​Usually at this time of year, post Cheltenham, pre classic trials, my thoughts are focused 100% on Aintree and the Grand National. Not so much this year. Since a young child, the Grand National has been the centre of my racing world, with no other race coming within touching distance in terms of fascination and awe. Since Suleka Varma’s appointment as clerk of the course, my fascination with the great race has become evermore tinged with sadness for what is being lost to her unthinking approach of ‘death by a thousand cuts’, the needless and pointless tinkering in an effort to transform spectacle, derring-do, romance and adventure into an impression of what used to be. In short, Miss Varma and her advisors are in search of a miracle cure for ever-present risk, to make a dangerous pursuit safe and effective for the purpose of protecting the cash-cow that is the Grand National.
I always worry that the dark cloud of fate will descend on the race, to shroud it as a bad-news story. The glory of conquering Aintree’s unique fences and topography is always tainted when it is announced that a horse has suffered a fatal injury during the race. In loving the sport, I must accept that injuries and fatalities to both horse and rider are an unforgiving factor, as it is of every minute, hour and day for horse and man alike in every walk and department of life. As it is for those who love and document war. Up and including the 1st World War as many horses would be killed in battle, or simply slaughtered for meat rations, as soldiers. We live in different times.
There was a time when I tried to have Aintree erect a memorial plaque to horses that had died taking part in the great race. I also asked for a horse cemetery at Aintree, so the fallen, in the military sense, would never be forgotten. Both ideas were batted-away as ‘undoable’, the official policy cynical, ‘better to sweep such things under the carpet and not talk about them’. Now, the policy is to persuade the ignorant public that the focus is on safety and welfare. The death of a horse nowadays, under the leadership of Miss Varma, will doubtless result in more tinkering, more shedding-away of the tradition and uniqueness that has made the Grand National the greatest horse race in the world. I fear in short-time the race will be reduced to twenty-runners, with the fences looking more like the old Mildmay course, the Canal Turn euthanised and replaced by a smooth bend, the Chair no more testing than a child’s stool, the distance reduced to 3-miles.
I have used the names of Merryman, Freddie and Grittar in the title of this piece, as they represent the romance and adventure no longer thought necessary by the custodians of the race. Because of the ever-rising minimum rating required to achieve the opportunity of making the start for the Grand National, what is being lost is the romance of the hunter-chaser, owned, trained and perhaps ridden by rock-solid point-to-point people who through good fortune and skill had stumbled-upon a ‘National horse’.
Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott or Paul Nicholls winning the race will never attract the attention of the outside media, not in the same way as when Grittar won for Frank Coton and Dick Saunders. The little man, barely known to punters and racing enthusiasts alike, triumphing on the biggest stage in racing, putting one over on the mega-stables, the big-hitters.
Merryman won the Aintree Foxhunters the year before he triumphed in the Grand National in 1960. Freddie was everyone’s hope for both the 1965 and 1966 Grand Nationals, finishing runner-up to Jay Trump and then Anglo, Reg Tweedie, owner/trainer defeated both times by Fred Winter, perhaps the best known man in racing at the time, a legend of the sport.
Spartan Missile, ridden by owner, breeder and trainer, Mr. John Thorne was an unlucky loser in 1981 when the fateful gods allowed the sport to bask in the glory of cancer-survivor Bob Champion virtually rising from the dead to win on Aldiniti.
And sporting glory is not only achieved by the victors. Does anyone remember Rosemary Henderson’s mighty performance in finishing fifth on her own horse Fiddler’s Pike in 1994? There were others who came from the point-to-point field to go to Aintree with favourite’s chance or as a good long-shot. Double Silk comes to mind and Forest Gunner, if my memory serves me correctly. And many more if you go back into the 1920’s and through to the 1990’s.
My fear, you see, even if I do not live to witness it, is that the Grand National will stop being the ‘peoples’ race’ and all that the tinkering in pursuit of an impossible miracle is achieving is to destroy all or part of what has made the race the institution it is within the sporting calendar. Change for change’s sake always goes pear-shaped. A yellow carrot may still be a carrot but it sure does not look right, and that is the path Miss Varma is taking.
Of course, Gina Andrews and Latenightpass may gallop to victory in two-weeks-time and I will have egg all over me. And I sincerely hope Gina and her husband do succeed as it will provide the good-news story the race has lacked, apart from Rachael Blackmore, of course, for too many years. And perhaps will never achieve again.

​The 1965 Grand National, the first of many ‘last’ Grand Nationals, provided as its star act a horse and rider the like of which I doubt we will ever see again at Aintree. In attempting to make the perilous safe and effective, the romance and adventure of the race has been stripped away.
Horses from afar never venture to Aintree any more. Steeplechase enthusiasts in the U.S. no longer, seemingly, dream of Aintree. Nor the French. No more the hapless or hopeless long-shot from Russia, the Czeck Republic or Japan, their riders startled and no doubt a little chilled by the sight in real life of Aintree’s character-defining fences, fences that these days are more unusual than huge and daunting as they were in the times when foreigners came to sample the thrill and buzz of the truly unique.
