​I have been A.F.K. (away from keyboard) for the past week due to my laptop’s demand for a week’s holiday from my company. Returned to full computing health, we are now reunited, though our friendship remains as tenuous as that between guard and prisoner. 
During the past 9-days, I have watched many Grand Nationals on YouTube, which has reinforced my opinion that the great race is suffering death by a thousand cuts from custodians of the race who appear collectively to have little respect for either its history or tradition. I doubt if the Grand National’s most fervent historian, Reg Green, would approve of what has been done to the race in the time of Suleka Varma.
We are presently, I believe, in the fifth stage of the devaluation of the world’s greatest horse race, where the race now teeters at the precipice of extinction. I admit the race was not bathed in glory at its inception when in 1839 Lottery defeated 17-rivals, of which only 7 completed. To begin with the Grand National was a cross-country race, with plough and walls to be overcome. By the time of Manifesto, winner in 1897 and 1899, amateur riders were fast becoming displaced by professionals, with the race resembling the race of history up to 1960, when it was first brought to the television screen.
It is forgotten that even in the late fifties the race was under scrutiny and the jockeys in the 1960 Grand National were explicitly ‘advised’ by Lord Sefton to avoid the mad dash to the first fence, the main contributing factor for so many falls, so many injuries. Only 26 faced the starter and only 8 completed the course.
The day of the upright unforgiving black fences were numbered and since the 1960’s the mindset of succeeding clerks of the course has been to modify any aspect of the race they believe the naysayers might approve of. The fences were slopped to make them ‘easier’ to negotiate and in some cases lowered. This third stage of development did little to alter the danger every jockey and horse must defy in every horse race, flat or jumps, Monday-to-Sunday. As in stages 1,2 and 3, horses still feel, with a similar percentage of fatalities and jockeys were still occasionally sleeping the night away after a fall in the race in the local hospitals.
Stage 4 saw the advent of plastic cores to the fences, the distance shortened, the height of fences lowered, the maximum number of runners reduced to 34 and the minimum rating raised for a horse to be eligible to run. There is still the demand for a higher class of horse to take part, yet still they do not achieve the class of horse that previously ran in the race, though it is continually stated the quality of the runners is higher than in the past.
Prior to the 1940’s, every top steeplechaser would be sent to Aintree. Yes, the quality tailed-off there-after, but the genuine National horse remained – Freebooter, Irish Lizard, Tuder Line, Gentle Moya, Sundew, Tiberetta, Wyndburgh, Mr. What, it’s a long list – horses that turned-up year-after-year and returned home no worse for the experience. In 1970, though in that year you could not call Red Rum the class horse he became, Crisp, L’Escargot and Spanish Steps certainly were of the highest rank, with the three of them joining Red Rum in breaking the existing race record time. Crisp never graced the race again, though the other three became standing dishes in the race. The Gold Cup winners Alverton and Davy Lad also ran in subsequent years, with good-luck, sadly, deserting both horses. Garrison Savannah nearly won the race and The Thinker also went close to glory.
Nowadays the race neither attracts Gold Cup winners nor what might be termed Grand National specialists. Team Spirit, for instance, won the race on his fifth attempt. The race also no longer attracts horses from countries outside of Britain and Ireland, which suggests the race no longer sparks the imagination of foreign trainers, owners or jockeys. No more the days of Ben Nevis and Jay Trump, which can only be detrimental to the history and tradition of the race.
The Grand National is no longer available to everyone. The farmer-owned, permit-trained, as with Grittar, is a romance long gone. The journeyman jockey, as with Nigel Hawke and Liam Treadwell, winning the race and elevating themselves into the public consciousness, is no more. And the gallant near-miss is relegated to the past. Remember Just So, owned and trained by Somerset farmer, Henry Cole, a horse as slow as a chaser could get, a steadfast and reliable jumper whose chance was always increased twenty-fold if the race was a marathon run on heavy ground. I will never forget Just So as I backed him at long-odds only to see him denied by Richard Dunwoody on Minniihoma. There are no Just So’s anymore. No Friendly Henry’s who had never won a race yet finished sixth in a Grand National and no doubt (crossed fingers) lived a better, longer life because of it. And though one would never want to see it, there will doubtless never be another Foinavon, or a mad, bad and sad race, as when Red Marauder and Smartie were the only two horses to overcome ground that resembled ‘the battle of the Somme’, as Alastair Down described that most memorable of Grand Nationals. Should never have been run, Alastair? No, the race was memorable and added greatly to the history and intrigue of a sporting institution and, more importantly, no horse suffered for all the calamity that ensued.
