text:
Like a detailed blueprint, the court-ordered plan to overhaul Orleans Parish Prison outlines a list of policy changes intended to upgrade conditions at the notorious lockup. The federal consent decree, as the landmark agreement is known, is so meticulous in some respects that it requires the replacement of "malfunctioning lighting fixtures" within five days, "unless the item must be specially ordered."
But one gaping unknown, unmentioned in the decree's 53 pages, is how large New Orleans' jail should be after facilities decimated by Hurricane Katrina are replaced — a contentious question that remains unanswered after years of debate and the construction of a new $145 million jail on Perdido Street.
Attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and the inmates who sued Sheriff Marlin Gusman over conditions at OPP considered the size of the jail a political decision, however fraught, that should be resolved outside of court.
Given the deepening rift between Gusman and Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration over how to pay for the jail reform, a consensus on how many inmate beds the city needs appears more elusive today than it did four years ago when the community engaged in a vigorous debate about New Orleans' historically high incarceration rate.
That discussion, which pitted public-safety concerns against a clamor for criminal-justice reform, has been rekindled this summer in federal court, with Gusman insisting he needs to build another new jail, referred to for years as a "Phase III" facility, to house special-needs inmates and complete the corrections complex he has long envisioned.
City officials, who by law must pay for inmates' care, oppose the idea, not only for financial reasons but also out of concern that New Orleans for too long has jailed a disproportionate percentage of its residents compared with other cities. Their counterproposal calls for retrofitting the 1,438-bed jail building nearing completion to include a medical and mental unit, thus limiting the total number of prisoners, and to reduce the inmate count by returning several hundred state prisoners to the Department of Corrections.
The prospect of further construction raises questions about the planning that went into the new jail — a structure known as "Phase II" that's scheduled to open in January after many months of delays — and how New Orleans ended up with a new facility that city officials and inmate advocates claim is sorely lacking.
Even Gusman's biggest critics concede the 1,438-bed jail offers a new beginning for OPP, introducing a modern correctional philosophy known as direct supervision that's expected to reduce violence and improve relations between deputies and inmates. But the new jail, funded largely by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is seen as grossly inadequate by city officials, who claim Gusman ignored city law by failing to ensure the 433,409-square-foot building can accommodate all populations of inmates.
The sheriff maintains the jail can house any type of inmate with the exception of the acutely mentally ill, who were specifically exempted from the city ordinance authorizing the jail's construction. "It can accommodate any type of inmate," Gusman said.
The building's only deficiency, he added, is its inability to fit all of the city's approximately 2,100 inmates, a population that has dropped significantly in recent years but remains above the national average for cities the size of New Orleans. The jail's functional capacity will be around 1,295 beds, as some cell space is lost through special housing assignments and the need to segregate certain inmates.
"You can't fit a size 10½ into an 8½," Gusman said.
A continuing impasse
The conflicting viewpoints — whether the new jail is a boon or a boondoggle — underscore a continuing impasse between Gusman and the Landrieu administration. As the two sides continue to bicker over funding, it seems increasingly likely that U.S. District Judge Lance Africk, who is overseeing the consent-decree litigation, will be asked to decide whether the city needs another multimillion-dollar facility to satisfy the decree's mental health provisions, which became effective in October.
Africk already has made clear that something must change, and quickly, with respect to where the Sheriff's Office houses mentally ill inmates. They're currently housed in a dilapidated facility known as Templeman V, which Africk and court-appointed experts have deemed unsuitable in part because poor sight lines mean deputies can't see many inmates.
Under Gusman's proposal, the Phase III jail would cost between $56 million and $97 million and contain between 380 and 764 beds. Funding remains sketchy, though Sheriff's Office officials have vaguely said FEMA dollars would be used for the construction. That price tag doesn't include renovations of a state prison facility in St. Gabriel, where Gusman has proposed relocating a few dozen mentally ill inmates for up to three years while Phase III is being built.
