​Racehorse trainers get better at their job through experience. Sometimes, especially when youthful, trainers can get lucky and have a horse of immense ability in their yard and yet after that horse has retired to either the stallion barn or the breeding paddocks, life is never as sweet again.
It has to be remembered that Willie Mullins was no kid-wonder. He didn’t receive his trainers’ licence on a Monday and proceed to set the turf firmament alight by the end of the first week of his new career. Willie toiled at the wheel for many a year before his star began to seen as relevant and perhaps enduring. I bet any money Willie Mullins made a pocketful of mistakes in his early years. I bet he would confess to running horses in the wrong races, at the wrong tracks, ridden by the wrong jockeys and said wrong words to owners. If Willie Mullins is a god of this sport, he has to be a very human sort of god, a delegator god, a god with a well-trained and experienced eye. Mind you, gods, true gods, gods deserving of a capital G, must work out their far-reaching plans on instinct alone. No committee meetings or blueprints. And from what I read about the man, the genius, suggests to me that he asks, he listens, deliberates, observes, leaves the definite till the last moment, changes his mind and then delivers the correct decision. I suspect his decisions surprise even the closest of his staff. It wouldn’t surprise me if sometimes he surprises himself. 
Fate can work in someone’s favour, also. If Michael O’Leary had not taken away the sixty-plus horses Mullins trained for him over a dispute about training fees, would Closutton be the invincible force today that it has become? Mullins was one of the leading trainers in Britain and Ireland at the time but he wasn’t the dominant force he is now. Mullins turned a career set-back into an opportunity to seek out new owners and to take his business to the mind-blowing level he is presently achieving.
I believe we should think of Willie Mullins in terms of a coach, not a team bus, but someone in the mould of Linford Christie, a trainer of athletes. Top athletes, I believe, attempt to take their achievements to new levels by transferring their training programmes to athletic coaches who already train elite athletes. Linford Christie specialises in sprinters. Aston Moore long and triple jumpers. Athletes improve when they train alongside athletes better than themselves.
Horses very rarely improve when sold out of Willie Mullins care, not because he has got the best out of them already, though that might be the case, but because on the gallops and schooling grounds of Closutton there are not one or two or five or six brilliant chasers and hurdlers but tens of dozens of superior equine athletes, all of them ridden at exercise by some of the top riders in Ireland. I doubt if there is any hiding place on the gallops for the horse of less than Grade 1 ability. And on the ground, there is Willie Mullins guiding, advising, marking in his mind’s eye for later reference details lesser humans would miss.
Also, and this point should not be glossed over, Willie Mullins games the play in Ireland with the spirit of a general in the field of battle. And if he misses a detail now and then, it is doubtless picked up by his son or David Casey or Ruby Walsh. 
If the Irish race-programme was similar to the programme British trainers must work with, his numbers would likely be less impressive. He has Grade 2 horses in abundance, horses that would be handicapped out of winning if they were trained over here yet the Irish calendar has conditions races in abundance throughout the year. Horses that would have to shoulder 12-stone and more in handicaps, jump around the lesser tracks with less weight, sometimes on even terms with opponents, some times giving away 7 or 10Ibs to horses that if it were a handicap would be receiving 2-stone.
If those same conditions chases and hurdles were transferred to these shores, especially through the summer, believe me, Nicky Henderson, Paul Nicholls and Dan Skelton would lap them up. In fact, why don’t British trainers consider giving Willie a run for his money by taking him on with their own badly-handicapped chasers and hurdlers? The place money alone would pay for the journey across the water even if they couldn’t lower the Mullins colours on every occasion.
If the British race-programme was not so afflicted by the over-arching wish for larger field sizes and greater competitiveness, perhaps the top owners presently flocking to Mullins and his Irish rivals might decide to stay here if there were races for the type of horse that Willie keeps especially for those not-so-hard-to-win conditions chases and hurdles.
The way to stop one-trainer dominance is not to limit the number of horses any one trainer can run in any one race but to limit the number of horses any one trainer can have in his or her stable. Of course, if Willie was limited to 100-horses, for example, or 150, he would set-up a satellite yard and put his son Patrick in charge. Yet a limit on numbers would force owners to look elsewhere and top staff would by necessity be dispersed to trainers who presently desperately need top-quality staff and prize-money would be spread around to a better extent than now. Willie would still dominate but hopefully not to the detriment of either those following in his wake or the sport as a whole.
Willie Mullins has the horse numbers, the horse quality, staff of equine Mensa ability and skill and expertise accrued through the experience of success and failure to rank him a genius of his profession. But that does not necessarily equate to him being better at his job than any other trainer in Ireland or Britain. And the wheel will turn. As it has always turned down the centuries of this sport.

​When first proposed, I hated the concept of preferential treatment for the premier racecourses over their smaller counterparts. That I have come around to the idea is not because I have taken a walk on the dark side and am indoctrinated into a belief system that requires smaller racecourses to go to the wall. I continue to believe that our sport can only survive if local people have local racecourses to attend. In time, I believe, it will become difficult for ordinary people to travel long distances from their homes as individual ownership of cars will become a thing of the past. But that is a topic for a different kind of forum.
To my mind, if the concept of the ‘Saturday Afternoon Window’ is to be the blueprint upon which to build a thriving racing industry, to allow the major races the full spotlight of media and public observation, surely that spotlight should be focused on one meeting, not three, as proposed. Next Saturday is a poor example but I will use the Epsom Derby to make my point. Only Epsom and the Derby matter next Saturday. All other meetings are irrelevant, in the same way that the F.A. Cup Final will be the only football match played on the day that the eyes of the nation will be focused on.
