10 of what i would like to witness in 2022.

​10) I want to never again see people at racecourses, or anywhere, wearing face-masks. Pure theatre, nothing else. There is not one scientific study that gives any credence to the myth that masks prevent transmission. The holes in masks are in the region of 50-microns, the particles of virus in the air are 1-micron. Go work it out. I am sick of horse-racing and other sports being used for government propaganda.
9) Given the exploits of Rachel Blackmore and Bryony Frost in National Hunt racing, it is hoped that during the coming flat season Holly Doyle will bring down the next glass ceiling and win a classic. Given soft underfoot conditions for the Thursday of Royal Ascot there is a big chance she might make some racing history by winning the Ascot Gold Cup but what is really needed is for her to win a classic, preferably the Derby, to get racing back on the front pages of the national newspapers.
8) I would like to see, if initially only on a trial basis, a ban or restriction on the use of the whip. Personally, I want the whip restricted to one strike as this will put greater emphasis on jockeys keeping their mounts balanced and running in a straight line. I believe there will be two benefits from such a prohibition, one is that horses will suffer less injuries through not having their weight thrust one way and the other when unbalanced and secondly, I believe horses will not be soured so easily and in the future there will be less ‘monkeys or rogues’ . Jockeys will object, of course, but in short order they will adapt.
7) I would be happy if the B.H.A. announced a full review of the race programme, incorporating the views of trainers, jockeys and owners.
6) There needs to be more imaginative conditions for races. Winners of one, as they have in Ireland, hurdle and chases. Proper maiden races. Novice hurdles restricted to horses that have run on the flat. Handicaps where horses at the top of the handicap are balloted out, not those at the bottom. Just more imagination.
5) Restricting jockeys to one meeting a day has been one of the best innovations of modern times and diminishes my next wish, though I still think there is merit in having a certain number of races per week restricted to jockeys who have ridden less than 10, 15, 20 or 30, choose your own number, winners in the previous 12-months. With occasionally whole meetings restricted to such jockeys. The sport has a duty of care to jockeys, to allow each and every one of them the opportunity to make a living from the sport.
4) Instead of banning jockeys for minor transgressions – 2-day bans, for instance, that stop a top rider from participating at a major meeting – escalating fines should be imposed. 10% of whatever value the race concerned was worth, perhaps. 10% of £3,000 wouldn’t sting a leading rider too much, though 10% of £1-million might focus his or her attention to a greater extent than a 4-day ban. I believe this innovation should be debated, not though by jockeys.
3) This next innovation has been a dream wish of mine for many years and though on the surface it appears daft, I believe it is exactly what the start of the flat season needs to give it a bit of a punch. The Lincoln – a race, if you read any biography by a trainer or jockey from between the wars or before the 1st World War, that was once as important as the Grand National and which now is little more than a handicap with inflated prize-money – should be given a make-over. My idea is that it needs to be relocated to Newmarket and should be allowed 35-40 runners and started from a barrier. The Grand National, though changed from its early days, still has the buzz and feel of those days. There is an element of watching history every first Saturday in April. It is different from all other jump races. It sets the imagination on fire. The flat does not have such a race. A 40-runner Lincoln should be that race for the flat. A vision of what flat racing for most of its history looked like.
2) I would like to see all of racing ‘stakeholders’ (I hate the term), and I mean every sector of the sport, to come forward with ideas on how the sport should be governed. It is my contention that the B.H.A. and the present structure of the sport is unfit for purpose as all that is created at the moment is angst and confusion. Both A.P. McCoy and John Francome favour a Chairman of the Board type scenario, a Barry Hearn type leadership, and I agree.
1) All I really want is for the sport to thrive and prosper. For many years now the aim of those at the head of the sport has diminished to that of ‘get through the day and survive until tomorrow’. Their strategies seem to suggest that someone wants the sport to be slowly run-down, with the final destination extinction. There is broad agreement that there is too much racing and that prize-money at the lower levels is an embarrassment. In the House of Commons recently, Steve Baker said he wanted the government to produce a Covid road-map to heaven and all the country was getting was a road-map to hell. I get the same impression from the B.H.A. and other members of racing ‘stakeholders’.