The race is not safer for any ‘improvement’ implemented since 1960. I wish it were, as I am cut deep to the heart when a horse loses its life in pursuit of glory for its owner, trainer, jockey, punter or the enthusiast like myself. No tinkering will make a horse race safe. Nor will any amount of safety equipment make a jockey safe from injury or death, as we have seen quite recently at a point-to-point in Kent. In wanting the race to be safe for human and horse, we are praying for a miracle. In 1929, 66 went to post – the year the ditch was filled-in at the Canal Turn, would you believe – with 10 completing and, I believe, no fatalities. The previous year, 42 went to post and only 2 completed.
What Miss Varma and her advisors fail to comprehend is that speed kills – it is why firm ground is now no longer permitted on British racecourses, why jump racing at all-weather tracks was abandoned – and in reducing distance and height, the Grand National is now as much a speed test as a stamina test. Speed Kills! You used to see such warnings on British roads. Perhaps a speed kills sign should be erected at the start of the race. Or perhaps outside the office of the clerk of the course. Nowadays I pray for heavy rain at Aintree on Grand National day as I know this will slow the race and lessen the possibility of tragedy.
The decisions being made on the part of the Grand National are made to protect the cash-cow that the great race has become, not to protect the race itself. Listening, and acting accordingly, to the baying, rabid few, is not the same as defending and preserving the golden jewel. Not one of us can defend the tragedy of a horse losing its life while in pursuit of our glory. What can be done, though, is to ensure every racehorse is given wonderful care and attention, whether in training or retired, with no thoroughbred allowed to fall into neglect, as happened with Hello Dandy, and allowed to life lives to the fullest. It is why I have long advocated that the Grand National should be used to raise funds for equine charities.
Where next will the axe fall if, God forbid! another tragedy occurs at Aintree in April? Reduce the field to 30, remove the Canal Turn and put in a smooth bend to Valentines? Lower the Chair? Reduce the distance once more? Suleka Varma has made a rod for her own back. I suspect, in a decade, the Grand National will become a twenty-runner race, run over 3-miles. The line of travel suggests my negativity might well prove horribly correct.

​When it comes to ‘penning these blogs’, my method of procedure is to only write when I am either roused to do so or when I am clear in my head as to my opinion. Occasionally, though, even when I know I should be getting on with the short novel I am near to finishing or if not that, the memoir that is also coming to the boil nicely, I feel an urge to write about horse racing. I simply wake in the early morning, 4 am if you have a need to know, and something deep inside demands I write about the sport as it will prove beneficial to my mental health, if only for a day. The blank page, though, is not always inspiring; does not always fire-up the old grey matter.
I rolled my eyes yesterday morning when reading in the Racing Post that the European Pattern Committee had refused applications from York and Ascot to upgrade both the City of York Stakes and the Long Distance Cup to Group 1 status. It is generally accepted that there are too many Group 1’s throughout Europe for the number of horses that are genuinely Group 1 class. Yes, there are no 7-furlong Group 1 races in Britain and Ireland but that is a poor argument in the present climate for the City of York to be upgraded from Group 2. What is the problem with France owning all the 7-furlong Group 1’s? If the City of York were upgraded it would no doubt risk the competitiveness of the established Group 1 7-furlong contests within the Pattern.
I thought the argument for the Long Distance Cup at Ascot was slightly stronger but have no complaints about it remaining a Group 2.
The problem with the European Pattern Committee is that exists not to promote great racing but to support the breeding industry by making it too easy for owners to make silk purses out of sow’s ears. I contend that it makes the breed weaker by having too many Group 1 races and would make it stronger if Group 1’s were not to be ‘open competitions’, even if I would not include classic races in my argument. To race at the highest level, I believe, horses should have to qualify with big performances in lesser Group races. Group 1’s should not be the dish of the day but the one of the dishes of the season, with many of the present Group 1’s downgraded to Group 2 to act as qualification races for the truly major races. This policy would also, I believe, persuade owners to keep horses in training for longer than is presently the case and this in turn will provide evidence of both a stallion’s soundness in wind and limb and his courage as a racehorse.
