​Next week will be soon enough to get dizzy with excitement for the coming of the greatest race-meeting in the whole damn world. 13 days to go, apparently. Time a’plenty for injury to scupper banker bets. My banker, Dynamite Dollars has already suffered at the hands of cruel misfortune. If you are interested, Apples’ Jade is my new banker. For those that mock my prowess as a tipster, Presenting Percy was my banker last year and he won.
So putting Cheltenham aside for the time being, let me concentrate on the minor surgery I would like to inflict on our sport and the calendar in particular.
Firstly, I wish the brains at the British Racing Authority would invest, if nothing else, some thought, to coming up with a revenue stream to fund the one thing everyone in the sport agrees upon we are desperately in need of – better prize-money, preferably at the lower levels of the sport. Some form of Tote monopoly, perhaps. We live in a digital world, how difficult can it be?
Away from the dreamland of wishful thinking, I would like to see the B.H.A. outlaw having two racecourses within fifty miles of each other holding meetings at the same time on the same day. In truth, I would like to return to simpler times when there was one meeting in the north per day, one in the south and one in the middle of the country. I don’t have much of a problem, for example, when Southwell has a meeting in the afternoon and Wolverhampton in the evening as that arrangement makes life for jockeys somewhat easier but when they overlap it strikes me as plain irresponsible race-planning.
I would like the flat jockeys’ championship to start in March and end on the last day of the flat. At the moment the situation is a farce, with the jockey riding the most winners during the flat season not necessarily being awarded the title of champion jockey. ‘Champions Day’ may be a marketing success story but in reality its proximity to the Arc and Breeders Cup makes it rare for a champion racehorse to turn-up and if the ‘champions’ in ‘Champions Day’ refers to human athletes rather than the equine athletes then the day would be better staged at Doncaster on the last day of the season.
I would like to see a major race restricted to professional female jockeys.
For the sake of fairness, if nothing else, I would like to have six months of the year dedicated to jump racing and six months to the flat. Not six-month seasons, just all the major races run during that time period.
If I had my way the flat would start at Doncaster with six kick-ass handicaps, headed by the Lincoln, the six races forming a bet with a million-pound prize-fund.
I have suggested the next idea in the past and I am not too ashamed to repeat it here: replacing the St.Leger as the final leg of the Triple Crown (and as a classic) and replacing it with the Eclipse and restricting the race to three-year-olds. I would make the St.Leger, a race for three-year-olds and upwards and run at its traditional distance, the richest race in the British calendar.
As far as the jumps are concerned, I would revert what used to be the Mackeson to 2-miles but keep the race originally known as the Massey-Ferguson at its present distance. I would replace the race originally known as the Whitbread with a 2-mile four-furlong chase, with a valuable 2-mile handicap as a supporting race. Too many long-distance chases at the end of the season which can only dilute the quality and quantity of horses available to do all of them justice.
I would remove the Betfair Chase from the million-pound challenge and replace it with the race formerly known as the Hennessey to try to persuade trainers to run the better chasers in such races so we can better determine a contemporary and historical order of merit. In the past all the great chasers, and hurdlers for that matters, routinely ran in handicaps. I would like to return to those days. Would it kill Altior, for example, to give away weight to lesser horses once in a while? Yes, it might kill his trainer but that would only prove trainers in past decades were made of sterner stuff to their snowflake contemporaries of today.
I would instigate a similar million-pound challenge for hurdlers to encourage more horses to come from the flat to the jumping side of the sport. The Fighting Fifth, the race formerly known as the Schweppes and of course the Champion Hurdle would comprise the three qualifying races.
I would add a fifth day to the Cheltenham Festival. A ‘Heath or Safety-Net Day’ in case one of the proper Festival days is lost to the weather, a day also for trying out races that might one day be incorporated into the Festival proper.
Given the importance of staying chases to the jumps programme, I believe there is a glaring need for a 4-mile Championship Chase. There is a championship race for all other divisions, perhaps not the 2-mile 4-furlong hurdlers, but not for the division that is the heartland of the sport.
I would give all the major National Hunt races proper names, for continuity and historical accuracy if nothing else. ‘Registered As’ in the race title is pointless if the staying chase at the end of the season remains in peoples minds ‘The Whitbread’. How can anyone in the future write an historical account of such a race when it has a different sponsor every second year. It’s demeaning to the sport to allow sponsors to kidnap a race important to the sport just for commercial self-interest.
And finally, for now, there should be an award for the training performance of the year, both for flat and jumps trainers. It is yet another glaring omission.

​Don’t get me wrong, I was as impressed by Cyrname’s 17-length romp at Ascot as the next man, whoever he is and whatever he is doing in my study (or spare room as my significant other-half demeans my work-space). It is the official rating the win supposedly deserved that sticks in my throat.
