​There are two categories of great racehorses, I believe: there are what I would term ‘the-fly-by-nights’, the ‘Johnney-on-the-spot’ that for a season, and here I am inclined toward flat horses, that are unbeatable for a short period, from April to October, for instance, and in this category I place Sea The Stars and Dancing Brave, more so the former than the latter, and then retire from the stage before the next generation have a chance to devalue their reputation. The other category, and here we can include National Hunt horses, have within its folders the handicap winners, courageous horses who turn-up for all the top races they are eligible for and either win or do their darndest to win. Desert Orchid is in this category, Persian Punch, too, and Sea Pigeon; horses of longevity, class and, perhaps more importantly, the charisma to charm, who earn life-long respect. Brown Jack is in this category, the category of horse that do more for the popularity and image of the sport than all of the classic winners and blue-bloods since the days of Queen Anne.
To this day there is a 2-mile handicap named in his honour at Ascot. If I had my way the Brown Jack would be run on King George & Queen Elizabeth day as the main supporting race, a handicap over 2-mile 6, or 2-mile 4, the distances of his 6 wins at the Royal meeting.
Amazingly for a horse who captured the hearts of a racing nation, or perhaps as the romantic would expect, he began his life as a racehorse in humbler surroundings than the royal racecourse. For such a stout-hearted fellow, no doubt for perfectly sound reasons, his first racecourse experience was at Navan over 6-furlongs. He ran twice in Ireland before coming to our shores to be trained first by Aubrey Hastings at Wroughton and then by his successor Ivor Anthony.
His first start for his new connections was in, of all races, a 1-mile 4-furlong hurdle at Bournemouth, finishing third and picking up the princely sum of £5. He ran five times after his introduction, winning hurdle races over the same distance at Wolverhampton, Wincanton, Cardiff, Nottingham and Liverpool. The following season, after winning at Leicester and finishing second at Lingfield, Brown Jack won the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham and its first prize of £680. He never ran over jumps again. They thought him too good!
After Cheltenham, Brown Jack won at Windsor, Kempton, Ascot and Sandown, the Ascot race being his first at the Royal meeting, the Ascot Stakes, and the race at Sandown the Hwfa Williams Memorial.
What Brown Jack did not like was firm ground and most of unplaced efforts can be attributed either to the underfoot conditions or inadequacy of race distance. There was no artificial watering in those days, remember and not too many alternative races. Whereas modern trainers are spoiled for choice. But give him ground with ease in it and a distance of ground and he would invariably bounce back to form. In 1929, after three unplaced efforts, over what was to prove inadequate distances, he won the Salisbury Cup, at 20/1 would you believe! He ran twice at the Royal meeting that year, finishing second in the Ascot Stakes before winning the marathon Queen Alexandra for the first time. He was 2nd in the Goodwood Cup, third in the Cesarewitch and won at Nottingham under the steadying burden of 9st 5Ibs.
In 1930, when he was becoming box office, he won Queen Alexandra again, the Goodwood Cup, the former being worth considerably more than the latter, was third in the Ebor and won the Doncaster Cup
1931 saw him win the Chester Cup with 9-st 6Ibs on his back, the Queen Alexandra again and the Ebor, as well as being runner-up in both the Goodwood and Doncaster Cups.
1932 was a dry summer and the great horse was five-times unplaced, albeit with thumping big weights (9st 11 & 13Ibs and 10-st). But he won the Queen Alexandra for a third time and the Prince Edward Handicap at Manchester.
The summer of 1933 had rain in it, allowing him to add yet another Queen Alexandra to his tally and the Roseberry Memorial at Epsom. He was again runner-up in the Doncaster Cup.
In 1934, his final year in training, he ran four-times, unplaced over a mile at Lingfield and 1-mile 4 at Derby, third in the Chester Cup under 9-st 6, before bringing the house down in winning his fifth straight Queen Alexandra at Royal Ascot.
If you were not familiar with the name Brown Jack and wondered why Ascot still run a race in his honour, I hope this sortie through his racing record has given you an insight into why he was in his age the most popular horse in training and why I believe Ascot should elevate his race to its July meeting. It is why on June 5th, 1931, to his honour his achievements, at the Savoy, a distinguished list of guests assembled for a Brown Jack inspired menu. He also had both a train named in his honour and a public house!

​Whereas I might suggest we should be looking forward to enjoying the 2020 Grand National this coming Saturday, I doubt if very many of us will reflect come the end of the year on the Lincoln Handicap that never was.