Jay Trump was a horse saved from, and saved is not too strong a word, believe me, the outback of a minor dirt track in Pennsylvania. When asked about Jay Sensenich, the trainer of Jay Trump when a 2-year-old, an official praised the man for his integrity and dedication to his horses before adding. ‘He trains the walking wounded, the halt and the blind, rakes, rogues and misfits, others have given-up on and sold for dog meat’.
Back then, perhaps less so now, drugs were freely administered to keep the lame sound and racing.
A more unlikely winner of 3 Maryland Hunt Cups, the third after his triumph at Aintree, there has never been nor perhaps likely will be. Jay Trump’s owner, Mrs Stephenson, had dared to dream and her jockey, Tommy Smith embraced the challenge, dedicating his life to the horse by uprooting himself from his home in the U.S. and living in England for the period required to get Jay Trump qualified to run at Aintree and being with him every step of the way.
Fred Winter had twice won the Grand National and he was entrusted to give Jay Trump and his amateur rider the best chance possible of achieving the dream, without ever, I contend, believing it remotely possible.
47 went to post on the 27th of March, of which 14 finished. Mill House was one of the original 112 entries and it would have been interesting to see how he might have fared as he would perhaps have been the best chaser to face the challenge since Golden Miller in the 1930’s. He was allotted top-weight and when taken out of the race the work of the handicapper was turned upside down, with the weights raised to the point where the bottom weights carried 10st 13Ibs, with Freddie topping the handicap on 11st 10Ibs. Jay Trump ended-up carrying 11st 5Ibs.
Jay Trump was no forlorn hope, having won three-times since coming to England. Groomsman, though, was a long-shot, one of many attempts by the Duque de Alburquerque to finish the race. In 1965 he took a heavy fall at Valentine’s first-time round.
Rondetto was the unlucky horse in the race, capitulating at the 26th fence when seemingly travelling the best, certainly better than in subsequent attempts.
Freddie, trained by a Scottish permit-holder, was favourite, something else we are never likely to see in a Grand National ever again, and was the horse most people wanted to see win. He was valiant in defeat, as he was to be the following year when denied by another Fred Winter trained horse, Anglo, who he took on due to the Jockey Club unfairly taking away Captain Ryan Price’s trainers’ licence. There was ¾ of a length at the winning post, those 5Ibs perhaps the difference between winning and losing, with 25-lengths back to the third. The following year Freddie conceded 21Ibs to his conqueror.
Jay Trump jumped well all the way round and was a deserving winner, with Tommy Crompton Smith becoming the first amateur to win since Captain Bobby Petre in 1946 who triumphed on Lovely Cottage. Jay Trump and Tommy Smith returned to the U.S. feted as conquering heroes. In 1966, having already won 2 Maryland Hunt Cups, he shot for the stars again by attempting an unprecedented third triumph. During his time in England, his crown had passed to Mountain Dew and perhaps for the first time 2 twice-time winners of the race clashed and was was a cause of great excitement and Mrs.Stephenson persuaded Fred Winter to travel over to witness both the clash of champions but also Jay Trump’s final race.
At Aintree, the peoples’ horse was Freddie, at Maryland that role fell to Jay Trump, though the majority thought the younger Mountain Dew would prevail. But as at Aintree, Jay Trump rose to the occasion, easily outpowering his younger rival. He was ten-years-old and had achieved every goal his owner had set for him; it was time for a life of leisure.
Jay Trump lived a happy retirement. Fate, though, was not so kind to Tommy Smith who suffered a life-altering injury that put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

​I was 10-years old in 1964 and only a few years before I had found what was to become the love of my life. For me, discovering the Grand National must have been similar to when Howard Carter opened up the intact burial site of the Pharoah Tutankhamun and his eyes fell upon treasures beyond his imagination. The Grand National, to me, then, was a wonder to behold, a sight for the eyes, an inspiration for life ever-after. My first dream, I suspect, was in one capacity or another was winning the Grand National.
How I became informed of Mirabel Topham’s – I would have had no idea who she was and what her association with the race could be – intention to sell Aintree racecourse to Capital and Counties Property Limited and that the last ever Grand National run at Aintree would be in 1965, I cannot remember. Perhaps my father told me, perhaps I read a headline in a newspaper. I suspect I cried.
It was beyond belief that an event as magical as the Grand National could be allowed to die! Something had to be done and thankfully, and May God preserve his Soul, Lord Sefton came to the rescue by seeking an injunction to stop Mirabel Topham committing a sporting atrocity unbeknown in the world of sport. When Lord Sefton, fifteen-years before, had sold the racecourse to Topham Limited, he had the foresight to include a codicil in the contract preventing the racecourse being used for anything other than horse racing or agricultural.
In October 1964, Lord Justice Stamp ruled in favour of Lord Sefton.
