I am old enough to remember the I.T.V. 7. In deed as a schoolboy, infringing the laws of the land, it is where most of my pocket-money was spent. My first real memory, where no doubt my love of this sport was born, is being put in front of a black and white television one Saturday afternoon while my parents went out to buy me a birthday present. It must have been April 15th, though I cannot be precise about the year. 1962, perhaps. Or 63.
Having established what I prefer to be thought of as ‘my vintage’, I hope no one will question my authority to speak about the television coverage of horse-racing, and I.T.V. now having the privilege to broadcast our sport.
Let’s get one fact out into the open from the start: televised horse racing today is better by a considerable distance from what went before. I will even go as far as claiming that today’s commentators are in the main better than even the doyen of the art Peter O’Sullivan. Heresy, I know, to some, and I can only defend my view by suggesting that people go on YouTube and delve into the archive. The great O’Sullivan is thought to be voice-perfect but in truth he wasn’t. Hoiles and Holt are better than anyone who has gone before them. And Nick Luck and Ed Chamberlain are better than Julian Wilson or even the great Lord Oaksey.
I freely admit that I thought we were throwing the baby out with the bath-water when I.T.V. won the right to cover horse-racing, as I did when Channel 4 became the exclusive broadcaster. I was unwilling to accept the need for one continuous narrative and was horrified that the Grand National was to be televised by a commercial channel. I was wrong to be sceptical, of course, and the continuous narrative argument was correct and Channel 4 did a brilliant job with the Grand National.
Which is why I couldn’t understand what Channel 4 had done so wrong to have the sport taken from them. They had their faults and occasionally made mistakes, though nothing as annoying as the B.B.C. once did by interrupting a race from Cheltenham to inform us that the Birmingham 4 had been released from prison. I disliked the emphasis on betting and I never liked John McCririck and was pleased when he was let go. Equally I thought it a mistake not to renew the contract of Alastair Down, though I accept other people might have opposing views. In a team comprising a dozen or so presenters the individual viewer is not going to warm to every one of them and it will be the same with I.T.V.
So I was not entirely on side when I.T.V. returned to broadcast our sport. I didn’t and do not want them to fail, as some letter writers to the Racing Post seem to suggest. Their role in promoting racing is vital. In deed our sport might live or die on their watch. And in my opinion they began okay, no better than Channel 4 but no worse. I suspect I knew they would be okay in the last moments of the first ‘Opening Show’ when Oly Bell exclaimed ‘Phew!’ and ran his hand across his forehead. His relief was our relief. He had done okay.
But at Cheltenham last weekend my near ambivalence, my secret wish for them to be no better than Channel 4, was washed away. The team’s on-the-hoof reporting of a tragedy won me round. I was concerned that ‘banter’, as people kept saying they wanted from the presenters, would very quickly go hollow when something horrible occurred.
What came across in the aftermath of Many Cloud’s death was not the professionalism of the trained journalist reporting facts as would done on a news broadcast, but the raw emotion of something that was ruining the spectacle. I doubt if Channel 4 would have allowed Alice Pluckett to interview Colin Tizzard when it was clear that only moments before she had been crying. Oly Bell was witness to Many Clouds collapsing and even at the end of the programme he was clearly still affected. The joy had been sucked from the day and that is what I.T.V. allowed us to witness. And demonstrating that jockeys too can be affected by loss it was absolutely brilliant of Daryl Jacob to pass on the jockeys’ condolences to Many Clouds connections.
What I.T.V. conveyed to the viewing public is that racing people care about racehorses, that when a horse dies it is a tragedy and that the tears of the racing community are not the crocodile tears of a missed penalty but a heart-wrenching reflection of our deep love and admiration for the racehorse.
In Ed Chamberlain and his team the sport is in reliable hands.

Occasionally an article will appear on the site that is not wholly connected to racing. The following piece was published in HORSEMANSHIP magazine and though it is fundamentally my thoughts on fox-hunting, it is a matter of  importance to the development of both jockeys and young and retired racehorses.

​During David Cameron’s reign as Prime Minister it was continually rumoured that he intended to repeal the Hunting Act. He shouldn’t be blamed for not doing so. Matters of greater importance kept getting in the way of taking his proposal, or was it promise, to Parliament.
I just hope Theresa May has not made similar pledges to the hunting fraternity.