That said, I wish people would desist in associating horse racing with how other sports conduct themselves. There is no comparison between horse racing and Formula I or football or tennis. It is why horse racing should be governed by people steeped in the history of the sport and not by executives from other sporting organisation. Horses are not machines, which is why fireworks and marching bands are a definite no-no on British racecourses. Horses are sentient beings; those who govern the sport must have the knowledge that the first rule is that horses are the first rule of thought when proposing new rules.
My major criticism of the proposed changes to the fixture lists is that everyone, seemingly, is catered for except the people who work at the cliff-face, the stable staff and trainers. Morning meetings will disrupt stable routines, for horses travelling long or longish distances it will mean more overnight stays for staff and horses and more evening meetings will cause staff to work longer hours more often. For staff retention, the concept proposed might be a deal breaker. It doesn’t matter if staff are paid large bonuses for working unsocial hours if they are too tired to care for the horses in their charge. Has any consideration been given to the mental health of stable staff? I doubt it.
Improving the quality of Sunday racing will be made easier to achieve by these plans if, and this is not actually mentioned thus far, the smaller racecourses are given priority, with the likes of Musselburgh, Thirsk, Chester and Hamilton prioritised on the Sabbath. If the likes of Ascot, Goodwood, Cheltenham, for example, are allocated Sunday afternoon slots, then an opportunity to breath life into all realms of the sport will be lost and the B.H.A. will be seen as disingenuous. And they do not need 6 experimental Sunday evening fixtures as the ‘Sunday Series’ already fulfils that role.
It is all very well the B.H.A. preaching that the core product, the bread-and -butter days, are to be protected but unless they commit to aspirations of enhanced prize-money for the lowest rated races, then disingenuous will be the correct adjective to describe their objectives.
Cutting the fixture list is obviously a step in the right direction. In my opinion there should be far fewer all-weather meetings through the summer as the original concept behind all-weather tracks was that they were to be a safety-net for betting revenue when turf meetings have be cancelled due to rain, snow, frost, etc.
The aspect of the B.H.A.’s announcement that ‘got my goat’ was not any of the above but what they left in the pending tray. Days with no flat racing during the summer to allow jockeys, staff, etc, an easy day. Brilliant idea. Should have been adopted years ago. On certain days, only race-meetings in the north or the south. Sensible and forward-thinking. Extending the break between one jumps season the next. No-brainer. Adopt now, along with fewer summer jumps meetings to improve field-sizes. As in Ireland, ‘rider restricted’ meetings for jockeys who have rode fewer than a set number of winners in a six or twelve-month period. A small adjustment that would make a major difference in the income potential of so many people. I would also suggest restricted races for trainers who have trained a similar lower number of winners in a similar period.
The sport must be seen to helping all sectors as the B.H.A. will be helping no one if it thinks it can grow the sport from the top while ignoring the reliability of the sport’s foundations. If these proposals do not allow Newton Abbot, Taunton or Salisbury to grow alongside Ascot, Newmarket and Newbury, the B.H.A. will have failed and the sport will surely continue to wither. 
I award the B.H.A. 6/10 for being proactive for once in its lifetime.

​I was born in April 1954, the year a genius of the turf was confirmed. Not me, I hasten to add. But Lester Piggott, a jockey I knew nothing about, even come June 2nd when I was all of six-weeks old. I doubt if Lester caught my attention, I guess, till ten-years later and perhaps did not appreciate him until he rode Nijinsky to victory in the 1970 Epsom Derby. Incidentally, and nothing to do with the title of this piece, I gained short-lived notoriety with a few acquaintances when I not only nominated Nijinsky a ‘certainly’ but predicted correctly in the right order the 2nd, 3rd and 4th, Gyr, Stintino and Great Wall, a feat I couldn’t accomplish now in a four-horse race.
Anyway, with little else to boast about, I will return to the Derby of my birth year.
Derby Day was cold and gloomy, its cold touch persuading many devotees to stay at home and attendance was the smallest for many a year. In those days, as at Royal Ascot, though not in a horse and four, the Queen was driven up the course in a limousine, keeping well off the racing line, of course. She had a runner, Landau, a lively outsider, ridden by Willie Snaith, the jockey immortalised in Newmarket by a street named in his honour. It was the Earl of Roseberry who greeted Her Majesty on arrival and no doubt they chatted about the very unlike June weather. Sir Winston Churchill, a keen horseman and race-goer, and later a prominent and successful owner, was a guest in the royal box.
Gordon Richards should have been aboard Landau but injury kept him at home. He remained in 1954 both knighted and still the sport’s most popular jockey, which was remarkable considering only the year before he had denied Her Majesty a Derby winner only days after she had bestowed his knighthood on him in her Coronation honours list.
Many of the 22-runners were blessed with having some of the most highly regarded jockeys of many generations on their back. Bill Rickaby had the distinction of failing to finish, pulling up Cloonrougham. The Australian jockey Edgar Britt finished last on Rokimos. Michael Beary was 16th on Alpenhorn. Frankie Durr 13th on Blue Rod. Joe Mercer 12th on Moonlight Express. Rae Johnstone 11th on the joint-favourite Ferriol. The American jockey Johnnie Longden 10th on Blue Sail. Harry Carr 6th on Blue Prince. Charley Smirke 4th on Elopement. Manny Mercer 3rd on Darius.