Once upon a time, even before the advent of winter all-weather flat racing, perhaps back to the 1950’s, the Lincoln was as anticipated as the Guineas. Go further back in time and you might find genuine classic horses of the previous generation lining up in the race. It is, sadly, but a shadow of its former glory, its fortune not improved, surprisingly, when it was forced to move from its titular home at the Carholme, Lincoln racecourse, to Doncaster, home of a classic. The Lincoln these days is little but a moderate-to-middling handicap, a race run on the Saturday, its relevance lost to memory come the end of the following week. Once it performed as one half of the most cherished double-act the sport had to offer, the Spring Double, perhaps the lesser half, the Ernie Wise to the Grand National’s Eric Morecambe, but a star event nonetheless.
Because of its revered place in racing’s history, because the running of the Lincoln signals the start of the turf flat season in this country, it should be revived, reprieved from the downward spiral that might one day result in its name being replaced by a sponsor’s name, with only ‘registered as the Lincoln Handicap’ to remind the punter of the race it once was.
I doubt if anyone who wanders onto these pages bothers to go through the archive of the website but, dear reader, if you did me the honour of spending time sifting through my past diatribes and ‘bits and pieces’, you will discover I have visited this topic before, and doubtless will do again, as it is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, wanting to breathe life into the once great Lincoln. You may not agree with my thoughts; you may think me off-my-trolley with my flagrant disregard for health and safety, for suggesting the Lincoln’s future is to be found in its past. If you object, tell me. At least start a debate.
My suggestion for reviving the fortune of the Lincoln Handicap is to restore it to what it used to be – a spectacular cavalry charge. The reason the appeal and expectation of the Grand National endures, while the Lincoln has faded from the sporting conscience, is that in essence, even with the course sanitised and rather air-brushed, it is still quite clearly the race it has always been. Whereas the Lincoln is nothing like the race it used to be. It is just another 1-mile handicap, the same as any other.
This is what needs to change. The Lincoln, in this modern age, must be unique. It should entice a little fear in the jockeys who ride in it; there should be an element of lottery about it. The novelty of the race, that there is nothing like it around the world, should make it a prize every owner aspires to win. What I propose, and will continue to propose, is that the Lincoln should revert to being a forty-runner race, started from a barrier, not stalls.
There is jeopardy in starting a race from a barrier, of course. It is alien to both horse and rider and requires a technique that will send jockeys scurrying to study old Pathe newsreels to see how Sir Gordon Richards and his contemporaries achieved flying starts. True, there might be numerous false starts – if you read the biographies of jockeys who rode in the twenties and thirties especially, it was not uncommon for it to take ten to fifteen minutes to get a race off and that is where the jeopardy lies. Once horses are loaded into stalls, with few exceptions, the jeopardy is eliminated, which is as it should be for 99.9% plus of races. The Lincoln, I suggest, if only to give the modern racegoer, and jockey, an insight into the history of the sport, should operate to a different perspective.
Although I have a great liking for Doncaster and, as with Newbury, believe it should be better utilized, given a larger share of top-line races, the flat season has not traditionally started there and as it would perhaps not be able to cope with a forty-runner field, I would also propose the Lincoln should be run at Newmarket, as with its big open spaces and being the headquarters of the sport it is the perfect racecourse to kick-off the flat season.
I have also suggested that ‘Lincoln Day’, with the Lincoln at its heart, should be a day of handicaps, with the six or seven races forming a special bet, much like the I.T.V.7 or the old Tote Roll-Up, with ‘Lincoln Day’ marketed similarly as the Grand National and somehow reviving interest with punters in the ‘Spring Double’.
As with the Grand National, a forty-runner Lincoln will have unlucky losers, horses losing their chance at the start, much in the same way punters lose their money at the first fence in the Grand National, and that, in time, is what will grow the appeal of a back-to-the-future Lincoln Handicap.
Much to love, a little to fear.
 

​We should, of course, if it were not for this dreadful Covid-19 virus and the over-the-top restrictions on civil liberty, be looking forward to the 2020 running of the Aintree Grand National, which was slated to take place next weekend. But by deed of the heavy-hand of the B.H.A., whereas the administrators of other top-line sports have decided to postpone, the race is cancelled, abandoned without remorse as if it were as of as little consequence as a 2-year-old seller at Redcar. But the lack of foresight by racing’s overlords, the neglect of duty to the long-term welfare of the sport, is another issue altogether.
In reconditioning the Grand National to better suit the ignorant minority, the race has lost a bucket-load of the romance that once upon time walked hand-in-hand with its history. In 1938, for instance, a horse won the race that upon retirement went on to sire 8 stakes winners, plus another that won the American Grand National. It would take a stretch of imagination to suggest any one of us will see the likes of Battleship again.
Battleship was by Man o’ War, America’s greatest ever racehorse and won 10 out of his 22 starts on the flat. As a 4-year-old he was bought by Marion DuPont Scott, heiress to the DuPont chemical empire. Marion was wife, perhaps only out of convenience, though that is only conjecture, of the movie star Randolph Scott. Marion was a keen jumps enthusiast all her life, a rare breed in America, even then, and something in the diminutive entire suggested to her that he would make a steeplechaser.
