​I abhor cheats; cheats of any kind. I particularly abhor anyone who brings horse racing into disrepute through acts of deception and downright crookedness. So, it may seem inexplicable to some that one of my racing heroes was Ryan Price, the ‘scourge of the Jockey Club’ who lost his licence on one occasion and came within a hair’s breadth of losing it permanently on a second occasion. But a man whose character secured for life the loyalty of two of racing’s greatest jockeys, Fred Winter and Josh Gifford, as well as many of the people who worked for him over many decades, must be a man more sinned against than sinful. 
I doubt if Captain Ryan Price much wanted a book written about him. My impression of him was that he was a quiet man with a loud, opinionated voice and he only consented to an authorised biography as it was to be penned by his friend Peter Bromley, the long-standing B.B.C. racing commentator. The book suffers because of this friendship as Bromley had no intention of upsetting his friend by offering the reader any snippets of criticism or elements of Price’s life that might have shown him in less than a rosy light.
The book was published in 1982, a date so far back in time that I was shocked by how long Price has been separated from the racing scene. To me, he remains relevant, a legend to always be remembered.
Of course, he is remembered, more so, I suspect, than for What A Myth’s Gold Cup or Kilmore’s Grand National success or his Group victories on the flat, for his dominance of the early years of the Schweppes Hurdle, the race that is now run under the title of the Tote, I believe. He won four out of the first five Schweppes Hurdles, in 1963, 64, 66 and 67, though people will only ever remember Rosyth in 64 and Hill House in 66.
Rosyth won the inaugural Schweppes in 1963, then run at Aintree and which attracted a field of 42, a number that had ‘accident’ written all over it. The accident happened to Stan Mellor, though good fortune ensured he survived the nasty fall with nothing more serious than a fractured jaw. It was, of course, the 1964 renewal that became part and parcel of British racing history.
Rosyth had run without catching the eye of the judge all season. To make matters worse he had been beaten by Salmon Spray on three occasions, first giving him weight and subsequently receiving weight. Price had the favourite Catapult, ridden by stable jockey Fred Winter, whilst the younger rider Josh Gifford ran the unfancied by the public Rosyth.
The stewards were not as impressed by the performance as the trainer and requested his presence in the stewards’ room. Rosyth had swept up the straight, virtually from last to first, beating Salmon Spray by 2-lengths. Also in Rosyth’s wake were Magic Court and Another Flash, the latter the Champion Hurdle winner of 1960 and the former in 1964. Salmon Spray was to win the Champion Hurdle in 1966. The stewards were firmly of the opinion that Rosyth had shown abnormal improvement and gave the impression they considered Ryan Price a shady individual. Three-weeks later Price found himself a disqualified person. My interpretation of events is that the Jockey Club were out to demonstrate their authority and thought Price a legitimate target. Nowadays Price would be congratulated on a brilliant display of training, running a horse on its merits through part of the season when the horse never thrived and bringing him to a peak on a day in the part of the season when he did thrive, the spring.
A man who survived the D-Day landings and the entire war is not a man you would expect to lie down and die and Price not only bounced back but both learned a lesson from the Rosyth case and came back stronger. The furore after Hill House’s 1966 Schweppes win threatened to end Price once and for all. Many loudly made their views plain – there was no place for cheats in racing. The stewards again considered that Hill House had shown ‘abnormal improvement’, which, I believe Ryan pointed out, was the job of a trainer, to find improvement in the horses put in his charge. The sticking point, and probably why the Jockey Club were threatening to take away his licence again was that someone close to Price had won a substantial amount of money on the race.
Hill House, as with Rosyth, had run all season on his merits, yet when the Jockey Club’s chief investigations officer relayed the news that Hill House had failed a dope test ironically it did not scupper Price’s chances of keeping his training licence but put him on the trail as to what was going on. It took a while but eventually Price and his team proved that Hill House was producing his own hydrocortisone and, I believe, no history of the sport should be written without chapter and verse on the ‘Hill House Affair’ as it highlights that there is no black and white where horses are concerned. I wonder how many trainers before or since lost their licences unfairly due to their charges also producing their own ‘dope’?
Ryan Price was one of the great dual-purpose trainers of all-time, even if he did not combine the two disciples. He was a man, I believed, who loved his horses more than he loved people and he is fondly remembered for his devotion to his retired heroes, many of which were cared-for well into their dotage. I think it is that aspect of the man that I respect so much. He was truly a horse-man.

​Firstly, let me say I tipped Potterman to win the old Whitbread Chase on Saturday and though I resent the slide into ordinariness that is being allowed to happen to the old historic race, I did predict it would be competitive. Indeed, it was still competitive twenty-five minutes after the horses had past the winning post.
As a letter writer in the Racing Post pointed out today, it seems odd that a horse that neither finished first past the post nor was involved in the incident that took the stewards twenty-five minutes to resolve should end up the winner. I do not blame the stewards, as normally I take every opportunity of doing, as according to the rules they only had two verdicts at their disposal – to leave the result as posted or to disqualify the winner and place him behind the horse he had barged into. I have to admit I was happier with the decision they eventually came to than if they had allowed Enrilo and Harry Skelton to have kept the race.
