​Not being a bettor or gambler, I do not possess the vested interest to fuel my thoughts on the government’s white paper on the future of gambling. I am, though, dedicated to the best interests of the sport and with the sport being aligned hand in glove with the betting industry, I, as it is with anyone with an interest in the subject, have the right to have my say. And say I will!
Several aspects of the subject bother me to the same extent as the problem of addictive gambling bothers me. To begin, historically the betting industry should have been, I will say, more robust - though in that I am suggesting they should have taken more than a passing interest in the welfare of addictive gamblers - in tackling the issue decades ago. Where we are now is a direct result of gambling companies paying more attention to profit than how they accumulated profit. Slot machines in betting shops was the start of the slippery slope to where we are now.
As people more knowledgeable on the topic of gambling have said, the white paper should differentiate horse racing from on-line bingos and casinos and, I would go as far as suggesting, all other forms of sport betting. There was a time, believe it or not, when the only sport the public could bet on in a betting shop was horse racing (greyhound racing, too. So that’s two sports). Then the government took the decision that gambling was good (source of government revenue) and opened-up all sports to the betting public. As my betters have said, punters can go on losing and winning runs, with monthly profit margins from punting varying enormously. The Gambling Commission does not seem aware of this fact.
But what irks me the most is the governmental finger pointing suggestively to the public at large that addictive gambling is the work of the devil, whereas addictive alcohol drinking is merely an extension of a socially acceptable way of life. There can be no debate on the benefits of preventing someone going into a betting shop, or through an on-line gambling account, and gambling the whole of his or her bank account away in a single afternoon, yet that same person can go into a supermarket and empty their back account on whiskey, lager and gin without anything being said other than ‘don’t drink that lot in one go, will you, mate?’ Ho Ho Ho!
My fear is that ‘affordability checks’ on gamblers is an experiment that in time will be extended to all walks of life. A cashless society – it is inevitable as it is part and parcel of the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ which all the G10 member countries have signed up to – is programmable, allowing ‘Big Brother’ to monitor and control where people spend their ‘money’ or ‘credit points’, on what and to what amount. It may come across as ‘conspiracy theory’ but it is not. Go research ‘The Great Reset’ and you will discover the dystopian future that we are slowly creeping towards.
I actually doubt that horse racing will feature in that future, if I am being honest. Good that I will be dead when the ‘Klaus Schwab way to live’ is at everyone’s door.
What the government’s white paper on the future of gambling makes fuzzy is that the gambling industry is messy, almost a behemoth out-of-control. Betting is the very air that horse racing breathes. Horse racing is no longer the very air the gambling industry breathes. In gambling terms, I believe horse racing should be separated from all other forms of sport betting. Horse racing has no relation to tennis or golf. Neither of those sports, or any other sport, except greyhound racing, goes hand in glove with betting. You can bet on who wins the Wimbledon Final but tennis gains nothing from either the hot favourite or a rank outsider lifting the trophy after two-weeks of grunt, growl and money exchanging hands over the internet or the bricks and mortar of a high street bookies. The winner of the Grand National may return at 8/1, the winner of the Ladies Final at Wimbledon is not announced on the B.B.C. news as the even-money favourite.
The B.H.A. must advance the case to government that horse racing must be treated differently to other forms of sports betting. It must make clear that on-line betting on casinos and bingo is nothing less than a game of chance, whereas betting on horse racing requires experience and knowledge of many aspects of the sport, jockeys, trainers, recent form and past form, the configuration of racecourses, the preference of horses to certain ground conditions, ete etc. As with the horses themselves, punters hit form and go off the boil. But mostly, office staff at betting shops should be allowed to treat their customers as individuals, unlike the faceless punters who bet on-line, where some form of control must be established.
As I suggested, I am ill-informed on this subject to be taken seriously. My concern is for the sport. I accept betting as a necessary bedfellow, not a best buddy. I just wish gambling companies could only take bets on general sports, with bets on horse racing conducted through a Tote/racing monopoly. Fantasy. Pure Fantasy! 

​The Betfred Epsom Derby will be off at 1.30 pm this year as the F.A. Cup Final between the Manchester rivals (two Derbies in one day) must kick-off at 3.00 pm at the behest of the Metropolitan Police due to the possibility of riot and hooliganism by City and United fans. I suspect supporters of the losing side will be overly-grumpy at the defeat they have suffered, will be mocked as losers by City fans, so changing the time of kick-off will only result in riot and hooliganism later in the evening when the Derby winner will be tucked up for the night in his stable.
Once upon a time the Epsom Derby was a highly significant social event; Parliament would recess at noon so that members could catch the train or horse-drawn carriage to the track to hobnob with both their social equals and their aristocratic betters. Some of the sitting M.P.’s even had an interest in racing, with perhaps a runner in the race. If only that were the case today! The Epsom Derby, due as much to this decision as any other reason, is now reduced to the status of a horse race and nothing more. It is one aspect of life to have a classic rearranged due to the coronation of a King but to have the sport’s supreme classic shuffled into the backwater of the day for no better reason than a football match is being played close by should be seen as a wake-up call.