City officials, meanwhile, say their proposed retrofit of the 1,438-bed jail to handle inmates with medical needs would reduce its total bed capacity by about 88 beds, cost roughly $6 million and take less than a year to complete.
While the Temporary Detention Center would remain open indefinitely for overflow housing, the plaintiffs in the consent decree proceedings noted last week that the city's plan is "heavily reliant on a drastic reduction in the jail population."
"Adoption of the city's plan requires serious and expedited movement on (inmate reduction) strategies from both the city and other non-parties involved in the New Orleans criminal justice system," they wrote in a court filing.
Competing histories
Interviews and recent court documents show the Gusman and Landrieu camps disagree not only about the future size of New Orleans' jail. They also offer competing versions of history about the intended scope of the Phase II construction approved by the City Council in 2011 and how the question of what needs the new jail is supposed to fulfill became so muddled.
Each side blames the other for the lack of clarity.
"I'm in a very difficult position because, on the one hand, it's not my responsibility and I don't have the funding," Gusman said during a tour of the 1,438-bed jail last week. "On the other hand, it's (the city's) responsibility, and they're not doing anything. Why haven't they done something to provide for acute mental health inmates?"
The sheriff's leadership has been called into question in recent weeks, with the court-appointed expert monitoring the jail reforms suggesting that Gusman has stood in the way of progress. He has been similarly lambasted by the Landrieu administration and some City Council members, who portray Gusman as the largest obstacle to change at OPP.
"Our sheriff was the CAO of this city previously, and he was a city councilperson, so he knows what an ordinance is," Councilwoman Susan Guidry said. "He knows this was the law that was created in 2011: that the building be designed — or redesigned — to house all populations (of inmates). He simply ignored that, as far as I can see."
The 2011 ordinance required the Phase II jail to "accommodate any type of prisoner under any jurisdiction," including "inmates that need substance abuse and mental health treatment (except inmates that require acute mental health treatment), female inmates, and prisoners participating in a re-entry program."
City leaders struggled in recent interviews to explain their initial intentions for housing acutely mentally ill inmates. Some said they believed that designation referred to a small group of detainees so sick they needed to be hospitalized rather than behind bars. That belief, however, was never spelled out by the City Council. Indeed, a review of Criminal Justice Committee minutes — as well as minutes from the working group Landrieu organized in 2010 to examine the city's jail needs — revealed no firm plans for inmates in need of acute mental health treatment.
Differing recollections
Still, some members of the mayoral working group said they believed their recommendation would ensure a jail capable of housing all city inmates under one roof. "That was absolutely the case, and if it wasn't built that way, the sheriff could be punished by a fine," recalled Calvin Johnson, a retired Criminal District Court judge who served on the committee. (Johnson also serves on The New Orleans Advocate's advisory board.)
The ordinance called for various decrepit jail buildings and temporary structures to be closed with the opening of the new jail, with the exception of the Temporary Detention Center, which was authorized to remain open as an overflow facility for up to 18 months. The city's most recent court filings suggest that the 466-bed temporary center could be used indefinitely as the city seeks to retrofit the fourth floor of the Phase II jail and work toward lowering the inmate population.
Andy Kopplin, Landrieu's chief administrative officer and chairman of the jail working group, said his "overall impression was that most mental health patients, if not all of them, would be able to be housed in the (new jail) that was being constructed."
"The emphasis," Kopplin added, "was placed on this building (being able to) house any type of prisoners, including males, females, administrative segregation, mental health, medical needs. The emphasis was on the word 'all.' "
But Rafael Goyeneche, the Metropolitan Crime Commission president who also sat on the committee, recalled the conversations differently, saying he believed a further building had always been envisioned for housing mentally ill inmates. He remains a proponent of Gusman's plan and has warned against trimming jail capacity at a time when the New Orleans Police Department is at a 36-year low point in staffing.
"If you don't build a Phase III to create more beds, then there's no point in hiring more police officers," Goyeneche said.
"Here's an opportunity to not do things the old way of trying to cut corners and cut costs," he added, "but to do it the right way that will not only provide for the here and now but also the future."