Joy unlimited! The Grand National was saved for all eternity! No houses would be built on the sacred soil!
But no, there was a sting in the tail of Lord Justice Stamp’s ruling; weeks before announcing her intention to sell Aintree Racecourse, Mirabel Topham had obtained copyright to the title ‘Grand National Steeplechase’. The final Grand National, she confirmed, would be in 1965. In the High Court she had argued that it was perfectly possible for the race to be staged at another racecourse, though, of course, under a different title.
As it turned out, 1965 was the first of many ‘last Grand Nationals’, a state of affairs that continued for years to come. The 1966 renewal would be, according to a frustrated Mrs. Topham, positively the last held at Liverpool. The 1966 race, incidentally, included the first and last ever runner from Japan, Fujino-O. The legal battle entered the House of Lords in 1967 where Lord Sefton’s injunction was reversed, with costs awarded to Mrs.Topham.
All of this, I suspect, occurred outside of my awareness, even if one of the B.B.C.’s commentators doubtless declared each succeeding renewal ‘the last Grand National’. Of course, if to add spice to the legal farce, 1967 was the year every horse fell and jockeys comically went hither and thither, except the brave Foinavon and his fortunate jockey, John Buckingham.
1968 was again ‘positively the final Grand National’.
In 1972 optimism that the Grand National had, against the odds, a secure future, was added-to by the race securing a sponsor for the first time, B.P. Limited. Optimism was soon deflated by the news that negotiations between Mrs. Topham and Lancashire County and Liverpool City Councils had broken down and the 1972 race was to be ‘emphatically the final Grand National’.
In the run-up to the 1973 race, Mrs.Topham revealed to Julian Wilson that she had a buyer for the racecourse and she hoped the sell would allow the race to remain at Aintree.
Of course, the 1973 Grand National was to not only become the greatest in the long history of the race but undoubtedly the greatest race ever run on a British racecourse. Also, it might have provided the tipping point in favour of the optimists. Four horses broke the track record on March 31st, Spanish Steps, L’Escargot, Crisp and the immortal Red Rum. Crisp put-up, to my mind, the greatest performance on a racecourse, attempting to give the 2-years younger and to become the greatest ever horse over the Aintree fences, 23Ibs and humping 12st and failing to achieve the impossible by only ¾ of a length.
Red Rum’s name appeared for the first time on the County Stand roll of honour, under which were the ominous words – The End Of An Era. In November, Mrs. Topham sold Aintree to Mr. Bill Davies for £3-million.
In 1975 Bill Davies announced he was selling the racecourse to an Irish Property Developer, Patrick McCrea. The deal fell through. Ladbrokes then came to the rescue, bidding £1.5-million. Then the Jockey Club gave Davies a month to come to some sort of agreement or the race would be transferred to Doncaster. In December, three-days before Christmas, Ladbrokes secured an agreement to manage the race until 1978. 
1977 saw Charlotte Brew become the first female rider in the race. Was it really that long ago!
Ladbrokes continued their administration of Aintree until 1982. The Jockey Club had shamelessly dragged their feet throughout the whole sorry saga and finally were shamed into action and through its subsidiary Racecourse Holdings Trust entered into a legal agreement with Bill Davies to buy Aintree for £7-million. As if to prove its apathy, the Jockey Club reasoned that if the man in the street wanted so desperately to preserve the race, it must pay and the Aintree Grand National Appeal was launched. I remember buying two sweatshirts with ‘Save The National’ on the front. A deadline of only 7-months was given to raise the funds.
The appeal failed. The Jockey Club presented Bill Davies with a second proposal. £4-million. A new contract was drawn-up. A new appeal was launched, with May 1st 1983 the day of reckoning.
To bring a long and sorry episode in racing’s history to its conclusion, with the intervention of Seagram and its British chairman Ivan Straker, Bill Davies eventually agreed to sell for £3.4-million. After 20-years of legal wrangling, the Grand National was safe. The first non-last-ever-Grand National was won by Hallo Dandy.
The present custodians of the race, especially Suleka Varma, the present clerk of the course, would do well to study the infamous 20-years when every year was the final year and take on board the effort so many people put in over such a long period of time to save the Grand National and all that the race means to the racing community. She should also read Reg Green’s wonderful book ‘A Race Apart’; as I consulted his mighty tome for all the facts contained in this article. 

​The problem of small-sized fields and non-competitiveness that beleaguers National Hunt at the moment will soon be visiting flat racing in this country. National Hunt has its stronghold in Ireland and Britain, and to a lesser extent in France, especially the provinces. In most other racing jurisdictions jump racing is, at best, a minority equestrian sport and non-existent in most other countries.
Flat racing, though, thrives throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and latterly it is being used to boost the leisure industries of Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And that is, if it is not already, a problem waiting to impinge on the competitiveness of racing here as more and more owners go in search of the mad money on offer for even the most modest of races run at the racecourses of those latter three aforementioned countries.
Britain and Ireland have the history and tradition, the rest of the world has the prize money.
