Changing leadership style won't help fulfil potential; LETTERS.

ALASTAIR DOWN is correct to say that racing faces difficult challenges in attracting a wider audience, but he is wrong to suggest the sport needs "a reformulation of leadership" (May 12) to achieve this objective.

Horseracing is a broad church embracing diverse interests and it won't respond to the sort of dictator that Alastair suggests any more than a horse will.

For racing to reach its full potential, its interest groups need to work together with a common objective under principled, accountable and responsive leadership, as established by the BHA. Racing Enterprises Ltd's branding project itself is a work-in-progress example of what this can achieve. Other examples include the BHA's progress on regulation, welfare, integrity issues and the levy negotiations.

All of these show that, at long last, we have the template to attain our objective to make racing more successful and sustainable, both as a sport and as an industry. A new vehicle and a new driver, as suggested by Alastair, would only serve to put us in the ditch.

Some figures in racing have this week gone for the habitual and cynical option of pouring scorn on any effort to raise our game. Such a stance sends an unhelpful signal to the outside world and to racing's many constituents. It ignores the BHA's progress in uniting horseracing from a regulatory and governance perspective and it ignores the potential for REL to do the same with regard to commercial and marketing activities. It is, in short, very 'Brian'.

A little less cynicism would go a long way in helping everyone in horseracing to attract that 90 per cent of the public who, as Harrison Fraser tell us, do not have our sport on their radar screens.

Paul Roy BHA chairman Alastair Down replies: Paul Roy's distinguished City career marks him down as a maker of millions and master of numbers. Words, however, may not be his strongest suit. To suggest my observations mean I support the idea of "a dictator" to run racing is both a travesty of the views expressed and the purest tosh..