By not noticing sooner that there was a disagreement, Guidry acknowledged, city officials bear some responsibility for the new jail not turning out the way they expected. "Ultimately, we're three years into the building and someone outside the city determines there's a problem with the building," she said, referring to concerns first raised by DOJ and inmate attorneys in early 2013.
Early concerns
Even before the plaintiffs sounded alarm bells, there were indications the new jail was rooted in differing expectations.
In February 2013, Gusman's architect, Jerry Hebert, warned the council that his team had been "handcuffed" by FEMA regulations. As an example, he reported having to scatter small medical units around the jail rather than creating one large clinic.
"Is it ideal for a medical unit? I'm gonna tell you probably not," Hebert told the Criminal Justice Committee. "We need a unit that's specifically designed for medical and mental health, and that's a whole different animal than a typical housing unit."
Responding to Hebert's remarks, then-City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson said she was "still very concerned we're not doing right by the mental health part," according to video of the meeting. Guidry ended the session by saying she still had questions about medical and mental health care for inmates.
When the committee revisited the issue in December, Guidry admitted she couldn't recall "what we expected would be happening with the acutely mentally ill" inmates when the council authorized construction of the Phase II jail.
Kopplin, however, maintains only Gusman is to blame for any shortfalls at the new jail. "To hold anybody responsible other than the sheriff for his failure to comply, I think, is the wrong question to be asked," he said.
Kopplin also slammed the sheriff for erecting a "clearly oversized" kitchen/warehouse facility capable of serving 8,300 inmates a day, a building he described as "a waste of about $40 million that could have been spent on something else." The Phase III jail Gusman wants would fill the space between the kitchen building and the 1,438-bed jail, and sheriff's officials have acknowledged the kitchen was envisioned to serve a larger corrections complex.
During the jail tour, Gusman complained that city leaders have "no vision," saying they oppose his proposals categorically. "What they've done is say this, say that and gone around the room and come up with nothing," he said.
Gusman said he draws no distinction between inmates who require varying degrees of mental health care, be it acute, subacute or so-called "step-down" treatment, even though his own Phase III proposal shows those populations divided into separate categories with different housing arrangements.
"Acute is acute," Gusman said. "It's a team, once you're on that team."
A game-changer?
While Gusman has deflected criticism about the new jail, a recent report by his own consultant, CGL Companies, echoed some of the city's concerns, saying special-needs populations would prove "problematic" in a lockup composed of two dozen 60-bed housing units. "The special sub-populations require isolation in units with less than 60 beds, such as administrative segregation, disciplinary segregation, administrative segregation, juveniles charged as adults, protective custody and others," the report said.
The Sheriff's Office, however, says it can't wait to bid farewell to the odor and cacophony of OPP and move into the Phase II jail. The new lockup, built to replace two jail buildings damaged in the storm, affords more freedom to inmates to move in and out of recreation yards attached to each housing unit.
Gusman's chief corrections deputy, Michael Tidwell, said the switch from linear to direct supervision, in which a jailer sits inside a housing unit and has a clear vantage point on inmate activity, improves jail conditions because of the emphasis on the "group dynamic."
"It's an absolute game-changer," Tidwell said. "It's developed to the point where anyone in corrections will tell you if you're not doing direct supervision, you're really not doing corrections because you don't have a clue about what's going on with your inmates."
While he heaped praise on the new jail building, Tidwell said the corrections complex would be incomplete without a Phase III. He said it's a mistake to compare New Orleans' jail population with that of other communities which face different challenges.
"I would project that five years down the road, after everything is done and all the shouting has quieted down, that the community will look back and say, 'You know, we have a premier (jail) facility over there that will match, if not exceed, anything in the country,' " Tidwell said.
Follow Jim Mustian on Twitter, @JimMustian.