Doug Smith was 7th in the race on Rowston Manor, perhaps the best horse northern trainer Harry Peacock ever had in his charge. The horse had won the Lingfield Derby Trial impressively enough to start at Epsom as 5/1 joint favourite. His finishing position makes clear he ran well but he was a soft-ground horse and though the weather was gloomy on the day, the cold wind kept drying out the ground. Perhaps connections considered taking him out of the race but it was the Derby, their only chance, perhaps, of winning the great race. They ran and the horse finished lame and never ran again. A sobering lesson of choosing the right moment to discover how good your horse might be. Epsom and the speed of the race can be a breaker of fragile 3-year-old colts. At least these days, the course can be watered.
The Derby was worth £17,000 to the winner, the equivalent of £595,000 today, so at least the Derby prize-fund has kept tabs with inflation.
It was a barrier start back then, of course, adding to the jeopardy of a unique racecourse. Starts pre-starting-stalls were rarely anything but ragged and races could be delayed for up to twenty-minutes as the starter battled to get the runners in some semblance of straightness. On this occasion the race started on-time and in reasonable order.
Moonlight Express led early, with Landau on his tail. Elopement and Arabian Night made progress as they climbed to the summit of the Downs, where L'Avengro took command. Rounding Tattenham Corner all the main contender were in touch, with Rowston Manor and Doug Smith the first to strike for home, followed by Elopement, Arabian Night and Darius. Yet in the wings, patient beyond his years, a long-legged teenager was biding his time, waiting for the precise moment to unleash his spring to glory. Never Say Die was a 33/1 outsider. Lester Piggott, riding with a longer stirrup leather than a modern-day jump jockey, was brash, collecting as many enemies as admirers in his up till then career, was about to land the first of his nine Derby winners.
Never Say Die was the first American-bred horse to win the Epsom Derby since Iroquois in 1881 and the first American-owned winner since 1914.
Horse racing history was being made and I knew absolutely nothing about it and it was a long time before I did.
Bill Rickaby, who didn’t finish the race in 1954, was Lester’s uncle and wrote in his autobiography ‘First To Finish’ that Lester was the greatest jockey he had ever seen and would ever likely to see. A good call. I wonder when it will be before someone compares Billy Loughnane to Lester, as I have already done.

​Look, I have a toothache at the moment. I hoped I could get through to the end of July when my next 6-monthly check-up comes round but no, by the weekend I will be on the strongest painkillers I can buy over the counter and drinking soup through a straw. This might be the reason my ‘Gloomy Gus’ persona dominating my thoughts and why my ‘happy cheery self is locked in a cupboard in my brain somewhere. As of this minute, I can think of no reason to be cheerful.
It was the brilliant Patrick Mullins writing for the Racing Post Ultimate Subscribers newsletter that dug the hole I fell into. He was in Marrakesh, I believe it was, representing his country as part of FEGENTRI, the world organisation that encourages amateur riders to fly around the world to ride in amateur races organised by the association to foster goodwill amongst fiercely competitive non-professional horseman. Patrick Mullins is the man to go to if you want more information on this delightfully old-fashioned club for the select few. All I know is that he was in Marrakesh for a party and awards ceremony and he was there as stand-in for John Gleeson who had to attend school and couldn’t pick up his trophy for best boy or whatever it was for. You would have thought his ma’am would have let him off school for a couple of days so he could, as Patrick sort of implied, have learned a few life lessons that would hold him in good stead once he has achieved his academic certificates. Sure, isn’t young Gleeson going to be a jockey, anyway.
In his article Patrick Mullins casually mentioned that Longines sponsored the serious of Fegentri flat races but declined to sponsor the jumps series. This on the same day that it was reported in the Racing Post that the awful ‘One Show’ had chosen to ditch a report on how equine charities retrain and care for ex-racehorses.
Added to which, in order to do everything in its power to ensure the Epsom Derby is undisturbed by protestors, the Jockey Club has spent £150,000 on security and applied for a legal injunction against ‘Animal Rising’ from unlawful protest at the course. Where are we as a society if legal injunction must be applied for in order to stop acts that in British law are illegal. What is the point of the police if it is not capable of preventing criminality when the crime to be committed is advertised on Twitter and in newspapers and with an exact time of the day when the crime will be committed?
I do not know how the sport can survive this tidal wave of negativity. Or how the thoroughbred horse can survive if the ill-informed and bigoted diatribe of ‘Animal Rising’ wins the middle ground. The debate on ‘premierising’ Saturday racing is trivial compared with the consequences of what might or might not happen at Epsom next weekend or Royal Ascot or Glorious Goodwood.
There was a time, not so long ago, when horse racing in this country was ringfenced by its association with aristocracy. No Lords Derby and Roseberry now. The sport may still have the patronage of the Royal Family but will the King be at Epsom next weekend as his mother would have been? Even if attendance at Epsom is in his diary, will his advisors permit his attendance if there is the threat of insurgence by misfits? Sir Winston Churchill was the last prominent politician to breed racehorses and have them in training. 
Slowly but surely this country is sinking into the dystopian morass of Orwell’s ‘1984’. What a good year that was in retrospect. Secreto won the Derby that year, by the way.
To add to the list of woes, national newspapers are reluctant to include race-cards and even the ‘broadsheets’ are becoming less likely to have a dedicated racing columnist. And worst of all, to my mind, is that horse racing in this country is losing out at a rapid rate to countries around the world, all of which have a funding stream that allows both for development of the sport and its infrastructure and for increasing amounts of prize-money that is the honey to the bee.
