​Yes, Aime Waugh is an old apprentice – did you know she once rode in the Aintree Foxhunters – but that is no reason for trainers the length and breadth of the country to ignore her when they have bottom-weights in the big handicaps. She was particularly impressive on Faylaq in a race down south last season (Newbury?), especially as she is such a wee maid and Faylaq is such a big boy. When she jumped off him in the winners’ enclosure, the distance from saddle to ground was longer than is usual due to her weeness and the height of the horse and I had the distinct impression of her disappearing into the ground. Well, I noticed it, even no one else did. Her win yesterday on 200/1 shot Heavenly Heather was consumed by the starting price, though if you look back at the race she timed her challenge to perfection. Another thing about Aime is the pronunciation of her surname. There used to be a dynasty of flat trainers with the name Waugh, one of whom gave Sir Mark Prescott his big break in life, and the pronunciation was closer to war than wuff. I wish someone would ask Aime how to correctly say her surname as I am of the opinion it is being said wrongly by one and all.
Another female jockey in the north who is under-appreciated, to my mind, anyway, and has taken a similar route to where she is now, is Joanna Mason. I am convinced if she was given rides on top-class horses in major races, she would prove up-to-the-job. The other aspect of Jo Mason that lies pretty-well dormant and which would engage with members of the public, is her bouncy, cheerful countenance. She is smiley, warm, hard-working; someone who could fill the void left by the retirement of Hayley Turner.
It was a loss to British racing when Alice Haynes chose to move her operation to France, leaving her husband to prove his worth back in Newmarket. She is a woman who knows the time of day and I have no doubt her new business plan will work-out for her. I notice she had a winner at Longchamp yesterday, which may or not be her first French-trained winner. Now the point of writing about Alice Haynes, I admit, was the name of her winner, a name I am close to hating. Sucking Diesel. I dare say this phrase means something other than sucking diesel from a tank, nevertheless, it is an awful name to give a racehorse.
I will not go on a rant about the names of racehorses but names should not attract ridicule and upon hearing a member of the public should think ‘what a nice name’ not ‘why the f… give a horse a name like that!’ I shake my head and move on.

As I have mentioned many times in the past – the Irish do things differently, and often they do things better than we achieve in Britain. At the upcoming Punchestown Festival, Ireland’s equivalent to the National Hunt Festival at Cheltenham, there are two bank races and one race restricted to horses owned by local farmers, as well as a whole host of bumper races. Diamonds and pearls amongst coloured sand and interesting pebbles.
On the first day of the Irish National meeting today, there is the Ladies National. Now, let me first make my argument about races with the name ‘National’ in them that do not conform to my definition of the word. A ‘National’ is a long-distance chase, with ‘long-distance’ suggesting a distance beyond 3-miles and several furlongs. Today’s Ladies National is a 2-mile 5-Furlong Chase. So, already, I have provided evidence that Ireland do not always get things right. But the Irish are a mercurial people and the less mercurial of us will just have to live with it.
So why do we, the less mercurial British, not have a Ladies National? It need not be at Aintree. But why not Carlisle. Newbury, Exeter or Perth? 3-miles and a furlong or two, of course. Open to professionals and amateurs alike. A novelty sort-of race for the quiet period after the New Year or the National Hunt Festival, perhaps.
Ireland, though, do things better, at least in general. Look at all the summer festival meetings they have, do you not think the British summer jumping programme would have more sparkle if we copied the Irish model? I could mention many other examples of how the Irish do things better but I need my breakfast and afterwards I have wood to saw and logs to split, though I will only be able to exercise myself that way if my other-half fits the new chain to my electric saw. I could do it myself but it allows her to contribute and also machines, including computers, frighten me. Giving freely of my thoughts does not frighten me. Happy Easter.