Martin Broughton, one of the owners of Enrilo, commenting in the Racing Post, a comment that Alan King agreed with, is that without the coming together of Enrilo and Kitty’s Light, Potterman would only have finished third, which makes his elevation to winner seemingly quite absurd. As Broughton eloquently maintains, in the light of Saturday’s bet365 Gold Cup, the rules should now be looked at. Broughton does not take issue with his horse being disqualified, at least not entirely, though he does think they have been penalised quite harshly for an incident Harry Skelton could not have avoided, though he remains adamant that the stewards based their verdict on ifs, whys and might-be’s. It did appear that Kitty’s Light was about to go past Enrilo when the incident occurred, though it also equally appeared that Enrilo was at his strongest at the line and could have as easily rallied, as did his stable-mate Frodon in an earlier race.
Two fairer verdicts, though neither would be permissible as the rules are presently laid down, would have been for Kitty’s Light to have got the race, with Enrilo demoted to second or for the two horses to have shared the spoils. Either verdict would not have disadvantaged the connections of Potterman as they were booked for third if the incident had not taken place.
The key point that Martin Broughton missed in his summation of the controversy was that, although inadvertently, Harry Skelton did infringe the rules of racing by allowing his horse to veer into another runner causing the jockey to snatch up and for the horse to lose a possible winning chance, and if the incident was worthy of Skelton being given a four-day ban, then surely the incident was severe enough for the horse to be disqualified. I agree, though, that Enrilo was an unlucky loser, as was Kitty’s Light.
Tis a pity about the controversy of the finish of the bet365, as I found the final day of the season quite satisfying, though not as satisfying as Paul Nicholls, going home as he did with the champion trainers’ trophy, three winners, a second that ran a mighty race in the opener and what he will consider the moral winner of the big race.
Although a long way off his best, I would imagine the ground played its part, it is always a delight to witness Frodon jump a steeplechase fence and on Saturday he also demonstrated his battling qualities to get back up on the line to defeat a horse a long way better than his recent form figures would suggest. Mister Fisher would look to me like a Galway Plate candidate, not that Nicky Henderson would be a natural for taking a horse to Ireland in late summer.
It was also great to see Bryony, for the past few months overshadowed by the exploits of Ireland’s leading, indeed the world’s leading female jockey, Racheal Blackmore, demonstrate what a good tactician she is. Seeing Altior about to gallop off into the distance, it was only Bryony who had the awareness to keep tabs on him. I know she is a bit unorthodox and treads her own path but she is a very good rider, deserving of the success that comes her way. Not having the statistics to hand and guessing somewhat, I would think that if you divide the number of rides she has had in Grade 1 races by Grade 1 winners she has ridden, the average would be very similar to the total achieved by Racheal Blackmore, even if she has ridden a ton more Grade 1 winners than Bryony. Hopefully next season she will receive more opportunities in the big races when Cobden is injured or suspended, with the owners at Ditcheat more willing to book Bryony than get in outsiders like Sam Twiston-Davis, Sean Bowen or Daryl Jacob, as good as they are.
Finally, I have heaped praise on Patrick Mullins the writer once before on this website and in today’s Racing Post he has written a wonderful appraisal of his season. If you want to know why he is so good, compare and contrast this piece of mine with his column. Simplicity of prose, a fine turn of phrase and an ability to set a reader’s pace from the first sentence to the last. That’s Patrick Mullins, by the way, not me. I can only dream to be half as eloquent. I do have one observation, though, one small criticism – why Patrick are you scared of the semi-colon? I love a semi-colon. I use them all the time, even when they are not needed. But then Patrick Mullins writes for the Racing Post while I’m lucky to get the odd letter published now and again. As I suggested, compare and contrast.

​The fall into complete ordinariness of the race that started out as the mould-breaking and historically the first sponsored race in British horse racing, the Whitbread Gold Cup and what is now the bet365 Gold Cup Handicap Chase, becomes ever more apparent. It is the last major race of the National Hunt season and yet would not stand as tall as an iceberg if it were staged mid-week at Warwick or Exeter. And the race is not exactly worth peanuts; there is £115,000 in prize money, more than many of the races on the undercard at the Cheltenham Festival. It’s a disgrace, isn’t it, that a race with such a rich tapestry of history should be allowed by its sponsors, by Sandown and by the B.H.A. to become so forgettable?
Yes, it affords an opportunity for one of the ‘lesser’ stables to win a big prize, though as Nicholls, King and de Bromhead are to be represented the opportunity is no more likely than an iceberg lost in the Indian Ocean making its way back to the coastline of Greenland.
Arkle won a Whitbread. So did Mill House. In fact, under the Whitbread banner, it was contested by nearly all the top chasers of the decades of its duration. When Paul Nicholls entered Clan Des Obeaux I thought the race was finally attracting the calibre of horse its history deserved. But no, Clan Des Obeaux will be packing his bags over the weekend for a journey across the Irish Sea to take on Minella Indo and all those other thumpingly good chasers domiciled in the Emerald Isle. I suspect if Harry Cobden was not injured a different decision might have been taken.
The 2021 renewal is, I have to admit, looking like it might be competitive but then so is the 5.25, the bet365 Handicap Hurdle that has prize money to the value of £23,000. On a card graced by both Frodon and Altior, the highlight is a race where at present the highest weighted horse carries 11-0 st, with the next highest weight only 10st 7Ib.
Something needs to be done to reinvigorate the race, perhaps. No. It should be allowed to perish. It’s had its time; now we must be brave and let it go. It is dying; it is kindest to put it out of its misery.
The problem is that there are just too many long-distance chases throughout the final six-weeks of the season. There is the Midland National at Uttoxeter, the Irish National at Fairyhouse, the Grand National and the Scottish National, races that in theory are competing for the same type of chaser and, sadly, it is the bet365 that is finishing last of four.