Let’s not beat about the bush, Cyrname is a good, young improving chaser who if he were more ambidextrous would waltz away with the Ryanair, all things being equal, that is. But if God forbid Cyrname was not to race again, if Waiting Patiently, as is perfectly possible, it was after-all his first proper run for 12-months, was not 100% fit and with Politologue reportedly in need of another wind-operation, and who knows if the others were at their best and not suffering from a disturbed night’s sleep or were subject to a moody-fit, Cyrname’s official rating will be the rating he will always be known-for. His rating, as it stands, makes him a better horse than the current, unbeaten over fences, 2-mile Champion Chaser, Altior. Which doesn’t feel quite right, does it?
I am not suggesting a rating of 181 is within the realms of madness; only time will tell. But it is mathematical guesswork. Official opinion based on one glorious performance.
I cannot get out of my head the rating given to Master Minded after he romped to the easiest victory the 2-mile Champion Chase is yet to provide. It was a victory that in official terms made Master Minded one of the best chasers since the beginning of time. Yet never again was he in any way as impressive as that wow-factor day at the Festival.
As you might be aware, I am not a fan of ratings. At the end of a horse’s career, with a whole breadth of races to compare, contrast and evaluate, I am prepared to accept that a rating could be applied to individual horses, with every horse finding its place in the pantheon of form. But to hike a horse up the handicap based on one run, or worse to do the same with a horse that hasn’t gone near a horsebox since finishing second or third to the same horse in a previous race, is a jobsworth exercise verging on downright unfairness.
It is my view that a horse should not be reassessed after one run but after three, with a median rating applied – up four lbs, for example, for the first run, down 1lb for the second, down 3 for the third run. Yes, this will allow some horses to stay ahead of the handicapper, but also it will allow other horses some redress from the handicapper in the form of a lowering of its mark.
If you think this will aid trainers who want to fiddle the system then you might be right. But with all the aids stewards now have at their disposal to expose the wrong-doers I would suggest that the status-quo will remain very much the same, though of course some horses will win a race easily and be kept back to run in a heritage handicap later in the season from the same lenient rating. Not that trainers don’t employ the same tactic already!
On another front, it must be disheartening for an owner to come down from the joy of winning a race to be told by his or her trainer that it will hard to win another race with their horse as its rating will now soar beyond its ability. At least my system will allow the horse two more chances to win a race, even if its rating will soar even higher if it should win three handicaps on the bounce. But there are winners and losers with the present system as there will be if my radical and bright idea were to become rule and regulation.
Another problem I have with the present system of rating horses is that handicappers seemingly do not factor in ground, course or distance. Is Cyrname worthy of his high rating over all distances, on any course and on any ground. He can’t be worth 181 at Cheltenham as his connections don’t fancy him for the Ryanair and he couldn’t be worth 181 on fast ground or perhaps heavy. Nor if he ran over 3-miles plus as there is no form to access him over that sort of trip. All that can be fairly said is that at Ascot on good-to-soft ground over 2-miles 4-furlongs Cyrname is a 181 rated chaser, as long as all the horses he beat ran to their best ability, which in the case of Politologue is clearly not so.
I rest my case.
Damned exciting horse though, isn’t he?
 

​It may be a case of ‘Blue Remembered Hills’, the past recorded to memory with the aid of rose-tinted glasses, but the Betfair Hurdle, formerly the Tote Gold Trophy and formerly and more famously known as the Schweppes, is not the race it used to be. Saturday’s renewal at Ascot is not representative, of course, of the brand as fourteen runners and not competed for at Newbury rather turned it into just another high prize-money handicap hurdle. Nobody’s fault, it’s just that fate rolled the dice unfavourably on this occasion.
Back in the ‘good old days’ the Schweppes was a big deal, a hurdlers’ version of the Hennessey Gold Cup, and was heralded by fanfare and anticipation, it’s conclusion a pointer to what might win the Champion Hurdle. Yes, the Champion Hurdle, not the Supreme or Ballymore. It’s Roll of Honour includes Persian War, one of the best hurdlers of the era, of any era. It was a race that sorted the men from the boys, the truly great from the handicap good-things.
For the level of prize-money it now carries, the winner, to my eyes, should be thought about as a Champion Hurdle contender, even if in the present-day it would be fanciful to expect actual Champion Hurdlers to contest the race.
It is my opinion that the Betfair is diminished rather than augmented through the prominence of unexposed novice hurdlers that the handicapper cannot truly assess and get into the race many pounds, and like Al Dancer last Saturday, or even a stone less than the winner would receive if the race were re-handicapped today. I would prefer to see a condition linked to the race that would prevent unexposed novices from being entered. A hurdle race of the prestige of the Betfair should be for the better handicappers or horses just below Champion Hurdle standard.
