'Now is the time to finish the job' Jim Bolger, who took the Turf Club to the High Court and won, talks to Michael Clowerabout the case and spells out the changes hebelieves still need to be made in Irish racing.

Not content with beating the Turf Club in the High Court, Jim Bolger believes the time is right to strip it of a lot of its powers.

"I would leave them with the whistle so that they could still referee the races-but that would be all," he says.

Bolger has long been the Turf Club's most outspoken critic.

His first public attack came with his Moyglare Dinner address in 1984 and, little more than five years later, he made his now famous speech at a breeders' function in Kilkenny.

He described the Turf Club as a club "where pedigree counts for more than performance, where no politician is welcome, where 14 per cent of its members are ex-one army or the other, where 15 per cent have a close relation to keep things cosy and where only two per cent are female".

But opposition to the Turf Club is one thing-taking it to the High Court is quite another.

Few trainers would even consider the matter when fined Irpounds 1,000 over a two-year-old said not to have run on its merits.

Almost all would have cursed the system and the stewards, paid the fine with bad grace and carried on as before.

Not James Stephen Bolger, who is a man with so much self-belief, and so much confidence in his own ability, that his rivals have been known to wonder, tongue in cheek, why his horses are unable to walk on water when he so obviously thinks he can.

Indeed, it was surprising to see him decide to lodge an appeal against the fine in 1994 over the running of Tirolean-he had refused to do so on occasion in the past when racecourse justice went against him, on the grounds that he had no faith in the appeals system.

"I made up my mind before this appeal hearing that it would be a good idea to go further because I felt that I should have been exonerated at Naas," he explains.

"I didn't do anything wrong and I believed that what Seamus Heffernan told me about Tirolean gurgling was the truth.

"I had right on my side and, whenever you have that, you are a long way down the road to success."

The stewards at the appeal hearing confirmed the verdict of the Naas stewards, namely that Tirolean had breached rule 212 which states that every horse shall be run on its merits.

"The whole hearing was a disgrace," Bolger insists. "But my barrister, Kevin Haugh, had brought a noose with him and the stewards willingly put their heads into it.

"They were warned at the outset that, if they found against me, they would have to give reasons-and they stubbornly refused to do so."

Bolger was convinced that rule 148(i)-"A trainer shall be responsible for everything connected with the running of a horse trained by him"-was fatally flawed.

"Even God holds you responsible only for your own actions," he says.

The cost of the High Court action-over Irpounds 100,000-would have put off many people.

Bolger is as wealthy as most of the top Flat trainers-a private estate on the Carlow-Kilkenny borders, a large expensively furnished house and two Mercedes outside it-but he is adamant that the expense was hardly an issue.

"I did give consideration to the costs," he admits. "But I felt they were never going to be my baby."

He made up for the time involved in attending court by getting up even earlier than usual and riding some of the work himself. He must be the fittest, and leanest, 57-year-old in Ireland.

Victory was celebrated with a meal at which the abstemious and teetotal Bolger was pleased to see that nobody smoked.

But victory added fire to his contempt for the enemy-which has decided not to appeal against the decision and has started work on rewording rule 148(i).

"I'm even more critical of the Turf Club now," he says. "Not only is it a self-perpetuating body, it is an inept one.

"This was a serious setback for them and the findings of Justice Fidelma Macken-that the appeal result was wholly irrational and unsustainable-are damning words for a body that has been running the regulatory side of Irish racing for 200 years."

Bolger was one of the prime movers behind the setting up of the Irish Horseracing Authority and, when he was a member of the Racing Board, he actively pressed for its introduction. In 1994 the IHA, and not the Turf Club, became the supreme authority in Irish racing.

But Bolger is unhappy that the matter of appeal hearings was left within the Turf Club's jurisdiction.

"At the time the IHA bill was being assembled, I sought an independent appeals system for racing.

"We didn't get it and I think that was a big mistake. The IHA Act obliges the Turf Club to provide a fair and impartial appeals system, and it has failed to do this.

"It can argue that the system is fair but not that it is impartial, because the members of the Club are judging the actions of fellow members and of its employees."

This may seem a harsh criticism of a body of people who give up a considerable amount of time to administer justice to the best of their ability and without any reward.

But Bolger is adamant that he, not the appeals system, is right. He is equally insistent that the Government should step in to reduce the powers of the Turf Club still further.

"I have felt for a long time that there should be only one body running racing, and that this body should be the IHA. It's extravagant to have two, and it involves a lot of waste and duplication.

"This is the time to go on a cost-cutting mission, to consolidate the whole thing and make racing more effective. It is now up to the Minister to finish the job."