I will provide two examples of my thinking, one on the flat, one over jumps, a code of the sport that is also flattered by having too many Grade 1’s. The Coronation Cup at the Derby meeting is a Group 1 only in name as it is increasingly rare for it to be stuffed with Grade 1 winners and does not compare favourably with Group 1’s later in the season. At the Dublin Racing Festival recently there were no fewer than 8 Grade 1 races, yet how many were in any shape or form either competitive or classy affairs. The top horses will always scare away the best of opposition, with the problem made starkly illuminated by one trainer dominating in each and every one of the Grade 1’s, but is a 2-horse affair truly worthy of being designated a Grade 1 race?
Never has the phrase ‘Less is More’ provided an appropriate and inarguable solution to a problem, even if the authorities turn their backs to both the problem and its staring-you-in-the-face solution!
If my proposal were to be accepted – it will not, of course, as it would not even be debated for fear of the applecart being not only turned-over but tossed high in the air – and if over a half of the present Group 1’s were to be downgraded to Group 2 status, these races would overnight become fiercely competitive if results in these races determined which horses would qualify for the prestigious Group 1’s and the glittering prize of the big bucks earned in the stallion sheds.
Instead of Group 2’s being upgraded or new Group races established, there needs to be a slaughter of the European Pattern.

​We live in a world that is becoming increasingly artificial and many leagues separated from the lives of our childhood, if you are my age, and an unfathomable distance from the days of ‘living off the bounty of the earth and seas’. All was not in the pink back then, of course, and some aspects of life are infinitely better in the present age. But that does not predispose as a species we would benefit mentally, spiritually or physically from wholly breaking the chains of the past. 
Horse racing is not immune from the central control of governments or their influencers. Yet horse racing is becoming a flagbearer for the days of yore. Racecourses are a lung in many urban landscapes, a green oasis of fresh air and open space in the towns and cities that were once open fields and woodland.
Horse racing brings the countryside to the urban sprawl. Watch YouTube videos of racing in the nineteen-fifties, sixties and seventies and you will not see racecourses encroached upon by modern housing developments. Newbury, for instance, is unrecognisable today when compared to the day when Mill House and Arkle first clashed in the Hennessey Gold Cup. Newbury has become parkland to an estate to domestic living quarters, the wonderful racecourse, first considered by legendary local trainer John Porter, might, I fear, be close to being listed by planning officers as ‘infill’. British racecourses should seek listed status. Recall the plight of Aintree in the Red Rum era of the sport!
Horse racing is a directly viewable connection between horse and man, perhaps the most historical union between animal and human. Horses are no longer ‘stock’ or ‘beasts of burden’ but a cherished companion, with jockeys now freed from the yoke of their former colleagues separation from emotion for their steads and able to express their affection and downright love for the horses that are the pivot of their lives. If horse racing is not in reality a sport with a heart, we fight the challenge of being accused of being no better than bear-baiting and cock-fighting.
Horse racing has a unique place in British society as its inception, history and evolution stem from monarchy, with Queen Anne still annually commemorated at Royal Ascot. Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers have involved themselves in the sport. Yet, at its core, it remains a working man’s sport, even for those of wealth and status who wish to be employed within the sport in one capacity or another. To work with horses is to be a class of people that work hard and long. Jockeys, trainers, stable staff, are all working-class no matter their family history. Horse racing embraces all social classes, all religions, all faiths, all nationalities. The horse allows no privilege just because those who come into contact with them are of royal, noble or wealthy descent. Horse racing connects all people from royal palaces to the estates that now encircle our racecourses.
Horse racing is perhaps the only sport that must deal with true tragedies on a regular basis. We wish it were different, yet it is the unwritten contract that we must abide by. Death sits at our shoulder, be it equine of human. In that, we are link to a past when life really was a day-to-day survival.