She was correct as Battleship went on to win all the top steeplechases in his homeland, including the American Grand National. Marion DuPont, though, had always had a fascination with the Aintree Grand National, finishing 15th in 1933 with Trouble Maker, the race won by the American owner Ambrose Clark with Kellsboro Jack.
In July 1936 she had Battleship cross the Atlantic to England. In his first season here, he won 3 of his 13 starts, winning at Sandown, Newbury and Leicester. It was a brave and sporting venture as the horse was in his prime, with the top American steeplechases easily within his grasp. But when Aintree enters the heart and imagination of a true steeplechasing enthusiast, especially when money is no object, the heart will always overrule the head. They didn’t make the 1937 Grand National, though,won by Royal Mail, as neither the trainer nor the jockey, father and son, Reg and Bruce Hobbs, thought him ready for such a test. In fact Reg Hobbs never thought the little horse up to jumping round Aintree and if the horse had not travelled so far and the owner invested so much time, money and effort into the project, it is doubtful if he were ever to be entered in the race, let alone take his chance. But that is where romance overrules sense.
The little horse couldn’t see over most of the fences and went down on his nose so often during the race and that he returned with so much blood on his face it was suspected he had broken a blood vessel and at the Canal Fence he skewed sideways, saving ground, of course, to such a degree that he took his young jockey by surprise and if was not for the tenacity and generosity of spirit displayed by Fred Rimell who riding upsides Hobbs stretched out a hand and hoisted the young man back into the saddle. But what Battleship lacked in size he made up for in courage, outbattling Royal Danieli in a photo-finish in what until then was one of the fastest times on record, 9-minutes and 27-seconds. He was 11-years-old and carried 11st-6Ibs.
He was the first blinkered horse to win the race. He was the smallest horse to win the race at 15-hands, 1 (or 2 depending on which account you read) and Bruce Hobbs was, and remains, the youngest jockey to win the great race. He returned to New York a sporting hero, never to race again.
As a stallion he sired 58 foals, so to begat 8 individual stakes winners, plus two good steeplechasers in War Battle and Shipboard, plus an American Grand National winner, Sea Legs, makes him one-of-a-kind in steeplechasing history. He lived to the grand age of 31 and is buried alongside Trouble Maker at the DuPont’s old farm and stables at Montpelier. To ensure his legend lives long into the future, Marion DuPont demanded that the inscription on his grave-marker was gouged deep into the stone. He deserved no less. 

​At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, the Racing Post is filling the Covid-19 void with race-cards from such exotic American racecourses as Will Rogers Down, Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream. What has caught my eye is that the main fare at these race-tracks are claiming races of different hues, rarely a race over further than a mile and no apprentice races, in fact no riders with a claim at all. By chance, and purely coincidental, I hope, is that for the past few weeks (I am these days a slow reader) my bedtime reading has been Laura Hillenbrand’s book ‘Seabiscuit’ (Three Men and a Racehorse). I remain none the wiser about American racing.
In Laura Hillenbrand’s book there is no reference to medication apart from the home-brewed remedies of Seabiscuit’s trainer Tom Smith. I suspect it was ever the case in American racing that medication, or dope as we might call it, was typically used from the get-go, especially if you read George Lambton’s autobiography ‘Men and Horses I Have Known’ in which he goes into great detail how he exposed the practices (there were not actually illegal at the time) of American trainers who came over here to train in the early part of last century. Seabiscuit, we must assume, ran clean. It is the aspect of American racing that I deplore, just ahead of the unremitting surfaces they race on, the dirt being unkinder to the welfare of the horse than either what is referred to as ‘all-weather’ or grass.
In fact, racing in America is as different to what is on offer in Europe as steeplechasing is to three-day-events. They use different surfaces, they use Lasix and other race-day medications, they value speed over stamina, the stopwatch over the experience of the eye. So, it is well nigh impossible have an authoritative opinion as to whether Man o’War, for instance was, as the Americans would demand, the best flat racehorse in history. Never as any of the truly great American horses ventured across to Europe to take on the best Ireland, France or Great Britain has to offer, though it has to admitted that when the best of the European horses have tried their luck at the Breeders Cup they have not shown up too well.
To return to Seabiscuit: he ran, what for this day and age seems a ridiculous amount of times, 89 and won 33 races. He lumped huge weights in the top handicaps on the Western side of America – it was very much an East-West divide back in those days, with the East thinking itself superior – though before Tom Smith claimed him out of a claiming race his record was a very moderate 4 from 40. He was the Cinderella horse, the underdog made good.