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Roulette-Games.com - American Roulette Guide
Sub Section Page Categories:
In American casinos, the game is run by one dealer. This is in contrast to the European version of roulette in which several croupiers (the French term for dealer) are used, for the European game is played with a double layout and more employees are needed to staff the table. But in American casinos, one dealer will suffice to run the game. Sometimes, if the game is particularly busy, the dealer may have an assistant, whose sole function will be to collect losing chips and stack them up. But this is the exception, rather than the rule.
The dealer has several duties. He or she will first change the player's cash into roulette chips. Each player will receive roulette chips of a different color from the other players' chips. These roulette chips have no intrinsic value away from the roulette table and are specially marked. The different colors make for a smoother game, since there will usually be a multitude of bets on the layout. The only way the dealer will know how to make the proper payoffs will be through the color of the chips.
In addition to changing cash for chips, the dealer runs the game. He
keeps the wheel in spin, and spins a small white ball counter to the wheel's
motion, rolling this ball and letting it spin away until it falls into
a slot on the wheel. This slot determines the winning number and other
payoffs. After a winning number is determined, the dealer collects all
the losing chips first, and then pays off the winning bets. After this
is done, the players make bets prior to the next spin of the ball and
the whole procedure begins again. There is usually a pit boss in the vicinity
of the roulette wheel. He or she may supervise the play at the roulette
table and will be called upon in case there is a dispute between the players
and the dealer or the players themselves disagree. But this rarely happens
since all the players use different colored roulette chips.
As mentioned above, the chips are in different colors and are marked differently than other casino chips. A player can't wager them at any other game in the casino. Not only that, but players are forbidden from taking these chips away from the roulette table. When they're finished playing, they must turn in all their chips to the dealer, who will pay off the player by exchanging these for casino chips, which can then be brought into the cashier's cage and exchanged for cash.
There is usually a standard value placed on the roulette chips. In the old days, before inflation, 10¢ or 25¢ chips were the standard. Today, it's hard to find a standard chip value less than $1. If a player gives the dealer a $20 bill, he or she will receive 20 chips, each having a standard value of $1. However, the player is not stuck with this value. Suppose that a player came with a $100 bill and wanted each chip to be valued at $5. This will be done, and the dealer, to make certain that there is no mistake, will place that colored chip on the outside rim of the wheel with a $5 marker on it, or a button to show that a stack of 20 chips is worth $100.
When no chips are on the rim, everyone is playing with standard value chips. These chips will come in enough colors, usually eight or ten different ones, to accommodate that many players. There will also be enough chairs at the roulette table for this many players. Players may change the denomination of their chips if the player wins a lot of money, rather than betting handfuls of $1 chips, he may change the value to $5 for his colored chips. However, he or she may not want to bet standard casino chips of that same valuation, since there may be a problem if another player is also betting casino chips, and there may be a dispute as to who is entitled to a payoff. The same holds true for cash bets, which we don't recommend using.
For bigger bets, casino chips of the regular kind can be used. This is for $5, $25 and $100 bets. However, the vast majority of bets will be made by using the roulette chips. When payoffs are made, the dealer cuts the chips, that is, he breaks into the stacks of chips at his disposal. If the payoff is 17 chips, for example, he'll cut a 20 stack by taking away three chips from that stack and move them by hand to the winner.
This is in contrast with the European game, where a rake is used to collect and pay off chips. In both games, after the number has come up, some kind of marker is placed on the layout to indicate the winning numbers before the losing chips are collected and winning bets are paid off.
The game of roulette depends on the spin of the wheel, an ornate device that is approximately three feet in diameter and contains slots numbered from 1 to 36, plus a 0 and 00. The bowl of the wheel, which takes up most of the space on a roulette wheel, contains numbered pockets. Above this, eight metal buffers, some horizontal and some vertical, are there to slow down the ball as it spins counter to the wheel's motion, so that the ball will fall into a pocket in the most random manner possible.
When it falls into a pocket, that pocket corresponds to a particular number, and that number determines which bets win and which lose for that spin of the wheel. Each pocket is separated from its neighbors by metal dividers, which are known as separators. As the ball slows down, it may fall into a pocket only to bounce up and into another pocket, but eventually its inertia will cause it to remain in one pocket. That pocket contains a number, and that's the winning number for that spin.