Why not introduce a valuable handicap hurdle for the sort of novice that ran in the race this Saturday? Trainers seem to have a penchant for running a novice in the big handicaps so why not introduce such a race into the racing calendar? If nothing else this novice handicap would be unique and would give a clearer insight into the merits of the season’s novices.
 
The will we/ won’t we saga of Presenting Percy disappointingly continues. Given the weather forecast for the week, mainly dry for our neck of the woods, it sort of rings alarm bells that the mysterious Kelly, trainer of the Gold Cup favourite, should choose to forego the Red Mills at Gowran in favour, possibly, of Fairyhouse this coming weekend. I’m beginning to doubt if we shall see Presenting Percy line-up for the Gold Cup if his need for proper soft ground remains the main criteria for the horse running in any race. Of course, they mustn’t be tempted or persuaded to run the horse if the underfoot conditions leave him liable to injury. But is the horse so fragile, so ground dependent, that he cannot be risked on genuinely good ground? Because if that is the truth of it, there is no way they will risk him on good ground on the up and downs of Prestbury Park.
Presenting Percy has been my tip for this season’s Gold Cup since his narrow defeat to Our Duke in last season’s Red Mills but I now not only doubt his participation in this season’s race but cannot understand why he remains favourite when Clan Des Obeaux has better form by far. Clan Des Obeaux is a young, progressive horse trained by a master of his craft. I’m not saying he is a good thing for the Gold Cup, and anyone who thinks he will lack for stamina should book a room in The Priory for the week of the Festival, but he deserves to be favourite as he has the best form this season of any of the contenders. I would go as far as to say that if Presenting Percy does not turn up, the Gold Cup will go to either Paul Nicholls or Colin Tizzard. In fact, when I see the Morning Show experts reviewing the Haydock race and the King George they seem to have a blind spot when it comes to Thistlecrack. As with his stable-mate Native River, he is a winner at a previous Festival and in both his races this season he was the one doing the best work at the finish, outstaying his stamina-laden stable-mate on both occasions. Dismiss Thistlecrack from your calculations at your peril!

​Publication of the weights for the Grand national remains, at least for me, a signature day in the racing calendar. The race almost begins with the publication of the weights, with publication of the entries almost a false start in the proceedings.
An aspect of the whole shebang I cannot understand is when a trainer will announce almost immediately that a certain horse will not run for no better reason than it has been allotted two pounds more than expected. Or that more simply he or she believes the Scottish National would suit the horse better. Why bother entering and wasting the owner’s hard-earned entrance money.
Gordon Elliott has sort of said something similar, not withstanding he might have as many as fourteen or fifteen runners this time around, with his pessimistic outlook on Tiger Roll’s chances of bringing off a famous double on the grounds that two pounds extra to carry makes it very difficult for him. He’s a little squirt of a racehorse, he can barely see over the top the fences and admittedly he has nothing in hand on Pleasant Company and others but wasn’t it difficult for him last year and didn’t he still prevail? I don’t think two pound will be the beating of him. Eight pounds, yes, if the weights go up and he ends up with top-weight.
The two that immediately caught my eye were Rock The Casbah (10.9) and Ms Parfois (10.2). The first may want good ground, though such details can be mere incidentals where the Grand National is concerned, and the second may want it soft, though again taking to the fences is of far greater importance than the underfoot conditions. The mare will definitely get the trip and circumstance has forced Anthony Honeyball’s into giving her a very light campaign thus far. With Rock The Casbah it is not as clear cut. But he’s being laid out for the race and I’m not sure Phillip Hobbs is in the habit of targeting a single race for one of his charges.
Last year I backed Alpha Des Obeaux and though the Chair tripped him up, and it did seem a right purler of a fall, until then he had jumped like a real National horse and I was determined to side with him again. Looking at how he has been thus far campaigned I would suggest Gordon Elliott is laying him out for the race and last time at Gowran he was a close second to Invitation Only, is one of Willie Mullin’s Gold Cup horses, with no less than fifteen Grand National entries in his wake. And he carries the same weight as last year, though he has not yet won beyond three-miles.
I also backed Milansbar last year, the only one of mine to actually finish, and I am as disappointed as I suspect his connections are to see him allotted only 9st 8lbs, which means he needs a bit of a miracle, which he got last year, to get in. The ground, though, will have to be even softer than last year for him to make up the 30-lengths he was behind Tiger Roll.
I realise that Valseur Lido is as reliable as British Rail but he has dropped from 11.7 last year to 10st 2lbs this and he was lying fourth until three out and did well to plug on to finish eighth. Blaklion is another to have come down the weights, his 11st 10lbs of last year now reduced to 10st 12lbs.