Anyone researching the history of flat racing in Britain during the 1920’s through to the 1990’s will see a sport much different to now. The classic races thrived, of course, as did Royal Ascot, with for much of that 70-years the major race of the Royal meeting being the Ascot Gold Cup, a race that has become almost a novelty in this day and age. The City and Suburban run at Epsom was an important race, as was the Jubilee at Kempton, with the Lincoln a race every trainer and jockey aspired to win. The major races, races which might be reported on the front pages of the national newspapers, shone bright in the calendar. And that is the problem British racing has established for itself. Too much racing has swamped the calendar, with our prized gems hidden from the view of unbiased observers.
The Lincoln Handicap, for example, has become a nondescript handicap, the winner forgotten about in the headlong rush to get to the first classics of the season.
In the past, trainers of classic winners, for instance, were rarely asked about future plans as the racing calendar set in stone the route from Newmarket to Epsom and then Ascot, Goodwood and Doncaster. Now, as with the plans for City of Troy, after Epsom any port of call around the world is mooted, with Aidan O’Brien already talking about sending his latest superstar to Saratoga after winning the Epsom Derby, with even the Irish Derby not given a mention as a possibility.
I have argued the point for many years, and doubtless will do so until my final breath, but ‘we’ have allowed the Doncaster St. Leger to become irrelevant, almost a consolation race for three-year-olds that have failed to bag a big race throughout the season, yet it has the prestige of being the oldest classic in the world. And as far as modern breeders are concerned, the English St. Leger is an irrelevance and yet the B.H.A. and Doncaster bask in its reflective glory, ignoring the fact that in reality Britain only has four classics worthy of the status as a classic horserace.
If I had a voice to be heard or influence to promote change, I would upgrade the Eclipse at Sandown to classic status and, of course, restrict the race to three-year-olds only. The Doncaster St. Leger should then have money thrown at it, run over the same distance of 1-mile 6, a great selling point to my mind, so that it becomes an English Arc. If it were run a few weeks earlier than the Arc there is no reason why the two races should clash.
If the St.Leger meeting was to be held earlier than has been tradition, the whole of the racing calendar would need to be altered, and that is no bad thing. The flat season could easily be made into three parts, with the first part framed around the five classic races, the middle part the summer festivals and the major Grade 1’s and the final part framed around the big two-year-old races, with major handicaps bolstering the whole. And I would advise getting rid of a swathe of the Group 2’s and 3’ as they take-up a whole lot of prize-money and provide little in the way of competitiveness and betting revenue. They exist solely for the benefit of breeders and to make life easier for trainers.
The B.H.A. should bite the bullet and strip the calendar of summer all-weather racing and rein it back to what all-weather racing was intended-for – to be there when the weather forced abandonments in winter and spring. People bury their heads when talking about prize-money. It is a problem exacerbated by the explosion in all-weather racing. For nine-months of the year, all-weather tracks are unnecessary. 
Premierisation, I have come to believe, is a good idea being wasted. I would fight to the death to preserve our small racecourses and I believe with all my heart that the B.H.A. have a duty to ensure they not only survive but thrive. But they are not premier racecourses and premiership should be focused on our premier races and premier race-days. Royal Ascot will be five-days of premier racing; you cannot compare a day at Musselburgh or Plumpton with what is on offer at the Royal Meeting. You cannot have premier racing every weekend, the same as you cannot have Liverpool versus Manchester City every Sunday.
We need to go back in time and study the race programme for the 1930’s, the 1950’s and 1970’s. Strip out the unnecessary, shine a bright light on the best we have to offer and instigate a ‘for now’ policy and build from the ground up and not from the top-down. The past, I believe, is where the answers to most of our problems are to be found.

​I will not dwell on the awful realisation that the new flat season begins at the weekend and the Racing Post will be dominated by enthusiasts of the levellers for the next 9-months. Personally, I do not get into flat racing until Royal Ascot when I can write about all that is wrong about the silly hat wearing festival and flat racing in general.
But for now, I remain thought-filled about the Cheltenham Festival, even if its annual dose of magic moments was rather lacking this year.
The ground was somewhere between soft and heavy all-week, yet the horses were not finishing legless and in need of the oxygen bottle, with some of the winners looking as fresh as the autumn dew in the winners’ enclosure. Slow ground, though, equals less fallers and less horses reaching the winning post.
For all that Willie Mullins has Galopin Des Champs, State Man, Fact To File, Lossiemouth and Ballyburn, to name but a few, in his stable, I think the horse with the greatest amount of ability could well be Gaelic Warrior, a horse that manages to combine the eccentricities of the wonderful Goshen with a pleasing-on-the-eye style of Irish dancing.
Rachael Blackmore may not be number 1 in the jockey ranks, though to the public she is head and shoulders the most popular, she is, though, perhaps, tactically the best, with some of her best rides last week coming on horses that beat everything but the Mullins superheroes.