At the time War Admiral, the Triple Crown winner, was the best horse racing in America and the more Seabiscuit won the more race-fans clamoured for the two to meet. They were matched-up several times only for either Seabiscuit to be scratched due to the wet conditions he hated or War Admiral’s owner deciding upon an easier option. Eventually, at Pimlico, in a match race with a hundred-thousand-dollar first prize, they met, drawing 40,000 to the racetrack, with 4-million listening to their radios. War Admiral was 4/1 on, yet superior tactics won the day for Seabiscuit, by 4-lengths.
Soon after the match-race, Seabiscuit suffered a ruptured suspensory ligament, during which time, as Tom Smith nursed him back to soundness, he covered 7 of his owner’s mares. In 1940, after two preparatory races, Seabiscuit, after twice finishing runner-up, always giving away prodigious amounts of weight and enduring foul-play by his opponent’s jockeys (no patrol camera in those days), he finally won the Santa Anita Handicap, the major race in the West. I wonder if it still exists and carries the same cache? He retired to stud straight afterwards, though he failed to sire a colt or filly anywhere close to his brilliance.
He inspired 5 documentaries, 3 feature films, including one with Shirley Temple, 3 books, a postage stamp and 6 statues. He was, and remains, the most iconic name in American racing history. But how does he compare to other American horses or indeed horses trained this side of the water?
Blood Horse magazine conducted a poll in which he featured only in 13th position, a place ahead of Cigar. Man O’War came top, followed by Secretariat and Kelso. Yet he was also rated one of the great athletes of his era and certainly the biggest box-office draw. 78,000 watched his final race. His greatness is based not on the races he won but the weight he gave away in narrow defeats, as well as his victories, of course, much the same as it is with Arkle in this country. Something Secretariat and other horses above him in the Blood Horse poll did not have to endure.
Just another example of why horses who win races their superiority ensures they ought to win – I give again the example of Sea The Stars who only won a race in which he either received weight or ran on equal weights, never giving away weight – should not be deemed in the truly great category of the thoroughbred as it skews the pantheon of racing history. Also, the likes of Seabiscuit raced for many seasons, never shirking the issue and were not retired fit and sound to the breeding sheds after one season of serious racing. But today is a different world to yesterday, isn’t it?

​As Ireland presently demonstrates, when there is a will there is usually a way. Horse Racing Ireland is keeping the show on the road and thank God (even if I am atheist) for them. From Monday to Saturday racing is taking place in the Republic, something that has not happened at any time during my long-lived life. Horse Racing Ireland are moving heaven and Earth to help the industry that contributes so much to the Irish economy. The B.H.A. in contrast capitulated, threw-up its hands in horror at the complexity of the situation and basically sucked-up to the British government.
And I don’t buy into the argument put forward by the journalists at the Racing Post who to a man believe or write that it would be an embarrassment to the sport if a jockey was injured during a race and needed to be taken as an emergency to a local hospital, depriving someone suffering from the Covid 19 flu outbreak the services of a nurse, doctor, ambulance driver, paramedic or Air Ambulance.
Would a trainer be too embarrassed to call for emergency medical help if one of his or her staff was badly injured on the gallops or a visiting jockey suffered a bad fall while schooling or riding away a young horse? Because I really do not see the difference. 
Yes, we live in troubled times and though my thoughts on the seriousness of the situation is guided by knowing no one who has contracted the virus, by people who are numbered as having contracted the virus but who by any medical diagnosis not precipitated by the protocol of the official narrative would be diagnosed with a throat infection or a cold and by the math which suggest that out of a population of 67-million only just over 6,600 are thought to have been made ill, in some way or other, by the virus, the majority of which would have suffered only mild to moderate flu symptoms, and we, as a sport, should not make waves that in the future will count against us with the political establishment. I maintain, though, there could so easily have been a compromise.
If not a meeting a day, as in Ireland, then perhaps four meetings a week, two jumps, two flat, just to keep the sport ticking along, to offer some certainty or clarity to those people whose livelihoods depend on race-meetings taking place. Not the major meetings like Aintree, but the everyday fare, Chelmsford, Hexham and so on. Jockeys could be zoned so they could only ride at a meeting if they live in a 50-square mile area to the racecourse, with, as in Ireland, no car-sharing and the social distancing protocol as demonstrated at Thurles and Naas.
Where other main-line sports have postponed I am deeply critical of the B.H.A. for cancelling, as they have done with the Grand National, as if it is inconsequential, as if later in the year the sport would have no need of the revenue that accompanies the race.
I am pretty certain that at this very moment discussions are taking place between the B.H.A. and ‘stakeholders’ to find a way of staging the classic races, Royal Ascot and fitting into what will be (hopefully) a packed summer of racing all or as many of the major flat festivals as is feasible – moving heaven and Earth to get them on. Bringing foresight (which the B.H.A. as a collective sadly lacks) and creativity to the problem, something they scandalously failed to do with their decision to just abandon the Grand National.