This farce could be avoided if someone at the B.H.A. had noticed that this year’s Cup Final was to take place on the same day as the scheduled Epsom Derby and an early decision taken to stage the great race on a different day altogether. Perhaps the following Sunday, even if the French Derby is slated for the same day. Or the Friday before, with the Oaks run on the Saturday. Running the race at 1.30 is, to my mind, was the worst option open to the B.H.A. and yet they chose to slight the importance and reputation of the race. It smacks of ‘get the race run by hook or by crook’.
The dilemma, of course, is not rooted to the 2023 staging of the Cup Final at 3 pm but in the decision to make redundant history and tradition and stage the race on the first Saturday in June for betting and television reasons rather than keep to the historic date of the first Wednesday in June.
When staged on the first Wednesday in June, the Epsom Derby was a special day for Londoners and those living in the immediate environs of Epsom Downs. For city dwellers it was a day-out, a mid-week holiday, a ride on a charbanc. A day to look forward to. A day off work. A day out in the fresh air. A party on the Downs. All the fun of the fair and all that with a horse race on top and within shouting distance of Britain’s toffs, with perhaps even a glimpse of the Queen or King.
And, of course, they don’t play F.A. Cup Finals on a Wednesday afternoon, do they?
There is another reason why the Epsom Derby should be returned to a Wednesday and that is the ‘premierisation’ of racing; the keeping of Saturdays as holy days for the elite racecourses and the elite races for the benefit of increased betting turnover. Returning to tradition and running the Derby and Oaks mid-week would open-up a Saturday for those racecourses not considered ‘elite’ by the B.H.A to stage meetings to advertise all they have to offer the racing public. Instead of shuffling Mussleburgh, for instance, and their showcase meeting to the backwaters of morning or evening racing, as is proposed, such racecourses could take up the marketing mantle and hold sway on the first Saturday in June. All-turf Saturday, perhaps, a celebration of the country’s smaller racecourses from Musselburgh to Carlisle to Salisbury and through to Brighton. Or whichever racecourses wishes to stage a marque event to showcase all they have to offer.
The Epsom Derby does not deserve to be treated in this shabby manner. Whichever way this issue is dressed-up, it is an insult to the sport. The Epsom Derby has a far longer history than the F.A.Cup - first run in 1760. Compared to 1760, football is still running around in short trousers. A member of royalty may present the winning trophy at Wembley but the Epsom Derby was born out of royalty and our late and still missed Queen was as much associated with the race as she was with Buckingham Palace or Sandringham. Would the B.H.A. have taken the same decision if our late Queen were still alive? I doubt if the matter was even thought controversial by King Charles. No disrespect intended, your majesty.
Our late Queen held the sport and its history in high regard and desired only what would be in the best interests of the sport. Reluctantly, she may have given her consent. I, too, hold the sport and its history in high regard, though I am not tolerant in all matters and, if given a deciding vote, would have rejected the 1.30 start time in favour of almost any other option. This decision, to my mind, goes into the mad, bad and sad category of B.H.A. decision-making. The message it sends-out to the wider sporting public is this: horse racing no longer is no longer relevant; not even our premier flat race, ‘the greatest race in the world’, apparently.

​This is not the first time I have written on this subject and I doubt it will be the last. Though if I die shortly then obviously this will be my last word on the subject. Let’s hope not, anyway. At least, angry gods, allow me to live past this coming Saturday so that I can witness what will be, I believe, Frodon’s swansong at Sandown over a distance of ground he has never attempted during his long and successful time as a racehorse.
By the way, although he is a French-bred and Frodon must be a town or village in France and hence has his French-themed name, I have no objections to it. To an ignorant Englishman it is easily pronounceable.
I will not upset or insult owners of French-bred horses ‘saddled’ with tongue-twisting French-language names by citing examples of my displeasure. Nor will I give examples of what I refer to as ‘the Irish plague’ of using perfectly nice English words into a form of word-play train which needs to be unlinked in order to establish how it is to be pronounced. Worse still are the language manglers that in order to conform to the 18-character regulation leave out vowels in order to make the finding of the correct pronunciation a horse racing version of trivial pursuits. I admire and respect J.P.McManus in front of any other living human being, yet he, I believe, was the originator of this crime against language and the inspiration for so many to follow in his wake.
Another of my pet hates, no doubt a deliberate policy by French breeders of National Hunt horses, are names that use half-French and half-English words. And, then, as if the namers of French horses have no other aim but to annoy me, and the rest of Mankind, I suspect, there is the misplaced apostrophe, as easily cited by the great Big Buck’s and the less great Favorito Buck’s. What is that about? French ignorance or lack of regard for the English language?
Then there is the plague of the suffix that entangles in the memory horses of the past. How many de Obeaux are there? How many de Clermonts? De Guyes. Or de Berlais. I could go on. And, no doubt, will. Minella, for instance.
The similarity of Arabic names also brings about entanglements in the memory. I just pray Hawaii does not become a hot-bed for either the breeding of thoroughbreds or its language becoming in-vogue for the naming of racehorses.
Just don’t get me started on the replication of names of famous horses from the past. Just don’t. It is not just the laziness of people to seek out original names but disrespect for the history of our sport and the horses that have inspired people to attend racecourses throughout the decades, or to bet on horses, to work in horseracing etc etc. 
