Ignorant reaction to Rishi Persad shows a side of racing that we must address

Many moons ago, pre-George Floyd, in fact so long ago it may have been pre-Rosa Parks, I wrote a couple of pieces about the curious dearth of black people at the races; more specifically the fact that, while roughly 60 per cent of punters in my local south London betting shop were black, the percentage of non-white racegoers was more like 0.6 per cent (this was not a scientific survey, you understand).

The thrust of the argument was that it was baffling that racecourses, notably those near cosmopolitan centres of population, seemed to be wilfully, or just lazily, ignoring a major income stream in their catchment areas.

I wondered if the racial imbalance was born more out of economics than out of racing's inherent failings, but I confess I wasn't all that bothered who came racing, because it was a matter of personal choice, and I certainly had never noticed any overt racism at the track, or any underlying trend towards racially motivated exclusion.