Horses die. It is as inevitable as people dying. Horses are not farmed for the consumption of their flesh and bones. Horses are the most cared-for animals on the planet. The death of Hill Sixteen at Aintree was not caused by the protests prior to the start but the actions of the protestors most likely contributed to his death. That, though, was doubtless not reported by any newspaper outside of the Racing Post. The odds are short if something similar occurs next weekend at Epsom that another horse will perish, with the added risk of a jockey suffering severe injury.
Sadly, the televised death of a racehorse, or even, God forbid, the death of a jockey, due to Animal Rising protests, might actually turn the tide in our favour. What a dreadful way to win a battle.
Animal Rising give veganism a bad smell. Pate is my only consumption of meat at the moment. I live with a vegetarian. I loathe the thought of animal cruelty. I support, in too small a way for the ease of my conscience, animal charities. Anyone licenced by the B.H.A. found guilty of cruelty or neglect deserve to be hung, drawn and quartered. To me, there is an unwritten but sacred contract that in return for the risk horses are put at for our entertainment, the horse, every horse, should be cared-for to the enth degree for the whole of its life.
But horses will die on British racecourses. One might die today. It is tragic but true. Apart from banning horse racing as bear-baiting and hare-coursing were banned, how do we prevent tragic accidents from happening? We can’t. In the same way there is no way we can sustain the thoroughbred species in this country without the continuation of the sport. Without horse racing, thousands of people will lose employment and the Exchequer will lose billions of pounds in tax revenue.
I need an appointment with a dentist. If only racing’s woes could be as easily attended to!

​Here’s a secret not worth knowing. I write this, whatever it is, blog, perhaps, using the font Bookman Old Style, though the default setting for Word Documents is Ariel. I should change the default setting, of course, the truth is, though, ‘settings’, as with all aspects of I.T. and modern technology, scare me to the same extent as tales of ‘The Lambton Worm’, hobgoblins and ‘things that go bump in the night’, frightened children in the days before artificial light was invented. This is pointless information as the font for the published blog is another font altogether, the name of which I have never bothered to find out as I am truly intimidated by ‘settings’.
I am easily intimidated. It is why I am not an adventurer or coach and four driver. It is also why I cannot conceive of the notion of advancing the popularity of this website by going forth and interviewing racing celebrities. Not even those jockeys and trainers who would be grateful for any small nugget of greater exposure to the public. I haven’t the platform, if I possessed the nous. I don’t do social media, outside of this obscure website, and though the questions I would want to ask would delve deeper into the souls of the interviewee than Racing Post journalists are allowed to ask, I haven’t the gall, courage or sense of worth, to approach anyone either verbally or electronically. 
So here we are, alone again, naturally.
No one is ever truly alone when there is horse racing to enjoy, are they? I have never met Frankie Dettori, and never will, most likely, yet he is as much a friend to me as he is to you. It is the same with Tom Marquand, Holly Doyle and William Buick. A one-sided friendship, I admit. Which suits me, as doubtless it suits them.
It would make a good news story if Frankie won the Derby on his final ride in the race and would take the sport, perhaps, on to the front pages of the national newspapers. Do I want Frankie to win on Arrest? Yes and no. Perhaps less than I would like Tom Marquand to win or Oisin Murphy. Personally I would prefer Daniel Muscott to win on Dubai Mile as, if I can be bothered, he'll carry my ten-bob each-way this year.
I just wish the Epsom Derby had some true pzazz about it, some expectation of history about to be created. When I was young, all those years ago, the Epsom Derby had news appeal and held on to its reputation as the horse race the world watched in awe. It is a faded glory nowadays, not even held in the same regard as Royal Ascot, even though people will disagree and continue to describe the Epsom Derby as ‘the greatest race in the world’, even though it clearly isn’t anymore.
When the description was valid and incontestable, the Arc de Triomphe did not exist, the Breeders Cup was mere fantasy, travelling a horse by air to faraway places was a pipedream, Dubai, Qatar and Saudi Arabia were homes for camels not racehorses and the Melbourne Cup was strictly for Australians. The Epsom Derby has lost its lustre and sorely needs a good deal of love given to it.
And I don’t mean throwing seven-figure amounts of prize money at it.
Royal Ascot is the major stumbling block, in my opinion. There are colts that in the past would be Derby contenders being kept back for comparatively minor races at the royal meeting. If owners and trainer do not in their heart of hearts believe the Epsom Derby is the greatest race in the world how can the race be sold as such to a public more and more less engaged with the sport? The type of horse going to Epsom these days are the St.Leger types, not that the winner will be seen at Doncaster in the Autumn as there is greater kudos to be had in winning the Arc. The Derby soon will be as dead in the water as the St. Leger if something isn’t done about it.
The Epsom Derby is intimidating owners and trainers of top-class 3-year-old colts. I cannot summon the courage to take a chance on meddling with the settings on my laptop and the same can be said for connections of Derby types when it comes to chancing their arms at Epsom. Horses with the breeding to suggest the Derby distance is right up their ball park and have the good each-way form to contest the race, should be in contention to run in the race. Every other race for 3-year-olds in the calendar should be regarded as consolation races. It used to be the way and should be now. 
As things stand right now, for breeding purposes, for the ‘making’ of stallions, it is the 10-furlong races that matter, especially if that colt has also won over a mile. 12-furlong races on a stallions score-card make him more likely to sire jumpers than Derby winners.