Yes, the naming of horses is a bit of an obsession with me.
On the surface, the names of horses, especially when set against the indisputable greater problems the sport is grappling with at the moment, is trivial. Yet, I would contend, the first nuance of our complex sport anyone attending a race-meeting for the first time or forced, perhaps, to watch horse racing on the t.v. on an afternoon, will be confronted with will be the names of the horses walking around in front of them. Could anyone take football seriously if competing teams had names like Nicnaknickynoo Wanderers, for example. Or cricket if the teams bore names like the Loopy Lou Eleven. Names are a welcoming voice. Names will suggest whether we take horses seriously or are they just considered by racing people as takeaways, easily replaced if they do not prove up to the mark. Elements of the sport may be fun, entertainment for the masses, but the sport now embraces a ‘from birth to death’ policy when it comes to care of the horse and though when a racehorses moves from licenced stables to the roll of ex-racehorse it’s stable name can be changed, it’s name in racing history remains the same. Name a racehorse Nicnaknickynoo and when the new owner of the now ex-racehorse is asked the name of his or her new pride and joy, the name will reflect poorly on both the sport and whoever named the unfortunate beast.
My obsession with this topic came from being told by someone working at the time for the B.H.A. (his name, by the way, is Paul Singh) that it is difficult to find a name not already in use or one that cannot be used as it is the name of a classic winner, Grand National winner, etc etc. Thank the Lord for that latter small mercy. The reply came from a strongly worded complaint that Coolmore had the audacity and ignorance to name a horse Spanish Steps, arguably the name of the most revered racehorse since Brown Jack. Bold claim? Not if you go by the number of ‘contacts’ I receive either in support of my opinion or those who had a connection with the horse and wish to forward me their pride in the connection with a horse ‘who danced every dance’ during his long and successful time as a racehorse. Do you know Jack Morgan, who trained Edward Courage’s horses, is buried next to the great horse. I only know as someone contacted me with the information.
It is a fact that British and Irish trainers source almost the majority of their fresh stock from France so it’s about time I made my peace with the intricacies of the French language. Right? No. Why not translate from the French into English when these horses cross the channel? Ban 18-character names made up of a train of words that have to be disassembled to be made sense of. And owners, please give horses nice, sensible names, names that add dignity to the horse and the sport. My ‘racehorse names’ page is a feeble, naïve, perhaps, attempt to help owners find a suitable name for their wonderful horses. The English language is huge and growing all the time, with words that go and out of fashion. ‘Feague’, for instance. Google the word and you’ll find the meaning is horse-related, for all that it is distasteful.
If blessed with the task of naming your yearling or store horse, choose wisely and give the future some consideration. You wouldn’t want to be associated with naming a future Derby or Grand National winner Nicnaknickynoo, would you?

​Why must we be always on the defensive when we talk about the Aintree Grand National? It is the most well-known horserace in the world, or at least we are led to believe it is. Though even if you or I believe the Melbourne Cup might rival the Grand National in worldwide popularity these days, you, too, must withstand criticism from animal rights activists who take delight in listing the horses to suffer fatal injuries in the race. Popularity is a twin-edged sword in times of woke and a widespread ‘I don’t like it. It should be banned’ mentality!
I said back in 2013 when the fences were modified, the distance changed and conditions of the race altered to attract ‘a higher class of horse’, that fatalities would continue to occur as, with all horse races and horse events, we are in the lap of the gods as to whether we ‘count them all out and count them all back’. It is as true as it would be with a 3-horse novice chase at Taunton or Hexham as it is the a 40-runner Grand National. In sport, we are all but pawns played by gods of fate who make changes to the rules to suit their whims and fancies.
I suggested in an earlier ‘blog’ that the first 3-fences are the bogey fences at Aintree and have suggested twenty jockeys should be assigned by a draw to pursue the inner to middle from the start, with the rest pursuing a middle to outer route, with the field mingling between the third and fourth fences. Also, the right horses should be attracted to run in the race, not necessarily the highest rated. But that is another issue. This piece is about restoring the Grand National’s sullied reputation with the public to ensure we keep the middle-ground on our side, or at least not taken to the other side.
The Grand National should be aligned to horse welfare charities. Let our belief that the Grand National is the most watched horse race in the world be our guide. Why not use that platform to highlight the abuse and negligent care of horses around the world? Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s charity raises money, in part, to support The Brook Hospital, a charity that provides veterinary care in third-world countries. Not only should the light be focused on horse welfare issues in foreign countries but money could be raised for the wonderful horse rehabilitation charities in Britain and Ireland, Riding for the Disabled charity could be helped also through charity aligned to the Grand National. Any and all horse welfare charities could be sustained through association with Aintree.
All that is required, and, yes, I dare say setting up such a fund will not be as a,b,c, as I suggest, but stick with me, is for a small percentage of all winning bets to go to the horse welfare charity, a small percentage of bookmaker profits from the race, a small percentage of jockeys prize money from the meeting, with perhaps jockeys donating their riding fee from the Grand National to help swell the pot; owners, too, might offer a small percentage of their prize-money. And so on and so on.