With Milansbar an unlikely runner, it is pleasing that Andy Stewart is keen to have a go with Black Corton (10.11), though I suspect Paul Nicholls is not quite so keen. The race, though, as with any big race, is always the better for Bryony Frost’s participation. I personally doubt if the horse has the scope or stamina for a Grand National, though having said he is a very clever jumper of a park fence and he wouldn’t be the first to surprise around Aintree.
Others who interest me are Traffic Fluide, Royal Vacation, Mall Dini, Give Me A Copper, an appropriate winner considering Paul Nicholl’s father was a policeman, Missed Approach and because he seems incredibly well-in on his best form, Tea For Two, though the ballyhoo before the race might blow his mind.
Oh, beware, Nicky Henderson is beating himself up with how badly he has messed-up Valtor’s handicap mark by winning earlier in the season at Ascot and how it is unlikely he will run with the stopping burden of 11st 2lbs. I have the suspicion he’ll make up for not winning any of the blue riband races at Cheltenham, except of course the 2-mile Champion Chase, by winning his first Grand National. If the great man has a change of heart, and I would think Valtor is more likely to carry the double green than Bristol de Mai, I shall definitely be having a saver on him. Nicky Henderson cannot go his entire career and not win the Grand National, can he?

​The British Horseracing Authority became racing’s governor on July 31st 2007 after the merging of the British Horseracing Board and the Horseracing Regulatory Authority. This genesis moment in a sport I have faithfully followed and loved for over fifty years has not, until now, fully registered itself within what remains functioning of my brain. This error, this blind spot that can only draw ridicule from anyone who consents to read this website that represents both my soul and the wholeness of my being, an error I must have repeated publicly thousands of time since 2007, has allowed anyone who has visited the site and used up their valuable time reading my thoughts and opinions on the sport, not to mention my criticism of the ‘powers-that-be’, a phrase I wish I would use with 100% consistency, to think me a nincompoop of the highest order.  Incidentally, to go off-piste a moment, wouldn’t it be a step forward in Man’s literary and actual evolution if such words as ‘nincompoop’ and ‘ninny’ were to replace expletives when describing foolish behaviour or when expressing an opinion about someone? The F-word has lost all-meaning so ubiquitous has become it’s use, while the C-word, almost always used by men, is hurled about with thoughtless inaccuracy given how poor a heterosexual man’s life would be without consensual access to one.
To return to the subject at hand.
You see I repeatedly, except when I use my favoured term ‘powers-that-be’, and I’ll get around to explaining why I use the phrase rather than B.H.A., as I now know, in a subsequent paragraph, criticise or reference the B.H.B., the British Horseracing Board, an authority that has not existed for twelve years! Dah!
Why? Blind inattentiveness, I suppose. I see, and read, what I expect to see written and not what is actually written. I see B.H. and my lazy inattentive brain places a B where the A for authority dwells. It is, I am afraid, a common failing of mine. Many a time I have to reread the beginning of an article to discover why A is being quoted when I was under the impression the reporter was writing about B. There is, I suspect, a clinical name for whatever psychological condition I suffer from, though inattentiveness or lazy eye might suffice.
I use the term or phrase ‘powers-that-be’ as I am never wholly sure what authority or stakeholder is responsible for whatever I am either criticising or commenting upon. It is a catch-all word that until this moment hid from public view my ignorance. Also, its use might also keep me from litigation if it is obscure who or what I have libelled, defamed, scandalised or slandered. It is an ambition to at least achieve one of the four before I wander off into the far blue yonder.
So there you have it. I have confessed to my gross blind ignorance and I go on oath to suggest that I will be more diligent in the future. Remember, though. I am not a journalist. Neither am I a professional writer. I am nothing more than an enthusiast who has horse racing’s interest at heart. I write intuitively and with little research. It is poor defence, I admit. But it is all I have. Show mercy, I plead. I am not ageing either well or with good grace and downhill is all I have to look forward to, horse racing the only sustainable factor in my life.
 
I have conducted a small degree of research and I find the British Horseracing Authority to be a leviathan of a body. It consists of many bodies, in fact, many of which are called committees. There is the Horseman’s Group, The National Trainers Federation, Professional Jockeys Association, Racecourse Association, Racehorse Owners Association and the Thoroughbred Breeders Association. They make up, I believe, racing’s Stakeholders, a term that does not sit pretty on the ear. Then there is, and here comes the committees, the Audit Committee, Remunerations Committee, Nominations Committee, Rules Committee, Flat Pattern Committee, Jump Pattern Committee, Members Committee, Executive Committee, Racing Group and Fixtures Group. If that lot aren’t enough there is also the Ethics Committee, Stewarding Committee, Veterinary Committee, Medical Advisory Committee, Disciplinary Committee and Racecourse Committee. Added to which there are the Horseracing Bettors Group, Stakeholders Integrity Forum and the Diversity in Racing Steering Group. The B.H.A., the British Horseracing Authority, are accountable, chockfull of integrity, as well as being progressive and responsive but most of all they are credible, except when it comes to four shoes, arm-waving and telling trainers what is best for the horses in their care. In such matters they waved goodbye to credibility a few weeks back. Though in recent days they have clawed back a good deal of their credibility, though they did on this occasion actually seek, listen to and act on advice from a well-pool of greater knowledge.