One further thought: the people who will be most adversely affected by the cessation to racing are those at the lower end of the sport, the journeyman jockeys and the stables with fewer than twenty horses. Instead of expecting government hand-outs to financially sustain the people who are the backbone of the sport, the B.H.A. should be arranging the race programme, once we are back and running, so that at every fixture there is a race restricted to either journeyman jockeys or the small stable. Horse Racing has a duty to help and care-for those who strive so hard for so little reward.
Oh, and the Animal Health Trust has announced it might have to close due to financial difficulties – the B.H.A. and those in the sport who are mega-rich should put their hands in their collective pockets to ensure this vital cog in the health of the horse can continue to help save equine lives. We will become starkly aware of their importance when they are no more.

​The Irish Racing Authority have decided upon a policy, at least for now, of keeping calm and carrying on. In taking this decision, which I have no doubt was not taken without deep thought and long debate, the Irish have displayed foresight, courage and consideration for the many thousands of people employed in the racing industry in their country. The B.H.A., which was perhaps leaned-on more heavily by our government than the Irish government leant upon the Irish Racing Authority, took the line of least resistance and closed the door to the many thousands of people employed in the British racing industry when it might have fought for the sport to continue out of consideration to those whose livelihoods have now been put in jeopardy.
After deliberation, I am of the opinion that a good compromise between closing the door and allowing racing to continue would have been to race selectively, to have one meeting a day maximum, with no racing on a Sunday and prohibiting horses trained outside of a fifty-mile circumference of the racecourse. The same prohibition could be applied to jockeys.
On alternate days there might be jumps and flat racing, with race meetings in the north on one day and the south or Midlands the next, with all racing taking place behind closed doors, of course.
This policy would allow the sport to limp along and give a degree of hope and certainty for owners, trainers and jockeys, as well, of course, of providing an income, if greatly reduced, for the latter. We also would not lose all the major races due to be run over the next month, even if racecourses would be denied the profit hosting such days. And although I accept the Grand National could not be run in such circumstances, with perhaps the same said about the Scottish version, the Lincoln could be run, as well as the Greenham and some of the trials for the Guineas. It is not satisfactory and, as the Irish are not to allow foreign entries for their races, the racing would have to be an all-British affair, and if the Guineas were run at Newmarket it would be a wholly southern-trained affair. But, for one year, it would be better than nothing at all.
It perhaps would be unwise to allow any of the racecourses in and around London to hold meetings due to the capital being a Covid-19 hotspot. And anyway, by tomorrow or the day after London is likely to be in lockdown, as is the case with Rome and other big cities in Europe. But the wide-open spaces of Newmarket must be a perfectly acceptable place to hold a race-meeting in these disturbing times. It is where the war-time classics were run and if Epsom were deemed too close to London, Newmarket could step in again. In fact, if only one racecourse could be used for flat racing Newmarket would be the choice of the majority as only a few horses would need to travel, the same of which could be said for trainers and jockeys.
The B.H.A. seems happier to recompensate jockeys, all of whom, remember, are self-employed, with hand-outs rather than to apply lateral thinking to the problem. For how long the Irish will be allowed to continue to paddle their own canoe is anyone’s guess but at least in the interim they have displayed initiative and foresight. If only the B.H.A. had done likewise. Or even if those whose lives have been made difficult by their decision would rise-up in unison and demand they revisit their hasty  decision to abandon rather than postpone, to pull-up stumps rather than bat for the industry they represent and all those whose livelihoods is dependent upon racing continuing, if only in limited form.

​Look, I’ll come right out with it; I believe there is more to this coronavirus pandemic than meets the eye. I do not deny there is a virus inexorably wending its way around the globe and that people with serious health conditions, as well as the frail elderly, are at imminent risk of death because of it. But what is accompanying the virus around the globe is a collective hysteria that is as disturbing as the long-term consequence of the restrictions on freedom that the world’s governments are placing on its citizens. Behind this pandemic, believe me, is something far more frightening than a health issue than in reality is just, for the fit and healthy, no more than a serious flu contagion, a little worse than any other flu outbreak. And the figures are being manipulated to suit the official narrative. When it is announced that 2,000 people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 it is assumed by the public that at that very moment 2,000 people are ill, perhaps on their death-beds. If the majority of people who contract the virus only suffer mild-to-moderate symptoms perhaps as few as 500 will actually be on the serious-side of ill, added to which the official figure also includes those people who have had the virus and who are now well again.
That said, and someone has to say it, it is what is, even if we might never get to know why it is like it is.
And this might be a good opportunity for the B.H.A. to show some real leadership and put together a racing programme for the day when we are all allowed to get back to our racing lives. If we assume that we might be back racing in May, which I suggest will be too late to stage the Guineas meeting, but not too late, even if dates have to be altered, to do as the organisers of the Kentucky Derby have done and come up with a new date for both the Epsom Derby and Royal Ascot, neither of which, I suggest, can take place on the dates scheduled and without any races to ensure trainers have their horses hard-fit for the important races at both meetings.