My solution is to change the distance to 2-miles 4-furlongs. The season’s first big race, I suppose after the Charlie Hall at Wetherby, is a 2-mile 4-furlong handicap chase at Cheltenham, so there is something in-the-round, cyclical, if you wish, to finish the season in a similar fashion.
Of course, there is no certainty that the quality of runners will increase, though I would bet a penny to a dime that the race would be more attractive to owners and trainers than the race as it presently exists. Believe me, I would be the first to applaud if the magic of the old Whitbread could be brought to bear on the bet365 Gold Cup. But it isn’t happening and no one seems too worried about the situation. Am I alone in remembering all those great chasers that ran in or won the old Whitbread? Am I alone in remembering Tidal Bay running away with the race back in 2012, as easy a winner of the race since the mighty Arkle?
Perhaps, if the B.H.A., the sponsors and Sandown are entrenched in the mindset to keep the race as it is, some form of incentive can be added to the prize money. The winner gets an invitation to run in the following season’s Grand National no matter what its rating. Or a five or six-figure bonus for the winning connections if their horse has in the course of the season won one of the big 3-mile plus handicap chases.
Something must be done and as a matter of urgency. On Saturday we have the ‘peoples’ champion’ Frodon in the Oaksey Chase, the great Lord Oaksey would be mortified to see the decline in his favourite race, as well as Mister Fisher, Itchy Feet and hopefully, though I don’t know why, Tiger Roll, and in the Celebration Chase we will be graced by the presence of Altior and the Champion 2-mile chaser Put the Kettle On. Then we have the highlight of the weekend featuring good, honest chasers, yes, but lightweights compared to the above, Crosspark, El Presente, Smooth Stepper, Plan of Attack, etc. Crest of a wave to the shallows. Is it little wonder the Irish are so dominant at the moment?

​My thoughts on the Benoit de la Sayette positive cocaine test will come across as unkind and unfair. But there comes a point when someone has to say enough is enough and draw a line in the sand. I have no doubt the young man is not a ‘wrong-un’ and that his inevitable 6-month suspension from the sport will be a huge wake-up call to him. Also, because of his extreme youth and extraordinary ability in the saddle, his absence during the major part of the present season will not cast a long shadow over his subsequent career. 
John Gosden, as he chose to do with Rab Havlin and more famously when Frankie Dettori suffered a similar ban from the sport, will support de la Sayette and offer him good counsel and guidance. Gosden is a wise and fair-minded employer and the very fact that de la Sayette is his first apprentice since 1992 tells you all you need to know about how he rates the young man as a jockey. But not only has de la Sayette failed a cocaine test, he lied to everyone involved, including Gosden and his own family and I find it difficult to accept that he has not taken cocaine in the past 3-months as the hair test that proved his undoing is used in courts to prove habitual use. To my mind, it might do the young man more long-term good if Gosden sacked him, even if that will ensure that in time another trainer received the benefit of the young man’s great talent. After all, once de la Sayette has made good on his great ability and proved the stability of his character he can always re-employ him, no doubt as his retained jockey after Dettori has hung-up his boots.

The death of Lorna Brooke is a notification to every one of us on the risks jockeys take in the course of their employment. I did not know Lorna and until her tragic death knew very little about her. I did take notice when she rode as I tend to try to keep track on how all female riders get on in races. It is a habit I became slave to since the very dawning of females being allowed to compete in the sport. Her mother’s horses were not of the highest calibre yet they all seemed to jump well and were placed in races in which they could pick up prize money. They did not go pot-hunting and never over-faced their horses. I say ‘they’ as Lorna and her mother were very much a team.
Lorna Brooke was the sort of amateur jockey that will be hard to replace. She was, to use a term that has gone out-of-fashion, a ‘Corinthian’, a rider from a bygone age, someone who rode in steeplechases for no other reason than she loved her horses and loved the sport, with winning just an added bonus. There is a poorly-founded belief amongst some that the wheel of the sport is turned by those jockeys who regularly win the big races and who win championship titles. They do not. They benefit from the turn of the wheel. It is the likes of Lorna Brooke who turn the wheel; if it were not for those, who to be blunt, only for the most part make up the numbers there would be no turn-of-the-wheel, indeed very little sport at all.
The great sadness for me is that it is only in death do we get to know the jockeys who lose their lives for our entertainment, only in death do we appreciate their contribution to the sport. When Harry Skelton is deservedly crowned champion jockey on Saturday there will a feature on him in the Racing Post either the day after or at some point during the following week. Appropriate, yes, but don’t we know all there is to know about Harry? Wouldn’t it be of greater interest to read a feature on a jockey, or indeed trainer, we, the racing enthusiasts, know very little about?
On final point on this subject: there will be a race named in honour of Lorna Brooke at one of the racecourses close to where she lived, that is inevitable. I think such races should be held in perpetuity and not for a short period of time. Lorna gave her life for the sport; she should never be forgotten by this generation and the generations to come should ask ‘who was this Lorna Brooke’?

Surprised close to amazed that Jack Kennedy keeps the ride on Minella Indo at Punchestown next week. I dare say it is the decision of the owner and his way of thanking Kennedy for delivering him a Gold Cup but Blackmore is the stable’s number one and is striving to become the sport’s first female champion jockey and she has regularly ridden the horse and won at Cheltenham on him.
But then she might yet get the ride on Envoi Allen at the expense of Kennedy if Davy Russell fails to get back for next week. What will my thoughts be then?

​Rachael Blackmore is 1/100, yes, that’s right, one-hundred to one on, to be Ireland’s sports personality of the year. In effect, Boylesport have suspended betting on the event. A defining measurement, I suggest, of the impact her victory in the Grand National has had in her homeland, and indeed in the sporting world.