​No once can accuse me of being someone who knows not what compromise look like. Yesterday I spelled it Going Stick, even though in the Racing Post it was spelled GoingStick. I do not like GoingStick as not only does it look wrong on the page, my view backed-up by the in-house dictionary, but also because it looks ugly on the page. Perhaps if it were spelled Goingstick, I could learn to get along with it. But not with that capital S sticking up in the air as if a rogue branch on a yew hedge in need of a trimmer. GoingStick is the linguistic equivalent of Boris Johnson’s hair. So, I will hyphenate the word – Going-Stick.
That controversy dealt with, let us go on to Sanderson-gate. James Sanderson, clerk of the course at Thirsk, has stirred-up a hornets’ nest of trouble upon himself by admitting he juggles with the numbers on his own, and seemingly despised, Going-Stick. People within the sport are wagging their fingers in the direction of Thirsk racecourse, with some even suggesting that Sanderson should be put on the naughty step for preferring to use his own judgement than be hamstrung by a device he has small faith in. 
As I said before, before being yesterday if my memory serves me well, you can ask jockeys at the finish of a race to describe the state of the ground and receive three different answers, so why anyone should believe the numbers given by the Going-Stick be considered sacrosanct is beyond my limited intelligence.
Even if the Going-Stick is 100% dependable, the ground yesterday may well be different to the ground come off-time for the first race and two trainers with two horses in a race, both of whom declared on the soft-ground both horses needed, might have different opinions on whether the going is truly soft or only good-to-soft, with one choosing to run, while the other trainer taking his or her horse out on the apparently legitimate grounds of the ground being wrong for his or her horse.
As I said before (yesterday?) the B.H.A. should conduct research into the matter to determine whether the Going-Stick or a clerk-of-the-course is better at describing ground conditions. Also, is there a third option. I suggest there is. There is always a need to find outlets for retired racehorses. How about using a local jockey to come and ride a retired but fit racehorse around the racecourse and use his or her opinion on how the ground is riding? It is often said by jockeys that a course will ride softer or firmer than it walks, so perhaps using horse and jockey - even the jockey could be retired – as a determining factor. We might have in the Racing Post going description thus: Going-Stick 8.00. Clerk-of-the-course, On the Slow side of Good. Retired Jockey and Horse, ‘definitely good-to-soft, but firmer in back-straight’.
All in all, given trainers can take a horse out for any old reason these days without invoking the ire of the stewards, I think this controversy is more a mole-hill than a mountain. We all suspect James Sanderson is only speaking the truth when he claims 50% of clerks meddle with the Going-Stick numbers and even when it provides an accurate description of the ground, I will guarantee that come the actual racing there will be a dozen jockeys and trainers with the opinion that the going description is wildly wrong.
It is a subjective dispute. If an owner was overly bullish prior to a race that his horse was a certainty and it gets beat, the easiest excuse or explanation by the jockey or the trainer was that the ground was not what they were expecting and that the clerk-of-the-course needs to be put in front of a wall and shot so severely that he/she gives up clerking and takes up a less demanding yet more respectable career. 
Whereas no trainer or jockey claims to want to be a starter, even though we all recognise that starters are at present making a right bollocks of starts, clerks-of-the-courses do their job while at the whim of the weather gods. If they water, they are criticised from Easter to Christmas when the racecourse receives a deluge of rain and are equally scolded when they do not water as a storm was forecast and instead the sun beats down accompanied by a breeze blown in from the South of France, which not only intrigues weather-forecasters but excites meteorologists. Yet nobody blames the Going-Stick.

​In his column today in the Racing Post, Richard Forristal heaps praise on Harry Cobden, declaring him a maverick and a throw-back to the days of John Francome and flat exile Jamie Osborne. And who could disagree with him. I believe in Cobden, Sean Bowen and Paul Townend we have three jockeys who can be mentioned alongside any of brilliant jockeys of the past. I was described the difference between Ruby Walsh and A.P. McCoy was that the former never sat on a bad horse and the latter rarely sat on a good one. This was before A.P. became the retained jockey for J.P. McManus. If you set aside Cobden for the moment, my quote about Walsh and McCoy could also apply to Townend and Bowen, with one only riding good horses and Bowen rarely riding a good one.
Forristal also quoted himself in his column today, which is frowned upon, apparently, at least that is what Forristal suggested. He was right to do so, as what he said about last year’s Aintree National was prescient given the fatality and near-fatality this year and the domination of Willie Mullins. Forristal had said after last year’s race that in reducing the maximum number of runners and making the fences too easily negotiated, it was only going to make the race a race for the elite stables. In fact, tongue-in-cheek, I suspect, he predicted that Mullins might have the first five home this year.

Field of Gold was impressive yesterday in the Craven. But what do I know? Good to see Kieran Shoemark silencing his critics, though.

A letter from Simon Burgess of Bewdley in Worcestershire in today’s Racing Post condemns the start-time for the Aintree National brought forward to 4 pm. As a football fan he was forced to tape the race and watch it after the afternoon football matches had finished. And he calls himself a racing fan, preferring football to the biggest horse race in Britain, if not the world. The man needs to get his priorities in order.
He is wrong, by the way. There is no point the racecourse chucking a million gallons of water on the track during the night if it is allowed to dry out to the point of fast ground by the time the race is run. Given I am a supporter of Dan Skelton’s proposal to have the Aintree Meeting as the last meeting of the season, which would have the race run in May, I would suggest a 3 pm start for the race, for the reasons I have stated above. Horses come before faux racing fans who put football before the Aintree National.

Scott Burton, in ‘Another View’ in today’s Racing Post, wrote about the fine margins between a jockeys’ responsibility toward the welfare of the horse he or she is riding and the rule that states ‘all jockeys must take all reasonable measures to obtain the best possible placing’. He cites the cases of Adam Farragher who was given a 10-day when falling foul of the above rule at Kempton on a horse that based on Farragher’s evidence was nearly unrideable during the race, and Michael Nolan for failing to pull-up a ‘horse with nothing left to give’ in the Aintree National. Nolan did pull-up of his own volition and did all he could to prevent his mount when it was obvious it was in distress. At first, I only disagreed with the stewards for their leniency. Now, having heard Nolan’s testimony, I believe him hard done by. There are times when the jockey should be given the benefit of the doubt, as in Farragher’s case, and in Nolan’s case, judgement should be deferred until all the evidence is at hand.

