​At last we have news to set our hearts racing – Horse Racing will soon be back, as will, thank all the heavenly deities, The Racing Post. Yes, from Monday, the Post is back as a fully functioning hard copy newspaper. I doubted if it would ever appear again on the newsstands but with a happy heart, I admit to being wrong. I will, though, continue bemoan its cover price. The Racing Post is the newspaper of the racing industry, it is, or should be, the gateway to the sport for anyone wishing to better acquaint themselves with the Sport of Kings (or should that be Queens?). Yet at £3.50 – I think that is right. It’s been so long since I held the paper in my hand that I have forgotten what ridiculous price it was at the moment of its silencing, and it had only rocketed-up in price for a weeks, so the new price had not chance to burn its way into my memory. Though any price above £2 is detrimental to the sport, pricing itself out of a market that comprises thousands of people with half an interest in the sport though without any experience or knowledge of racing’s intricacies and funny phrases and sayings.
But at least it is soon to be accompanying my breakfast and for that I must propose three cheers. On Monday it will be very similar to finally being able to hug a long-lived loved-one who has survived these past long weeks under lockdown, victim to broadcast scare-mongering and political half-truths, and who is released to enjoy some of what remains of our civil liberties.
It disappoints me that only senior jockeys will be allowed to continue their careers, while their most financially stricken colleagues will have to wait their turn. I asked at the beginning of this Covid interlude if a race a day could be restricted to the journeyman jockey but it seems such charity is beyond the B.H.A. And, of course, no owner or trainer will be able to take advantage of an apprentices’ weight allowance and of course, as I wrote in my previous article, it will be mandatory for jockeys to wear face-masks, even though the science is unequivocal that prolonged use can cause health issues and suppress the immune system. But we are where we are; bad science is ruling the roost: the new normal, I suppose. Science is what politicians and global criminals want it to be.
All that said, I am looking forward to the flat season to a greater extent than for many a long year. I have always advocated no 2-year-old racing before June and thanks to the Bill Gates sponsored ‘health crisis’ I am granted my wish. I am sure 2-year-olds will stay sounder and more genuine for the extra time given to their limbs and minds to mature.
It will also be interesting to have classic races at virtually the beginning of the season. I have always advocated the classics being later, so that trainers are not forced into rushing their classic colts and fillies, though as the Coolmore horses traditionally need a race or two to reach prime fitness, other trainers may have an advantage come Guineas Day.
Though happy to have racing back and though I believe Nick Rust should be sacked for the lack of effort on the B.H.A.’s part to save the 2020 Grand National (they did have eight-months to reschedule the race, after all) I commend their efforts to stage the classic races and other big races, even if many will be staged at courses other than is traditional. I am disappointed, and I apologise if government has been lobbied on the subject, but if there is one sport where spectators could be accommodated with, it goes without saying, social distancing (even though there is no scientific grounds to suggest it is having any effect on limiting ‘the contagion’) it is horse racing. Newmarket is a huge open space, as good an opportunity to trial a large gathering of people as can be imagined. Not a full house, obviously, but 20% capacity could be easily accommodated without the sort of close encounters (of the everyday kind) to be seen on a daily basis in every supermarket.
Overall, and I doubt if my true sentiments are coming across, I am close to joyful that a small step is about to be taken back to something like normality. Though I hope for the sake of Mankind that where we are heading is not true normality, the lives of our experience, but a world that is based on ‘the new normal’, as dystopian phrase as I have ever heard.

​The need to refer to the current plandemic (not a typographical error) irritates me. The purpose of this site is to express my love and concerns about horse racing, the abiding passion in my life. Yet the Bill Gates sponsored Covid-19 crisis has hijacked life as we know it, including, unforgivably, all sport. Without belabouring the point, I have to say some of the restrictions imposed upon us during this unnecessary State of Emergency are contrary to law, our human rights and is based on bad science. It is on the final point that I base this article.
