Revelations from Racing Victoria Limited chief steward Terry Bailey this week of how to change racing in this state have managed, in just three days, to disenfranchise trainers and a large proportion of owners.

Melbourne Cup lockdowns, the need for vast amounts of money to be spent on drug testing, and claims that if a core of leading trainers accept radical change ''the rest'' will follow is just a sample of what Bailey proposes.

However, the question that has puzzled those in the corridors of power, owners, trainers and the industry at large is, as chief steward is Bailey a policy maker or a policy enforcer?

Is he, a paid servant of Racing Victoria, to be a steward or does his role overlap into the realms of a decision maker that has the same clout as a chief executive, or even the legal general counsel?

Stakeholders say the ''ideas'' Bailey has conjured on his recent world trip are largely unmanageable, unworkable and fiscally impossible. His most controversial suggestion was to lock down the 24 starters in the Melbourne Cup in one stable, outside of Melbourne, 24 hours before the race.

The howls of disapproval stretched from Bart Cummings' Sydney office to trainers in the south island of New Zealand.

Bailey is a disciple of former Sydney and Hong Kong chief steward John Schreck. In fact, many believe Bailey is cut from the same cloth. Schreck was known for going on the front foot and embracing newspaper headlines when controversy struck. He was also known both in Melbourne and Sydney for giving private briefings to newspaper men in coffee shops in both states. But this week Bailey has clearly indicated that the position of chief steward has changed.

There is no doubt that racing is an international sport and participants from all around the world can and do learn from each other but, clearly, practices in some parts of the world may have no application in other areas, and the suggestion that feature-race runners could be locked down for 24 hours before a race would appear to fall into this category.

One of the unique aspects of Australian racing is its different training environments, from the standard stable to open yards and even paddocks. Given that horses are creatures of habit, changes or disruption to routine have, in the short term, the potential to cause significant angst. But there may be people who would question the extent of any detrimental effect such a process would have on a fit equine athlete in such a short space of time.

To the suggestion that "if we get the likes of David Hayes, Lee Freedman and Mick Price on board, the others should follow", are we to assume that unless you have a big team and sit at or near the top of the premiership table your opinion will be viewed as fairly insignificant and you will be swept along with your better known peers? Bailey hasn't enjoyed the best of years. He was wounded by RVL's ruling that two-year-olds do not have to trial in public. Much of that decision was based purely on economics and RVL's realisation that Victorian racing isn't shaped like Hong Kong or Sydney.

Bailey's call for a dramatically increased budget for drug testing has baffled many in the game. Leading vets from all over Victoria have urged RVL to instead increase confidence in explaining testing protocols.

A professor from a prominent university in England spoke to the British horse racing board some years ago about swabbing.

The board asked the professor if the industry was doing enough to keep prohibited substances out of the sport.

The professor replied that they were spending enough money for drug testing but added that if they would like to let their hair down and reach the levels of the Olympic Games they should feel free.

However, he told them that if they did follow the Games regime the expense would be so acute that in the first year they would not race for any prizemoney, just red, gold and blue ribbons and in the second year the industry would be bankrupt.

Over a decade ago tabloid papers around Australia were making extensive inquires into Randwick trainer John Size and his astonishing arrival into racing and his stunning strike rate of winners.

Two Australian racing executives took it upon themselves to send Size's swabs from all of his horses to leading laboratories around the world.

After three months, all of the results came in negative and at the end of the day Size had proven that he was just a spectacularly good horse trainer.

In the 1970s the late Sir Rupert Steele, a former chairman of the Victorian Race Club, spoke at a gathering shortly after Pat Lalor had been appointed chief steward in Victoria. In a prophetic address Steele said: ''We are lucky indeed to not only have Australia's best stipendiary steward, but the world's best racing detective. In the past he has come to us privately in a bid to make changes and we have listened. And the best thing about Pat Lalor is that he knows that we make the rules, he just has to enforce them.''