​I will be honest and upfront on the subject of two-year-old races at this time of the year: I am opposed.
I have written on this subject in the past, so I am repeating myself, but the powers-that-be obviously either did not read the piece or chose to pay no heed to my concerns and so for new readers I will again this question: why should a two-year-old carry more weight in a race, and I talking about two-year-old races, than the weights colts carry in the classics? In my original piece on this subject I noted that a Mark Johnstone two-year-old carried 9st 10lb in a race, though admittedly it was much later in the season than early May.
It is my belief that in a day and age that is vastly different to ages past, an age where the horse was considered a beast of burden and consequently was not given due respect, we should extend respect at every opportunity toward the horse as without it we have no sport. I believe the problem, at least as I see it, lies more with breeders than trainers and owners, as there are far too many ‘sharp’ two-year-olds bred than is good for the species. In many ways the lower end of this market can be considered to be producing throwaway products, horses that are bred to be two-year-olds, with little though given to their future beyond their juvenile days.
If the emphasis was on breeding for stamina rather than speed the colts and geldings that become surplus to requirement to the flat would be better sought after by jumps trainers and by anyone looking for a horse to train on for other equestrian activities. These people are not looking for a horse that has spent all its life being propelled out of a starting gate to run as fast as it can for as long as it can. This characteristic is just useless for any other riding requirement. Where is the respect for the breed when so many of the species are rendered useless for any other equestrian activity?
Flat racing as a whole is in dire need of a root and branch overhaul – a subject for another article – but it is the two-year-old division where the evil lies. In any other equine sport, a two-year-old is considered a baby. If bred for show-jumping, dressage, polo, three-day-event or National Hunt, two-year-olds might be handled but certainly not broken to the saddle. At this time of year, they would still be out to grass. The flat-bred two-year-old is not a different species; it cannot be spoken-of as if its genes makes it any stronger either physically or psychologically. Somewhere down the line, down the ages, horse racing took a wrong path, and now of course there are a whole lot of people who make their living breeding and buying yearlings solely for the early two-year-old market and who would squeal like a pig readied for slaughter if there was a threat to their big-bucks trade.
I am trying hard not to claim that two-year-olds are being abused, though I suspect that is how I am coming across. I am not opposed to two-year-old races per se, just at this time of year. If I had my way the first two-year-old race would be in early July. Think about it; if this was the norm the first two-year-old race of the season would be an event, a mark-out time in the season.
Of course, as unlikely as it is, if my proposal was accepted it would leave gaps in the early season race meetings, gaps that would be filled by races for all those three-year-olds that had limited racing experience as two-year-olds. Royal Ascot would have to find other options for the Coventry, Windsor Palace and so on. But racing would evolve to meet the new criteria. I suspect racecourses would stage more selling races for three-year-olds to attract the National Hunt trainer on the lookout for new recruits. More four-year-olds would be kept in training rather than sold to the Far East and Hong Kong. In fact, I believe it is the reliance on the buying and selling of yearlings and on two-year-old races that has unbalanced flat racing and in making the change I propose the sport, once the breeders and race-planners have adjusted themselves to the new requirements, would benefit.
To return to my original point. I cannot see that it is justifiable to ask an immature horse to carry as much as 9st 5lbs, or any weight above 9st, when 9st is considered the correct and fair weight for a three-year-old to carry in the Derby, Guineas or St. Léger.
The powers-that-be have a duty to uphold and protect the sport and to oversee its long-term future. They cannot sit in their ivory towers thinking million-pound races are proof that racing is in a grand position and all must be well because it always has been. We should see our sport as outsiders and opponents see it. We can explain and defend until we are blue in the face but being in front of the curve is a better tactic. The whip is one issue where we need to bend and the racing of immature two-year-olds and the overburdening of the more mature two-year-olds is another aspect of the sport that needs careful looking at.