All the information expressed here on in is based on an article by Professor Russell Blaylock, M.D.
‘By wearing a face-mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain’.
I am not suggesting any jockey riding at Newcastle (hopefully) one-week today will have the Covid-19 virus in their system, it must be said though that the wearing of a face-mask, especially when under the duress of extreme physical activity, could be detrimental to health. I am sure all jockeys will be tested prior to racing, though as the coronavirus is in the common cold and most flu-viruses, and it is known that flakes of the virus can remain in the body of anyone who has suffered a cold or ‘the flu’, anyone can test positive, even after a sequence of negative results.
No scientific study has established a conclusive relationship between the wearing of a face-mask/respirator and protection against influenza infection. Also, no scientific study has been conducted to demonstrate that either a cloth mask or the N95 mask has any effect on transmission of the Covid-19 virus. Until recently neither the Centre for Disease Control in the U.S. or the World Health Organisation recommended the wearing of face-masks. Indeed, there have been several studies that have concluded there are significant problems with wearing a mask, especially for long periods. In one study, researchers surveyed 212 healthcare workers, asking about headaches with N95 mask use, discovering a third developed headaches with the use of masks.
Though the straps of the masks or the pressure on the face could be causative, the bulk of the evidence pointed towards hypoxia or hypercapnia, a reduction in blood oxygenation (hypoxia) or an elevation of blood CO2 (hypercapnia). It is known if worn for hours on end the N95 mask can reduce blood oxygenation by 20%.
In a study involving the wearing of a cloth-mask, which is more relevant to jockeys, I admit, 159 healthcare workers aged between 21 – 35 years of age found that 81% developed headaches from wearing a mask.
If you have an elderly relative suffering from COPD, emphysema or pulmonary fibrosis, you might want to warn them that the wearing of a mask can cause a severe lessening of lung function.
In a study carried out on 53 surgeons using an oximeter, it was found that the mask reduced blood oxygen levels significantly: in fact, the longer the duration of wearing the mask the greater the fall in blood oxygen levels.
The importance in the drop in blood oxygen levels is that hypoxia is associated with an impairment in immunity, the best resource we have in defeating viruses (forget about vaccines – they are yet to come-up with a vaccine for the common-cold, I remind you, and it typically takes between 10 & 15 years to find a vaccine for any strain of the influenza virus). Hypoxia can inhibit the type of main immune cells used to fight viral infections called the CD4+T-lymphocyte. This allows the contracting of any infection easy passage; this of course includes the Covid-19 virus. To headline all the above – WEARING A MASK MAY WELL PUT YOU AT AN INCREASED RISK OF INFECTIONS. Which might be followed by something much worse.
Another danger of wearing a mask on a daily basis is when a person is infected with a respiratory virus, they will expel some of the virus with each breath and will be constantly rebreathing the viruses, raising the concentration of the virus in the lungs and the nasal passages. If you think the science against wearing face-masks cannot be more conclusive – newer evidence suggests that in some cases the virus can enter the brain by way of the olfactory nerves which connect directly with the area dealing with recent memory and memory consolidation.
In their keenness to get back to work, jockeys, I am sure, will care little for the information contained in this article. Jockeys are dedicated to their craft and renowned for their work ethic. And if the B.H.A. insist the wearing of masks is set in stone as a requirement by Government for the restart of racing in this country, then the deal is all done and dusted. But jockeys must remember that the Government may say that they are led by ‘the science’ but in reality the science being used as part of the official narrative is the science of convenience. Scientists around the world, virologists of world-status included, are furious that good, sound science is being ignored and that this needless ‘health crisis’ is blackening the name of any doctor or scientist who dares to contradict ‘the agenda’.