With a new monarch who, perhaps, doesn’t care so much about the ‘social season’ as the late lamented Queen, this would be a good time to debate, as with Cheltenham and Aintree in the spring, a month’s separation between Epsom and Royal Ascot? For the sake of the Epsom Derby, with, perhaps, as when ‘covid’ messed up the normal, the royal meeting exchanging dates in the calendar with Epsom?
If the Epsom Derby is to regain its honoured and historic description as ‘the greatest race in the world’ it needs some love and affection. The Epsom Derby must be given priority over the St.James’ Palace and the other races at the Royal meeting that attract the Epsom Derby type. Owners, and trainers especially, need to be coaxed from their intimidation of the Derby and follow the example of their forebears and chance their arm, to run the horse whose pedigree suggests it won’t stay or whose action suggests it will not come down the hill. Winning the Epsom Derby must be the glorious way to be proven wrong.

​I should be wholly opposed to the concept of the ‘Premierisation of Horse Racing’. It is an idea with a hole in it, dear Liza and eventually dear Henry will have to shift his lazy ass and fix the problem. I have no confidence in the B.H.A. to come to the right decision as they botch everything their hand touches and now they have the teeth to implement ideas off their own bat – if they ever have ideas of their own, that is – heaven only knows what a mess they will create. 
I should be opposed to ‘premierisation’ of the sport if only because no one in racing is on a par with Shakespeare (he was the Earl of Oxford, if you want the truth) and they should not be inventing words to give the appearance of brilliance when all they are doing is re-creating the wheel. Long ago, in the distant past, when the world was as yet uncorrupted by politics and Big Pharma, when Clive Graham sat on a chair in a booth educating the viewer with the form of each runner as it circulated the parade ring, adding anecdotes about the owner, jockey or trainer (not the servant leading the horse around, of course, as in the distant past servants were never spoken about). No fashion parade back then and certainly no waffle. Saturday was the special day, with no more than four-meetings scheduled, with only one televised. It was clarity back then in the days of black and white and the great Peter O’Sullevan’s muddled commentaries. No Super Saturdays. No clutter back in the day when all the national newspapers had dedicated racing journalists and all the race-cards were in the back pages of the paper. The good old days, if only we knew it.
Why people of influence in horse racing must constantly look at other sports with envious eyes defeats me. The total boll-acks of the way flat racing determines its champion jockey is Grand Prix related. Bernie Eccleston had a brief flirtation with horse racing, owning or part owning a few horses and he declared in his wisdom that horse racing would be less confusing and easier for the public to engage with if only a certain number of races determined the champion jockey each year. The champion jockey not necessarily riding the most winners throughout the entire season is so less confusing than the winning-most jockey declared the winner. I think Bernie’s idea was that the jockey who won the most Group 1’s should be declared champion. And why not. After all, Manchester City will be champion of the premiership this season based on points gained in certain matches, not due to wins and draws gained in cup competitions.
My point is that horse racing and football, or indeed motor sport, have little in common. Horse racing is a seven-day a-week life. Horse racing has numerous facets that inter-dwell, inter weave, go hand-in-hand. Promotions are not gained through points accrued. In our sport, in theory, anyway, it is less so nowadays than when Grandstand and World of Sport were in opposition, a minnow can win the highest prizes.
Handled correctly, premierising the top meetings has great potential to achieve what its supporters believe it can. To my mind, though, the danger is that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater. I believe we should not be concentrating on Saturdays alone but including the Sunday as well. The weekend should be the jewel, not just the Saturday. Instead of demoting Musselburgh, Chester, York or Beverley to an undercard, the financial backwater of a 10.30 am or 4.30 pm start, give them the limelight of the Sunday and improve the standard of Sunday racing, long decried as an opportunity missed. The much-heralded ‘Sunday Series’ has improved prize money but it has done little to improve the quality of the horses on display. Premierising both the Saturday and the Sunday is the way forward.
Yes, I know. Ireland and France have their top races on a Sunday and the top English-based jockeys will be compromised, asked to choose between abroad and home. That, on occasion, will be the truth. Rarely will it occur, though, I believe. Ryan Moore and William Buick rarely strut their stuff at Musselburgh and Beverley. They will continue to fly to the Curragh and Longchamp and other jockeys will benefit from their absence.
My original horror at the suggestion of favouring (a nicer word than premierisation, don’t you think?) the top race-meetings on a Saturday over the smaller, country courses, has migrated to ‘unease’. It has potential. It will not in itself solve the issues the sport faces now and will in the future. In fact, if the B.H.A. do not prioritise the future of the smaller racecourses in tandem with favouring Ascot, Cheltenham, Newmarket, etc, the sport could easily get to the stage of being imperilled in double-quick time.
The horse racing bucket has a hole in it, dear Liza and it will take more than a straw to fix it. As amusing as the song is (‘There is a Hole in the Bucket’ by Harry Belafonte, if you are too young to know what I am referring to) it must be remembered that Henry was a lazy so-and-so and Liza an ineffectual employer who thought make-do and mend was a better option than buying a new bucket. The allegory being – premierisation might be the straw recommended by Liza to mend the bucket.