I am a diehard jumps man, and I have already urged anyone reading this blog to lobby Aintree, Randox Health, the B.H.A. and may I add the big bookmakers, to ensure the 2020 Grand National is run at some point during the remaining eight-months of the year (I have suggested Aintree’s November meeting) as the sport will be in dire need of a sporting and financial fillip, though I am equally aware how vital it is the breeding industry and to flat trainers that as much of the 2020 flat season takes place as possible, even if some of the big meetings might need to be reduced from 4-days or three-days to one or two-day meetings.
And it is not only humans who are impacted by a cessation in activity. It is too early, too cold in part, with the fields too wet, to en-masse rough-off horses and turn them out into the paddocks for a long rest. Jump trainers can do this more easily than their colleagues on the flat but they need to have an idea when the sport might conceivably be alive again. You cannot keep a very fit racehorse in wraps for long as it will quite quickly go stir-crazy and no doubt hurt itself with an excess of over-exuberance.
I am of the opinion that there should be no two-year-old races before June at the earliest as I believe too many young horses are thwarted in their natural growth and development by being hard-trained and hard-ridden before their bones and muscles are fully mature. Thanks, but no thanks, to Covid-19, this season I may get my way and it would be a display of great foresight if the B.H.A. were to set in motion a veterinary study to discover if my thoughts, and the thoughts more eminent people than me, have substance. The breeding industry, I fear, place monetary gain before the soundness of the breed, as does the racing programme.
This baffling, in some way exciting and intriguing, but in other ways deeply disturbing, staging post in all our lives, is the moment when we need the B.H.A. (and racing’s stakeholders – how I hate the idea of stakeholders, which is just another name for passing the buck) to display proper leadership skills, to be proactive rather reactive (which is its greatest fault in my book) and to show foresight and not to rely on the least line of resistance. There are thousands of people employed in one way or another in this sport, it is the B.H.A.’s duty of care to the sport to ensure the least amount of damage is incurred while we are in the grip of this Covid-19 hysteria. The money lost to the sport by the cancellation of the Grand National must be recouped, not by government hand-outs but by moving heaven and Earth to ensure 2020’s big races and big meetings are not sacrificed. The 2020 Grand National must be run, as must the Epsom Derby and, hopefully, if possible, all of the races at Royal Ascot.
This sport has suffered, and survived, two World Wars, foot and mouth epidemics, long periods of snow and ice and the equine flu-outbreak of last year. We will survive this pestilence but the sport’s finances, at a time when it can least afford to do so, will be diminished, the B.H.A. must act to ensure the sport’s crown jewels are not lost and we can salvage as much of the race programme as is humanly possible.

​I wholly understand that Aintree and the B.H.A. had little option but to call-off the 3-day Grand National meeting. In the current climate, the near-hysteria that is channelling every political and social determination that is journeying our country toward a financial tipping-point, it would have shown the sport in a very poor light to have carried on regardless. It would also have taken away the magic of the Grand National to have staged the race in front of empty stands. It would have seemed as if the sport was sticking two fingers up at the public, especially those worst affected by this nasty flu-bug.
Having said that, the B.H.A. is demonstrating no leadership qualities at all in taking the line of least resistance. Postponing the Grand National is understandable but to abandon the single most financially important race in the whole calendar? I ask you, is that protecting the interests of the sport? I predict the B.H.A. will move heaven and Earth to ensure the Derby and Royal Ascot are staged, so why not show some backbone and come up with a plan for staging the 2020 Grand National, all 3-days if possible, at some date in the remaining 8-months of the year.
Given that there would be too many clashes with the major flat meetings to think of staging the meeting during the summer, I thought, if contractual obligations and that sort of thing are make it agreeable, that Aintree’s Becher Chase meeting could be extended to 3-days, especially as they would be building the fences anyway. Yes, I know that would give us two Grand Nationals in one-season, though one would be this years and the second next year’s. Anyway, you can never get enough of a good thing.
It may be politically correct to adhere to government advice and to put public health before self-interest but it is the B.H.A.’s responsibility to ensure the sport is run on a secure financial footing and to forego the revenue and publicity that the Grand National affords the sport is poor management and displays lack of backbone and commitment.
Over the years I have followed and cherished this sport, I have seen the Jockey Club, when it ruled horse racing, do nothing to help save Aintree when it was imperilled back in the 1960’s. We lost a Cheltenham Festival to foot and mouth and a Grand National due to a wholly avoidable self-inflicted cock-up when the sport’s administration was shown-up as amateurish and incompetent. Now we are to allow a nasty flu pandemic take away our most cherished horse-race, the most famous race in the world, when there remains eight-months in which to stage the race.