Gambling is not solely a racing matter. Horse racing is not solely an activity for the gambler. Horse Racing Matters for so many reasons beyond the bet offered and taken.

The ‘social licence’ has become a phrase to beat the sport with. It should not, though, refer to the misinformation of those who wish ill of the sport but to the number of people who attend race-meetings, view the sport on television and who spend their disposable income on owning racehorses or who bet on horse-racing. If the ‘social licence’ becomes a poll for objectors then in time all sport may become the target of people who simply oppose sport for no other reasons than they do not understand it or dislike the noise generated by those who attend sport.
An inner ‘social licence’ should exist, though, with everyone employed in the sport covered by this obscure and unwritten licence. Jockeys, for instance, should be given opportunities beyond the present system to prove their worth, with many more races restricted to jockeys in the lower half of the jockeys table. Trainers, too, should be allowed a fairer hand, with races throughout the season restricted to trainers with less, for example, fifteen horses in their care, twenty-five and forty horses registered in their name. The ’social licence’ should be in place to protect those who strive and struggle to make a living out of this sport, those hard-working and dedicated people who are the foundation stones of the sport. In this, the British Horseracing Authority is negligent.
Of course, the gold standard ‘social licence’ is the care of racehorses both in training and in retirement. In the latter the sport has until recently also been negligent, though thankfully we are now as a sport fulfilling that particular obligation. More must be achieved, though. We must see our sport through the eyes of the horses who we depend upon.

​Look, when I give a race a lot of thought, I am as poor a tipster as you’ll find in any betting shop or on-line forum. When I go big, metaphorically, you must understand I lack the courage to actually stake real money on my ‘judgement’, it is the result of an instinctual thought. When A Plus Tard won the Betfair a few seasons ago, as he jumped the last the phrase ‘this will win the Gold Cup’ sprung front and central to my thoughts. And so it came to pass.
Now, here it is, when Shishkin won at Aintree last season, reining in Ahoy Senor, who I was shouting to get home in front, the race ended with a similar phrase flashing across my mind. ‘This could win the Gold Cup’, to be precise. Galopin Des Champs winning at Leopardstown with total ease has, I admit, muddied the waters as I thought him as impressive a big race winner as we have seen for many a long day.
All the while when Nicky Henderson was campaigning Shishkin over 2-miles, my instincts were to up him in trip as I believed I was looking at a stayer, not a potential 2-mile champion chaser. At Newbury in the Denman Chase, Shishkin won by out-staying his rivals. The further he went, the further he was going to win by. I was equally impressed by the faith both Nico de Boinville and Nicky Henderson expressed in Shishkin’s ability to stay the Gold Cup distance. Of course, we will get the same nonsense all trainers and jockey spew if their horse comes a close second in a race, that their horse didn’t quite stay the distance, when the rest of the field have trailed in twenty-lengths or more in arrears. As David Elsworth replied to journalists suggesting Barnbrook Again didn’t stay 3-milies after finishing second in the King George. ‘He stayed better than those he beat’. Galopin Des Champs may prove at Cheltenham he is a stronger stayer than Shishkin but defeat will not automatically prove that Shishkin is not a genuine Gold Cup horse. Some days one horse will prove stronger than another. That does not equate to on another occasion the result will not be reversed.
What I do find strange, and, yes the case of One Man shoots holes in my opinion – a horse who won a Hennessey Gold Cup, admittedly off a low handicap mark, as a young horse and then went on several years later to win the Champion 2-mile chase, after somehow having his undoubted stamina replaced by raw speed – is how Protekterat can finish a close and staying on third two-season ago in a Gold Cup and yet now the experts are thinking him a Ryanair horse. Yes, he was disappointing in the Betfair Chase this season, though as horses get older, they often need more work to get them truly fit than they did when younger, yet in the handicap at Cheltenham and the Lingfield race, and again in the Denman, he was to be seen running-on to good effect. Rather like Frodon, if he learned to preserve his energy in the early stages of a race and not pull at the reins, he might prove more effective in the business part of the race, a problem which would still be a problem if they dropped him in distance. Over-enthusiasm in a horse is every bit as much a problem-to-be-solved as the horse reluctant to give his all.