So from this day forth I will know who and what to criticise when uncalled-for and unnecessary changes in rule and regulation are made – the powers-that-be!

​Up to this moment I am of the opinion that the powers-that-be should be congratulated for their speedy and efficient handling of the outbreak of equine flu presently besieging our sport. In the circumstances they could have done little else but draw a stop to proceedings so that it could be established how menacing was the danger.
Given that until this point only ten confirmed cases of equine flu have come to light, six at Donald McCain’s stables in Cheshire and four at Simon Crisford in Newmarket, though I would be surprised if the running score ends at ten, I think it represents no great risk to resume racing this week. I suspect the percentage of horses presently afflicted with equine flu is no bigger than at any other time of the year. Ten out of two-thousand, even if that number doubles to twenty, especially if only two or three stables are affected, is a small enough number to resume racing as long as all the stringent bio-security measures remain adhered to.
Although monetary aspects of the sport should never compromise equine welfare, when the decision to race or not to race is a matter of a coin flip, perhaps the powers-that-be need to be as brave now as they were last Thursday when they suspended racing for six days. Bookmakers need to fill their television screens and their tills and trainers have had to dig into their pockets to buy all the bio-security products needed to conform to directives from the powers-that-be. And jockeys have to race to earn. Not all of them can afford to swan off to the Alps for a bout of ski-ing and the sort of after-exertions relief that Mick Fitzgerald so unwisely wrote about in his autobiography. And there are holes in the I.T.V. schedule on a Saturday that an ordinary day at Naas, as wonderful as it was to experience Irish racing, just cannot satisfactorily fill.
Although the loss of the Betfair Hurdle is to be regretted, especially by connections who had dreamt for weeks of taking home the trophy, the Denman Chase must be rescheduled as it is the final proper trial or warm-up race for the Gold Cup. If the full Newbury card is impossible to rearrange, which I suspect it will be because of Ascot this Saturday and a pretty hectic day’s racing, anywhere will do, within reason. Perhaps Ascot could stage the race, as the top jockeys will more likely be there. Or Wincanton. But not Haydock, not on the heavy ground they will likely have to endure. But the Denman must be run somewhere. It is a shame it will not be at Newbury as they were dedicating a set of gates to him. Not many horses have wrought-iron gates named in their memory. They had to be wrought-iron as the great horse was as tough as wrought-iron.
Cheltenham, too, must be taken into consideration. Equine Flu is easily spread amongst the horse population and that is something that must be lost in the debate, but it cannot kill a healthy adult horse. It is not as virulent as strangles or equine herpes. As Donald McCain described in the Racing Post today, Raise A Spark had a temperature in the morning, was normal in the afternoon and back to running around his stables as is his habit. At any given time, there will be a horse with equine flu in any stable up and down the country. And this strain of flu is not the strain that is ravaging stables throughout Europe. Unless there is a sudden spike in the numbers confirmed with the illness, I cannot see any reason to continue with the stoppage, though, sadly, it would be wise if Donald McCain and Simon Crisford’s stables were kept in lockdown until all their horses scope clean.
Though yet again I must reiterate my admiration for the way the powers-that-be and the horse-racing community has responded to this, hopefully, short-lived yet serious crisis.

​Matt Chapman, the all-grown-up Tin-Tin lookalike, is, annoyingly at times, quite astute when it comes to reading a race, especially as he wouldn’t know a stifle from a chestnut, a cavesson from a coronet. But when he is wrong, when he boasts loudly of a superior knowledge, when he raises his voice a decibel or two as if volume will always trump sincere, if directly opposing opinion, he is usually wrong by a country mile.
He is wrong on the Frodon front, on whether he will last out the Gold Cup distance, and he is wrong for more than one reason.
Firstly, the evidence, as little of that as we can call on. Tired horses, Matt, do not give the last fence in a 3-mile plus chase a foot of air, as Frodon did in the Cotswold Chase. That told Paul Nicholls everything he needed to know. And though you perceived the diminishing distance of his victory, over a horse who seems the very epitome of the staying chaser, as evidence of a horse coming to the last strands of his stamina then, Matt, you must have had your eyes closed during the finish of the Caspian Caviar Gold Cup as in that race too Frodon was easing up in the final furlong. Very few 3-mile condition chases, except when the winner is undoubtedly many stones better than the opposition, are won going-away, head-in-chest. The clever horses know when the race is won and merely respond to their jockey’s urging to continue galloping.
