Who steers the racegoers’ ship on the sport’s rough sea of change?

At Christmas time, you can send off for a nice Racegoers’ Club diary and an even nicer Racegoers’ Club calendar. You can even go on nice stable tours and join nice owners’ clubs.

It is an undeniably nice and noble organisation, boasting thousands of contented members.

But strip away the veneer of smashing, great niceness and do you find the teeth and the nous to fight for those members when the voices and views of racegoers need to be heard? And if not, why not?

The question is raised in the wake of the decision to run next year’s Grand National at tea-time. At 5.15 pm to be exact, in a bid to increase its TV audience and raise its profile.

The announcement released a tidal wave of media coverage, opinion and PR guff, but not one mention of the consideration of racegoers. Not one mention of the logistical problems that will be caused by extending the meeting to 6.10 pm (the time of the final race) for the thousands who make the annual pilgrimage to Liverpool from all corners of the country by train on Grand National Day. Not one mention of how tricky it can be to get home by train from that part of the country on a Saturday night. One celebrated columnist reckoned racegoers wouldn’t even notice the new start time. Cocooned in his ivory-tower of a Press box, how would he know?

For all I know, the Racegoers’ Club might well have been involved in consultations with Aintree and might well be beavering away behind the scenes on any number of issues that smother our sport. If so, I apologise. Conversely, the Racegoers’ Club might argue that its role is not that of a pressure group or lobby organisation. But if that’s the case, then who does steer the racegoers’ ship on racing’s rough sea of change?