In Salver, Gary Moore has a star in the making, with the Stayers Hurdle a possibility for next season. He ran on like a trooper late for parade in the Triumph and if fate is kind to him could easily be the horse that takes Gary Moore back into the winners’ enclosure at next year’s Festival.
Of course, crowd numbers were down. It was the most obvious odds-on favourite of the week, with television viewers going in the opposite direction the second-favourite. Costs for everything are high, with no racegoer but the solidly wealthy able to shrug off the cost of going to Cheltenham as if it were nothing more displeasing than a smidgeon of mud on the boot of the Roller.
Let children under 16 in for free and give concessions to both students and pensioners. Also, and here is an idea I offer for free, give reduced admission to anyone who has attended, outside of annual members, 3 or more meetings at Cheltenham during the season.
Customer satisfaction starts in the car-park, ask any business advisor. When wet, have plenty of tactors available to help car drivers onto tarmac. Sometimes it is the little things that mean the most.
I like Gordon Elliott, I just wish he would stop describing any horse he trains as ‘a horse of a lifetime, really’, as he is the man who trained Tiger Roll, the horse who is and will remain Gordon’s true ‘horse of a lifetime’.
On the subject of phrases or utterances which I wish people would stop saying. ‘He (or she) rides the horse every day’, Ed Chamberlain’s favourite line when describing a horse being led out on to the course or into the winners’ enclosure. It may be true, in part, though ‘most of the time’ would, I suggest, be more accurate. Pedantry, I agree, but journalists should always aim for accuracy in their reporting. Old concept, I agree, but then I am old and nostalgia lives next door to pedantic thought.
It was pleasing that the Foxhunters’ was won this year by a horse from the point-to-point field. If my proposal for a 3-day Spring Festival and a 2-day Winter Festival are to be ignored, which will be the case, I would like Cheltenham to change the conditions of the Foxhunters to exclude horses trained by public trainers so as to allow an annual dose of romance back to the Festival. And the National Hunt chase should be upgraded to a 4-mile Champion Chase and open to professional riders.

​There is a crusade, led mainly by the likes of Kevin Blake and Matt Chapman, to persuade the rest of us that wholesale alterations need to be put in place by both Cheltenham in regard to the National Hunt Festival and more generally by the B.H.A. to ‘level-up’ the playing field between Ireland and Britain. I now agree with those who pine for the days of the 3-day Festival, though only because it will improve competitiveness and stop trainers opting for the easier option rather than patronise the major races. Also, the 12-month racing programme in Britain is definitely in dire need of fixing. But neither of these radical improvements, if they should actually happen, will ‘level-up’ the playing field. We should stop fixating on the Prestbury Cup, the domination of Ireland at the Festival, as there is no domination. Ireland in general is not miles ahead of Britain. It is Willie Mullins who is miles ahead of everyone else, Irish trainers included. As Gordon Elliott said last week. ‘You only have to face him at Cheltenham, I have to take him on every day back home.’
A good example of the Willie Mullins domination is that not only he is home and hosed in the Irish trainers’ championship; as a result of the success of his raiding party last week, he now sits third in the British trainers’ championship and if he added the Grand National to his spoils there is a definite chance, if he put his mind to it, that he could end the season champion this year in both his homeland and in Britain. Incidentally, Gordon Elliott now lies 10th in the British championship and Henry de Bromhead 16th.
To return to Kevin Blake, who seems hellbent on becoming Ireland’s version of Matt Chapman, delighting in concocting controversy. He is right in his assertion that something needs to be done about some of the races at the Cheltenham Festival, accepting, seemingly, that a 4-day Festival is what the sport needs and deserves right now. Where he is miles off-course in his thinking is when he derides British trainers by saying they are not hungry enough to tackle and defeat the Irish invasion of our land. Dan Skelton, does he display signs of cowardice in the face of the enemy? Or Paul Nicholls? And does Ben Pauling have the look of a man cowering in fear of the green army banging at the door, a man who had a winner and 2 seconds last week from very few runners?
If Paul Nicholls trained Ballyburn would the result of the Gallaghers been different last week? If Dan Skelton had Fact or File would the result of the Brown Advisory been different? Does Willie Mullins possess a magic potion that would have allowed him to win those races with other horses in his stable, regardless if Ballyburn or Fact of File were in opposition?
Believe it or not, there was a time when Willie Mullins could not lay a glove on Paul Nicholls at the Festival or at any time throughout the season. In fact, Irish trainers were in fear of Paul Nicholls sending horses over to run in their major races. Remember Denman winning what is now the Savills at Leopardstown?
As the wise man that is Ruby Walsh has prophesied, the wheel turns. In ten-years we might be asking, what has gone wrong at Closutton? Perhaps. Not that I would want the Mullins empire to crumble. All we are asking and hoping for is that his counterparts in Ireland and Britain close the gap, for the top-class horses to be spread around evenly, for British owners to look beyond Closutton and to give the British trainers, especially the up and coming, the ammunition to do battle with the great man on terms a bit more equal than they are at present.