It is not for me to tell any individual jockey that they should refuse to wear a mask. It is your livelihood, not mine, that is on the line. I would though hope you might research the subject with an open-mind and then decide if compromising your immune system is worth conforming to advice harvested from bad science. If you are hard-wired to the official narrative my conclusion to this article may sound melodramatic or plain crazy but the evidence suggests we live at a time more dangerous for the liberty of Mankind than at any time-period in the history of democracy. The wearing of face-masks by jockeys is very small beer by comparison to what may be around the corner for all of us. Stay safe. 
blaylock_face_masks_pose_serious_risks_to_the_healthy

​What constitutes a great trainer? Is it the number of Derby winners? Or on the other code the number of Gold Cup or Grand National winners? Perhaps it is the accumulative number of classic and Group 1 victories? Or simply winning more races than any other trainer? Or the most prize money? Or is it the ability and dedication to tease the very best out of every horse you are given to train?
I have never fathomed why the champion jockeys title is awarded to the jockey who rides the most winners in a given season, although these days that is not necessarily a pre-requisite to be awarded the champion’s crown, yet the champion trainer accolade is based on prize money, which can often be influenced by the sheer good fortune of possessing the best 1½ -mile horse in your stable. The Derby winner usually, though not always, tops the prize money lists at the end of the season. Why is the champion not the trainer who trained the most winners, which would give far more trainers the opportunity to become champion? Or the most winners per every twenty horses trained throughout the season?
And, as a trainer, there is a certain amount of ‘being fashionable’ when it comes to binge given the responsibility of training for the select band of owners wealthy and dedicated enough to either breed from the best or buy from the best. We shall never know, of course, but could John Gosden or Aiden O’Brien win as many races with the calibre of horse that, to give one example, Bill Wightman had in his care during his long and varied career as a trainer? Or with the limited training facilities at his disposal? It is all relevant.
He is long gone now, of course, and though he came close once or twice the classic winner that might have defined his fifty or so years as a trainer never came his way. Yet though he had good winners throughout his career, over both codes, and in his training infancy, when he trained on the pony racing circuit, the overall quality of horse sent to him ensured he had to treat every horse in his care as a potential money-winner. He was the ‘professionals professional’.
His great chaser Halloween was before my time, unfortunately, though horses such as Badbury Rings and Popeswood ring bells in my hazy memory. He also trained Elan as a young horse, though he was in the care of John Sutcliffe when he won one the earliest runnings of the Schweppes Hurdle.
The horses I do remember are Runnymede, Blueit, P.C.’s Record ( I am not sure why) Queendom, Cathy Jane, Import, Flying Nelly, Walk By, The Goldstone, ( who gave Karen Wiltshire the prominence of being one of the first female jockeys to win a race) Bell-Tent, Solar, Raffia Set, King’s Ride – the list goes on.
The thing with the likes of Bill Wightman is that they are soon forgotten. Racing is a whirligig of a life; no matter who dies or retires there is always someone else to fill the space they leave in their wake. Trainers, more so than jockeys and perhaps even the staff they employ, are the shoulder at the wheel that daily turns the sport. Their investment is, or should be, total, and not even in time and commitment. But money. All but the few with a licence to train get by with less than the minimum wage. Overheads have to be honoured or there is no grub for their most needful asset, the horses under their care. And as any small trainer, upcoming or on the slide, will tell you, the expenses come from all sides, It is the trainer who must supply the buckets and feeding bowls, the stable rugs and the paddock sheets, the bridle and saddles, the brooms and feed-bins. And they all must be replaced in a given time-frame.
It is why the really good trainers of Bill Wightman’s ilk such be celebrated, why the top owners should consider helping them on occasion by sending them a horse or two. The sport, on both codes, is becoming more and more elitist, with the big battalions sharing the spoils year-in, year-out.
When given a horse of real potential, Bill Wightman always extracted the best out of them. He could train precocious two-year-olds, the backward types that needed time and patience, and he could train jumpers, sprinters, milers and stayers. He did not specialise. His first winner was at Buckfastleigh, his last at Newbury. He summed up the life of a trainer as ‘Months of Misery, Moments of Bliss’, which is the title of Alan Yuill Walker’s biography of him. The sort of book I enjoy reading; a book centred around a period of time that fashioned my love of this great sport.