At Longchamp today, controversially, a French 1,000 Guineas Trial and a 2,000 equivalent, have been merged into one race due to neither race filling to an acceptable number of runners. Two five-runner races are now one 10-runner race. French rules allow this to happen in races where France Galop, provide all the prize-money. This seems such a sensible idea that the B.H.A. should introduce a similar rule in this country. Of course, British trainers would create a fuss the same as their French colleagues, with self-interest taking precedence over the benefit such a move would bring to the financial and competitiveness side of the sport.

​Although I am a born cynic, I recognise, appreciate and applaud the work others do for the disadvantaged in society. It would be fair to suggest that if Jane and William Buick did not have an autistic son, they would not be so immersed in helping other families with autistic children. Others do not do what the Buicks do, though, of course, with William being one of the world’s best flat jockeys, they have the profile to have doors opened to them. That said, William may be a very wealthy man, though it is easy to recognise in interviews that he is also a good human being. Jane must be, too.
I have read today in the Racing Post that Autism in Racing has paired with the Newmarket Pony Academy to give (I guess) local autistic children the opportunity to get to know what it is like to be around, and also, to ride a pony. If you watch YouTube or subscribe to social media platforms like TikTok, you will come across hundreds of examples of young children interacting with every type of horse, including toddlers leading horses out to the paddock or back to their stables, sitting with horses on the ground, the horse gently making friends with the little human. So, it is no surprise that horses and ponies make for a safe environment for young children, whether handicapped or able bodied. One day there will be an autistic jockey in the weighing room who may not be able to communicate and interact with humans but he or she will be envied for their communication with horses. It will be their super-power.

The Going Stick, the digital walking stick that clerk of the courses stick into the ground to measure the water content is becoming a source of controversy. James Sanderson, clerk at Thirsk, seemingly does not like the mandatory use of them and has admitted knocking a point or two off the official reading. He is not a radical but a pragmatist. He is of the opinion that different soil composition will give different readings at different tracks. Although it is not exactly comparing apples with apples, I have just carried out a quick survey of the Going Stick numbers for tomorrow’s racing. At Newmarket, where the going description is Good-to-Soft, the Going Stick figure is 7.0 At Cheltenham, where the going description is described as good, the figure is 7.1 At Ripon, where the going description is also good, the figure is 8.0 At Ffos Las, where the ground is good-to-soft, the figure is 6.4 The lower the figure, the softer the ground.
It is mandatory for a Going Stick reading be published alongside the clerk’s official going description. Frankly, I do not see where the controversy is coming from. At the end of a race, three different jockeys might describe the going three different ways and they will often say that the ground rides either faster of softer than it walks. And James Sanderson is right, turf tracks can differ from one course to another. At one course you see divots of turf being thrown into the air from the hooves of the horses, while at another track hooves sink into the turf, with very few divots seen. I would imagine Kempton ‘good’ will be a whole lot different to Aintree ‘good’, for example.
I would advise James Sanderson to keep publishing the Going Stick figure and then use his own opinion in his going report and then ask the opinion of jockeys if they believe the Going Stick figure is closer to reality than his own description. If this is done at every day at every racecourse, the data will prove very informative. 

Unless Willie Mullins wins every race in which he has a runner today at Cheltenham, the championship will not be decided until at least the Easter period, with Plumpton perhaps the unconsidered racecourse where the two men shake hands. I would not be at all surprised though if Dan Skelton grabs victory from the jaws of defeat at Sandown by winning the Old Whitbread with one of his horses. It has been one of those rollercoaster championships since before the Cheltenham Festival where anything can happen and often does, with Skelton looking odds-on for a comfortable win, then Willie winning enough money at the Festival to keep himself in touch without actually getting to a point where Dan was twitchy and not sleeping well at night. Then Willie bulldozed his way into contention at Aintree, achieving a Michael Dickenson-like haul of the Aintree National prize-money and turning 1/10 on Skelton into 4/1 against Skelton. Dan, of course, is still, remarkably, in front by £9,000 as I write. Come Plumpton, Mullins might have hit the front, and still be on top by the time the last meeting of the season is about to start. But as long as the numbers still give him a fighting chance, I feel it in my waters that Dan will have tears of joy running down his face in the winners’ enclosure. It has been that sort of post- Cheltenham.