As expected, Willie Mullins trained more losers than winners at the 2024 Cheltenham Festival and in the main the unexpected failed to occur. All over for another year. Yes, compared to the golden years of long-living memories, it was an ordinary Cheltenham, yet I believe most of the outstanding questions were answered.
Thoughts: I believe one of the achievements of the meeting that was glossed-over a little was in winning the Champion 2-mile chase on Captain Guinness, Rachel Blackmore joined the very rare assembly of jockeys to have ridden the winner of all 3 of the Cheltenham Festival’s blue-riband races + a Grand National winner – Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty, A.P. McCoy and now Rachel Blackmore. Some achievement for a female who arrived on the scene rather late in the life of a jockey. What would she have achieved by now if she had been able to take the more recognised career route of 7Ib professional attached to a major yard, rather than unsung amateur who struggled to get a ride, her talent only recognised by Eddie O’Leary and who had the foresight to suggest to Henry de Bromhead that he give her a try?
Galopin Des Champs is the best 3-mile chaser since the era of Kauto Star and Denman, though he would be a furlong in arrears, I suggest, of those two equine mega-stars as, unfortunately, he does not have a horse of their calibre to inspire him to greater heights. As I have said before, for a horse to be referred to as a truly great they must beat a horse as good as themselves and it is rare for horses of the calibre of Paul Nicholls’ two mega-stars to come along at the same time. Let’s hope Fact To File achieves the heights his raw ability suggests and that Willie Mullins has two goliaths of the sport in his stable as Paul Nicholls had the good fortune to have, as did Tom Dreaper. Never forget or underestimate Flyingbolt.
State Man was unimpressive in winning the Champion Hurdle, though only Paul Townend knows how much in reserve he had at the winning line. I believe the form is not to be sneezed at in one way as Irish Point is a strong stayer, even though he never gave the impression he was ever going to get past State Man, and on the other hand the form is diminished by Luccia finishing so close, especially considering the wretched form of her stable companions during the past three-weeks. It must be admitted that the overall standard of Grade 1 hurdlers, both in Ireland as well as Britain, is poor, with this year’s Triumph Hurdle winner unlikely to be campaigned next season in that sphere or perhaps over hurdles at all. Oh, for the days when we had Sea Pigeon, Monksfield, Night Nurse, Birds Nest and then the era of Hardy Eustace, Brave Inca, etc and etc!
Captain Guinness was a fortunate winner, though the game is about jumping and both El Fabiolo and Edwardstown failed the gold standard test. I just wonder if the connections of Boothill regret not allowing him to take his chance as a clear round would have given them, at least, third-place prize-money. Though relieved El Fabiolo was unharmed by his demonstration of the splits at the fifth-fence, I admit to being amused by his departure given that everyone who is everyone in the sport, including Luke Harvey, had absolutely no concerns about his ability to negotiate the fences. He had no flaws, they said, the biggest certainty of the meeting, they said. When he reappears, be that at Aintree or Punchestown – I did think he was slightly lame behind – everyone will be saying ‘if he jumps, he wins’. For the rest of the season until Cheltenham next March he will be a horse with a flaw.
On the domestic front there is much to cheer, despite the score-line by day 4. The surprise, of course, is that Dan Skelton came away from the Festival as the leading trainer in this country, usurping his former boss by deed of 4-winners to 1, with Grey Dawning looking the best home-trained prospect for glory next season. As Ruby Walsh, the voice of common-sense, said, year-by-year the score-line is closing and if you took Willie Mullins out of the equation, there is little between the other Irish trainers and their British counterparts. It is the Closutton operation that is tilting the slope to outrageous proportions in favour of Ireland.
Although Ballyburn bears all the hallmarks of an outstanding prospect, be that as a Champion Hurdle horse next season or a novice chaser heading towards a tilt at the Gold Cup as a 7-year-old, I can easily imagine Slade Steel getting closer to him if Henry de Bromhead decides to go chasing next season.  With having the reigning Champion Chaser and Lossiemouth in his stable, I suspect Willie Mullins will go chasing with Ballyburn, if for no other reason than Galopin Des Champs will be reaching the end of his career in 2-seasons time, though, perhaps as that rare thing - a 3-time Gold Cup w

​At the start of the season proper in October, the Cheltenham Festival seems as far away as the Moon is from Earth. Yet come March 10th 2024, it is as if Cheltenham 2023 was only last month. The joy should be about the travel, the journey from then to now, yet the Festival so overwhelms the rest of the season that the joy becomes the arrival and the brief interlude when we step away from the grim reality of the everyday and immerse ourselves in the cut and thrust of glorious sporting endeavour. Cheltenham; it knocks Royal Ascot and the Epsom Derby into a cocked hat, whatever a cocked hat might be. 