​I am ashamed to admit that I had all but forgotten the admirable Sergeant Cecil. In fact when I was reading the book about him written by the excellent Steve Dennis, the outcome of the many big handicaps he ran in during his golden period were but hazy memories to me, which does me no credit as his name shall forever live on as the only horse in the history of flat racing to have won in the same season the Northumberland Plate, Ebor and Cesarewitch. The following season he successfully completed a different kind of hat-trick by winning the Lonsdale and Yorkshire Cup and the Prix Du Cadran. For Rod Millman, his trainer and Terry Cooper, his owner, he was the horse of a lifetime.
When Steve Dennis was building up the tension on whether ‘Cecil’ would be the first horse to win all three of the top staying handicaps by giving weight away all-round in the Cesarewitch, I was surprised to read that he won. I had no recollection of the horse winning the Cesarewitch. In fact, I would have staked big money on him having not won the Cesarewitch. When I googled the 2005 Cesarewitch, as if the interweb was serving to confirm my incredulity, nearly every Cesarewitch this century was listed except the 2005 renewal. But there it is in the form book: Sergeant Cecil, 9st 8Ibs, winning by ¾ length from King Revo, 8st 3Ibs, with Inchnadamph, 8st, 2-lengths third. 10/1 the winner, 20/1 and 50/1 the 2nd and 3rd. Vinando and Frankie were 4th at 25/1.
The horse who was bred for a song, sold for a song and who began his racing life by finishing 8th of 11, ridden by Sasha Righton, in a mile 2-year-old maiden at Kempton, has his place in racing history. That first race at Kempton wasn’t even a very good race, by the way. A great example of never losing hope.
‘Sergeant Cecil: the Impossible Dream: From Rags to Racing Riches’ by Steve Dennis is from the Racing Post publication stable, though the name Highdown appears on the spine. It looks and feels like a typical Racing Post coffee-table book. Not that is to denigrate it. It’s a good read, even if Steve Dennis reined in his journalistic impish style of writing he reserved for his much-missed column in the much-missed Racing Post, the book blighted by being published a year before Cecil ran his final race. Books on horses should never be written and published before they finish racing as such books always have a ‘what happened next’ feel to them.
In retirement Cecil went to, I believe, the British Racing School but he didn’t consider playing schoolmaster to young, inspiring jockeys, was really his thing. Nor was dressage. That was a particularly silly idea by whoever took that particular decision as anyone reading Steve Dennis’s book would know that a horse who liked his own way in life was never going to adapt to a discipline strong on the horse doing as instructed by the rider.
I would suggest that every new owner, or indeed owners struggling to find the horse that justifies the dreams and expense, should have this book on their shelves. It is a story that eloquently demonstrates that luck plays a huge part in racehorse ownership. As does perseverance. Terry Cooper dreamt of Cecil winning a race. He did. Then he just hoped Cecil might pay his way. He did. Then when Cecil strengthened into his frame and showed a higher level of form, he hoped he might win him a big race one day. He did. And he carried on winning big races and big cups. He was seven when he won the Group 1 Prix du Cadran.
He was given the opportunity by his trainer and owner to develop mentally and physically in his own time. A lesson to every owner in the world, I think.
As far as I am aware the horse remains in retirement at his owner’s farm. I hope he is still alive and fit. He deserves a long and happy retirement. He certainly does not deserve to be forgotten, as I, shamefully, did. 

​Am I being overly optimistic in hoping that in two weeks horse racing will return to this country? Am I foolish to expect to see the Racing Post back in newsagents? The frightening phrase ‘the new normal’ that politicians all around the world parrot as if it is code for something sinister, some abnormal society that we will have to put up with or else, suggests to me that if we indeed have our sport returned to us it will not be in a form as we know and love it.