It may have taken a female jockey 43-years to succeed at Aintree in the most famous horse race in the world, though in truth it is only in the past decade that they were being given mounts with form that gave them a squeak of winning. I would say it has only taken nine-years. I would go as far saying that apart from Katie Walsh on Seabass who finished third to Neptune Collonge in 2012, Minella Times was the first real opportunity for a female rider to win the Grand National. And she took it. Boy did she take the opportunity her dedication and talent deserved.
What has changed in the world of racing since Katie Walsh rode Seabass for her father Ted Walsh is that female riders are emerging who are getting rides from trainers they are not related to, and it must be remembered that Ted Walsh had said that if Ruby had become available, he would have jocked Katie off Seabass to increase his chance of training another Grand National winner. Some thought he was joking but it’s a cut-throat world in the Walsh family, it seems.
What has peeved me a little since A.P. McCoy made his pronouncement at the Cheltenham Festival that Rachael Blackmore had single-handedly changed the face of horse racing forever was that for whatever reason, and I am led to believe it was due to a personal disagreement with Bryony Frost for leaving a Sport’s Agency he is involved with, he ignored the contribution Bryony has made to this opening-up of National Hunt racing to the revelation, well, it is to some, that female jockeys can take the falls and when given opportunities on good horses can win the big prizes. Admittedly, since Bryony won the King George on Frodon, when she held the honour of winning the biggest race ever won in Britain and Ireland by a female jockey, Rachael has knocked that achievement out of the ball-park and lifted the sport not only on to the front pages of British and Irish newspapers but world-wide. But to forget to include Bryony in his statement, as others have done, was petty and unforgiveable, at least to my way of thinking.
There is no doubt Blackmore is a league in front of Frost at the moment, as Frost is a league in front of every other female jockey. Blackmore is as good, and better than the majority, as her male counterparts. She has been given the sort of opportunities that demand the excellence she provides. Her style of riding is orthodox for a jump jockey, even if she can be more easily located in a race than say Robbie Power or Sean Flanagan. Bryony is less orthodox, unique, perhaps. She rides with a longer stirrup and her head carriage suggests she is more interested in being attuned to her mount’s heart-rate than where she is going. Yet until comparatively recently her c.v. of big wins was as compelling as Blackmore’s.
Prior to Cheltenham, I compared Blackmore’s statistics to Bryony’s and it was quite revealing. On the day I conducted my survey/research, Blackmore had ridden exactly double the number of wins, 82 to 41 and had almost double the number of rides. That though is only half the story. Blackmore rides far more favourites than Frost and rides all-around a far higher quality of horse and it is arguable that Frost squeezes greater success from less opportunity than Blackmore.
I have championed Blackmore now for the best part of three-years. I am in no way knocking her and I have everything crossed in hope she can gnaw away at Paul Townend’s lead in the championship and gain an achievement greater than victory in the Grand National. She is eight behind and needs to be close to on terms come Punchestown if the reigning champion is back from injury by then. What concerns me, and seems to be passing most correspondents by in the euphoria of her Grand National success, is the vital need for there to be a Rachael Blackmore legacy. She is 31, no spring chicken, how many more years can we expect to enjoy her presence on the racecourse?
Let’s give her five-years. That’s five-years for a female jockey to emerge in Ireland to fill the void. At the moment there are, and excuse my ignorance if I have this wrong, two or three other female professional jockeys in a country with a dreadful record of giving female jockeys opportunities to turn professional. Neither Katie Walsh nor Nina Carberry thought it worth their while to turn professional, remember.
For their to be a Blackmore legacy, and after Aintree there has to be a diversity avalanche in the sport, not fifty-fifty but somewhere around twenty-eighty, twenty-five- seventy-five, with female jockeys riding in the best races with obvious chance of winning the norm and not a novelty, owners and trainers have to play their part. As does the B.H.A. To take the French approach and give female riders an allowance would be wrong, unfair on their male counterparts and unnecessary. As Blackmore has done in National Hunt, Holly Doyle has proved on the flat. Opportunity allows talent to shine through.
I have argued for many, many years that their needs to be on the flat a six-figure value race confined to professional female riders. There is no need for a series of such races, just one race of superior quality at somewhere like Glorious Goodwood or Newmarket’s July meeting. A race to attract the best female riders from around the world. And Carlisle’s popular all-female card should be given a prime-time slot in the racing calendar, with terrestrial t.v. coverage if possible and with elevated prize-money and with half the card restricted to professional female riders, if not the entire card.
But above all else, female jockeys must be given greater opportunities than at present. If no legacy presents itself after all Rachael Blackmore is achieving, the sport will be forced to stop crowing about how it leads the sporting world in diversity and gender equality.
As an elated Blackmore said at Aintree: I do not feel female or male. I do not even feel human. Blackmore is a jockey. Pure and simply that. We can no longer include her in the debate. She is so far above all her female counterparts at the present time that she has become irrelevant to the debate. She stands at the summit of our sport. We can adore and worship her for her achievements but we cannot expect her to drag successors to her crown along in her wake. That is the sport’s responsibility. That is the responsibility of every owner and every trainer and it is the responsibility of the B.H.A. to facilitate the legacy. Female jockeys have to be given the opportunity to fail. Or to succeed.