​I have heard racing commentators give the opinion that the flat season is now off and running. To me, far more a jumps enthusiast than a flat lover, this opinion is both confusing and wrong. The reality is told by the racing calendar; the 2023 turf flat season started back in March with the Lincoln Handicap meeting at Doncaster. Jockeys rode winners; trainers trained winners, and stable percentages started to accrue. The flat season between the Lincoln and the Guineas should be renamed the warm-up season and have its own private jockey and trainer championship. A sort of sprint Grand Prix as Formula 1 are now playing around with. It would give purpose to the countdown to the first classics of the season and might provide surprise winners, though you couldn’t include all-weather winners as then you couldn’t dub it the Turf Flat Sprint Championship. Nor could the word ‘sprint’ be used as not all the races would be sprints. The Turf Flat Interlude Championship. That’ll do. Only whimsy, anyway.
To say the flat season is off and running simply because the first two classics are run is wrong, in my opinion, as the classics have trials, and it is my opinion the season does not begin in earnest until both the trials and the classic races are safe and snug in the form book. (Don’t talk to me about the St.Leger as it is almost the forgotten classic, the dead as a dodo classic. A classic in name only classic.) To my way of thinking, the flat season is not truly in full swing until after the Epsom Derby meeting. After Epsom, all the hows, whys, wherefores and tribulations have been fought over, speculated upon and we know, as far as any one of us can truly know, the 3-year-old pecking order. It is only then can we settle down, take a breath and look forward to the multitude of summer racing festivals that kick off with Royal Ascot and all those fancy hats and uncomfortable-looking morning suits. Aren’t we British mad? Insisting on wedding garb to be worn to a sporting event that will be staged either under grey-to-black clouds or under a peerless blue sky with temperatures exceeding 70 degrees.
Anyway, a whole lot of mental energy expended to put into words the unnecessary and downright-confusing-to-explain to non-racing people first 4-months of the British Turf Flat Season.

Saffie Osborne is the new and much taller version of Holly Doyle. I like it when my expressed first impressions bare fruit as has happened with Miss Osborne. I watched her at Ascot one day on what would have been one of her first rides in public. Being by the famous Jamie, eyes were turned in her direction. ‘Getting rides because she is the daddy’s daughter,’ some might have said. I had legitimate grounds to despise her as her presence at The Old Malthouse and the weighing room had elbowed one of my favourite jockeys, Nicola Currie, out of her stable jockey position. All conjecture, for me, at least, ended that day at Ascot. She rode well, was tactically savvy and though she didn’t win it was obvious Jamie had tutored her well. Before Saffie put herself in the limelight, there was no question to be asked as who was the best rider in the Osborne household. There are definite grounds for debate around the dinner table now, though.
The one annoyance in Saffie’s victory response after her splendid ride on Metier to win the Chester Cup – her small place in racing history – was the use of the phrase ‘petrol in the tank’. Firstly, race cars rarely run out of petrol and can go just as fast with a few drops left in the tank as when full, though they stop rather quickly when the gage goes past the red zone. Isn’t the English language eccentric? – ‘stop rather quickly’. As silly as ‘stop rather fast’. Hey-ho! Horses are not cars. There is no combustion engine involved, so to suggest they are fuelled by petrol in some way is as surreal as the League of Gentlemen. I blame Mick Fitzgerald for popularising this description of a tiring horse and vote to have him horse-whipped for the offence.
Why can’t jockeys say ‘he was running out of oats’ or ‘the boiler was in need of more horse-nuts’? Neither, of course, as accurate as using science to explain why the horse was tiring at the end of an exhausting race yet closer to accuracy than the idea in the mind’s eye that horses are fuelled by petrol.

​The above quotation is from Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford. Walpole is not a usual source of material for anyone writing on the subject of horse racing, not being known as a man who habitually kept ante-post betting tickets in his wallet. To be truthful, I was scratching around for a title, what with Sir Winston Churchill letting me down. I did consider using part of his ‘We will fight them on the beaches’ speech but it seemed, finally, to be over-egging the pudding a mite bit.
What came to mind when my eyes fell upon the Walpole quote in my copy of The Oxford Library of Quotation – a sort of literary ‘get out of jail free card for brain-dead wordsmiths – was the comical sight, at least on reflection, of the pink-shirted brigade attempting to scale the wire barricades at Aintree while the local constabulary hung on to their legs. The Pink Brigade think about our sport, while we, the horse lover and its protector, feel. What is data to the Pink Brigade, is tragedy to those whose pride and joy is no more.
The U.S., with its merciless dirt tracks, do not help our struggle against the cruel and malicious Pink Brigade. U.S. trainers do not help our cause by fighting tooth and nail to overturn the Horse-Racing Integrity and Safety Authority’s attempt to initiate nationally recognised uniform anti-doping rules, even though a judge has already ruled the proposed new regulations to be constitutional. It is the combination of dirt tracks and trainers allowed to run a horse under medication that fuels my dislike of the Breeders’ Cup and U.S. racing in general. To my mind, U.S. racing is home to the Openly Cheating. If that statement is libellous, if only in a broad sense, my reply is to ask how many trainers have their licences terminated in the U.S. for persistent rule violations. Only last week, Saffie Joseph became the latest to have his name added to the list of trainers to stain U.S. racing’s reputation.
For those who do not know, 7 horses lost their lives at the Run for the Roses’ meeting at Churchill Downs last week, two on the undercard of the Kentucky Derby.
The U.S. are upholding their responsibility to improve equine safety, I admit, and the 42 equines fatalities at Santa Anita in 2019 was cut to just 12 in 2022. That, though, remains, 12 at one single racetrack spread over a period of several months.