When the debate, the really heated debate, broke out when Cheltenham floated the idea of a fifth-day, imitating the success of the fifth-day of Royal Ascot, I was 100% in favour of the suggestion. I thought with imagination a fifth-day could be made to work, especially as a fifth-day would have put extra money into a local economy ravaged by the pointless escapade that were covid restrictions. My idea was that the fifth-day could become a day to raise funds for equine charities, with the Cross-Country Chase as the feature, supported by all those races lost in order to incorporate the mares’ races that now weaken the overall quality of the Festival. I would also have used consolation races for two of the major handicaps to make-up the card.
I no longer support the fifth-day. In fact, I am now an advocate of returning the Festival to 3-days as the pool of quality horses no longer exist to ensure the major races are as competitive as tradition dictates they should be. The best horses should be in the best races, with connections not given softer alternatives.
I have now put forward the idea of abandoning ‘Trials Day’ in February, a meeting that when compared to the Dublin Racing Festival is a dud, and have a bone fide 2-day Cheltenham Festival in its place. Mad, perhaps. Yet, remember, the Cheltenham Festival and the Gold Cup were not universally accepted as the next big thing when it first arrived on the National Hunt scene. In fact, the National Hunt Festival is named after the amateur riders 4-mile race that was for horses that had never won a chase. How times change!
What I dislike about the argument put forward by the traditional 3-day advocates is abandoning races that have proved successful and have given us memorable moments. The Ryanair, for instance, is a great and necessary race and has done nothing to deserve being jettisoned just because ‘something has to give’ if we return to 3-days. And I absolutely object to it being reduced to the conditions of the race it grew from, the Cathcart.
The Ryanair is a great race and should not be sacrificed. Now, whether Michael O’Leary would want to sponsor ‘his’ race if it were run as the feature race of a 2-day Winter Festival, I cannot guess. He might. He also might sponsor a second race at the 3-day March Festival. O’Leary is mercurial; he might go left, he might go right. But a Ryanair in February would be, to my mind, a perfect stepping-stone between the King George and the Gold Cup. In fact, if the sport needed a chasing Triple Crown, the King George, Ryanair and Gold Cup would be the perfect three-races.
I would remove the Mares Hurdle from March and stage it in February and rename it the Champion Mares Hurdle and run it over 2-miles, allowing the best mares to take on the geldings in March, or at least removing one of the excuses for not running mares against the geldings. I would also jettison the Mares novice hurdle, the Mares Chase and what is, at least for this season, the Gallaghers, and parachute them into this proposed new Festival. The novice handicap chase could be reborn, too, and I will forever champion the introduction of a 4-mile champion chase, though I would prefer it to replace the amateur riders National Hunt Chase.
My suggestion would return the Cheltenham Festival to what it used to be, the most competitive meeting of the whole season, without losing any races that are both of great benefit to the sport and provide year-in, year-out, fabulous memories.
The rest of this proposed 2-day Festival would comprise trials for the novice hurdles and chases and any races that would not directly clash with the Dublin Racing Festival and that would mean no trial for the Champion Hurdle, for example or Gold Cup, allowing trials at other racecourses to become more meaningful than they are at present.
And yes, I fully realise nature might intervene and cause abandonments and the headache of what to do with important races that could not be run. But I would argue that is no different to any race-meeting, even the Festival in March and Aintree in April.
My proposal allows the sport 5-days of truly premiership racing without any new races needed. It is radical and I know the B.H.A. runs scared of radical thought. The B.H.A. likes to meddle around the edges of a problem; talk with stakeholders and delay, delay and delay some more. What is required at this present moment in the sport’s history is ‘decisions for now’; alterations that take effect now, not five-years down the line. I do not believe we have the luxury of five-years-worth of dithering.

​For the past week The Racing Post has run features on great Cheltenham Festival moments, with their brilliant stable of journalists taking it in turn to write about one their own favourites. I particularly enjoyed Lee Motteshead recalling the ‘golden hour’ when Bryony had Francesca Cumani in tears with her speech after winning the Ryanair with Frodon, “he grabbed my hand and said ‘don’t you dare think we can’t win this,’” followed by Paisley Park winning the Stayers Hurdle for Andrew Gemmell and Emma Lavelle. I will be in tears if he should win it again next week.
Peter Thomas took up the cudgels when recalling Sprinter Sacre’s 2016 Champion Chase success. I admit I am touchy about experts dumbing down this race as I suspect my last racing image to float through my mind as I pass from this world will be the 2016 Champion Chase. Until that day, I thought my last thought would be either Red Rum winning his third Grand National - not his first, even though I believe the 1973 renewal was the greatest race of all time as the sadness of Crisp losing the race in the final few yards remains a hard watch for me – or Desert Orchid winning the 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup.
I will not name the horses Sprinter Sacre beat in 2016 as, with one exception, Un De Sceaux, the opposition that day pale into insignificance when compared to one of the true legends of the sport. Watch the race back and count the number of past and future Champion Chase winners who were in that race, plus a future Ryanair winner. I accept it was nowhere near as peerless a performance as when he took apart Sizing Europe in 2013 but the achievement of 2016 was not only about the overall quality of the opposition but the story of what went before, the long three-years in the wilderness when the shout was for him to be retired, only for Nicky Henderson’s and his team, veterinary and those employed at Seven Barrows, never-die-spirit and belief that the horse could return to something like his old self. 2016 was a win for hope over experience and defeat of the doomsayers.