Another aspect of trainer/jockey logic that baffles me was displayed by Alan King after the splendid sight of Edwardstown jumping his rivals into submission in the Game Spirit. Allowing his horse to bowl along in front obviously pleased the horse, with jockey and horse in almost total harmony for the majority of the race. So why suggest they might not employ the same tactics at Cheltenham in the 2-mile Champion Chase? Doing what they did at Newbury would be the best tactic to find a chink in El Fabiolo’s jumping, I suggest. And Jonbon, of that matter. Edwardstown is the best jumper of the three most likely candidates for the race, so why would you not make use of that superpower?
As when it takes an age to get a horse loaded into the stalls, the length of time it takes to re-shoe a horse at the start of a jumps race, must impact negatively on all the other runners, something demonstrated quite clearly by Harry Cobden’s mount getting very stirred-up at the start of the Betfair Hurdle and then running deplorably. I do wonder how the form of races impacted by delays works out later on in the season? Perhaps there should be a debate around a maximum time delay before the misbehaving horse is automatically withdrawn by the starter. 

​When I pen whatever you would like to call this stroll through my thoughts and concerns, I try to start with a title that encompasses the topic or topics I intend to cover. More often than not I go off-piste and have to amend or completely change the title, even when I believe it to be either snappy or intriguing. I am not, you must understand, a professional writer and neither do I have an editor sitting at my shoulder and have no training outside of ‘life’s university’ to guide my illiterate way. Today I will endeavour to stay within the topics of the Grand National, the racing calendar and the Mares Hurdle.
The initial entries for Punchestown’s Grand National trial were published in the Racing Post either yesterday or the day before. (Poor memory, can’t be assed to bring-up yesterday’s paper to clarify the facts). I suspect, though it was not my initial thought, it is a trial specifically for the Irish National at Fairyhouse, though the race title does not make this clear, though neither does Haydock’s Grand National trial, also due to be run in the next few weeks. What appalled me about the entries for both races, indeed all races over a distance of ground that in the past would make the race appropriate as a pointer towards Aintree, is how few of those entered have a sporting chance of fulfilling the criteria to be accepted to run in the big race. What is the point of a Grand National trial if it useless as a form-guide for the race it is a trial for? Perhaps the condition of the race that a horse must have run in a 3-mile chase should be amended to a chase over a distance of 3m 4-furlongs or more? Though ‘win and your in’ races through the season would make far more sense.
The B.H.A., and I dare say Horse Racing Ireland, publish their race calendars well in advance of the seasons covered. This was all very well in times of plenty but is it the right approach when the well is running dry? 
In Britain, it seems, it is becoming extremely difficult to find sponsors away from either the bookmaking industry or companies associated with people heavily invested in the sport as owners, though Ireland have no trouble finding sponsors either local or global.
With the pool of horses available slipping year on year, especially at the upper levels, it would make sense for Britain and Ireland to sit down and negotiate their race programmes so they gel with each other to attract the best horses available and the largest number of runners. This would inevitably mean both countries sacrificing or down-grading races of long-standing and eliminating many of the established Grade 1’s in both countries. This would be a ‘for now’ policy and could be changed if and when the pool of top-class horses returns to levels of the distant days when competitiveness was not a subject for debate.
I believe the seeds of this problem were sown when the Cheltenham Festival evolved from 3-days to 4. I approved of the change at the time and would have embraced a 5-day festival if it had come to pass. Not now, though. Over the last couple of years, the dynamic has become one of survival, not growth. Sadly, I believe it is time for the festival to revert to 3-days, with the Ryanair, the 2m- 5 novice hurdle and the Turners in particular directed to other meetings or a specific race-day away from the Festival. The 2-mile Champion Chase, the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup in particular should be ring-fenced, protected against the threat of small fields and long-odds on favourites. If the season was not so cluttered, races culled from the Festival-proper could be run at a ‘satellite’ Festival, though seeded throughout the season might prove more beneficial. The Ryanair at the upcoming Newbury meeting, for instance, and if the sport returns to somewhere close to its ‘glory days’ it could return to March and the Festival.
The B.H.A. and its Irish counterpart should be planning for now, not doing the same over and over again in hope that it’ll all come right on some night long in the future. Premierisation is more, when the current situation seems to demand less.