It is to be hoped that the B.H.A. have a calendar of race-meetings already slated or at least a plan A, plan B or plan C. Although it is unfair on those trainers and jockeys who depend on the summer season to give them a solid income for the year, it was wise to defer the jumps season to July. Again, as they have objective date for National Hunt to resume, I would hope they have a calendar of meetings already in place and if that is the case jumps trainers will have an advantage over their flat counterparts who remain on the edge of their seats in wait of start date.
One aspect of the flat season this year will be the lack of foreign-trained horses and that will include the Ballymore battalion. If the restrictions at racecourses are going to be as ‘restrictive’ as commentators are suggesting, I cannot foresee the various racing authorities agreeing to overseas runners any time soon, if at all this season. And, although I recognise its importance to the sport, I do not understand the rationale of moving heaven and earth to stage Royal Ascot this season if 1) there will be no Irish or French runners and 2) no spectators, even if the dressing-up part of the occasions leaves me cold, I respect it is what makes Royal Ascot unique. I would stage the Ascot Gold Cup and the other Group 1’s and perhaps the Hunt Cup and Wokingham as a one-day spectacular but in no way will Royal Ascot be unique without spectators, the Royal Procession down the track and foreign competition.
Without Aidan O’Brien the Derby in previous years would have had but a few runners and it will be interesting this year if without his dominating presence the field size returns to days of old when over twenty horses would delight the Downs and be a proper betting race. Remember at the start of the Covid-19 interlude (or plandemic, as I now refer to it) the staging of the Cheltenham Festival drew a fair amount of criticism even though the Government was in favour of it taking place. I have anecdotal evidence to support the claim that because of the Festival crowds Gloucestershire saw an increased number of flu-related cases against the national average. That may prove to be false but the claim will be used as evidence to prevent the Irish and French travelling to Royal Ascot or Epsom.
My greatest fear, though, is not that Royal Ascot will not take place but the ignorant and uncaring attitude of our government. As I suspect those in know are aware, barring spectators from sporting events will cause many racecourses, football, rugby and cricket clubs to fold. In every case, needlessly. Politicians seem to believe racing and football, to name but two sports, can survive without income generated from spectators. I can only make sense of this stance by thinking that part of ‘the big plan’ is to streamline racing and football so that only the financially fittest survive. They might as well announce: Sod the Cartmels, Redcars and Fakenhams, sod the Rochdales, Bristol Rovers and Newport Counties.
I write these vanity pieces not so much for others to read but as therapy. This sport of ours is pivotal to my life. It has been my abiding passion for over sixty-years. Cut me open and written across my heart it will say National Hunt, with the names of all the great and memorable racehorses indelible inscribed on my arteries and ventricles. I am not a journalist and would not wish anyone to think it is my ambition to become one. I write about horse racing in the same way poets must compose poetry and composers must compose music. The sport is the soul of me. The hole in my life during these racing-less months is deep. I have had my sport taken from me, as I have had my civil rights, not because of a pandemic (which, by the way, is not worse than an epidemic) but by a man-managed ‘health crisis’ instigated, I believe by Bill Gates, who through the foundation he created in his and his wife’s name, has bought into the W.H.O., Imperial College, the Centre for Disease Control and a hundred and one other medical bodies around the world, with the express aim of making it compulsory world-wide for everyone to be vaccinated, of which he will be the licence holder of the vaccine, against a flu that will go the way of all other flu viruses, Sars, Bird and Swine flu, H1 N1 etc and if the data now appearing round the world suggests will have killed less people than any of the beforementioned.
And on a website dedicated to a great and noble sport, I hate having to mention Covid-19 and the truth that mainstream media ignores.