​At my age, perhaps it is the same for anyone with either a flaky personality or a depressed state of mind, I always need something to look forward to. I am 71 today. Pity me, do not wish me well. How this has happened I cannot imagine. I was supposed to be dead before I got old, and no, I was never a Who devotee or pot-smoker. If only the young realised they have every possibility ahead of them in life they might make more of an effort to do good, to become someone out-of-the-ordinary.
It will not be so bad if I survive until next October, when the sun goes off on its travels and the Racing Post starts its journey around the big hitters of the National Hunt world. Yes, I have the Irish National to look forward to, the Old Whitbread meeting and, of course, Punchestown, yet after the Irish season draws to a close, all there is mega-money flat races involving, in the main, immature colts and fillies owned by billionaires and trained by the same old faces, shiny blue-bloods that fleetingly will criss-cross the racing firmament only to disappear like a once-in-a-hundred-year visit of a comet. Journalists and commentators will get all gooey-eyed over a nascent talented colt with one run under its belt, elevating classic winners from potential to greatness and it will have the look of yesteryear. Same old, same old. Oh, for the days of my youth when I knew less than I do now, when I too falsified probability into classified wonderment. At 71, I no longer believe Nijinsky was one of the best horses of my lifetime. Nor do I believe Sea The Stars deserves to be included in the list of greatest horses of my lifetime. Frankel, yes. Brigadier Gerard, yes. But please let us not get a repetition of the laurels placed at the hooved of City of Troy last season. Was it propaganda or pre-emptive marketing of a stallion-to-come. Whatever it was, it was unedifying. 

Simon Bazalgette, former C.E.O. of Jockey Club Estates (is it estates?) took up the mantle as guest columnist in the Racing Post today. His opinion is as valid as your opinion or mine and any contribution on the topic of whether the sport is well-managed by the B.H.A. is useful to hear. Yet, I must admit, his take on things came across as wishy-washy, a stab at supporting the hierarchy, perhaps his friends. 
To defend the present leadership by reminding readers that their hands are tied by the indisputable fact that the sport has far too many ‘stakeholders’ is laughable when you realise the B.H.A. were integral to the agreement that brought about this whole stakeholder fiasco. You would not know it but the ties that bound the B.H.A. have been loosened, yet still we have intransigence and no real leadership. If racecourses did not have so heavy an influence on the B.H.A. the stated aim for separate changing facilities for both sexes would not have been put back five-years. A scandal uncovered, I suggest. 
The sport will never go forward if people like Simon Bazalgette, now Chair of horseracing management consultancy G.V.S. EQ (no idea what they do or why) simply say ‘it is harder than you think to govern a sport’, without putting forward any ideas of how it could be done better.

I must be in a bad mood, worst than usual, anyway, as I took issue with Ed Dunlop, writing the Another View column in the Racing Post, suggesting all-weather racing should be better championed through the winter as it is such a success. Give me strength! Look, I realise that all-weather saves the day when the elements scupper National Hunt and that it gives employment to people and gives opportunity for trainers and owners to make a buck during a time of the year when in years gone-by they would have had no opportunities. But to remind everyone, all-weather racing was sanctioned in the first instance to provide a safety-net for racing as it brought in betting revenue when snow, frost and hurricane prevented jump racing from taking place.
Now, incrementally, it is taking over, with all-weather racing taking place even on soft, balmy nights in the middle of summer. National Hunt suffers because of the all-weather. Horses that now run on the flat through the winter would, at least a good few, in the good old days have run over hurdles. I believe the all-weather is a worst curse on National Hunt than the horses sold abroad. Although I see a value in having two or three all-weather racecourses, in the main I see it as a scourge on the sport and wish its importance lessened, not inflated.

Although it is odds-on that Sean Bowen will win both the jockeys’ title this season and the ride of the season, though which one, Booster Bob or Shared? it struck me after Harry Cobden’s ride on Captain Cody, and remembering pitch perfect ride on Caldwell Potter at the Cheltenham Festival, that in the spirit of promoting our jockeys, perhaps every festival and major meeting should have an award to the ‘ride of the meeting’, with a cash prize, obviously, and a donation to an equine charity of the winning jockey’s choice.

​Watching Ralph Beckett on the Nick Luck Racing t.v. programme on YouTube yesterday, I was surprised to hear that former N.F.U. President and former stable girl and point-to-point rider Minette Batters had applied for the post of B.H.A. Chair but had not even been granted an interview. Here was someone with the cold-light-of-day experience of horse racing, is currently on the board at Salisbury and has led a large representative organisation, yet was swiftly passed-over at a time when the B.H.A. was struggling to find anyone interested enough in the position to want to apply. Unbelievable! No wonder Ralph Beckett appeared disgruntled. We were told when Lord Charles Allen was appointed as the in-coming B.H.A. Chair that he had a good experience of horse racing, yet Ralph Beckett was of the opposite view.