And that brings me to the mares races at the Festival. To my mind, no matter what ratings tell us, and yes Honeysuckle brought the house down at last year’s Festival, though a great part of that was in light of the tragedy that had befallen the de Bromhead family, the Mares Hurdle is a problem. It is not titled the Mares Champion Hurdle, by the way, even if it is the major races for mares in both Britain and Ireland. I believe the race should be titled the Mares Champion Hurdle, boosted in prize-money and should replace the International/Bula hurdle on Cheltenham’s trials day. This move would be beneficial to both the Champion Hurdle and whatever the race over 2-miles is called at the Dublin Racing Festival as it might galvanise British trainers to support the race and the meeting. If trials day became a 2-day fixture, the other two races for mares, the novice hurdle and the chase could be accommodated, along with the other races dropped from a 3-day Cheltenham Festival.
Given adversity trainers usually pull-through. Yes, Nicky Henderson would pull his hair out if he was arm-twisted into having to run his latest Champion Hurdle candidate in the Kingwell at Wincanton but as with all us, he would just have to suck it up or travel to the kingdom of Willie Mullins. 

​Forgive me. Today’s thoughts mirror 100% my thoughts in the previous blog I published. I constantly worrying that our glorious sport is at a tipping point; its survival dependent on correct if radical decisions that must be taken by the sport’s governing authorities in both Ireland and Britain. My thoughts yesterday were honest and truthful to my opinion, if not particularly well constructed. What I am now certain about is that the problem to be overcome is not wholly the domination of Closutton but the actual overall ailing health of the sport.
Willie Mullins won the first three races at Leopardstown yesterday, all Grade 1’s, with horses, given that stable jockey Paul Townend was not the winning jockey on any one of the three, that were, to the benefit of Danny Mullins, the second or third strings. All of the Closutton horses are trying, of course and not knowing which of his three, four or five-runners, is the best is a conundrum for punters, as it must be for Paul Townend. And though his domination (I suspect he won the Bumper as well) yesterday and virtually every day, is proof of his status as one of the greatest racehorse trainers of all-time, the rise and rise of Willie Mullins is perhaps detrimental to the sport as a whole.
Although there is some merit in limiting a trainer to a maximum of four or five runners per race, and if this was brought-in I would like it to include every race in the racing calendar, I don’t believe it is the solution that would best serve the sport.
Another of racing’s long-term problems, affecting both Irish and British trainers, is the retaining and recruitment of staff. It is a problem that I doubt affects Willie Mullins or perhaps any of the top stables either side of the Irish Sea. It is, though, a problem that must be addressed for the widespread benefit of every other trainer in both Ireland and Britain.
A cap on the number of horses any one trainer can have at their disposal in any one season would go some way to levelling the playing-field and countering the staff-shortage crisis. I would suggest the cap would be in excess of 100 and below 150 and to be for both codes of the sport. If a trainer with 200-horses registered to him or her were forced to reduce their string-size by fifty, he or she would also be forced to lay-off six, seven or eight members of staff. Because of the acute staff shortage in both countries, these people would immediately be snapped-up by other trainers, thereby going some way to reducing perhaps the sport most pressing issue.
Also, owners of the horses let go by their trainer would then have to find homes for them with trainers a litter lower in the training food-chain, which would go a fair way to levelling-up this particular playing field. Of course, the mega-trainers would keep the best and say goodbye to the lesser fry; occasionally though a gem would slip through the net and someone would find themselves with a Derby, Gold Cup, Cheltenham or Aintree contender that otherwise would not have found its way to them. For the sport, a cap on numbers achieves a win-win scenario and should be trialled for a couple of years to ensure it brings the benefits that theory suggests it should. And a cap should not be seen as punishing the very best but giving a leg-up to the sport at a time when the vast majority of its participants are in dire need of assistance.
Incidentally, who else thought Conflated was going to play a part in the finish of the Irish Gold Cup yesterday? I still think Galopin Des Champs will prove a hard hero to slay come March as he stays so well, which I don’t believe will prove to be Fastorslow’s main weapon (I even suggest they might divert him to the Ryanair) but though she is never the most optimistic of trainers, being more Tim Forster than Paul Nicholls in thought and word, I think Venetia Williams might have greater hope in her heart that a deserved Cheltenham Gold Cup winner might be within her grasp at long last.