There are 36 numbers in all, half in black and half in red, plus two
extra numbers, the 0 and 00, which are in green The numbers aren't in
consecutive order on the wheel, but are placed randomly, with red and
black numbers alternating, except when broken up by the 0 and 00. With
thirty six numbers on the wheel, half will be odd and half even, half
will be black and half red, and half will be in the lower tier (1 - 18)
and half will be in the higher tier (19 - 36). All of these are possible
bets; odd-even, red-black, high-low, and as we shall see are paid off
at even money.
If there were only 36 numbers, then the house should have no advantage over the player and it would be merely a game of chance without side, the bettor or casino, having an edge. However, the addition of the 0 and 00 gives the house the higher advantage. These could be called house numbers, because they are winning numbers for the house when the player bets on any of the even money propositions just mentioned, as well as on other numbers and betting propositions.
A gambler could be on the 0 and 00 as a number, as well as any other numbers, but then it means that there are 38 possible numbers to bet on, with the payoff at 35-1 on a single number, still giving the casino a 5.26% advantage. Since the house has a built-in advantage, it wants the game played as honestly as possible, and therefore the roulette wheels are built as friction free as possible, so that there is no bias or deviation from a random situation prevailing. The wheels are inspected frequently and checked out for any worn parts, such as pockets or dividers, for these may create such a bias.
Some player go from wheel to wheel, clocking them and checking out the
pattern of numbers that come up, hoping for such a bias, but it is rarely
found. If more numbers come up in any sequence out of the ordinary, it
is more probably coincidence, for when there's a random gambling, numbers
can repeat and come up in strange sequences, and the spins can still be
the result of chance.
Now we come to the partner of the wheel at the roulette table, the layout. The layout contains all the possible betting situations that a player can have while playing roulette. The following is a typical roulette layout. The layouts are usually green. The numbers from 1 through 36 are divided into three columns, and are in numerical order. Each one is either red or black, corresponding to the colors of the wheel. 0 and 00 are at the head of the columns of numbers, and may be bet upon separately or together.
On the outside are the even-money bets, 1 - 18, even, red, black, odd, and 19 - 36. Between them and the columns are the dozens bets, 1 - 12, 13 - 24 and 25 - 36 placed so that they correspond with the numbers in the columns. On the layout these dozens bets are marked 1st 12, 2nd 12 and 3rd 12.
Finally we have the column bets, which are at the far
end of the columns, opposite to the 0 and 00 areas. They each show 2-1,
and are paid off at that price. Each of these column areas covers all
the numbers running down the column. This is the standard layout to be
found in American casinos, and as we have said it will accommodate all
the possible bets that can be made at the game of roulette.
© 2005 - 2018 Roulette-Games.com - All Rights Reserved

subset: commoncrawl


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Complement is an integral component of the adaptive and innate immune systems and represents one of the major effector systems for the immune responses. The classical complement pathway is triggered by C1, a complex composed of the binding protein C1q and two proenzymes, C1r and C1s. Upon binding of IgG to the head of C1q, C1r undergoes autoactivation and in turn cleaves and activates C1s. C1r and C1s, the proteases responsible for activation and proteolytic activity of the C1 complex of complement, share similar overall structural organizations featuring five nonenzymic protein modules (two CUB modules surrounding a single EGF module, and a pair of CCP modules) followed by a serine protease domain. Besides highly specific proteolytic activities, both proteases exhibit interaction properties associated with their N-terminal regions. In contrast, C1r and C1s widely differ from each other by their glycosylation patterns: both proteins contain Asn-linked carbohydrates, but four glycosylation sites are present on C1r, and only two on C1s. As a highly specific serine protease, C1s executes the catalytic function of the C1 complex: the cleavage of C4 and C2, and thus instigates a sequence of activation steps of other components of the complement system, culminating in the formation of the membrane attack complex which induces cell lysis. Like other complement serine proteases C1s has restricted substrate specificity and it is engaged into specific interactions with other subcomponents of the complement system. The only other protein known to interact with C1s physiologically is SerpinC1, an inhibitor of serine protease, which inhibits C1s activity and thus plays a regulatory role in controlling the function of C1s enzyme.