I am not an opponent of fox-hunting, as I hope to demonstrate. I am though broadly in favour of the present law on the hunting of foxes, even though I admit to it being flawed. But then the act was hastily cobbled together by men and women who were politically motivated and made no attempt to understand the good as well as the bad aspects of that they were so keen to ban.
Hunting, or riding to hounds across the countryside, is almost indispensable when it comes to the riding education of both the young horseman and horse. How else can the young and inexperienced learn to truly handle a horse or pony? Hunting, in many ways, mimics aspects of all other equine activities, including, to a lesser degree I admit, dressage. The horse or pony in the solitary environment of the ménage can become a beast of a different hue when amongst a hundred or more of its fellows.
The exercise of hunting must be protected. The opportunity to ride across countryside must be available to generation after generation. This will not be the situation if a resolution is not found to the conflict between hunter and saboteur. This dispute will not go away. No amendment to the law or new act of Parliament will settle the matter. Arbitration is required. And I propose to arbitrate.
Morally it is wrong to kill for no purpose. And killing in the name of sport is equally wrong. The fox kills for food. If he has the opportunity to kill more than his stomach will hold he will stash his kill for another day. The fox is industrious. The chicken farmer who leaves open the door to the chicken pen or fails to regularly check his fencing cannot lay the blame for his loss on the fox, can he?
The fox will also kill lambs. But I know from experience that poor shepherding can also result in the death of livestock. And farmers are in the habit of leaving carcasses for foxes to dispose of, suggesting to the fox that it is okay to take the odd live lamb when opportunity and hunger decrees.
I have sympathy for the fox. As does the general population.
Yet I remain in favour of some aspects of the activity of hunting. But I must ask this question of those who defend the old traditions: why must the experience of a day riding across the countryside be made whole by the death of a fox? Why cannot a day amongst the red coats and hounds be enjoyed simply for the pleasure and privilege of being on a horse with like-minded company doing what good horseman have done for a thousand years?
This is what I propose. Hunts to be brought, no doubt shouting and screaming foul, into the century in which they must survive. Instead of Hunts assuming or seeking permission from landowners and farmers to come onto their land, the boot should be on the other foot. Hunts should be included as part of the leisure industry, with landowners and farmers employing Hunts to lay down a trail and then charging a fee to horse riders for the privilege of riding across their land. Also, as with gymkhanas and other equestrian sports, parking should be made available for horseboxes, keeping to a minimum the disruption of a ‘meet’ to those uninterested in the spectacle.
Of course in many instances there would be need for cooperation between adjoining farms and estates, with proceeds divided. At the moment estates and farms are under great financial strain, with large swathes of land being sold for housing, and farm buildings converted into dwellings. Hunting has always fitted glove in hand with farming and this proposal will stall the need for landowners to sell off their land and will keep the countryside widespread for all to enjoy.
Hunts should also, funded by government, oversee the environment of the fox, to ensure healthy, sustainable numbers in the district in which they traditionally ride over and to cull diseased and injured foxes and to ensure the health and numbers of prey species. The huntsman should become guardian to the fox and its habitat. Perhaps also they could advise people on how best to protect their stock from the industrious need of the fox.
The Hunts have too much influence on the debate, with the holler to kill foxes their loudest recommendation for the continuance of the ‘sport’. I dare say when bear-baiting and cock-fighting were banned there were similar outcries of ‘life will never be the same’. Hunts and their supporters continue to think and behave as proponents of bear-baiting thought all those centuries ago. They must embrace the present and not remain locked to traditions that have no place in a society where animals are looked upon as sentient beings with a right to a dignified life.
What is threatened to be lost in the continuing and evermore bitter dispute is the right and privilege of people to ride across country. That, I suggest, is far more important than the blood-cry of men wanting to kill foxes as their forebears did in past centuries. The pastime of hunting brings with it many benefits: it provides income for saddlers, hay and straw merchants, vets, garages, feed merchants, farriers. It provides second lives for ex-racehorses, show-jumpers, eventers; it educates and improves the riding of inexperienced riders; it allows competent riders to educate young horses.
I am quite certain what I propose will swell the number of people attending this new form of ‘meet’. Not everyone who rides horses approves of hunting; put off by what they believe to be the sickening spectacle of a fox torn apart by baying hounds.
