Time for racing to lower the flag and move with the times

It is convenient in the extreme to have what is today described as an "advanced flag operator" standing in front of the stalls with sole responsibility for stopping a race in the event of a false start. It means blame is easily apportioned when things go wrong.

That's what happened in the 1993 Grand National when Ken Evans took the rap for one of the most monumental sporting cock-ups. A subsequent inquiry deemed Evans failed to raise his flag to denote a second false start and he was vilified as the man who bequeathed to us the race that never was. The infamous episode made a laughing stock of British racing before hundreds of millions of television viewers, for which Evans was paid the casual daily rate of £28.

Fast forward to the void race at Chelmsford last Thursday and, while nobody could infer events at the Essex all-weather circuit were remotely as significant as on that highly charged day at Aintree, some uncomfortable parallels are evident.