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text:
New Corp producers resign
1 June 2007
As two producers in Murdoch's Fox network wrote in their joint resignation letter recently:
"We can no longer work with a news organization that claims to be fair and balanced when you are so far from that...
"Not only are you an instrument of the Bush White House, and Israeli propaganda, you are war mongers with no sense of decency, nor professionalism."
It was a story one did not read in The Australian.
That's probably because the first task of an unfree media is indoctrination, and the chief method is omission.
(Hezbollah captures Israeli soldiers gets a long run. Israeli soldiers regularly capture, torture and kill Lebanese civilians never sees light of day. Gradually readers build into their mental frameworks a distorted picture of the world.)
So the point (David Nason) is not which candidate gets the Republican or Democrat nomination - most of the present field would probably continue America's murderous foreign policy anyway, tho perhaps not as ineptly as GW Bush - but that a candidate with the will to change that world historic nightmare cannot emerge within the existing media climate.
People can only vote on the basis of what they learn, and News Corporation and the other major media outlets make sure they don't learn very much.
THAT is the story.
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text:
BILL FARNSWORTH is holding court, reminiscing about his early days as general manager of Musselburgh Racecourse. "I'm so bloody pleased I didn't get the job," he says. "Someone must've been looking over me that day."
Farnsworth is referring to a point in time around the start of the noughties. He can't quite pinpoint the date, but it was significant in his career at the East Lothian track. If the cards had landed differently, he would probably be in southern England rather than drinking coffee in the centre of Edinburgh.
"In the early days, I went to Musselburgh in 1998 and I could see that it had bags of potential," he says. "But, soon after, I was asked to go for an interview to be the manager of Sandown.
"I hadn't been at Musselburgh long, so I went to see my predecessor Mark Kershaw, who was at Newbury at that point, to ask him about the job. He said it might be a bit too big for me at that point and I might leave myself a bit exposed, but I went to the interview anyway for the experience.
"Sandown must've done a good job of selling to me because, after the first interview, I got really keen on the idea. I went for a second interview and they said, 'we'll let you know in a week'. I never heard from them and then a couple of weeks later I opened the Racing Post and read that Sandown had appointed a new manager. They never even told me. The guy they appointed was a bigwig from Starbucks. I thought, 'good luck to the guy, but if it's a big step up for me then it's a flippin' mountain for him'.
"He only lasted a year, if that, and the headhunters got back in touch with me asking if I'd be interested in going back in for the role. I'm not a rude man, but I said 'I don't want to talk to people like you'. They hadn't even given me the courtesy of saying I hadn't got the job the last time. I let my heart rule my head. I've never done anything like it since, but I don't regret it."
For Musselburgh, it's a godsend that Farnsworth and Sandown didn't work, because the place wouldn't be where it is today. From the moment he set foot in the door as general manager in 1998, the racecourse has rattled up the inside rail and won numerous awards and plaudits to boot.
Musselburgh nearly went out of business in the 1990s, so for it to be recognised as the best small racecourse in Britain these days shows just how far it has come. Farnsworth, from Bridlington originally and with a farmer's background, was appointed by then-East Lothian provost Pat O'Brien to come from Hamilton Racecourse, where he had his first job in the sport, and replace Kershaw with a remit of making the business break-even with the eventual goal of making it a course to be proud of.
Scroll through Farnsworth's achievements at the track and you'll be impressed. He's transformed the place, building on a blueprint left to him by Kershaw. The Queen's Stand and Champagne bar arrived under his watch. The course only had around 14 meetings back then compared to the 28 it has now. Prize money stands at well over £1 million and that's just for the flat season. Channel 4 are regulars to the track, bringing in television revenue. In June, there's the Edinburgh Cup on derby day and the Scottish Sprint Cup, a £100,000 race, held on Ladies Day, which is such a popular event in the Lothians calendar that it sells out every time. Footfall at the track has never been higher. The course even broke new ground last year when it held racing on Good Friday for the first time ever in British history. They reconvened again last week and it was, naturally, a success.