The Grand National has been the love of my life, more so than any human being. I am 69 now; how many more Grand Nationals will I be privileged to witness. To be honest, after my death I’ll not spin in my grave if there are no F.A. Cup Finals, no free and fair elections to parliament or Repair Shops. But I’ll spin like an out-of-control turbine if the Grand National is consigned to history.
The Grand National has been a force for good in my life since I was a child. As someone who grew up on a council housing estate in Bristol, with no connection to horses of any kind, the Grand National fired my imagination for a sport I knew absolute zero about and gave me an interest that aligned itself to my heart ever since. It is time the B.H.A., the Aintree executive, Jockey Club estates and the racing public at large, gave the Grand National and Aintree racecourse assurance for the future by making it a force for good, to help horses of every kind around the world and nearer to home.
The back-foot negativity must end. Give animal rights activists a small voice as we have far more in common with them than they will admit to. I suspect those connected to horse racing donate more to animal charities than any other sector of society and feed and care-for more animals than those collectively who have become our enemy at the door. We have nothing to be ashamed about.
People continue to suggest changes, even people within racing. But the Grand National must not change beyond the small alterations I have suggested. It must be 40-runners as the number is part of its distinction and history. It must be 4-miles 2-furlongs plus. It cannot be anything other than a source of danger to horse and rider as any equestrian sport cannot be anything other than played out to the whims and fancies of fate and the gods that set the rules.
The Grand National, though, must be seen by the middle-ground as a force for good. It is within the gift of British and Irish horse-racing to help horses around the world through the annual sporting event that is known worldwide as the Grand National.

​I dislike the concept of ‘premiership racing’ as it wreaks of elitism and that cannot be right when in the main horse racing is a working-class sport. Within the entanglement of the idea, though, I admit, there is a thread of common-sense. 
I have written before that if one-weekend in every four were to be given over to promoting the racecourses of Britain and Ireland that fall outside the ‘premier’ racecourses, I believe the sport as a whole, as a community, would benefit. I also have come around to the idea that British flat racing and National Hunt should not have to jostle for supremacy during the months of March, April and May.
During the hey-day of the sport, before the dual complication of all-weather racing and summer jumping, the two seasons were delineated, starts and finishes defined, boldly declared on calendars. These days, the situation is fuzzy, confusing, with neither the flat nor National Hunt having either a beginning or an end.
In fact, the mingling of the conclusion of the jumps season and the beginning of the flat resembles an elitist jumble sale in a cathedral. 
Post the Cheltenham Festival, we have all-weather finals day, the Lincoln, Aintree, the Craven meeting, Scottish Grand National, the Greenham, Sandown and the old Whitbread and then the Guineas meeting. With, of course, the Irish Grand National, Punchestown and the Irish trials for the upcoming Guineas in Britain, France and Ireland, adding to the mish-mash.
How the B.H.A. will deal with this six-weeks of the season as part of the ‘premiership’ scheduling of the 2024 race programme will make for very interesting reading.
My proposal, a work in progress, I admit, would be to limit by half the number of all-weather meetings for a 3-month period during the core flat season to increase the availability of horses to compete at the numerous turf flat meetings that are staged between June, July and August.
I would have no National Hunt meetings in May, with Newton Abbot, Worcester, Stratford, Market Rasen and Perth, given priority in June, July and August, with a limit of 3-meetings a week. I would then have a further hiatus of 2-weeks in October.
Limiting all-weather meetings in the summer, where they are less needed for betting turnover purposes, and curtailing the increase in summer jumping, is the easiest method of improving the competitiveness of British racing.
The Grand National in mid-April, though a one-off this season, is a good idea and as Aintree can now provide ground no worse than good, I would suggest staging the race at the end of April, giving the National Hunt season a fitting conclusion and some much-needed breathing space. This would allow six-weeks between Cheltenham and Aintree, necessitating, I admit, a clash with Punchestown. Yet that conundrum illuminates the tangled mess of having too much Grade 1 racing in so short a time period, especially when the National Hunt season in Britain trickles to luke-warm between Christmas and the Cheltenham Festival.
With the flat, the problem is that it starts with a whimper, then has ‘festival meetings in abundance’ through June, July, August and September. In a world where Ireland, France and every racing nation from the U.S. to Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabian are in competition for the best horses, with all of them offering far greater amounts of prize-money than either Britain and Ireland can afford, wouldn’t it be possible to cut back a wee bit in the summer festival schedule. Or, at least, become more inventive with the race programme?
There is greater latitude for change with the National Hunt programme. Stage the Cheltenham Festival a week earlier than tradition dictates, run the Imperial Cup and Midland National the day after. The Scottish National can then take-up the following week-end and the old Whitbread the Saturday before the Grand National, though I would alter the distance of Sandown’s feature race to around 2-mile 4-furlongs.
Tentatively, I would suggest a 9-month turf season starting in early March with the Lincoln – as a 40-runner race started from a barrier, as I have suggested many time before, the intention being to make the race a more stand-out feature and to give modern jockeys the opportunity to experience racing as their forebears knew it – the early programme devoted to racecourses, as with Bath, that suffer from firm ground during the core season, given priority, with a week in April for the traditional Guineas Trials. The Guineas in May, Derby (returned to the first Wednesday of the month) in June, Ascot in July, York Ebor meeting and Glorious Goodwood in September. Or something along those lines. The season coming to a conclusion in November with a plumped-up November Handicap. 