I suspect when Kauto Star first ran over 3-miles Matt expressed the same doubts as he has about Frodon staying. No doubt it was the same with Desert Orchid and Sizing John.
A second reason why Frodon will stay 3-miles plus is that Paul Nicholls is convinced he will stay and is rarely wrong when he ups a horse in trip, is he, Matt? When he has reservations about a horse’s stamina, Politologue and Master Minded come to mind for example, his reservations are nine times out of ten proved correct. And when he states categorically that Frodon wouldn’t have the pace to win the Ryanair, anyone with any sense would take that information on board and not make a big noise about why the multiple times champion trainer is wrong.
A third reason why Matt is wrong on this topic is that Frodon’s owner is eight-years-old, has owned horses for more than forty years and with age not being on his side might never again get the opportunity to stand in the parade ring as the Gold Cup field circle around him. In Frodon he has a horse who genuinely has a right to run in the race. He might not yet be a stout enough stayer to win a Gold Cup but nobody, not even Matt Chapman, would be surprised if he finished third or fourth. If the ground were to be proper good ground, not that Frodon necessarily requires good ground as he has won plenty of races on heavy, the favourites, Presenting Percy and Native River would be greatly inconvenienced. Good ground would also mean Coneygree would be an unlikely runner, allowing Frodon and Bryony Frost to set a pace convenient to their tactics.
The fourth reason why Frodon should be allowed his chance in the Gold Cup lies more with the jockey than the horse, trainer or owner. This will be the first time in the history of the race that a female jockey has a genuine opportunity to at least feature in the finish of the race. At best, of course, she could win the race and give racing the media attention of its dreams. And remember Matt, in last year’s Grand National you gave each of the female riders a squeak of winning, yet you gave Milansbar and Bryony no hope of even finishing the race. She finished fifth, of course, the best of the British.
Last year Presenting Percy was my nap of the Festival. I even tipped him before the meeting even started to win this season’s Gold Cup. On soft ground he remains my idea of the winner. Yet it concerns me that connections have refused to run him this season on the prevailing good ground. So, will they run him if the ground is on the good side of soft? I suggest that if the ground were to be heavy then Frodon might be re-routed to the Ryanair. I even suspect that if he ran in the Gold Cup there might be one or two more seasoned, resolute stayers to overhaul him from the last fence. But that would not make Matt right. It would simply mean that other horses stayed better than he did. I always remember David Elsworth telling the media, who to a man thought Barnbrook Again hadn’t managed to beat Dessie in the King George because he didn’t get the trip: ‘well, he stayed better than those he beat.’
Matt well be right; Frodon possibly won’t win the Gold Cup this year. But for Matt to be proved right he will have to miss the Ryanair and run in the Gold Cup, which the majority is keen to see.
 

​Although the outbreak of equine flue now overshadows the folly of the powers-that-be stopping trainers from making more than one declaration per horse at the Cheltenham Festival it remains a subject the Trainers Federation should go on the offensive about. Once more the men-in-suitsare telling trainers how to run their businesses and to do what is in the best interests of the horses in their care.
Willie Mullins will be especially mortified as this new directive runs a coach and four across his policy of entering his horses in as many races as he can and leaving it to the last possible moment before deciding whether Horse A is a Champion Hurdle horse or one for Patrick to ride in the 4-miler.
Why the they did not simply ban horses from running in more than one race at the Festival and left it at that defeats me. Such a ban would have horse welfare at its heart, though once more they acting like a Nanny State in telling trainers what is best for their horses. But to prevent trainers from making a thoughtful decision based on the ground and opposition is removing one of the arrows from a trainer’s quiver of knowledge.
First of all, let’s hope and pray the outbreak of equine flue is quickly contained and there is a Festival this year for us to look forward to and debate. Aside from the Mullins dilemma, other trainers routinely enter horses in more than one race at the Festival. Paul Nicholls, just to give one example, will have to decide five days in advance of the Gold Cup whether to declare Frodon. Which means of course he cannot declare him for the Ryanair, even though at the weekend before the Festival he will have no absolute certainty whether the ground on the Friday will be suitable for his horse. What will in effect happen with this new rule is that there will be many more withdrawals on the day from the big races, as will doubtless occur with Frodon if there were to be more than the expected rainfall turning the ground, which might have been suitable at the weekend, too soft, rendering him unlikely to stay. It must be remembered the Cotswolds can throw up unexpected weather events. Remember the year Desert Orchid won the Gold Cup. They declared with sunshine forecast for the entire meeting, only for the morning of the race to dawn snowy, snow that turned to rain, with the meeting surviving several inspections.