Although Tiger Roll’s attempt to win three Grand Nationals is not reason enough to go against medical and government advice, it is a perfectly good reason to move heaven and Earth to get the race on at sometime in this calendar year. Also, trainers, jockeys and owners should be taken into consideration. If the go-ahead were given over the coming days and weeks to try to stage the Grand National in November, as I suggest, it will allow trainers to let-down their Grand National horses early so as to have them back in their stables early enough to be prepared for the delayed race.
This sport is going to take a huge financial hit over the coming months, more so if in stead of racing behind closed doors, which will impact greatly anyway, it is forced to stop altogether as in France and Germany. To recover or at least to steady the ship, the sport will need a boost, something to look forward to (we can only hope that by November the country has returned to normality) and not just financially, and the Grand National in November is, I propose, just the tonic we all will need.
I remind you, during the war, and it does feel very much like the government has put the country on a war-footing, horse racing was allowed to continue as it was considered the public needed a diversion, a bit of fun, from the constant bombing and lack of good news from the war-front. Though the ignorant few took easy-to-hit pot-shots at Cheltenham taking place last week, for those of us whose lives would have been blighted if it had not taken place were allowed a few hours away from the constant drip of flu-related restrictions and cancellations. We were lucky, though, with the timing. A week later and the sport would have suffered yet another financial wounding.
I urge everyone to get behind a campaign to persuade the B.H.A., Aintree and Randox Health, to move heaven and Earth to get the Grand National re-routed to November.

​Gone are the days of pent-up anticipation and expectation borne from the long cold months of winter. Those were the days, my friend, when the Gold Cup winner was almost certainly trained at Ditcheat, when Kauto Star and Denman were a mightier pairing than even William and Kate or Posh and Becks. Will we, or more precisely will I, see their likes again. Eventually, two or more horses will appear on the scene to attempt to fill their golden boots but as I write the sport is devoid of horses of their ability and charisma. Envoi Allen is in the wings, a horse who might be anything the fates allow him to be and I have a liking for The Big Getaway and Colin Tizzard has all those staying-chasers-in-the-making, surely there is another Cue Card or Thistlecrack amongst them. But at the moment the Gold Cup contenders are ‘simply’ good old sticks, any one of which is capable on his day of adding his name to a list that includes Golden Miller, Cottage Rake, Mill House, Best Mate, Captain Cristy, Desert Orchid and of course the best of the best, Arkle.
You could argue that on all-known form, especially this season, that neither Elegant Escape or Real Steel haven’t a hope this afternoon. Though fancying neither of them, it wouldn’t be a surprise in the regions of Norton’s Coin if either one of them out-run their odds. The other ten, though, are separated by not very much. I don’t believe that Al Boum Photo is that far ahead of any of his rivals and without Native River to force the pace this year’s renewal will be a slower kind of affair and that may not play to his strengths. It would not surprise me if he won but lightening striking twice in the same place is as rare as a horse winning consecutive Gold Cups.
On the ground as it was for the first two days, I would be three-star confident about the chances of Delta Work. He is solid, he boasts the best form this season, Gordon Elliott is having a mega Cheltenham and Mark Walsh is due one of the major prizes.
Last year I was big on Presenting Percy and it is a big nod in his direction that Davy Russell has chosen to stay loyal to him rather than getting his leg across Delta Work. But the ground, apparently, is of greater importance to him than Delta Work and if the ground continues to dry out there is even the possibility he will not even line-up.
I believe the better ground will find favour with Bristol De Mai, especially if he is allowed to jump away in front setting his own tempo. Clan Des Obeaux will obviously also favour the better ground but if you don’t stay the trip the ground has little bearing on the matter. Monalee will also not be inconvenienced by the drying ground; it should certainly help him last out the trip. Santini is a slogger, more of a Grand National winner to my mind than a Gold Cup winner. His advantages are his trainer and his jockey, a magic combination in my opinion.
Lostintranslation is the enigma of the race. I suspect he’ll either win or be pulled-up. I loved him last season and he is on my ten-to-follow list. Yet, like Paisley Park yesterday, there is a nagging doubt …
If pushed to nominate a 1,2,3, I would side with my gut feeling and suggest Delta Work to win, to be followed home by Kemboy and Clan Des Obeaux. Obviously, I would love Monalee and Rachael Blackmore to win as that would put horse racing back on the front pages of the newspapers tomorrow. But this, as Ted Walsh eloquently put it, is Cheltenham not Holloywood.
My tips yesterday were only marginally better than the two days that went before, the only highlight being Min.
