affordability+ IRISH DERBY + CHAMPIONS' DAY.

​On this day in 1978 Peter Scudamore rode his first winner, Rolyat for Toby Balding at Ludlow. And in 1992 Maxine Juster won the European Ladies Championship at an event held in Vienna and Bratislava. 

No one can doubt the cataclysmic impact Affordability is having on punters and the sport, an imposition as unfair and unjust as it is unnecessary. My view is that via the Gambling Commission, the British Government is acting upon orders from outside of its borders, a part of a world takeover by global elites headed by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum. Ireland’s proposed ban on advertisements throughout the day on Irish television and satellite channels is the Irish Government’s strategy for collapsing its own racing and breeding industry. Everything from electric cars, to solar and turbine power, is about establishing central control of peoples’ movements, speech and day-to-day living. In the future, everything must be able to be controlled through A. I. Denial of what is proposed in the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ is to fight the good fight with an arm tied behind your back. If only it was all just ‘conspiracy theory’!
What is required at this perilous time is for every member of the ‘racing family’ to row in the same direction, to swear loyalty to the cause and help to maintain the sport and to resist the temptation to hoist the white flag. I appreciate, with the high cost of living owners for the sake of the welfare of their families and businesses might have little option but to cut costs and reduce their involvement in the sport. Yet, for the sake of the future of a sport they must love to have thrown so much money its way over, for some, a long period, I urge them to keep some sliver of support for the sport, even if it is only shares, while in the past they might have owned horses outright.
To defeat the injustice of Affordability and the purpose of its imposition, what is not required for the battle to be won is for people to walk away, not because they have lost faith in horse-racing but because the enemy is playing unfairly and causing their lives to be other than how they would like it. Remember, though British racing will receive no revenue from foreign, unlicensed bookmakers, neither will the British Government. That’s all I’m saying. If they do dirty to you, return the dirt. But stay loyal to the core product. British horse-racing needs you, all of you. The phoenix might yet rise from the flames but only if we all stay united. In walking away, all that is achieved is that the enemy is one step closer to achieving their aims.
Let me give you a fact you can check for yourself, something which, on the surface, has nothing whatsoever to do with British horse-racing: the major shareholders in Hawaiian Electricity Company are Blackrock and Vanguard, two organisations that control over 80% of global companies. High winds + fallen electricity pylons + failure to turn-off power-supply + turning-off the water supply for 5-hours = death, destruction and the green light for the 15-minute super city proposed for Maui in the exact area of greatest devastation. 
If the above is true, and even I would hope it is theory and not fact, destroying the world-wide thoroughbred breeding industry would be as easy to accomplish as crushing a grape under a jack-boot heel.

There is a gathering campaign to shorten the distance of the Irish Derby. Where is the resistance? The Irish St.Leger was dying a death,  becoming less and less of interest to owners and trainers. Did they shorten the distance? No. The traditional St. Leger distance is 1-mile 6-furlongs and Ireland opted to stay with tradition. They saved their final classic of the season by opening it up to older horses.
I have proposed that instead of abandoning tradition and playing ball with those who are slowly but surely ruining all of Europe’s historic flat races by making the sport an imitation of U.S. racing, where any distance beyond 1-mile 1-furlong is a stayers’ race, with the idea of a large bonus prize for a horse that wins at the Curragh after winning at Epsom and Chantilly. Or even for a horse placed in either Derby. Think outside of the box before charging into the china shop in your size tens, why don’t you?
If the distance of the Irish Derby becomes allied to the French Derby and not the Epsom Derby as it is has been since its inception, it will be the starting pistol on the slow march towards Guineas races world-wide being reduced to the long sprint of 7-furlongs, the Nunthorpe to 4-furlongs and the Ascot Gold Cup to less than 2-miles. In time, when all breeders care about is speed, the French Derby might be further reduced by a furlong as 1-mile 2-furlongs was stretching the elastic to the point when only a few colts had the stamina for a French Derby.
Part of the problem for the lack of love for the Irish Derby is the swelling of Group 1 races over I-mile 2-furlongs and the attraction for breeders to win races in the U.S. and Australia for purposes of creating stallions to be sold to those countries. The pruning shears needs to be applied to a whole lot of Group races all over Europe. I personally would take the axe to both Champions’ Days in Britain and Ireland, with the concession that a shared ‘Champions’ Day’, staged alternately in each country. I would get rid of both; that, though, for financial reasons, will never happen.
There are far too many opportunities for owners and trainers to win Group races when there are fewer number of true Group horses in training. It is no wonder only 4 ran in the Juddmonte, with French-trained horses becoming as likely to run in a British Group 1 these days as a Japanese horse in the Grand National. Anyone remember Fujino-O?
And why can I recall Fujion-O when without resorting to a reference book I fail to remember the winner of the Grand National he ran in or the year Nijinsky won the Triple Crown?