The only way to protect the privilege of horseman and women to ride across country for generations to come is to yank Hunts into this century and for riding across country to become an added income for landowners and farmers. And there is a benefit to everyone if my view on this matter prevails: ‘hunting’ could become a twelve month of the year activity, landowners willing, of course.
Let us look forward, not back. Protect the fox from persecution and protect the thrill of riding across country at the same time.

In the Sunday edition of the Racing Post – in winter, God’s own newspaper – the great and the good of racing are asked to reveal certain aspects of themselves. The reader cannot argue if the favourite film of jockey A is Reservoir Dogs, while jockey B prefers Bridget Jones’ Diary. But when asked Kauto Star or Arkle? That is how the question is framed, which allows for ambiguity. Is the question supposed to reveal which is interviewee’s favourite of the two or the best? I suspect the latter.
Of course the young get the answer wrong and those of a similar vintage to myself always answer correctly.
In our awe and admiration for Arkle, though, we must not take anything away from Kauto. He remains undoubtedly the second best steeplechaser of all time, and in being the second best steeplechaser of all time he is the second best racehorse of all time.
I acknowledge that Kauto raced for longer than Arkle, though that was determined by fate, and the sheer number of Grade 1 races he won will perhaps never be bettered. What is it? 5 King George Chases, 4 Betfairs, 2 Gold Cups, plus a Tingle Creek and a whole host of other top races. And perhaps no horse has been better loved by the public.
When I am on my deathbed, sad as this might seem for people who live a more extended lifestyle than my own, the memories that will help ease the crossing to the other side will be Red Rum’s third National, his first, though mainly for Crisp, Desert Orchid winning his Gold Cup, Sprinter Sacre winning his second 2-Mile Champion Chase and the crowd cheering him from the top of the hill all the way back to Lambourn, and Kauto Star winning his fourth Betfair. Faith restored. Fools to doubt him or Paul Nicholls. I will also always remember his first Betfair, with Ruby grinning from ear-to-ear, seemingly from the second last to the winning post.
But Arkle is Arkle. Or ‘Himself’ as he reverentially known in his homeland.
When the Paul Nicholls of his day, Fulke Walwynn was asked who the best horse he ever trained was without giving it a second thought he said Mill House. Yet Arkle was superior to the big horse by nearly a stone. It is said Arkle broke Mill House’s heart. To this day Arkle holds the 3-mile course record at Sandown, carrying top weight and conceding stones not pounds to his pursuers. It became so impossible to frame handicaps for races with Arkle entered that the Irish handicapper was forced to issue to 2 handicaps for the Irish Grand National, one to be used if Arkle ran and the other if he didn’t, otherwise it was Arkle 12st 7lbs, the rest, from second best horse to worst, bottom weight. There was no long handicap in those days.
It is argued that Arkle’s sky-high official rating was the result of giving huge amounts of weight away to inferior horses in handicaps, which of course Tom Dreaper was forced to do as condition chases were unheard of in Arkle’s time outside of the Gold Cup and King George. These inferior horses would go on in Arkle’s absence to win or nearly win Gold Cups.
No, young ‘uns, you have it wrong. And for posterity it must written in gold lettering somewhere that Arkle is and always will be the greatest. Arkle is the god of steeplechasing.
All my life I have waited for a horse to challenge Arkle’s supremacy. You see, I was young when ‘Himself’ was racing and wet behind the ears. I was in the Mill House camp and just didn’t appreciate the magnitude of what I was witnessing. Briefly, during that season when he won the Hennessey and the Gold Cup, I thought Denman was to be the second coming. When he won the race at Newbury now named in his honour I remember thinking this is what it must have been like watching Arkle. I have a similar memory of watching Paul McCartney going amongst musicians as they learned his orchestral piece ‘Standing Stone’ and thinking this is what Mozart would have done. But the heart condition done for Denman and he became, though he remains my favourite of all time, a plucky bit-part player to his mate Kauto.
Although every trainer would give his right arm for a horse with the ability and will-to-win of Kauto Star, they would give both arms for a horse like Arkle.
When the time comes, and I’m on my deathbed, and the nurse reading the Racing Post to me quotes Paul Nicholls claiming to have a horse better than Kauto, I won’t hold my breath, though the prospect of seeing another great pretender to the crown might encourage me to breathe on for a wee bit longer.