Faugheen was third in a magnificent Golden Miller (sponsored by Marsh), beaten a single length by the wonderfully resurgent Samcro and Melon. Best race of the meeting so far. I hope Mr.Marsh was inspired enough by the sport to sign an extension to the sponsorship agreement. Relegate ran okay in the Pertemps. Min won at 2/1. Apple’s Jade raced herself into retirement. I had a non-runner in the 4-10. Minella Melody was a bitter disappointment in the mares novice and whatever I tipped in the Kim Muir it ran as if carrying a cloth of gold as overweight.
Tips for you to ignore today – I dared myself to do this all week and my saving grace as a human being is that I don’t forgive myself for letting anyone down.
The best Triumph Hurdle in years will go to Sir Psycho, my tip of the week. It is just the race for an unconsidered horse to upset an applecart of really nice young hurdlers.  Rathhill to defy an absence of 132 days in the County Hurdle. I saw Cobbler’s Way earlier in the season and thought him a good prospect when upped to 3-miles and will go with him to beat better fancied Irish raiders. Not a Thyme Hill fan, I’m afraid. Delta Work in the Gold Cup. Kalabaloo in the Foxhunters and finally in the last race of the 2020 Festival, Ballywood for Alan King.
 

​Many, I dare say, will think me a right lamebrain, goofus for any Americans reading this, or galoot for those of the vintage to still use the term, in not nominating Envoi Allen as the star of day two. He is undoubtedly an impressive horse with unlimited potential but I thought the Ballymore rather fell apart in the final two furlongs which presented him with a victory he did not have to strive too hard to achieve. Easywork ran free and deserves a mention in despatches for winning the battle with The Big Getaway, only to be overhauled by the winner in the final 100-yards. The third is a big lump of a horse and looks all over a staying chaser and should not be lightly dismissed. With the O’Leary brothers stepping away from ownership over the coming years it is a major boost for the sport to have Cheveley Park taking a keen and winning interest.
The star, at least in my eyes, from yesterday was Champ who came from the sky in the gamest manner possible to swoop with the gentle force of a bird of prey on Minella Indo and Allaho as if they were two mice out for a stroll. The former had the race won everywhere but the final ten yards, adding yet another second place for Rachael Blackmore. Whether Champ is a genuine top-class steeplechaser is hard to determine but one thing is certain is that he possesses the same will-to-win as the man he is named after which should hold him in good stead if he should line-up in the Gold Cup next season. With so many nice young horses in his portfolio I doubt if Barry Geraghty has too many thoughts on retirement.
Politilogue won the 2-mile Champion Chase unchallenged. Who would have predicted that outcome? A good solid horse deserving of his day in the sun. Brilliantly trained, of course, though it is concerning that it is now the fashion to not run horses, to keep them fresh, between Christmas and the Festival. I dare say more horses trained with one day in mind will get beaten this week than actually win but the vogue will be if a trainer can’t win a race at Cheltenham with a horse that hasn’t run for four months they will not be considered a ‘proper trainer’. I sort of think Phillip Kirby will be kicking himself for not going for the 2-mile Champion Chase with Lady Buttons, as will, if he doesn’t win the Ryanair, of course, the connections of A Plus Tard. As the race panned out it might easily have become a penalty kick for De Bromhead’s good young horse. Whatever, the joy and emotion on John Hale’s face will doubtless be the human moment of the week. A good man, I suspect, a man who always does right by his horses, retiring them too early rather than too late and caring for them long into their dotage.
Yesterday’s tips went thusly: The Big Getaway 3rd at 9/1. Copperhead fell when out of contention. Black Tears 2nd at 12/1. Dynamite Dollars 2nd at 7/1. Tiger Roll (didn’t factor in the ground) 2nd at 8/11. Zoffee pulled-up. It seems the Hobbs horses are out of sorts as neither Sporting John nor Defi Du Seuil ran up to scratch. Panic Attack not sighted.
Today I have a liking for Faugheen in a fascinating Golden Miller or the Marsh as it is more commonly referred to. I know he is 12 and attempting to rewrite the history books but at his best he is far superior to the opposition here, even if some of them are half his age. I like Relegate in the Pertemps, with a saver on Royal Thief. I would so love Frodon to win another Ryanair but though last year’s renewal was a solid enough race, this year A Plus Tard and Min are different gravy. My heart is with Bryony but my head insists that Min must surely win a big prize at the Festival at some time and today might be the day.
I keep trying to find one to oppose Paisley Park with and am defeated every time. Yet, I have an inkling, a nagging thought that refuses to go away, he will be dethroned and suggest the only horse with the form to do so is Apple’s Jade who seems a perfect fit for the type of ride she will get from Richard Johnson.
Clondaw Castle is my fancy for the absurdly titled Brown Advisory & Merribelle Stable Plate. Can you imagine a race at Royal Ascot with such a mouthful of a moniker? And for the Dawn Run for novice mares I have a big liking for Minella Melody to give wonder woman Blackmore yet another Cheltenham winner.