​If watching a horse race with someone with no understanding of the nuances of the sport that casual viewer will emit astonishment and cries of ‘that isn’t fair’ when you explain that the winner of the race was receiving weight from the second, which was the main factor in the result and that the beaten horse is in fact a much better horse than one that beat it. No amount of explaining that handicapping horses in the same race with weights that reflect their known ability is a device for giving every horse a theoretical chance of winning will weaken your critic’s belief that somehow some form of official ignorance or mild cruelty is at play.
They used to handicap athletes – I think the foot race they stage annually at Musselburgh races on New Year’s Day is handicapped by distance, the faster sprinters starting in arrear of the slower athletes – though a similar system would be almost impossible to implement in horse racing due to technical reasons aligned to the inability of horses to comply with a procedure that would require multiple starting positions.
So, if one is to accept that the handicapping system is the best, some would say only, method of giving every horse a theoretical chance in any given horse race, is there a way to adapt the handicap to reflect the sort of criticism the O’Leary brothers have levelled at the handicapper of this year’s Grand National?
I rarely find myself on the side of the O’Leary brothers in their wining and moaning about whatever grievance they perceive is levelled directly at them. But with Tiger Roll and his allotted weight for the Grand National I thought they had a valid point. Tiger Roll’s official rating had him a horse of similar ability to Bristol de Mai and Santini, two horses with sound form in Grade 1 races. Yet Tiger Roll has not a shred of form to suggest he was or could be a Grade 1 horse, as I believe was proven at Aintree last week. In a Cross-Country chase no one could argue if Tiger Roll was asked to bear 12-st on his back; he is a force to be reckoned with around the Cheltenham Cross-Country course. But that does not make him a Gold Cup contender and to my mind he should have been receiving at least 10Ib in the weights from horses with Grade 1 form to have had a fair chance in the Grand National.
Tiger Roll is only relevant to the point I am labouring to make, or at least to the idea I put forward for debate, because he is far from alone in being allotted weight in handicaps that make it near-impossible for them to win another race due to bits and pieces of form they showed in the distant past, and all because the handicapper is reluctant to reduce their rating in case by some miracle they rise from the ashes and return to run to that level again.
‘In the grip of the handicapper’ is often heard by trainers explaining why a horse they train cannot win a race. Or ‘burdened by their consistency’ is another term for the same effect. The handicapper is culpable of souring some horses, and worst of all it is the honest horse that tries its guts out every race that is spoiled by the handicapper’s blind adherence to ratings.
To give but one example, an example that doesn’t exactly prove my point as he ran such a blinding race, though if you forget Balko des Flos’ epic run in the Grand National I am bang on the money. He had shown no worthwhile form for the best part of three seasons, not since he won the Ryanair under a blinding ride by Davy Russell. The point is, de Bromhead was forced (forced might be too strong a description) to run him in the Grand National as in every other handicap he was rated on his form in the distant past not on the form he was showing this or last season. If he were not bought with a Grand National entry, he would only have made half of the 100,000 he made at auction prior to Aintree. His 100/1 starting price told you everything you needed to know about his chance in the race given his known form.
In a previous blog an idea surfaced from the shallow depths of my intellect that caught me by surprise, and on immediate reflection I thought not worth further consideration. Yet I think it might be, even with its one major flaw.
Handicaps are here to stay; they are an integral part of racing and I have neither criticism of them or the handicappers who frame such races. My idea of ‘median handicaps’ are not meant as a replacement for the known handicap but as an addition to the type of race on offer to trainers and in addition to my belief that horses should only have their rating reassessed or adjusted after three races or after a period of seven-weeks.
In ‘Median Handicaps’ a horse would be given a weight that reflects its form during it previous three races, though I am prepared to concede that five or six races might be more workable due to the possibility, and here is the major flaw in this concept, of connections ‘pulling’ their horse over a period of time to get it ‘well-in’ for one of my median handicaps. An owner is less likely to want his or her horse ‘pulled’ five or six times than two or three. If this new type of handicap were to be established, to return to Balko des Flos for a moment, he would be assessed not by his overall form but by his latest starts, which I would argue better reflects his current ability. 
I am not convinced by the argument that trainers would ‘pull’ horses to any greater degree, if indeed it happens at all, to get a lower weight in a median handicap. In fact, I accept as completely understandable if a trainer tried to get the rating of an ageing and greatly loved horse down to a winnable mark. In actuality, the advent of median handicaps would perhaps lessen the necessity for connections to try to hoodwink the handicapper.
No doubt the concept will have its critics – when handicaps were first proposed I suspect they were considered by many to be ‘the end of horse racing as we have come to know and love it – handicappers will think only of themselves and the heavier workload it might bring to bear and tipsters and professional pundits might think it the thin end of a wedge that might lead to all handicaps following the same pattern. 
I simply put forward the concept of ‘median handicaps’, if indeed that is the correct term to describe it, as I dislike seeing old and comparatively young horses toiling in races not due to a lack of effort but through being allotted weight that no longer reflects their ability. Racehorses should not be burdened throughout their lives due to one good run twenty or so races before. I believe in fairness, both to the human and the horse and at present there are horses, along with their connections, that are being treated disgracefully unfairly.

​It takes between a week and 10-days for I.T.V.’s theme music to the Grand National to get out of my head and about 3-months for thoughts and images of the race to fade into the miasma of my memory.
Cloth Cap, so we were constantly told by experts, was 14Ib well in last Saturday and because of it he was many tipsters idea of the winner. Without being clever, he never struck me as a Grand National sort of horse, though his disappointing effort was due to a wind problem. When I heard Jonjo give this as a reason for his run, I thought how can a horse display signs of a wind ailment during a race and not give any indication on the home gallops? But in his excellent article on his ride on Burrow Saint in the Racing Post on Monday Patrick Mullins commented that when upsides Cloth Cap he could hear him gurgling, though it is possible he might have swallowed a clod of earth.