All complete nonsense, of course. The problem of non-competitive racing, a congested race programme, too much racing and embarrassingly low levels of prize money, ‘is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ as Sir Winston once said of Russia. The great man also said, both which could be said of horse racing at the present time in this country. ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’. He also said, ‘to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.’
Perhaps the legendary Captain Tim Forster had the best solution. ‘Get rid of flat racing’. Perhaps we should. Britain and Ireland dominate jumps racing, after all, so should we concentrate all our efforts on what we do best?

​At the entrance to Laurel Park racecourse there is a statue of Billy Barton, the American-bred, American-owned, horse that finished a distant second to Tipperary Tim, after being remounted, in the 1928 Grand National. 42 set out, only two finished. I should, and perhaps will later on in the day, conduct research into whether Laurel Park remains a racecourse; my scant knowledge of American racing and my poor memory could easily count against me; or is now a business park or housing estate. I hope not. A little bit of me dies whenever I am informed of a racecourse having to make way for the bricks and cement of a multi-national money-making corporation. Even U.S. dirt tracks.
The point I am slowly getting round to making is this: Billy Barton was not a superstar of the pantheon of U.S. racing. He was not a forerunner of Seabiscuit or Secretariat. In a country where steeplechasing could not even be described as the equivalent of point-to-points in Britain and Ireland, someone financed a statue of him for no other reason than he was a gallant second in a steeplechase in a far-away land. Yes, Billy Barton won all the top timber races in his homeland and as a reformed rogue, as was Jay Trump, who had been banned from the oval dirt tracks for refusing to race and was better-loved because of it, and he was an unlucky loser in the Grand National, yet Battleship won the Grand National for his homeland and though his owner had a statue commissioned of him at her ranch, I don’t believe he is immortalised at a U.S. racecourse. Horses are, and remain, a source of pride to people.
Those who believe racing people only want the thoroughbred for financial gain, who will go to any measure to break their will so they spring to human commands, to jump and race ‘until death’, their carcass then sold in order to extract every last penny out of them, should be made aware that humans have immortalised hundreds of horses down the decades in bronze, either displayed in public places or privately on lawns in country homes. Thousands upon thousands of horses hang on walls, immortalised in oil, many painted by artists of international renown. Photographs, too, of much-loved horses hang by the million, I suggest, on walls of modest bungalows and mansions alike.
Humans do not skimp on affection for the horse. Tears of joy; tears of deep sorrow. Horses take humans to the very heights of emotion and to the very depths of despair. The sight of an ex-racehorse still enjoying life never fails to bring me joy. It is as it should be. Even though he is now 31, J.P. McManus has Istabraq treated as if he were a living God. Respect from birth to the grave. As it should be.
I love the sport of horse racing, especially National Hunt, and though I cannot hand on heart state that ‘we’ are without fault, I know deep within my heart that ‘we’ endeavour always to do right by the horse. I understand that people who observe the sport from outside of it are appalled at the sight of horses falling during a horse race and, when they rise and gallop after the field, I, too, sigh in relief. No one who lives and breathes the sport wants to see a horse injured or killed. But it is a dangerous sport that must play out in a woke world where people believe they have the right to demand that anything they disapprove of should be banned. Horse racing is not alone to this threat: motor racing has its critics, boxing, too, greyhound racing, any sport that involves weaponry, and so it goes on.
I have made my suggestion for how the Grand National might be tweaked to improve safety in a previous blog. I would reject, though, any changes to the course or its design. I would also oppose further limiting the number of horses that part, knowing that any horse race of any number of runners can provide tragedy. Sixty horses could run one year with nothing of controversy occurring. Ten might run the following year and there might be two equine fatalities. We live in the lap of the gods. I am still a naïve optimistic, after all these years. Aintree could, though, provide a few baby steps towards appeasing our critics. A cemetery on the course or close by for the fallen. If a percentage of all prize-money throughout the Grand National meeting was set aside for equine charities; if a similar small percentage of all winning bets went to an equine charity. If a small percentage of bookmaker profits on the Grand National went to an equine charity. If a small percentage of jockey fees went to an equine charity.
Allow the Grand National to be a force for good for horses all around the world.

​We are living at a time when certain sections of society believe they have the right to demand that anything they disapprove of should be banned and further believe they have the right to disrupt and make difficult the lives of law-abiding people in aid of their ‘cause’.
What we witnessed at Aintree on Saturday we will doubtless witness again and again through Spring and Summer. I do not know the grudge of the people who disrupted the World Snooker yesterday as I was not watching on t.v., though it is easy to conclude that an animal rights group was behind it. My first reaction to events on Saturday were ‘no punishment would be too severe for these ignorant morons’, and part of me remains of the same persuasion. Would that mindset, though, change minds? Would that bring peace?