There is no horse welfare issue with trainers declaring a horse for more than one race. In fact, rather like the shoeing farrago, the welfare issue is to force a trainer to run a horse on unfavourable ground because it is the only option left open for the horse’s owner to have a runner at the Festival.
This is just another example of needless interference by the powers-that-be proving that those people who believe racing should have a supremo, someone with a deep knowledge of the sport, similar to Barry Hearne who is the kingpin of darts. Personally I would like the return of the National Hunt Committee or a governing board of a similar nature consisting of men and women for whom the sport has been their life.
 
One final word, for now, about the Festival. Bill Barber, writing in the Racing Post, suggested there should be a ratings cap on the Mares Hurdle so the best mares are directed toward the Champion and Stayers Hurdle. I heartily agree. The Mares Hurdle is not a championship race. It is not called the Mares Champion Hurdle. It is simply a hurdle race for mares. To have the likes of Laurina and Apple’s Jade running it rather than the Champion Hurdle is absurd, making the race a pot-hunting exercise on behalf of owners and trainers who have had the pleasure of winning a multitude of races at the Festival during the past decade. I would suggest a similar ratings cap on the Mares Novice hurdle too, pushing trainers to run the better novice mares in one of the three championship novice hurdles.
Also, it is time the Kim Muir, or whatever title it goes under nowadays, should stop being a race for amateurs and be open to professional jockeys, leaving the unpaid ranks with the Foxhunters and the 4-miler. And I would do away with the claimers hurdle race and replace it with a 4-mile Championship Chase. You may gasp or laugh but replacing a moderate hurdle race with a championship race must be a step in the right direction.
 

​This is Aussie jurisdiction, so perhaps not wholly applicable to here in Britain and Ireland but I think the use of ‘jiggers’ and intentional doping are two evils that hang from the same bush.
At a time when Australian racing has never held such a prominent position in the racing world it must be maddening for the governing body of Australian state racing to have to ban its leading trainer for four years for the illegal possession of an instrument as heinous as a cattle-prod, and we must assume use of such a banned device. The shudders of discontent amongst racing professionals in Australia right now must be so appreciable that every conversation must either begin or end with the word ‘jigger’.
Of course, the inference is that if Darren Weir, Australia’s winning-most racehorse trainer, is not beyond the use of ‘jiggers’, then the evil practise must be widespread. I doubt if it is, not at the metropolitan racecourses. Though having read the autobiographies of several Australian jockeys, all of whom write of ‘getting away with stuff at the country courses’, it would not surprise me if away from the vigilant eye, ‘jiggers’ were as much of a fall-back as blinkers to improve the mind and form of horses with as much laziness in their character as ability.
And we shouldn’t dismiss the cocaine aspect of this case. The immediate thought is that it was for human use, yet once upon a time, especially in America, it too was used to give a horse a wake-up call. The Hon. George Lambton wrote copiously on the subject in his autobiography ‘Men & Horses I Have Known’. Doping with cocaine came to our shores via Americans who came to train over here during the late 1800’s and into the 1900’s. It is was not forbidden at the time to administer dope and cocaine was the dope of choice. Of course, the Stewards of The Jockey Club would not believe it was rife in the sport as cunning trainers would only use cocaine on selling platers. Lambton was outraged by the Jockey Club’s unwillingness to deal with the matter that he got hold of some cocaine and proceeded to dope six of his own horses, neither of whom had shown any inclination to win either a race or a trial on the gallops. Five out of the six won, the other finished second. He presented the facts to the Jockey Club, as well as the suspicions of three leading vets, and finally doping was made illegal.
Why Weir had an unlicensed firearm on his premises is another matter entirely.
The big problem racing has here in Britain, and I assume it might be the same in Australia, is one of public perception. Darren Weir has acted in real life as is written about by authors of racing thrillers. People opposed to racing will point to Darren Weir and claim that it is from ‘his kind’ that authors of racing thrillers get their plots and characters. It is why I am so opposed to the use of racing as the subject matter for the thriller genre and refuse to have such books in my library.
Also, and this is a matter for every racing professional to ponder and reflect upon, is four years an appropriate punishment? ‘Jiggers’ are used for the same purpose as the administration of an illegal substance, the so-called ‘milkshake’, for instance. If Weir has used a ‘jigger’ only say ten times, isn’t that as much a violation of the rules as ten failed dope tests? Wouldn’t you expect a habitual doper to be warned-off for life? At a time when horse welfare is of paramount importance in our sport, shouldn’t the Australian authorities be throwing the book at Weir for animal cruelty. He was administering an electric-shock to his horses.