For many years now I have been of the opinion that there are too many long-distance chases at the back-end of the season. The Midland, Aintree, Scottish, Irish and the old Whitbread dominate this part of the season. Does no one not recognise the overload here. It is one of the reasons why Dan Skelton’s proposal to move Aintree to the last meeting makes so much sense. Easter, of course, always confuses the issue when it comes to neat and tidy race programming, though Easter Monday is the traditional home of the Irish National.
If I had my way (extremely unlikely) I would move the Cheltenham Festival forward by a week and have Sandown’s Imperial Cup in tandem with Uttoxeter’s Midland National on the second Saturday after Cheltenham. Ayr’s Scottish National could be staged in the place presently occupied by the Aintree National, with the Irish National tied to Easter. And I would change the distance of the old Whitbread -be fair, the race is nowhere near the race used to be when it was ‘the Whitbread’ – to 2-miles 4-furlongs, the distance of the first two big handicap chases of the season. With the Aintree National, as Dan suggests, on the last Saturday of the season.
Though it is no one’s fault, the Scottish National this year was a cringing watch even for someone as ingrained in the sport as I am and following a week after the Aintree National, with the sadness that mired the aftermath, it did not present a good look for the sport. If my suggestion of spreading out the Nationals traditionally run at this time of the year were implemented, perhaps fatalities at two of our most popular venues might have less impact when it comes to social media and the ignorant few who gain their knowledge and view of our sport from what comes to them from social media platforms.

Apparently, the all-weather championship comes to a conclusion this Friday. Though why it is said to be the conclusion when the following day there is an all-weather meeting at Wolverhampton and another at Southwell the following day is beyond my understanding.
Why not a break of two-weeks to allow a proper ending to one season within a season and the start of a new season within a season. Common-sense would decree that the optimal and more sensible time to bring the all-weather to a conclusion would be on the eve of the new flat season. But that is not B.H.A. policy, is it? Complication, guess-work and hands tied behind their backs guides B.H.A. governance of the sport.

To continue my B.H.A. bashing. As a governing force the B.H.A. borders on the useless, don’t they? Although racecourses are taking the greatest amount of flak for the poor quality facilities they provide for our jockeys, the B.H.A. are, in my opinion, equally to blame. They are the regulator of the sport and had it within their means to threaten any racecourse that did not comply with the ambition to have separate changing facilities in place for the end of this year for male and female jockeys with the retraction of their licence to hold race-meetings. Short-term this might have hurt the sport but long-term it would have won them the respect they do not presently receive.
Take Chelmsford for example. It is our newest racecourse, yet it is not one of the fifteen racecourses that have complied with the notice to have separate changing facilities, and the B.H.A., seemingly, when Chelmsford were applying for a licence, were not minded to make separate changing facilities are a prerequisite for approval of their licence.
Also, and I only discovered this fact through Lee Mottershead’s excellent research into this appalling state of affairs, is that through the Levy Board a racecourse could apply for a loan for this very purpose. It is only a £20-million pot and might not stretch so far as to pay for all the work needed on all the feet-dragging racecourses but it would provide the giant strides regarded to bring respectability to the sport when it comes to looking after our jockey-athletes.

Finally, this may or not be a first for Irish racing, in the first race at Down Royal yesterday Rachael Blackmore won and Caragh Monaghan was second, both of them are professional female riders. I dare say back in the day when Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh were riding, they must have finished first and second, even in a race when taking on professionals, but they were amateurs, if in name only, So, was the first race at Down Royal another baby step in the development of female professional jockeys in Irish racing?

​Sometimes in life you hear or read something that drops your jaw. For many a long year I have believed that for a horse to be a proficient jumper it must jump a lot of obstacles at home. It is all about building strength into the jumping muscles, yet according to Willie Mullins that is a load of old cobblers. My words not the great man’s.
Between his Cheltenham fall and Aintree, where he fell again, remember, Nicky Henderson told us that Constitution Hill had jumped a hundred obstacles of different kinds, including a session of loose schooling. Compare that to the number of hurdles Lossiemouth jumped between falling at Leopardstown and winning at the Cheltenham Festival. That would be none. Willie Mullins is not a fan of too much schooling as he believes it makes a horse complacent about jumping and is a risk too far.
Two of the most successful trainers either side of the water taking a fundamental different approach to what we, as outsiders, might think is an important aspect of the sport. Who can say which is the correct approach? And just because Constitution Hill fell consecutive races does not prove the Mullins approach correct and the Henderson way wrong. It might simply mean that while Lossiemouth was going at it hammer and tongs at Leopardstown with State Man, the pace of the Mares Hurdle at Cheltenham was more sedate and hence put less pressure on her jumping.
It remains though the most intriguing thought ever spoken by Willie Mullins and one that will make all other trainers sit up and take notice.