As much as I loathe the actions of animal rights activists, especially when the people they are attacking most likely contribute more money to animal charities than any other sector of the population. This is the rub, isn’t it. People involved in horse racing are animal lovers. You never see a trainer at home without at least one dog, usually with many running around their feet seeking attention. I wouldn’t think there are many trainers without retired racehorses around the place, living at his or her expense. It would be the same with grooms, jockeys and owners. In many aspects of animal welfare, the racing industry would legitimately stand shoulder-to-shoulder with animal activists. Though, perhaps, not the professional protesters, the ones that roam from ‘Stop Oil’ protests to ‘Migrants Rights’ protests, to whatever protest in next on the list of days-out.
Engaging with the middle ground, illustrating all the love and good connected to the racing industry, is 100% the right initiative and I commend those journalists prepared to stand above the parapet at times like these as the death of any horse, especially a high-profile death as with Hill Sixteen, makes for an easy bat to beat us with. But, as with any battle, any skirmish, we might be better served to engage with the enemy, perhaps even separate the weaker elements to educate them to the truth of the situation: horses are not forced to jump and gallop; though people earn a living from the sport, to the greater portion it is not all about betting and winning fortunes from the sweat and blood of horses; that horses actually enjoy the lives given to them; that though one must be mentally strong to work with horses, there is love-a-plenty for the horse, with any death keenly felt, small tragedies that cut at the heart on the occasion of any fatality. 
I would like to sit down with a couple of protesters and have them watch videos of Frodon and ask them what they see that makes them think he is being forced to race, forced to jump, what aspect of his demeanour suggests to them he is not enjoying what he is asked to do. I would also show them the race at Aintree, was it 4-years ago, when low sun forced the removal of six-fences (or was it eight?) from the Old Roan Chase and for the only time in his long and honourable career Frodon couldn’t see the point of it all, bemused by why he was being steered around fences, denied the opportunity of jumping them. Constitution Hill is another example of a horse completely at ease when racing. There will many, many, other examples to prove the point.
Our sport is dangerous to man and horse. To deny the fact is to encourage derision. We cannot defend the death of Hill Sixteen no matter how loved he was or how well-cared-for he was. And we shouldn’t make the mistake of laying all the blame on protesters. They obviously contributed to the circumstances of his demise, though there is a voice within me that suggests if he became ‘hyper’ due to the delay, it would have been wise to have withdrawn him. That, though, is with the wisdom of hindsight.
Horse racing and the Grand National are the pivot of my life. For the best part of my 69-years horse racing has seasoned my life and protected my mental health. Even now, entering my 70th year, I hanker to be around racehorses once more and am actively looking to earn some spending money as help to anyone in need of my limited use. 
Horse racing is a life to so many, not merely a job. It is a vocation that involves sacrifice. It is seven-days-a-week, twelve-months of the year. An ever-turning cycle of hard work, heartbreak and joy. At the hub of it all is the horse. Our worship of the horse.
We forget the dead equine too easily, perhaps. There was a time we paid no heed to the ex-racehorse, though the short-sightedness of convenience is now vanishing as trainers and owners must now live-up to their responsibilities. But we forget the equine dead too easily. Perhaps racecourses, especially National Hunt, should provide equine cemeteries for the fallen and deceased. Respect for the horse from birth to death should apply to the tragedies that occur when racing, I suggest.
Red Rum is buried at Aintree. One For Arthur’s ashes were scattered there, too. That is true respect for the horse. From birth to death, as it should be for all racehorses. Without them, we are nothing.

​After a long period of agonisingly fraught debate with myself and after many thousands of words, mainly comprising utter tripe, as things turned out, this year’s Grand National returned a large deficit in my bank balance. My only saving grace, and to provide proof I would have to research my recent writings, which I have neither the will nor the time to conduct, I did, either on this site or to a correspondence, make the statement that Corach Rambler should win, though I thought it unlikely that the otherwise magical combination of Derek Fox and Lucinda Russell could achieve two Grand National successes during their careers. The form book gave me good advice and I rejected it in favour of instinctive reaction. Sod it!
Far for it for me to criticise people more skilled at their craft than I am in anything, yet even during the early stages of the race, which brought more fallers than in either of the other two races over the Grand National fences at the meeting, I didn’t understand why all 39 jockeys took the middle to inner route, with no one keeping to the right over the first three or four fences.
After the race, and this might seem a bit of a mad idea, but with safety in mind, the idea came me that perhaps a muddled sort of draw should be made on the day of the race stipulating that jockeys ‘drawn’ one to twenty (in any order, not necessarily one-to-twenty) line-up left to middle and stay on that divide of the course until after the third fence, with the other jockeys lining up middle to right and staying on that course in similar fashion, rather like a 400-metres athletics race on an indoor track. This rather off-centre idea would allow horses a clearer view of fences that are out of either their recent or life experience. As with everyone, especially anyone watching the race for the first time, I hate seeing horses falling and being brought down. It is an ugly scene, even to the experienced enthusiast. I will forward this suggestion to the clerk of the course at Aintree and report back.
I haven’t yet read my on-line Sunday copy of the Racing Post, so I cannot report with any accuracy if all horses survived their part in racing history yesterday. I hope all 39-horses returned safely to their home stables, with more than one receiving the praise of returning heroes. I thought Vanillier, Noble Yeats and Mr. Coffey deserve special recognition for their gallant efforts. I am sure the head lads of the trainers involved in yesterday’s race will be busy this morning tending to cuts, bruises and other, hopefully, minor injuries to the stable’s Grand National runners. We should never lose sight of the fact that the Grand National is as much a battle with cruel fate as it is a sporting institution. It is also a battle with the sport’s enemies as witnessed by the idiot protestors who unsuccessfully tried to force their will on the sixty or more thousand people at Aintree, the millions watching at home and the many millions watching world-wide.