So, although being 14Ib well in, Cloth Cap was no good thing. 
I admit to knowing very little about handicapping racehorses. I sometimes look at the weight allotted to certain horses and cannot understand how a horse with six zeros against its name can be allotted a higher weight than one consistently in the frame. It is the same with ratings, a pseudo-science I often refer to as ‘a load of old bollocks’. When Cyrname was given that ridiculous rating, making him the highest rated horse in Britain, he beat a horse with absolutely no form over 2-mile 4, the distance of the Ascot Chase or whatever sponsor’s name it was called. If the race was over 2-miles I could have understood the handicapper’s reaction. But did he ever look himself in the mirror and ask ‘can I justify making Cyrname the best chaser in Britain? Is he really superior to Altior and Clan Des Obeaux? Is he as good as a Gold Cup winner?
And as for the rating of a horse being adjusted upwards when he ‘stands in his stable’ that is simply bizarre.
How can anyone be certain a horse has improved just because it has won a race. For once I agreed with the O’Leary brothers: how can Tiger Roll be, at the age of eleven, having never contested let alone won a Grade 1 race, be as good a horse as he was as nine-year-old after winning a 4-mile novice chase and three cross-country races. Yes, he has won, narrowly, two Grand Nationals but the rating he is burdened with will put him top-weight of any handicap, no matter what the opposition.
Look, to my way of thinking horses should only be re-evaluated by the handicapper after either three runs, so it can be rated as a median of those three races, or if the horse hasn’t run beforehand, after seven-weeks, so the form of the beaten horses can be fully analysed. To return to Cloth Cap; will his rating remain where it is after his poor run in the Grand National or will he be adjusted down to take into account that run?
When good honest horses are being handicapped out of winning races it verges on fraudulent behavior. Why? If a trainer or jockey ‘stops’ a horse, gives it an easy race with plans for the future in mind, if found guilty he or she will lose their licence. Yet a handicapper can stop a horse by giving it more weight than it is capable of winning with. You see horses handicapped on the basis of form they displayed two or three seasons in the past. This is plainly wrong and my system of adjustment to ratings every seven-weeks or after three races would give handicappers’ greater scope. Or perhaps a different type of handicap be established, races based on median ratings, where the rest of a horse’ history is ignored and its weight determined on the median of its last three-races. Just an idea, one worth a letter to the Racing Post methinks!
Of course, the call for handicapping to be reviewed has come about due to the drubbing Irish-trained horses have given to British-trained horses at the Cheltenham Festival and at Aintree. Personally, I think the main reason is that simply most of the top horses are now trained in Ireland, though that is to overlook the success of the smaller yards in Ireland that won races at Cheltenham. Above the state of handicapping in this country, I think the race programme is to blame.
The Irish do not have a major chase for Gold Cup horses until Christmas-time, though they have plenty of condition chases for trainers to prepare their horses for the tests to come at Leopardstown, the Dublin Racing Festival and on to Cheltenham and the Spring Festivals. The slide in this country began with the instigation of the Betfair Chase in November and staged at a course where heavy ground is almost always guaranteed and with virtually no condition chases in the lead-up to help trainers’ prepare their horses. The Irish ignore the race, as does Nicky Henderson, as it comes too early in the season.
If the main thrust of the early part of the season was the King George, with ‘trial’ races leading up to it, there would be room for those horses to take in a British version of the Dublin Festival and still be fresh for Cheltenham and Aintree.

-​Let’s be clear; Rachael Blackmore is fully deserving of the tribute and praise she received in today’s edition of the Racing Post. The best part of nine pages may verge on overkill but then it was better reading than the kicks-up-the-arse racing enthusiasts had to contend with pre-Cheltenham, mentioning no names, of course.
Anyone who has read 1% of my drivel since I started with this website will know I am a fully paid-up member of the female-riders support group. In fact, I have blown the trumpet on their behalf since before the Racing Post was founded, so to read, more eloquently and professionally put than anything I could hope to achieve, column after column declaring Blackmore’s Grand National triumph as the start of something big rather made me wince a wee bit. If to a man they had picked-up on my trumpet-blowing a decade back it might not have taken 43-years for a female to win one of jumping’s classic horseraces. That, by the way, is me blowing a trumpet on behalf of myself. A female riding the Grand National winner is, after all, the best good news racing could ever hope to achieve. I said it twenty years ago, chaps, comforting of you to catch up!
Racheal Blackmore is a rare talent but to claim she has changed racing on her own and forever is a big statement in need of qualification. For the face of racing to have been changed forever there has to be a legacy, a Rachael Blackmore legacy, and racing history suggests it will not happen.
Remember when Hayley Turner won 2 Group 1’s, plus the Grade 1 Beverley D in the U.S.? That was a defining moment, a female finally breaking into the top table of male dominated jockeys. Not only did no female follow in her wake but Hayley’s career hardly altered either. Hayley was exactly what flat racing needed: she is a bouncy, cheery soul who no one could dislike and the camera and the public are particularly fond of her. Yet Royal Ascot and Shergar Cup aside, she remains a journeyman jockey.
Big things were predicted for Josephine Gordon yet for whatever reason she too has failed to rise above ‘journeyman’ status. It is only to be hoped that the success Holly Doyle has carved out for herself over the past eighteen-months leads to her being given opportunities on good horses in the classics and Group 1’s.