​I dare say some of you reading this, you lucky people who remain under house arrest, with little to do but visit modest sites like this one, will say ‘Fiddlers Pike? Who?’ When, if you are of a similar age-frame to myself, you reply should be ‘Never! Twenty-Six years since the old boy (he was thirteen at the time) ran in the Grand National! How easily we allow time to slip through our hands.
Rosemary Henderson was no spring chicken herself when the tapes went up for the 1994 running of the Grand National. She was fifty and I dare say plenty nervous about what she had let herself in for. At the finishing line she was still fifty but if you watch the replay, she was one very happy lady, giving Fiddlers Pike more praise and adoration than Minniihoma was receiving from a beaming Richard Dunwoody. At the time, and until Katie Walsh came along with Seabass, she jointly held the record for a female jockey in the Grand National, sharing the accolade for finishing fifth with, if my memory is not playing tricks with me again, Carrie Ford on Forest Gunner. Of course, Bryony Frost has since joined them in joint second place when finishing fifth on Milansbar.
The 1994 Grand National was run on very soft ground, which suited Fiddlers Pike. He would not have run otherwise. Rosemary Henderson, who owned and trained Magnus, as Fiddlers Pike was known at home, only ran him because the race suited him, not because it was a long-held ambition on her part to ride in the race.
If you watch a replay of the race pay close attention to Richard Dunwoody and Adrian Maguire on Moorcroft Boy, two jockeys at the height of their profession and giving both horses as confident a ride as you will ever see. I have to admit I only now appreciate the superb rides they gave their mounts as during the live running my eyes were forever drawn to Just So, trained like Fiddlers Pike in Devon, and ridden by Simon Borrough, putting up 3lbs overweight, which proved crucial. I had backed Just So. I backed him on the Friday, due to my work schedule making it unlikely that I would get to the betting shop on the Saturday. He was a 100/1 when I had my tenner on him. It seems the astuteness of my tipping got out into the wider world as he returned 20/1. Although he ran a grand race, at no point was he travelling as sweet as Minniihoma or Moorcroft Boy but he ran on like a trooper and if it wasn’t for a bad error at the second-last and that 3lb overweight it can be argued that he might have won and provided Aintree with the romance the race sadly lacks nowadays as he was trained by his owner Henry Cole, a permit trainer.
I have just read ‘Road To The National’, the autobiography of Rosemary Henderson and it is a book worth seeking out. It is an easy read. It begins at the beginning – she did not fall into the trap of starting with her trip to Aintree and returning to it at the end – and takes a quiet wander through her equestrian life. There are no histrionics in the book, no critical analysis of this, that or the other. There is no pretence, no envy. No ‘Poor Me!’ Injury is a part of life and only needs time to mend. Defeat can have its own rewards. There is no doubt in her mind and hence no doubt in her readers mind that she got lucky when Fiddlers Pike was given to her. He changed her life as much as her husband, the vet Bill Henderson, changed her life and she does not try to fool her readers that she did anything to improve him into ‘the horse of a lifetime’ he became.
He got into the Grand National because he won good races at Chepstow and Haydock, ridden, as always, by Rosemary. She admitted that she rode him to get round and if they won that was a bonus and she makes it clear that if she had not employed similar tactics at Aintree, he might have finished closer than he did. But at the end of the day she was happy, fully deserving of the glass of champagne she allowed herself before she departed with her body of supporters for Devon and the rest of her life.
I always judge a book’s worth if at its conclusion I want to know what has happened to the horse, jockey, owner, etc, since publication. Her adventures on Fiddlers Pike continued, as least she planned for them to continue, into the following season, and yes, I could find a form-book and find the answer for myself but that would be simply cold hard fact. Rosemary brought an easy-going warmth to her biography and I would have liked to have her story completed in her hand. I know, or at least remember, that along with her husband she emigrated to New Zealand, leaving Fiddlers Pike in the care of a friend. I have googled her but to no avail. I hope she is still in the land of the living and if anyone has any information on her I would be grateful to know.