Opportunities have been squandered with first handouts from Tote windfall It has to be said, there are some grants that do meet the right, long-term criteria. Improvements at the National Stud and the New Astley Club and an attempt at Newton Abbot to improve the design of hurdles. At least those projects are not putting the PR and marketing mice in charge of the cheese cupboard. It is depressing that nobody has been creative enough to find their way past state aid restrictions with a project of significant long-term benefit. The creation of a not-for-profit trust to secure National Hunt racing at Hereford, for instance, would have been something to celebrate. Something to bear fruit in years to come. However, if blowing money on PR is the way to secure racing's future, maybe someone should get a grant to sort out Irish jockey Ruby Walsh. Watching him on Channel 4"s Morning Line on Saturday was sheer agony. His crossed arms" demeanour was shouting 'what the hell am I doing here answering stupid questions." Fair enough, he has a broken nose at the moment. But if you are feeling like rubbish, do not put yourself up to go on television and answer the public's questions in a strop. It was not as if a TV crew had ambushed him walking into work. "Will you ride Arvika Ligeonniere in the Arkle?" he was asked. A fairly banal question, I grant you. But people want to know that sort of thing. "I don't know," he barked. He might run in the Jewson. So there, you idiot," he might have just as well added. "And I must ask you," Nick Luck said, nervously, knowing that his guest had no interest in shooting the breeze with him, "which horse do you think you'll ride in the Grand National?" "I don't know what I'm going to ride in the Supreme Novice, let alone the bloody Grand National," was the inevitable, irritated riposte. The successful PR grant applicant will need to make the point to Ruby that although he is clearly very smart, it would be a good thing if he did not approach every question put to him on the basis that it had been posed by a complete moron, who will never know as much as he does and thus deserves to be swatted with a dismissive quip. It does not really encourage people to 'become racegoers of the future.