So where now for Farnsworth? After approaching 16 years in the job, you'd think the 46-year-old had done all he can at Musselburgh. Surely it can't get any bigger? Farnsworth, however, has more grand plans.
"What slightly bothers me is the small bit," he says when asked about the tag of best small racecourse in Britain. "We're not a small racecourse anymore. We've got 28 fixtures, we've got prize money of nearly £2m. That isn't small. I know that relative to York and Ascot that we are. Physically, we're small, but I would liken us to a football club that has come up through the ranks. They might not have the history and the heritage and the size of Celtic or Manchester United, but they're still a bloody good football team and they can still give Celtic a run for their money on their day, which we can. We've put Musselburgh in a really strong place.
"We're not a 'Premier League' track but we are continuing to pull away from the rest of the pack. We're making money, we are doing all the good things, and that in itself is quite exciting. But this year we've got a document called a Strategic Options Plan, which we've put together with [professionl services firm] Deloitte. It's a pretty heavyweight piece of work and that sets out that we've got three strategic options."
The trio consists of making further improvements to the racing surface, improving facilities for owners and trainers and, ultimately, building a new stand that could take Musselburgh's capacity up to 15,000 from roughly 10,000, giving it the label of the north's premier track.
"The options are all pretty exciting," says Farnsworth. "What we can do by spending between £1-1.5m is improve the quality of racing by improving the quality of the track. But not just a little improvement, we are talking about a massive improvement. At the second level, it's spending £3m on a new owners' and trainers' grandstand and restaurant, so that not only have we got the racetrack, but we can look after the owners and invest in prize money. With that, I'd like to think we can take on the Ayr Gold Cup. I think that's a great race, don't get me wrong, but I think the Scottish Sprint Cup should be Scotland's premier sprint race. That's where we want to be.
"Then there's the third option, the new grandstand. To me, the footprint of Musselburgh is still small, relative even to Ayr and Newcastle. In order to give us that gravitas, so that when people come to Musselburgh and don't think, 'oh, this is a fantastic small racecourse', we want them to say, 'this is a good racecourse'.
"I don't mind saying that our goal is to become the best track in the north. Anywhere north of York, because we're not going to compete with them. The racecourses that are in our sights? They are Newcastle and Ayr. I'm not arrogant enough to say that we are going to knock them off their perch, but that's what we've got in our sights. But I think we'll do it. Have they seen us coming up the inside rail? I don't know. "It's not something you can do overnight, though."
When asked to put a timescale on the changes Farnsworth wants to put on the improvements at Musselburgh, he pauses. A recent disagreement within the committee, which was sparked by the loss of the prestigious Investors In People (IIP) award and a schism between backers of councillor John Caldwell and Lothians Racing Syndicate chairman John Prideaux, has muddied the waters a little. "Good question," he says. "We've got a few problems with the committee which is unfortunately holding us back at the moment. They need to sort themselves out and they need to stop fighting. They need to get back to the day-to-day running of the racecourse and they need to look at the strategic options and agree the way forward.
"As soon as we get to that point, I would see us start doing the track next year, so those improvements along could be in place in the next five years. As for the building work, that'll take longer. My recommendation is that we go for options one and two and do that, get comfortable with that and then do option three. You're probably talking 15 years in total, but I've been at Musselburgh for more than that and it's flown by"
And will Farnsworth be there to see it through? More than likely. Bigger racecourses have come calling since Sandown, but he has remained unmoved.
"Jobs have come up at Goodwood, Newmarket, Ascot, Haydock, Aintree ... you get approached for these posts, but I'm happy here," he says. "I've been for two interviews. I went for one at Aintree and one at Ascot. Both jobs were there for the taking, but I'd rather stay at Musselburgh. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it, but I love it here."


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