What I find a little galling is that Blackmore is being credited alone for this resurgent faith in the female jockey. Bryony Frost may be unorthodox in both her riding skills and I suspect in her personality but she made the initial breakthrough when winning the Ryanair and when she won this season’s King George at Kempton on Boxing Day the fact that it was the biggest race in British and Irish racing history won by a female rider went largely if not entirely unheralded. Of course, in winning the Champion Hurdle Blackmore topped Bryony’s achievement and in winning the Grand National she dominates the sport like no since A.P.McCoy.
But for there to be a legacy, for Blackmore to have truly ‘changed the face of horse racing forever’, owners and trainer have to play their part. I suspect what will happen is what happened in the years after Hayley won her Group 1’s. Nothing. There is a good crop of female riders in the British conditional ranks at present, any one of which is deserving of the opportunity to follow in Blackmore’s footsteps. Of course, what is being denied them is the opportunity to fail, which one or all them might, but they must be given the opportunity to fail otherwise without opportunity we, and they, will never know how good they could be.
Before Blackmore, and perhaps they were her inspiration, the top two amateur riders were Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry, neither of whom turned professional because they did not think they would get enough rides to make the game pay. Also, as good as they were, how many Gold Cups, Champion Chases or Champion Hurdles did either ride in? Nil, is that the answer? No trainer thought either would be an asset in any race above a handicap and that’s the cold truth. And that’s a Walsh and a Carberry we are talking about. So, what hope has any female rider apart from Blackmore come next March or any March in the future? And in Ireland at this present moment there is no female, amateur or professional, to prosper from her success.
Rachael Blackmore is no spring chicken; she is thirty-one, even if she rides until she is forty we will only be blessed by her presence for another nine-years, in that time can you see any of the current crop of female riders being given the opportunities afforded to Blackmore? Bryony Frost has won a Ryanair, a King George and countless other big races, and yes, her riding style is unorthodox and she can talk the hind-leg off a donkey, but has anyone outside of Paul Nicholls given her rides in good races? And she is the only other female National Hunt jockey who can be listed on the same page as Blackmore.
I do not pretend to know the answer to the question I am asking. Owners and trainers cannot be forced to put up female jockeys and certainly not in the races that matter. But for Blackmore and last Saturday to truly impact on the future of this great sport there simply has to be a Blackmore legacy otherwise horse racing will revert to being a male-dominated affair.

​She may have earned the privilege of consigning her gender to the bottom drawer of comment yet what Rachael Blackmore cannot censor is that in the history of our sport she has become its first Grand National heroine. The likes of Hayley Turner, Holly Doyle (the Holy Doyle as I cannot help but refer to her) and Bryony Frost may have cracked the glass ceiling preventing female jockeys assuming the high table of their profession but Rachael Blackmore in her unassuming manner has smashed a ruddy great hole in it.
No one can claim the glass ceiling is once and forever removed as we cannot know if her legacy is complemented by other female jockeys being given similar opportunities to those bestowed on Blackmore. The evidence suggests the tide is flowing in favour of emancipation, that the equality of the genders is a very real thing and not a supporting tributary or pretty lagoon but a great river of opportunity that the talented and dedicated female jockeys of the present and future can harvest and support. Owners and trainers, though, have their part to play in this opening-up of our glorious sport.
Whatever the future holds for the female jockey, there is one unassailable fact that Blackmore cannot deny; her gender may be irrelevant but she will always remain the sport of horse racing’s first and greatest female jockey and the achievements of every National Hunt jockey of her gender to follow in her footsteps will be compared favourably or unfavourably to Rachael Blackmore.
Winning jockeys of any creed are always complimented on their exploits in winning a race and I dare say every jockey who finished in the money on Saturday rode competent races to achieve the best possible placing. Yet Blackmore, on watching the replay, to my eyes, in a field of forty runners always had a pocket of space in which to place her horse in running and jumping, was always close to the pace whilst at the same time conserving energy and showed she had done her research by not asking Minella Times for his greatest effort until the jumping was over and the elbow was reached. 
For one brief moment, though perhaps it did not occur to Blackmore, it seemed possible she might once again have chosen the wrong horse, that Aidan Coleman and Balko des Flos were about to spoil the party, but no, Blackmore had the situation under control and though it will mean little or nothing to her, or to de Bromhead and J.P. McManus, my ambition to witness a non-male jockey win one of racing’s classic races was fulfilled. As sad as it may sound, I can die happy (ish) now.
Blackmore cannot die happy any time soon, of course. She has yet to climb horse racing’s highest peak, even if in the eye of the public she presently stands upon the sport’s highest summit. The only mistake of this glorious season for her was in choosing A Plus Tard over Minella Indo in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, a glitch she’ll be eager to correct next March. And there is the not insignificant matter of the Irish jockeys’ championship in which she has been given a glimmer of opportunity with the injury to Paul Townsend, a situation that doubtless will be gilded by Willie Mullins using her services whenever she is not required by Henry de Bromhead, a man who seemingly cannot get a handle on why his cup continues to runneth over.
It is the jockeys championship that to my mind will be the greater achievement. In the Grand National, as supreme as the ride she gave Minella Time was, it counted nothing towards her total of wins in her homeland and was just one race on one day. To wrestle the title from Paul Townsend, and isn’t coincidence a strange factor of life, that one of her only pony race wins she beat Townend in a photo-finish, it is required of her to be his equal or better every single day there is National Hunt racing in Ireland. She is one cool cookie but she’ll be spraying champagne if after Punchestown she becomes the sport’s first female champion jockey of a country where the sport is truly celebrated.
