of racing and are now fretting about the sustainability of its chief executive.