To my mind, there are only two rides this season worthy of being voted ‘ride of the season’. It is either Booster Bob winning at Newbury or Shared winning at Plumpton. Both were ridden by champion jockey elect Sean Bowen. Both the title of champion jockey and the award for best ride of the season should be foregone conclusions. Bowen has been McCoy-esque this season, lifting horses over the line in front when by all odds they should have found one or two good for him. The ride on Booster Bob I will never forget. He was stone-cold last for the majority of the race. He was last entering the straight. He did not look like winning as he past beaten horses between the last two fences, yet without any undue recourse to the whip he eventually won ‘quite handily’. And Shared did not want to put his best foot forward at any stage of the 3-mile hurdle at Plumpton, the horse seemed to be actively considering whether to jump-off, let alone break into a gallop. And again, after looking the least likely winner at every stage of the race except where it really mattered, and again without resorting to undue pressure of the whip, Bowen yet again pulled the race out of the fire.
All Bowen needs now is to get on some Grade 1 horses and win the races his talent deserves.

Former Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Looks Like Trouble has died aged 33. Firstly, huge praise must be awarded to Richard Johnson for looking after the horse so well for over 20-years that he should live to such a grand old age. Poorly named as by all accounts he was absolutely no trouble to anyone, he gave the young Richard Johnson the boost his career needed for him to become 18-times runner-up to A.P. McCoy, as well as champion jockey a good few times as well.
Johnson only became associated with Looks Like Trouble as his then regular jockey Norman Williamson fell out with the owner and because of that dispute, Johnson found a wife, the daughter of trainer Noel Chance, and Looks Like Trouble found a long and happy retirement. Fate can be kind when it is not in the mood to be malevolent.

We are about to swap from National Hunt to the more mundane restrains of flat racing. Two aspects of the flat that I dislike are two-year-olds being asked to race so early in their mental and physical development and big raw three-year-old colts being readied for Derby trials and then asked to deal with the rigours and contours of the Epsom Derby. How many two-year-olds are mentally scared by racing so soon after first having a saddle on their backs, especially when the whip is not spared in dog-eat-dog finishes? How much potential is fritted away by connections wanting to train hard a three-year-old in the remote chance it might get placed at Epsom?
If I had my way there would be neither be two-year-old races until after Royal Ascot at the earliest and nor any Group 1’s or 2’s until late autumn. And I would have the Derby for four-year-olds, thereby allowing colts to mentally and physically develop in their own time and by having the classics restricted to four-year-olds more quality horses will be kept in training and less would be sold abroad. 

​The controversy I predicted over the sad death of Celebre D’Allen after his run in the Aintree National has now come to the fore. Obviously, though as someone who steers a clear passage from social media, how would I know, was initiated on X and other gobshite platforms for the ignorant to air their views and has now reached the more refined and reserved pages of the Racing Post.
The facts that have come to light is that the cause of death was not as a direct result of an exercise-associated episode. He had recovered from his exertions and his death was caused by bacterial respiratory infection, which though undetected from blood tests taken post-race, must have been, I imagine, lurking in the shadows, as it is when humans are incubating cold and flu viruses.
Michael Nolan has turned away from social media, not surprisingly, given the apparent abuse directed his way. He is said to be heartbroken by the death of a much-loved member of the Hobbs/White stable. He is also annoyed that people have accused him of something that did not happen, with even Scott Burton’s report on the incident in today’s Racing Post getting the time-frame wrong.
Celebre D’Allen had run a storming race, which should not be forgotten. He was a thirteen-year-old unconsidered outsider who had taken up the running at a stage of the race when only possible eventual winners were around and behind him. Two-out, Nolan thought he might win the Aintree National, a few yards from the fence he could feel the horse emptying. At that point most jockeys would have done what Nolan did, try to coast home as there is prize-money down to tenth-place. He popped the last and pulled-up. If he were not so distraught after the race he would have lodged an appeal against his ten-day ban, a ban that stoked the controversy. Celebre D’Allen did not collapse straightaway but a full 3-minutes afterwards– Nolan’s proximation of the time passed – time for Nolan to run up to where buckets of water were available. The horse was still standing when Nolan emptied the bucket of water over the stricken horse. The horse collapsed shortly afterwards.
Given they should have been aware of the firestorm of abuse and ignorance that would follow issuing Nolan with a ten-day ban, the stewards would have served the race and the sport to better effect if they have referred the matter to the B.H.A. so that all the facts were at hand before judgement was passed down. Instead, they threw Nolan to the wolves.

I am team Skelton. How about you? Skelton is though looking like the lamb in wait of the crocodile. 1/12 on to be champion before Aintree, Skelton is now second-favourite, with Mullins 1/4 on to retain his title.
In my opinion, and I thought this for many years, there should be two titles at stake, one for the most winners during the season and one for the most prize-money won. Doing the double might become a prize bigger than winning either category and become an accolade similar to a football team winning both the Premiership and the F.A. Cup. Mullins would never achieve the double as his form figures this season tells us. 29-winners from 143-runners as of today, with the majority of those 143-runners no doubt bringing home prize-money when beaten by a stable-mate at Cheltenham and Aintree.
Willie Mullins deserves to retain his title but I still want Skelton to hang-on. He has led the field for so long. If Mullins gets his head in front for the first time since he nabbed the lead off Skelton last season, it will be as heart-rendering as when Red Rum collared gallant Crisp yards from the winning post in the 1973 Grand National. Skelton has had more runners this season than Henderson and Nicholls combined, that is some effort, and it deserves its reward. Come on Team Skelton!