On this topic, I have another suggestion. Give the animal rights lobby a platform every year to express, in moderation, their beliefs. I am 100% an animal lover and it hurts me on so many levels when made aware of animal cruelty and if I thought for one-moment any form of cruelty was involved in horse racing or the care of horses in general, I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the protestors. All I have ever seen within horse racing is love of the horse and concern for their well-being.
But rather than have annual repeats of what happened yesterday, why not allow them, for free, an advertising board where they can express their objections to our sport. I also wouldn’t be opposed to I.T.V. inviting a spokesperson for their views to Aintree for a discussion with people like A.P., Ruby or Alice Plunkett. If we engage with these people perhaps a form of conciliation might emerge. After all, it would be animal lovers engaging with animal lovers. The two opposing factions have so much in common, if only the protestors could understand that.
Although we did not get a controversy-free Grand National that would appear on national news for all the wrong reasons, we did get a worthy winner in Corach Rambler, the easiest winner in many years. A British, if Scottish, trained winner. Praise be! The Irish advance has finally been halted.

​Last night I dreamt that Diol Ker won the Grand National. That part of the dream may come true, only the jockey was called Connor, Miss Connor, the wonder-jockey. No other details, I am afraid. Dreams are mad, aren’t they?
In the past, I have had premonitions or instinctive thoughts that have come true but I have never found dreams to be a reliable source of finding winners. I admit that I do rely on instinct over studied form for inspiration. Not that I would trust instinct to provide me with a fortune. I am long way short on confidence in my own ability to live the life of a gambler.
I do, though, believe you can throw the form-book out of an open window when it comes to finding the winner. Corach Rambler is, according to the experts, 10Ibs ‘well-in’ and should by rights win ten-lengths. Yet should be clout the third, get pushed wide at the Canal Turn, not get a smooth passage thereafter and that 10Ibs becomes a worthless benefit.
Ben Nevis won in 1980 despite having coughed a few days before the race and only ran as so many people were crossing the Atlantic to see him run. When Last Suspect won, again trained by Tim Forster, Hywel Davies’s instructions were ‘keep remounting’. The form was not in the book for either to have a hope of winning. Nor was the intelligence that one was coughing and that the other held neither the confidence of the trainer nor the owner.
If you listen to the ex-champion jockeys who parade their expert opinion as part of the excellent I.T.V. team there would be no point in looking beyond the first half-dozen in the betting for your choice. None of them selected Noble Yeats last year, though he will be in many of their top three this time around when he must win with the burden of 18Ibs extra on his back. He may well win and I wouldn’t put anyone off him. Red Rum won with a similar weight in 1973 and backed-up the following year with 12-st. It can be done and Noble Yeats does have the cut of Red Rum about him as the longer the race the better he seems to travel.
Perhaps not so much these days but in the past old soldiers did eventually get their day in the Aintree glow, though in former times past winners tend only to run with distinction in subsequent efforts. Team Spirit won in 1964 at his fifth attempt. In normal circumstances, though, the winner usually goes to the Grand National completely ignorant of all the equine trauma associated with becoming a legend of the sport.
An aspect of the Grand National that curls my lip is when a ‘form expert’ spunkily exerts his authority on the subject by declaring a horse a ‘no-hoper’, as if he has not bothered to go beyond the previous three or four years of the history of the race. Mon Mome was a ‘no-hoper’, remember and turned out to be a memorable winner of the race. It is why we must not rule out Diol Ker on the basis that he is, in places, priced at 100/1 and that in my dreams he won with Connor the wonder-jockey riding him. And nobody say in response ‘Aint That A Shame’ that dream isn’t coming true, as you will have to go all in on Rachel Blackmore hogging the headlines again.
When the weights were announced back in February, my instincts stopped my eye at Lifetime Ambition. He has been trained all season with the Grand National in mind, a plan set in motion as far back as last season. Robbie Power declared him a ‘Grand National type’, he is trained by Jesse Harrington, a great trainer who has won everything else and provides the obligatory ‘story’ as she is currently battling breast cancer. He had good form as a novice, he has jumped the Aintree fences in the past and though I am hoping the ground will dry out from the soft of yesterday, I refuse to be dissuaded of his chances just because no expert has so far not even mentioned his name. Perhaps they know something I do not.
The only fly in the ointment of my premise is that for the past couple of weeks, after a trawl through the form, the name Capodanno has emerged from the depths of what is left of my brain cells to confuse the situation. As with Lifetime Ambition, he too has good novice chase form, perhaps superior form to most of the runners. He won at Punchestown last May, though has only run once since. The Mullins’ team rate him a potential Gold Cup horse and though Townend has gone for Gaillard Du Mesnil, would the genius Willie be running a horse they hold in high regard in the Grand National just to get him right for Punchestown? And surely, Danny Mullins would be on Carefully Selected if they thought he had a better chance than Capodanno? And Willie Mullins is a genuine genius, remember. Lack of a previous run has never stopped a horse of his in the past and that’s the thinking denting my confidence in Lifetime Ambition.