And, of course, we are not talking about jump racing here. One can only assume jump racing in the U.S. must have a less jaw-dropping fatality rate. We are talking about flat racing and flat racing on dead-flat racetracks. Excuse the unintentional and possibly offensive use of dead and flat to highlight my point. I can understand a spectator being bored to death by horses forever running short distances on a left-handed racetrack, with no undulations for variety, no stiff miles, no breakneck 5-furlongs, no race over 2-miles or more. Indeed, very few races beyond 1-mile 1-furlong. If Britain and Ireland adopted the U.S. style of racing, I, too, would consider wearing pink t-shirts and carrying super-glue in my pocket.
As we all know, horse racing in the U.S. falls a long way down the popularity ratings with both the media and the public and, as with in this country, the sport only appears in the national headlines when something awful or controversial occurs. I suspect the New York Times and the Washington Post wouldn’t much bother with reporting on the Kentucky Derby, yet both publications filled its boots with the tragedy of the 7 equine fatalities at Churchill Downs last week.
Until U.S. racing digs up its dirt tracks and replaces them with the kinder Tapeta surface it should be regarded as a pariah racing country. I quote from Jane McIlvane’s wonderful book ‘The Will to Win’, the true story of Tommy Smith and Jay Trump. ‘At the gate the starters work to get a horse into one of the padded stalls. The horse is a gaunt black. Sweat runs down its legs as though it is standing in a shower. It belongs to a used-car dealer, and it showed in its early races that it could run a little. So, its schedule was speeded up, two races a week, sometimes three. Now the horse is overtrained. It’s nerves have frayed. The last time it started the knot in its mud tail got caught between the bars of the rear gate. When it broke, lunging forward onto the track, it pulled half its tail out by the roots. Memory of the scalping agonizingly fresh in its mind, it rears straight up, unseating its ashen-faced jockey. The starter puts a chain around its puzzle and strives to get it to the gate. Three man stand behind the horse with buggy whips.’
I suspect the above is unfair, a depiction of the sport back in the early 1960’s. It was as hard to write now as it was to first read. But it reinforced my opinion about U.S. racing. Jay Trump was treated appallingly when he was racing on dirt tracks in the U.S. and wanted nothing to do with the sport. When switched to grass and timber racing, when treated with kindness and raced on a forgiving surface, he became a superstar to the initiated in the land of his birth and a Grand National winner when raced for a season in this country.

​Belatedly, yes, I know we are now five-months in, but I have decided to donate money to the Greatwood Charity. Actually, this ‘New Year’s Resolution’ is far more than five-months overdue. It is more like twenty-years overdue, I am ashamed to say.
In defence of my parsimonious character, I have never had very much money, no disposable income, little in the way of savings. I am a drifter in life, a hard-working, dedicated, honest, labourer of a human being. Intelligent but stunted, perhaps. Not a borrower or lender be, has been a motto I have inadvertently lived-by. Money has only ever been important to me when I have had not enough to cover my expenses. The thought of a mortgage hanging around my neck terrifies me even now and I have steered clear of credit cards with the same resolve as I steered clear of the covid vaccine.
I am far from money-rich at the advanced age of sixty-nine and retired from the grind of earning a living. Yet I know I am lucky to have reached the year that leads me towards the unbelievable and possibly unsustainable age of seventy. So, in any small way I can, I will support Helen Yeadon’s marvellous Greatwood Charity. I urge others to consider doing the same.
When I first moved to North Devon twenty-two years ago, a friend, knowing my life-long love affair with horse racing and horses, who had an appointment with Helen Yeadon when the charity was based in North Devon to arrange funding of some description, took me along. They were not what they are now as the charity was finding its feet and setting its goals for the future. But I easily recognised the good nature and calm of the place and may even have pledged to help the charity when the opportunity presented itself.
In a feature in the Racing Post last week, Peter Thomas highlighted the brilliant work of the charity and its extraordinary blend of giving ex-racehorses a home and a useful life and allowing vulnerable children the opportunity to rebuild their confidence, with people as well as hulking big horses, by learning at their own pace how to interact with human and equine alike.
Horse Racing, of course, contributes to the upkeep and ambitions of the charity through occasional race-days as at Newbury and the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham. And I have no doubt that racing people dip into their pockets on a regular basis to give their support to a cause that must be safeguarded well beyond the life of its founder.
In one of Peter Thomas’ most heart-warming articles, the sour apple in the barrel was the news that the B.H.A. do not directly contribute to Greatwood funding. At a time when the credibility of the sport is under intense scrutiny, everyone needs to pull their weight. The Racing Post should make the feature on Greatwood available to any newspaper or magazine that shows an interest in publishing the article. And the B.H.A. should be contributing at least a five-figure sum-of-money to Greatwood as an annual donation. No excuses. No cries of ‘we cannot be seen to be favouring one charity over another’.
This sport should ease-off raising millions of pounds for human charities and devote itself to supporting equine charities. Cancer charities, for example, need financial donations but they are supported a thousand times more in a year than equine charities. Home is where the heart is. Racing people may benefit from cancer, heart and other human-targeted charities but without the horse they do not have a career, a life well-lived. 2024 should be designated the Year of Equine Charities. As should 2025 and onwards.
Greatwood do work bordering on the miraculous with horse and child. Go to their website, conduct your own research. If you live close by, visit and put a fiver in the charity box. Horse racing must be seen as a force for good for all equines all around the world. We are seen by our critics as ‘takers’ not ‘givers’, using horses for our financial greed. Critics do not see or understand our love of the horse, our wish for its longevity of purpose and our anguish at the loss of the individual is overshadowed by what seems a deliberate intention to censor all facets of the sport except tragedy and the woke, ignorant interventions of disturbers of the peace.