In his usual measured and inimitable way, Lee Mottershead has highlighted over the past few days the appalling facilities that jockeys must contend with at most of our racecourses. And if male jockeys have it bad, their female colleagues have it far worse. Jockeys having to use an exercise bike housed next to a row of urinals and female changing facilities the size of cupboards, are just two instances of what Mottershead has exposed.
By the end of 2026 every racecourse was expected to have separate changing facilities for female jockeys. Only fifteen have complied and of that number only York and Newmarket (July course) of our apex racecourses are on the list. Beverley, Brighton, Fakenham, Newton Abbot, Leicester, Musselburgh, Pontefract, Southwell, Stratford, Ripon, Taunton, Warwick and Worcester – take a bow. Applause, please. Not Ascot nor Cheltenham.
2026 has become 2030 as the new deadline, yet Ascot, as an example, boast of throwing hundreds of thousands of pounds to bulkup up prize-money for the Royal meeting.
Now she has retired, though in private she was actively attempting to get things done, Hayley Turner is now happy to have her voice heard on the matter. Hopefully she will continue to bang the drum on behalf of her former colleagues. 
I am always surprised by the cost of building even the smallest facility but if Fakenham can afford separate changing areas for females and males, plus a neutral valet space, how come Ascot, Cheltenham, Aintree and Newbury cannot? Jockeys need to be more pro-active. Perhaps stage a protest during racing. Invite the press or the public to view the spaces in which they, as supreme athletes, must prepare themselves for major aces. Mottershead has prepared the ground, now jockeys and their association must press ahead and start putting the feet of officials to the flame.

​I have already written on my thoughts on amateur riders and since then Patrick Mullins, I believe, has proved my point. Yet the more I consider the debate – it is a debate taking place in my head, not in the pages of the Racing Post – the more the differential between amateur and professional perplexes me. The whole thing with ‘amateur’ is that an amateur was always considered a gentleman, hence he is Mr. Bojangle, for example, whereas the professional was referred to by stewards as, Smith, Jones or Bojangle. John Francome took a stand against being referred to by his surname and would only reply to officialdom if addressed by his first name.
In earlier times, races were restricted to gentleman riders and anyone thought not a gentleman was looked down on. Indeed, if it were ‘proved’ that a winning rider was not considered a gentleman in society, disqualification was the order of the day.
Those days, of course, are, thankfully, long gone. Times change, the definition of ‘gentleman’ is no longer only ‘a man belonging to the landed gentry or nobility’ but also any man who is chivalrous, well-mannered and  honourable. Anyone who took part in sport was barred from earning money from his sporting endeavours. I would suggest that someone riding as an amateur receiving no fee is not in any sense an amateur if he or she earns their living from working at a professional racing stable and working alongside professional jockeys to whom he or she is considered equal in all respects.

At the advent of National Hunt, all jockeys were amateurs. Then the servants of owner/trainers were given the responsibility of riding in steeplechases, which led to some riders proving as capable as the leading amateurs, which eventually led to where we are now, with professional riders outnumbering amateurs on our racecourses.
I doubt if anyone would argue that Patrick Mullins and Derek O’Connor, to name but two of today’s leading amateur riders, are as competent in the saddle as the majority of professionals. In fact, to label either of them ‘amateur riders’ is almost derogatory given their level of professionalism and horsemanship. So why do we define riders as amateurs or professionals? Surely this is out-dated, a throw-back to an age long gone.
Due to the restrictions of his Irish riding licence Patrick Mullins is limited to less than two-dozen rides against professionals in any one season. This to me seems unfair, discriminatory, and perhaps a restraint of trade.
I believe all jockeys should be described under one heading, be that as rider or jockey, with the restrictions on their riding licence determining the type of race they can ride in.
For instance: I would have five categories of riding licence. Category 1 would allow someone to ride only in point-to-points. Category 2 would allow the licence-holder to ride in point-to-points, hunter chases and bumpers. Category 3 would allow the licence-holder to ride in all of the above, plus what are presently known as conditional/opportunity races. Category 4 licence-holders would be allowed to ride in all races outside of the defined National Hunt Championship races and the Aintree National. A Category 5 licence-holder would be able to ride in all races on a racecourse, and in point-to-points, except races restricted to conditional/opportunity riders. 
If this system was in place today, the likes of Patrick Mullins and Derek O’Connor would qualify to be category 5 licence-holders. O’Connor would still be able to ride in point-to-points and Mullins would still be able to ride in bumpers. If bumpers in Ireland were still to remain the domain of ‘amateurs’ or category 2 licence-holders as I would term those riders, perhaps a category 5 licence-holder would not be permitted a fee for riding in such races.
It seems unfair and invidious that ‘amateurs’ can ride in the same races as ‘professionals’, take the same risks, risk the same life-threatening injuries, and can display the same ability in the saddle, yet not receive a fee for their efforts, and in the case of Mullins and O’Connor do not have the benefit of claiming an allowance even though they are ‘amateurs’ in a professional sport.
We have grown-up with the concept of amateurs in our sport. We accept the concept, even though it has grown increasingly absurd to believe our top ‘amateur’ riders are anything but professional. Not that long ago someone working full-time for a trainer, as is the case with Patrick Mullins, would be considered professional and would not have been allowed to purport to be amateur. I would argue that Patrick Mullins is every bit as professional as Paul Townend and Danny Mullins and that he earns his living from working alongside them in a professional sport. The concept of ‘amateur’ should not be redefined but erased. 