The one British-trained horse I have a fancy for is The Big Breakaway, even though he pulled-up at Cheltenham and was a hard ride when Brendon Powell excelled on him earlier in the season at Haydock. Aintree might enthuse him into running into some place money.
Let’s hope and prayer for a worthy winner, with a good, even, first-time start, with no controversy, no protestors, with every horse and jockey taking part without need of veterinary or N.H.S. care in the aftermath. Crossed-fingers and good luck to everyone involved.

​It was a bizarre sight, wasn’t it? Nico sitting still, more interested, seemingly, in watching himself on the big screen than what was unfolding behind him, his rivals rowing away more in hope than expectation, their horses going as fast as their legs would allow and yet not gaining an inch on Constitution Hill. And when they did gain an inch, as if to break their hearts, Nico let out half-an-inch of rein and the distance between Pegasus reborn and the ordinary equine mortals in pursuit immediately grew. The phrase ‘poetry in motion’ must have been coined by a soothsayer with Nico and Constitution Hill in mind.
I hope when describing the programme for Constitution Hill next season Nicky Henderson was teasing the press and the public and that the Fighting Fifth, Christmas, International and Champion Hurdles are not at the forefront of his mind. To me, Constitution is a chaser. For one, he jumps like a future chaser, and for two he can stand-off outside the wings but if the stride isn’t there for a display of flamboyance he can shuffle his feet like a tap-dancer and still not touch a twig.
There is another reason why he should go chasing next season – the hurdling division, which is already poor, will become even less competitive as trainers with possible contenders for Constitution Hill’s crown take the decision to avoid ‘the unbeatable’ by going novice chasing and the sport will be poorer. As it is, Constitution Hill will be winning four and five-runner races next season and that will doubtless include the big one at Cheltenham. For the good of the sport Constitution Hill should go novice chasing.
Trueshan is on the decline, apparently. That is, seemingly Alan King’s opinion, and he should know better than any of us. He should have gone past Rajinsky at Nottingham and seemingly couldn’t. My thoughts are thus: if Rajinsky goes and wins, for example, the Chester Cup or a Group race like the Sagaro, then the form of the Nottingham race will look a lot sweeter than it does at first glance. Also, and Alan King would know this better than you or I, as horses get older, they invariably need more work to get them cherry-ripe, even needing a race or two. A dry summer and all plans for Trueshan will be scuppered. And what is the future for Trueshan if Alan King’s fears prove correct? Retirement aged only 7? The answer is hurdling. At some point in a National Hunt season the ground will be soft. It certainly will not be firm. Sea Pigeon won Champion Hurdles aged 10 & 11 in an age when there were plenty of high-class and ex-Champion hurdlers around. He also won Ebor and Chester Cups at an age in an excess of Trueshan’s age now. The future could still be bright for Trueshan if Alan King adopts the spirit of the golden age of hurdling. And, even if he stays on the level this season, with Kyprios out of the picture and a wet summer as likely as not, the Ascot Gold Cup might yet find its way to Barbary Castle.
The future is not as bright, I fear, for British racing if the incompetent B.H.A. go ahead with their plan for a premiership-style programme for weekend racing next season. Let’s make one aspect of this debate plain, the cluttered summer weekend programme is a direct result of the B.H.A. allowing so many racecourses, usually the top-end racecourses, to have meetings going head-to-head as if feasting on custard donuts and steak and kidney was unlikely to cause congestion.
There is merit in overhauling the flat programme; I have advised this course of action many times over the years but not at the expense of those smaller racecourses that work their butts off trying to attract regular and newer people to the sport by throwing dollops of money at the problem. Returning the Epsom Derby, for instance, to the first Wednesday in June, would free up the following Saturday and Sunday to allow the likes of Musselburgh and Salisbury to have a day in the sun.
And that’s the thing, for me. De-cluttering the weekend programme to allow greater focus to fall on the classic races and major Group 1’s is, on its own, a good idea and should be trialled. But to throw out the baby with the bathwater would be scandalous and detrimental to the future of the sport. What the B.H.A. are claiming is that the sport can only attract new people to the sport through the monitor of televisions, laptops and I-phones. For two-thirds of the year there is no terrestrial coverage of horse racing and fewer people follow the sport on designated racing channels than the number I.T.V. attracts. 
I would suggest that the ‘premiershipping’ of racing only takes place on 3 out of every 4 weekends, with the sport once a month highlighting the smaller courses that leave no stone unturned, as with Musselburgh, to stage good-quality racing and with a high-level of prize-money, especially when they are catering for the owner and trainer that represent the bedrock of the sport. It is about being fair to all and not leaving the impression that the minor racecourses can go to wall as a sacrifice for the greater good of those who dine at the top table.
This ‘go ahead with any half-baked scheme somebody proposes’ is exactly why the B.H.A. is failing the sport. It is not their idea; they are never the originator of workable ideas; the premiership proposal came from Peter Savill. It has merit, I admit, but if its implementation means a death-knell to country racecourses then it must be rigorously opposed.