​If I have enough functioning brain cells for my ability to count to be relied upon – recent experiences suggest not – this past National Hunt season in Britain and Ireland female jockeys have won 259 races between them, 163 in Britain and 96 in Ireland. I would guess this constitutes a record haul for the girls, though I dare say the ladies Gordon, Doyle and Currie will get close to topping that total between them this flat season.
In Ireland, though, come the new season, Racheal Blackmore will have to work damn hard to keep the total upwardly mobile as the Irish team of female jockeys will be depleted for some while with the shock news that both Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry have both retired from race-riding. Although the announcements must have come as sweet music to the ears of their loved-ones, for me, a supporter of female jockeys since those long ago days when Hayley Turner was an apprentice, the news was tinged with sadness for the closing of an era.
Of course, the movement that is the rise and rise of lady jockeys will be hard hit, especially in Ireland, a country that can only boast two female professional jockeys. Not that Katie and Nina were truly of the movement as they had long left their gender behind when it came to the craft of horsemanship and race-riding. They may have been amateur for the whole of their careers but they were at the summit of that division, accepted as being the equal of most male professionals. I suppose being a Walsh or a Carberry allowed them no choice if they wanted to race-ride other than to be as successful and skilful as their brothers and fathers.
I honestly thought, and no doubt predicted somewhere within the pages of this website, that one or the other would be the first female jockey to win the Grand National. Famously, of course, they both have won the Irish equivalent, plus a good smattering of prizes at the Cheltenham Festival and it was fitting that their final rides were winners at the Punchestown Festival. Racing history, though, will now have to written by Bryony, Rachael, Lizzie or some other female and when this greatest of sporting barriers is finally beaten down I hope the winning jockey will possess the awareness to remember the names of the two women who helped to open the door on their careers.
Without being fully cognizant of the honour people of my age have lived through a significant period in the history of horse racing. Yes, over the decades female success in the riding ranks has trickled through the form book. But in the era of Katie Walsh and Nina Carberry the success was sustained and through their achievements the likes of Bryony Frost and Lizzie Kelly were given role models to look up to and emulate and it could be argued that their achievements even outweigh the accomplishments of any of the Walshes or Carberrys to have gone before them. They may have ended their careers with the respect and admiration of their peers but they started out as ‘girl jockeys’ with all the prejudices attached to the label and through hard work and sheer ability overcame and conquered a sport that has the ability to wither the spirit and crush the soul of even the hardiest of men and when the next history of horse racing is published, unlike the 1966 edition commemorating 150 years of the sport when female jump jockeys were not even a consideration, their names will be recorded and honoured as the women who changed attitudes and rewrote the record books.
After Cheltenham in March, when Ruby was carted off yet again to hospital, I thought we would never see him in the saddle again. I have lived through an era of great jockeys and since the word ‘professionalism’ has become accepted as something not to be feared by the brave men who ride over steeplechase fences the standard of jockeyship and all-round horsemanship has improved to the point of near-perfection. At the pinnacle of this rising sphere of great National Hunt jockeys is, to my unqualified eye, Ruby Walsh. Mind you, if Paul Carberry had taken the concept of ‘professionalism’ more seriously and not wrapped around his shoulders the epithet of ‘mad genius’ he undoubtedly would have no peers when it came to the art and guile of riding racehorses.
It is in the limelight of the two most supremely gifted of jockeys ever to grace our sport that Katie and Nina had to perform and I suspect the greatest compliment one could offer up is that their families and loved-ones must be flushed with pride at what the two girls achieved and the respect in which they are held by their peers, by those who write and comment on the sport and, perhaps surprisingly of all, by punters. Katie, remember, rode the favourite for the Grand National the year she finished third. That she was a girl that day mattered not one jot. She was a Walsh. She was Katie Walsh. The diehard punters considered their cash safe with her riding.
It would be appropriate if at one of the big Irish festivals a race was run annually for female jockeys and named after Katie and Nina. It should be a classy sort of race, not a run-of-the-mill handicap, reflecting the ladies the race honours.