​If sport was included in the remit of the Monopolies Commission, horse racing would be in its sights. There was a commotion in the sport recently when Gordon Elliott saddled 13 (14?) runners out of 22 in a single race and the B.H.A. walked on to the dance-floor to suggest it might limit trainers to 4-runners per race. They have since back-tracked on the idea. Yet Gordon Elliott would not attract the attention of the Monopolies Commission, nor would de Bromhead, Henderson or Nicholls.
Over the two-days of the Dublin Racing Festival this weekend, the master of Closutton has entered in the non-handicap races a total of 52-horses. Of course, 52 is not exactly correct as many of horses have two or three entries and will only run the once and I will refrain from naming the races as these days race titles can be longer than the races they represent. But he has 6 out of 9 entries, 8/13, 4/8, 2/5, 5/13, 8/13, 8/14, 4/6, 3 out of 5 and 4 out of 16 entries in the Bumper that brings an end to what looks like on a paper an epic meeting.
He will have the favourite in most of these races, as well, of course, in a couple of the handicaps as he seems to have one or two well-handicapped if they should prove up to the task.
Anyone who has read Henrietta Knight’s book ‘The Jumping Game’, and especially the chapter on Willie Mullins, will realise his training facilities are no better than many of his main rivals in the training ranks, if indeed he has any real rivals. He has a top-class staff and some of the best riding talent in Ireland to aid him and it is not as if he was not successful before the double green team hooked-up with him or even before Rich Richie turned up at the gates with his ambitions, his wealth and charisma. I suspect the two reasons Mullins is the dominant force at present is because a) obviously, he has owners willing to pay top dollar (or Euro) for the best young stock that is on the market, and he most probably either makes the least number of mistakes or the most correct decisions regarding the races his horses should compete in. And it must be remembered he started from scratch. What he has, he has earned through the same blood, sweat and tears every trainer must overcome to become even moderately successful.
His domination can be regarded as either humorous or worrying, though no one disputes he is where is through hard work and not a small stroke of genius. And is it ethical to tether a man at the top of his profession by disallowing him the number of horses he wants to run in one race simply because he is too successful? It certainly would not be sporting to bring into place a rule for Mullins and not apply that rule to his rivals.
My view on this problem, if indeed it is a problem, is this. Decisions should be made by the governing authorities that are to the benefit of the whole sport as the sport is at the present. A rule could be adopted for now that can be changed in the future if the sport would benefit for the change.
I doubt if Willie Mullins employs a single lame duck in his roster of employees. If he has, say, 200-horses in training, he would have at his disposal, perhaps, 50 top-class employees at a time when the shortage of staff is one of the major problems affecting horse racing in both Ireland and Britain. If a cap of 150-horses (or any number from 100-upwards) is imposed, he would have to lay-off a small percentage of his staff, all of whom would very quickly be snapped-up by trainers presently stifled by not having top-class staff in their yards. I believe, at this moment in time, a cap on the number of horses any one trainer can train in any one season would benefit the sport as a whole.
Yes, a cap might be difficult to police as horses get injured or owners transfer horses to other trainers and trainers would always be having young stock come into the yard that might not necessarily run that season. And then there is the potential problem of trainers’ having pre-training yards or secondary stables where injured and resting horses are kept.
A cap might though twist the arm of owners with a large strings to their bow to send, no doubt their lesser horses when it comes to Mullins, to other trainers, giving them a leg-up and allowing many of them to have a little jam on their bread. Of course, trainers could get around the cap by setting-up their sons or daughters as trainers to benefit from the spread of owners and horses, thereby keeping owners in-house, as it were. But as of now, even if a cap could be construed as a restraint of trade, a limitation on the number any one-trainer could have at his/her disposal would benefit the sport to better effect than restricting trainers to 4 or 5-runners per race.
Tough economic times require tough decisions to be made by those in position of power and influence. Long-term, the sport will wither on the vine if only a few people mine all of the riches all-of-the-time.