The sport, though, as we are made aware of on an almost daily basis, is a leveller of spirit, conceit and cockiness. Yesterday Blackmore achieved sporting history; Tabatha Worsley, a really good jockey deserving of greater opportunities, completed the National course with Sub Lieutenant, albeit without troubling the commentators on too many occasions, but Bryony Frost ended up in hospital after being unseated by Yala Enki, though until that point she had got a good spin off him. As Rachael Blackmore needs no reminding, and this is what sets the jockey apart from his or her colleagues in other dangerous sports, the greatest of victories is not followed by days of rest and recuperation. Horse racing is a life, a sport of daily occurrence; the glory of winning horse racing’s most celebrated race will not cocoon her from possible injury on her next ride.
Her achievements are stacking-up. She is box office now. But she is no spring chicken. Male jockeys usually achieve their opportunities during their teenage years. This luxury was not afforded Blackmore. She came late to the sport; she has had to literarily scrap for scraps to claw her way through the ranks and we have Eddie O’Leary to thank for wrenching open an opportunity for her. As Henry de Bromhead is keen to emphasise, he never offered her the job of stable jockey; she seized it by riding winner after winner for him. I doubt even now if she has a retainer to ride for the stable. It might be something he should consider; J.P.McManus is yet to sign a replacement for Barry Geraghty and his team recognise talent when they see it.
The hour is golden for Blackmore but sadly for her, and us, the midnight hour is not far over the horizon for her. We must appreciate her diamond skills while we have the opportunity.
 

​As I have said previously, I’m always in favour of the underdog putting one over on the big guns. It is why the Grand National is such a leveller; why its referred to as a lottery. The country’s most successful tipsters, the men (it is to a man a male employment) fine-sieve the form, pinpointing the few that can win and eliminating the majority who by form or ratings have little or no hope, and are very often second-bested by their granny using the tried and tested method of selecting the Grand National winner, the pinprick. Or the ‘I always back number 22, or I like to bet on a grey so I see if it falls – well any method that doesn’t include burning the midnight oil.
Give me a Foinavon or Mon Mome over a hot favourite every time, even when my own money is on the second horse home. Next to every horse and jockey coming home safely, it is my favourite result, year in, year out.
This year, though, I have to admit, I have struggled to find favour with any of the big outsiders. My mixed-up and irrational thoughts on this year’s renewal have been compounded by Secret Reprieve not getting into the race and I will be as mad as a wet chicken if two horses get withdrawn overnight.
When the weights were published my three against the field were Secret Reprieve, who to my mind has Grand National winner stamped all over him, Milan Native and Minella Times. Now, perk up your ears, I have gone off Milan Native as I suspect he is a horse whose best form will be early in the season. Jamie Codd, though, is riding at a very low weight for him, which might be a tip in itself. I say ‘perk up your ears’ as I have form when it comes to rejecting horses that go on to win the Grand National. In 2016 (?) I reduced by degree after degree the possible winners down to 4 and placed my bets on 3, one to win, two to be placed, rejecting, with a heavy heart as in nearly all categories he looked booked for at least for a place, the category lacking was the fact he had never won a chase, Rule The World. So, Milan Native is worth remembering.
There is also the Rachael factor to take into consideration with Minella Times. The horse has a lot to recommend him: 10st 3Ibs is a nice weight for a horse that has never won a race anywhere near the distance of any ‘National’; he is eight-years old and seemingly has been trained all season for this one test. But, and this is as daft a reason for not backing him as backing a horse simply because your sister once dated a Sub Lieutenant or a block who always wore a cloth cap – didn’t the jockey use up all her luck at Cheltenham. Be minded, until Thursday she hadn’t ridden a winner since the Festival and Henry de Bromhead’s horses are running like hairy dogs at the minute. 
The downside of running the race at 5.15 pm is that no matter how much good-to-soft there is come the first race at 1.45, you cannot be certain how much the ground will dry out through the afternoon. There is rain forecast for the Liverpool area at around 5 or 6 o’clock and the winning jockey may have wet silks as he or she is led into the winners’ enclosure, so it might be foolhardy to reject soft-ground specialists. 
With this in mind, my thoughts are turning to the old adage ‘back the best horse in the race’ and the best horse in the race by a country mile is Bristol de Mai. I am from Bristol, Daryl Jacob is one of my favourite jockeys and he did me a huge favour when he got Neptune Collonge up in the final stride in 2012. I also watched a video of him being schooled over ‘Aintree-type’ fences and he looked a million-dollars, as bright as a button and pin-sharp.
If you could convince me Yala Enki will not attempt to take one of the fences home with him, and I keep remembering how he tried to do just that at Taunton earlier and the season, though I am dismissing his fall in the Becher as I think that was down to jockey error (when do you ever see Bryony give a horse a kick into the first fence?) I could fancy his chances as he will certainly get every yard of the trip.
Vieux Lion Rouge will jump round (he is the record-holder when it comes to Grand National fences successfully jumped) and the better ground might allow him to get the trip and perhaps run on into a place. I think Canelo is not a forlorn hope and the same can be said of Discorama, Magic of Light and Takingrisks. And Alpha Des Obeaux showed a bit of sparkle in the Cross Country at the Festival, enough for Giggingstown to withdraw him from the sales ring last week. And if I were to recommend an outsider, and if I were to have a bet, which for the first time in my living memory I will not be due to the government ban on betting shops, it would be Double Shuffle.
So, after much reflection and changes of mind, with no guidance from the form-book, my advice is thus: Bristol de Mai to win, with each-way selections being Double Shuffle and Minella Times.