a bit of this and that.

​John Day, who trained at Danebury in Hampshire, close to the strangely named and when I lived thereabouts strange purlieus (it was rumoured there was a secret military base cut into one of the hills inside the no-go zone for non-military people and a village called Palestine that on no occasion as we rode through did we see anybody, even though there were cars on driveways and occasionally lights ablaze in the prefab type homes) villages of Over Wallop, Middle Wallop and Nether Wallop, won two races at Royal Ascot with The Hero. But which two races. The answer is a real good quiz question.
Hampshire, at the time, was the equivalent of Newmarket or Lambourn today. You couldn’t go for a ride on your velocipede in the countryside without coming across the strings of one big name trainer or another. The three Powney brothers were based at Durrington, on the edge of Salisbury Plain; Sam Darling was at Beckhampton; Frank Hartigan at Weyhill; Tom Cannon, to name but one, was at Stockbridge and the biggest and best of the lot, Alec Taylor was at Manton. And Atty Persse trained at Park Gate House, Grateley for a time.
In case I forget, The Hero won the Emperor’s Plate, the name given to the Ascot Gold Cup during the years when Emperor Nicholas of Russia honoured the nation with his presence.
 
I have written nothing about the death of John McCririck, the legend of t.v. punditry. Alastair Down wrote, as you would expect from the great man, in the Racing Post, a moving and wholly fitting tribute to his friend and former colleague. He knew both sides of John McCririck, the public image and the real man, the side of his personality McCririck chose to keep close at hand.
And that is my point. I didn’t like the John McCririck who entered my living room through the medium of television. I thought him a boorish oaf. A pantomime, to give the most used description of him, dame in a big hat who portrayed racing in a poor light. For all that he loved the sport.
I am fully prepared to believe there was not a bad bone in his body but what good did it do horse racing to keep his generosity of spirit under a bushel? To promote the sport it is not Marmite we need but a substance everyone can associate with.
From what I’ve read about him from the people who knew him, who benefitted from his friendship and professional criticism, he was a man poorly judged by people like me. He may not have requested a funeral but perhaps a memorial service or monument might be acceptable to him, if only for those people who truly knew him to pay respect to a man who I suspect never craved respect during his lifetime. He was John McCririck. Enough said.
 
The slice cut from the race programme for next year has caused a ripple of debate, some thinking it about time and those, the racecourses, thinking it a restriction to their right to hold meetings as and when they see fit.
To my mind there is a solution to the problem of burn-out amongst jockeys and stable staff. I have written in the past that the summer jumping programme in this country should follow the pattern laid down by the Irish, with three and four-day festival meetings. This would allow jockeys and trainers, if say there was a three-day meeting at Newton Abbot, to stay in the vicinity for the period of the festival. In fact, as they might have done back in the early days of the sport.
The benefits, outside of accommodation expenses (though sharing would cut costs substantially) would be less petrol used and less wear and tear on their cars, they would be seen a boom to the local economy, racing would be seen as caring about pollution and the environment, and there would an element of ‘Holiday’ about the arrangement.
A similar set-up would benefit flat jockeys if instead of one day here and one there, race-meetings were two, three or four-day affairs. This would only truly work, of course, if no other meetings were arranged in close driving distance.
And jockeys would be better rested if they were only allowed to race at more than one meeting a day two or three days a week, allowing the ‘journeyman’ jockeys a fairer share of the available rides. Jockeys especially, but trainers, also, are their worst enemy. Driving up and down motorways and across country as if their very lives depended on it. It’s daft and unnecessary. The race programme is a mess. It needs a radical overall. For everyone’ sake. You can have the same outrageous number of meetings as this year but with modification to the programme the wishes and aims of everyone involved could so easily be attained.