​If we lived in a picture-perfect world, all animals would live carefree lives, there would be no predators for them to worry about and every human-being would cheerfully uphold their responsibility to all living creatures.
I believe that in the racing industry, both in racing stables and studs, that in the whole of humanity racing people come closest to upholding the last clause of my opening paragraph. We, as racing people, are not 100% perfect and some of us ignore our responsibilities toward the animals in our charge. They are by far the minority, thou they cast their shadow over all us all.
It both pains me that a racehorse may lose its life while on active duty and yet I also accept that ‘these things happen’, and I believe, or perhaps hope, that the contract between horse and man is kept if in life the deceased horse has been well-cared for and has known the love of humankind.
Celebre D’Allen lost his life three-days after running such a fine and honourable race in the Aintree National. He was thirteen and had not raced since the onset of winter. His death will be controversial, even within the racing family. Michael Nolan was suspended for 10-days for failing to pull-up when, in the view of the stewards, the horse had no more to give. In the view of the stewards, sadly they may have a point, the horse was galloped to death. I hope I am way off the mark with this statement and I certainly hope that if an autopsy is carried out an underlying medical condition will be discovered to explain Celebre D’Allen’s death.
Of course, at the back of my mind, though I hesitate to admit to it, is the suggestion that Aintree did not deserve another equine fatality.

Is Willie Mullins and his all-conquering Closutton stable good or bad for the sport? Firstly, Willie Mullins, and I have never met him or likely will, is by all accounts a gentleman, with no sign of boasting about his extraordinary achievements. Everyone likes him, even those whose great success he is eclipses season after season. And he is no overnight success. He has worked long and hard to get to the summit of the sport. He is a good man and no one should bear him a grudge for being the best there has ever been.
He is where he is because he does everything in the right manner. If a horse needs time, boy does Mullins give them time. And he surrounds himself with expert opinion, even though come the hour he makes his own decisions, very often at the very last minute available to him. And he is right more often than he is wrong. I suspect the genius may not necessarily be the man himself but the team around him.
Although I agree it is up to his rivals to improve their own results in order to bridge the divide between Closutton and themselves, for the good of the sport, at least in the short term, my proposal of limiting any one trainer to a maximum number of horses he or she can train in any one season should be seriously considered. When I first considered this option, I was more thinking of spreading the workforce around so that all trainers had the scope to have a full compliment of experienced staff. If a trainer was forced to reduce his or her numbers down to say 125, a trainer would be forced to lay-off a few members of his or her team, allowing them to be snapped-up by smaller trainers in need of experienced staff. Now I believe it would help spread the good horses and the wealthy owners who can afford those horses to a wider network of trainers.
That said, one can only be awe of the ever-expanding list of achievements attached to the name of Willie Mullins.

Then there is the other great talent bearing the name Mullins, Patrick. The best amateur rider in National Hunt history and, to my mind, a writer to equal the very best the sport has ever known. He is already alongside the likes of Lord Oaksey and Alastair Down as a writer, in Patrick’s case in as few words as is possible, with the fluidity of thought to take the reader straight into the heart of any subject he writes about. Read his piece on how he won the National in today’s Racing Post and tell me my enthusiasm for his writing is misplaced, if you can.
As a rider he is the equal of most of the top professionals and to use the term ‘amateur’ to describe him is almost derogatory. I know he would miss out on all the bumper horses that give him the bulk of his winning total but why not turn professional. Yes, his weight would prevent him from riding in a large number of the day-to-day races but on the other hand why not be paid to ride in races against professionals, especially when he would not be limited to the small number of rides against professionals as he is in Ireland by the terms of his amateur licence.
Anyway, as I wrote yesterday (or was it the day before?) I would do away with the amateur licence and just term everyone who rides over jumps, including point-to-points, as riders.
I wonder if his father will now keep Patrick on Nick Rockett or will Paul Townend pull rank on him? I suspect Nick Rockett might be trained for a crack at the Gold Cup next season, which would leave the door open to keep the partnership intact, and who is to say that Patrick Mullins will not add a Cheltenham Gold Cup to his exemplary c.v.?