We should be raising money for equine charities at every race-meeting, in every High Street betting establishment. Greatwood shouldn’t be fiddling around looking for cash. The sport should be proud to fund it, to sustain its future. As with all equine welfare charities. We are always on the back foot, reacting to bad publicity, never on the front foot, directing the public gaze to all that is good in the sport. 
If, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, in the build-up to the Grand National, I.T.V. had broadcast a feature on Greatwood, for example, the events that unfolded before the public gaze might have been seen in a truer light. I.T.V. are the guardians of our sport, much more than the B.H.A. could ever be. I wish I could have the ear of someone high-up in the I.T.V. sport hierarchy. 
That is unlikely to happen. All I can do is find my cheque book, go to the Greatwood website and donate.

​It is only May 7th and already I am irked about flat racing. Whenever someone fires off criticism from afar, with no hands-on knowledge of the minor or important detail, the critic is an easy target for ridicule. My ‘moan’ or critical observation, as I would have it, in this piece is more scattergun than directed at any one individual, even if I do hone-in on individuals whose worldly experience on the subject outweighs mine by an incalculable amount. 
I doubt if I was alone in thinking last Friday afternoon that the King and Queen, as they are post coronation, had a useful type for the Epsom Derby in Circle of Fire. Though only second, he was a running on second, looking all over that he needs the Derby distance even this early in the season. The winner, Castle Way, is highly thought-of by both William Buick and Charlie Appleby, though not as an Epsom Derby horse, it seems. Doubtless Godolphin have other fish to fry when it comes to Epsom. But that doesn’t take away from Circle of Fire that it was a striking effort on his first start of the season.
Yet, straightaway connections were already ruling out Epsom in favour of Royal Ascot. There was no mention from anyone it was the considered opinion that the horse would not be suited by the unique test of Epsom Downs or that the horse neither possesses the class nor stamina for the Derby. I could have accepted the decision if based on immaturity, that a hard race at Epsom may bottom the horse. I could even accept, even applaud, the thought that Circle of Fire was thought a St.Leger horse and he would be quietly brought-on with Doncaster in mind.
I am using Circle of Fire as an example of my thinking. I am in no way criticising the judgement of Sir Michael Stoute, Ryan Moore (whose opinion must have guided the decision to swerve Epsom) or the King and Queen’s racing manager. My ire is directed at the flat racing industry as a collective. Continually the Epsom Derby is referred to as ‘the greatest race in the world’, when clearly it has fallen behind many other races around the world, yet more and more it is regarded in terms of investment value rather than a sporting event, the Blue Riband of the sport.
It's all very well highlighting the crumb that a 1.30 start time this year allows for greater revenue from the World Pool but what use is money when the race itself continues to fall down the popularity ladder?
The French ignore the race these days. The U.S., Japan, Australia, Germany, etc, give it no consideration, believing the greater kudos in British racing is Royal Ascot or Glorious Goodwood. The worst stroke of reality, though, is that the Epsom Derby no longer stops the nation in which it is staged. And the most damning statistic, I believe, is that the Epsom Derby is no longer producing flat racing’s superstar horses. I would argue, perhaps wrongly, given my poor memory and inability, seemingly, to stand up and look for the reference book to prevent me from making as ass of myself, that Sea The Stars was the last potentially great horse to win the Epsom Derby. Don’t start me on why Sea The Stars can only be attributed to being the best (by a long way) of his generation and not a true great along the lines of Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard or Frankel. Place Sea The Stars after Frankel and spot the odd one out.
This year, especially this year, the Epsom Derby needs to have star appeal, an A.1. celebrity, a bright light to hold the public attention so that come the first Saturday in June on the streets it is not ‘oh, is it the Derby today?’ but anticipation and acceptance that today is Derby Day. For the greater good of the sport, the Epsom Derby needs a Royal runner. Not as a sacrifice for the sport but a horse with a viable chance of being at the pointy end of the race, stirring the blood of viewers desperate for the late Queen’s lifelong love affair with the sport is underlined by finally having her name historically associated as the breeder of a Derby winner. The horse in question, and perhaps there is a dark royal horse waiting in the wings that I am not aware of, as of now is Circle of Fire.
I extend my critical thoughts on Epsom participation to all owners and trainers of top-class 3-year-old colts that have a pedigree that does not entirely rule-out the possibility that their class will see them prevail at Epsom. For instance, why with immediate effect would anyone rule-out Chaldean from having a shot at Epsom glory. He won with ease on ground somewhere between soft and heavy in the 2,000 Guineas. As a classic winner he is now worth a small fortune; his value would hardly be diminished if he failed at Epsom. His world doesn’t end with defeat; he can always return to the mile division.
The complex of not risking failure is creeping into National Hunt, in flat racing it is close to a medical condition. I am not suggesting that an immature horse should be thrown to the fires of Epsom as a marketing strategy, though I might suggest that if at this time of year, the majority of top-class 3-year-olds are too immature to endure the undulations and cambers of Epsom, then perhaps the race should be run later in the season. Yet this is the Epsom Derby we are debating. It is the premier race of the British racing calendar. At what point does the sport come first. The health and wealth of the sport. The very future of the sport. I would suggest at this moment in the sport’s history, with racecourse attendances receding, prize-money at an all-time real world low, it should be all-hands on deck to keep the boat afloat. I am not seeing that. All I see is the protection of investment. It never used to be like this – why is it like this now?