Though the buck seems to be stopping with Weir, if the ‘jigger’ was used in a race then a jockey or jockeys are getting away with a crime that has rocked the foundation of Australian racing and brought it into disrepute. This jockey or jockeys are equally as guilty as Weir and I hope the investigation into the scandal does not confine itself to Weir and his assistant, who is also a licensed trainer.
If a trainer or jockey were found with such a device in this country and it could be proved it was used in a race, I would expect that person to be warned-off for life. For the harm such a scandal would cause I cannot see any other punishment would fit the crime. I rather suspect that in four years’ time Darren Weir will apply for a license to train and awash with shame and penitence he will return to the fold. But rather like a murderer released from prison on parole, to begin his life anew, the victims of the crime will suffer loss and grief for a whole life-time. The victim in Weir’s crime, as well, of course, as the horses he abused, is the sport of horse racing, not only in Australia but by implication all around the world. Four years, to my mind, is little more than a slap on the wrists.
 
 

​On another page of this website I provide a service in the form of an ever-extending list of possible names to owners experiencing difficulty naming young horses. The naming of racehorses is a long-running sore with me, especially when the names of famous horses from the past are re-used. When Coolmore, and I will never forgive them for it, named a horse Spanish Steps I frothed at the mouth in outrage for weeks rolling into months. I even wrote a letter to them before the horse ran begging them to rename the horse, to do the right thing in memory of one of the most popular steeplechasers of the seventies, a horse who rocked up at all the big races, won a Hennessey (enough, you would think, to have his name die with him) and was placed in two of the best Grand Nationals ever run. As you can imagine it still smarts that Coolmore should commit such a calumny. They never replied to my letter, by the way.
The powers-that-be would have us believe that it is no easy matter to name a racehorse. I laugh at their ignorance. The English language alone contains enough words and combination of words to fill an Olympic size swimming pool to overflowing, added to which there are all the other languages of the world, all eight-hundred or more. If it is difficult to name a racehorse it can only be that the powers-that-be make it difficult. Other than that reason, I can only assume it is the mind-bewildering choice on offer where the difficulty lies.
It is not only the re-using of famous names that pulls my chain, so does the profusion of French names presently in use over jumps, Arabic names on the flat and names that drive a carriage and four through the English language – Didtheyleaveuoutto, for example. I revere J.P.McManus and no man has honoured the sport with his presence more than he does but some of the names he gives his horses are as pleasant to my eye as a motorway pile-up.
I realise that the profusion of French names has little or nothing to do with the people who own them, and also realise that as long as French-breds remain popular with trainers there is nothing to be done about the seemingly lazy and apathetic manner in which French breeders name their horses. If they are breeding to sell to the English and Irish market why not use the English language when naming them, Apple’s Jade to give one example. At least they might have sympathy for race commentators, even if they have nothing but disdain for old Xenophobes like me.
I make no apologies for being a dyed-in-the-wool man of old England. I also admit that my failing memory does not allow me much rope when it comes to accepting this French language invasion of our sport. I can barely remember the English named big-race winners, so it is stretching my powers of recall to breaking point to remember winners with foreign names. I always, and I mean ‘always’, have to look up the spelling of Buveur d’Air, so I hope and pray that Fakir D’Oudairies does not win the Triumph and goes on to be a leading light for years to come as his name sits as easily in my vocabulary as one in Latin, Serbo-Croat or Klingon.
I don’t know how Des Obeaux translates but there is an increasing number of horses with Des Obeaux as part of their name, and of course in years to come Des Obeaux will get mingled with De Sceaux, du Seuil and des Dieux.
It is the same with Arabic named horses. When a Sheikh Hamdan stallion is advertised in the Racing Post I’m afraid I struggle to remember who trained it as I cannot disentangle its Arabic name from others, perhaps less distinguished, who carried a similar name. This will come across as xenophobic and a criticism of Sheikh Hamdam for naming his horses using his native language, which is his right, of course.
My concern is that in years to come people, perhaps old fogies like me, will be unable to recall the names of the horses that win our top races and will only recall instead the name of the owner, trainer and jockey. And that is not putting the horse before the cart. And the situation will only become ever-more complicated as the import of French horses is showing no signs of diminishing. Mind you, God-forbid for the welfare of flat racing if Sheikh Hamdam and his family remove themselves from the sport.
I just wish we could get back to solid English names like Cottage Rake, Knock Hard, Another Flash, Royal Tan. Life was so much simpler back then. Ben Stack, Saffron Tartan, Flying Wild. Herring Gull --- Back when I was a mere stripling.
Back when jockeys were horseman and the very idea of a female riding in a steeplechase was so laughable Max Miller might have used it as a punch-line to a joke. Mill House, Fortria, John O’Groats, Happy Spring, Red Rum. Spanish Steps. Team Spirit.
Memories easily recalled.