I exchanged e-mails with Peter Thomas, something I have never done before as these people are diehard, whereas I remain on the naïve side of a fantasist at times, my heart usually overriding my head and the form. I have little favour for ratings; for example, I refer to ratings as ‘bollacks’, opinion based on pseudo-science and I admitted my position to Mr. Thomas. I doubt for one moment he agreed with me as ratings, official or Racing Post, are the lifeline his colleagues hold on to for dear life and I was making light of one of the basic tenets of punting and expert opinion.
As I would expert, Mr. Thomas was polite in his response to my perhaps wayward argument that Sprinter Sacre’s performance in 2016 should not be compared to 2013 when he was youthful and at the very peak of his ability. I must add that in his article Mr. Thomas did not disparage the great horse, believing the overall memory was the reception the horse received from the crowd. 2016 is one of his favourite Festival moments, its just that all the experts, not only Peter Thomas, repeat what ratings tell them. My ambivalence towards ratings would be the same to a racing journalist as the thoughts of an atheist said to a parish priest.
On this day in 2016, in my opinion, Sprinter Sacre put up one of the greatest performances of my lifetime. Yes, I have bias as I thought in 2013 he was perhaps the greatest steeplechaser since Arkle. If the race was run before ratings were imagined, the performance would be judged on the calibre of horse he defeated. Golden Miller’s place in the pantheon of champions is based on the races he won, the opposition he beat, not on what ratings might have been given to the beaten horses or indeed to himself. If ratings were awarded retrospectively, perhaps Golden Miller’s position in the pantheon might slip down to the level of a good handicapper.
I was flattered that Mr. Thomas took the time to bat away my thoughts in 3 e-mails as I am sure he had more important matters to attend to and I thank him publicly for his indulgence. I doubt, though, if I changed his opinion, especially as we agreed on every aspect of his article except the dumbing down of the 2016 race. Ratings, to my mind, are not a reliable measure of true ability and the example I will always refer to is Cyrname, one of the best chasers of modern times, if you believe the rating he received after beating Altior at Ascot, a horse with no form over the distance and no reliable form on heavy ground.
Enough. Peter Thomas is a greatly respected journalist and it is not my place to disparage his opinion or any of his rating worshipping colleagues.
On another note: there is a video on YouTube of Barry Geraghty reunited with Sprinter on the gallops at Seven Barrows. The delight on Barry’s face on riding the great horse again is for all to see. Sprinter is 18 now, yet does not look it and Barry had no doubt he felt the same as when he was in training. Whoever has the privilege of caring for the horse in his retirement is obviously doing a marvellous job and should be proud of how well the horse looked that day. It was also nice that when Barry returned to Seven Barrows from the gallops Nicky Henderson was there to greet the old horse, referring to him ‘old friend’. I hope Sprinter returned the endearment as without Barry pulling him up that day at Kempton and the dedication of his great trainer to restore him to health that wonderful 2016 success could never have happened.

​There is a reason why I am uploading twice in one day. If you are interested, it is because in writing my previous upload, my computer mysteriously, and it has never before pulled this particular stunt, deleted all but the first page when I pushed copy, forcing me to rewrite the majority of it again. Obviously the first effort was superior. I need to upload again to see if the problem reoccurs as I might have been the problem all along. Computers really are, though, the devil’s own work!
I have recently bought a tablet and there is no love lost between it and me, I can assure you. To get to the Racing Post app is the passive equivalent of wrestling a crocodile. 
‘The Fakenham Favourite’ by Aaron Gransby’ is a delight. It is a book of less than 100-pages, with plenty of photographs and an easy style of writing. This is the kind of book I admire and treasure having a copy as part of my racing library.
With little effort the reader can get this book knocked-off in one sitting, if you have a mind to. I like to read a chapter at any one sitting, perhaps two if the chapters are as short as in ‘The Fakenham Favourite.
What I enjoyed about this book is that I learned stuff and the narrative sparked memories. The book has a simple story-line, it is a trot through the racing experiences of Alan and Pat Blackmore, unrelated to the famous Blackmore, and the horses they trained to some success. The standout and the eponymous equine hero of the book, the Fakenham favourite, is Cool Roxy, eleven-times a winner around Norfolk’s only racecourse.
As I do not like to give away story-lines of racing books I buy and read, especially a brand new, hot off the shelves, book, I will say very little about what you can expect, except there is tragedy in the Blackmore story.
The book is priced at £14. 99. It is published by Gerard Books and I (eventually) got my copy from Foyles, though I expect and hope it will be on sale at Cheltenham next week.
It is one of those books that is nice to handle, if you know what I mean. Tactile. A book you would be loathed to accidentally tear the cover or spill tea over.