​If I had my life to live again I would ride ponies as a child, leave school without any qualifications, join the British Racing School and then advance into a career with racehorses, breaking the odd bone now and again just to prove I was properly living the life.
A life with horses is a life well lived.
So why the staffing crisis?
To ride racehorses you need to be a certain size and a certain weight. And that is where part of the problem lies. Image.
In America, where admittedly the majority of horses are trained from barns surrounding a racetrack, they have work riders and they have what we would terms grooms or stable staff, many big muscular Negroes. I suspect the work riders never muck out a stable and the grooms never ride a horse. If a similar system were to be adopted here it would open up opportunities to employ people who do not meet the size and weight criteria to ride racehorses on the gallops.
Although it is relatively easy to teach someone to ride, to acquire the skill and confidence to be considered a ‘work-rider’ takes many years and is probably more a case of innate ability than anything that can be taught. It is far easier to teach someone to muck out a stable, to lead a horse, to groom it, to pick out its feet, to fill a hay-net, to sweep a yard etc. Being seven-foot tall and weighing twenty-stone does not preclude someone from looking after a horse. Indeed in some instances it would be an advantage. Most of the work in a training yard is done from ground level and not from a saddle and from first-hand experience I can assure you that those who are irreplaceable in the saddle can be less readily disposed to be helpful on the ground. Some people love riding, some people are satisfied just being around and looking after horses. It takes all sorts.
Top class work-riders are worth their weight in gold not only to those lucky enough to employ them but also to the industry. Racing cannot afford to lose them to duller but better paid jobs. There is a bigger picture here and the powers-that-be must wake-up to the fact.
In my new order a stable would employ three distinct levels of staff: Ground staff to muck-out, groom, go racing etc. These people would not need to be able to ride. Racehorses have a reputation for being wild, unpredictable beasts and I suspect many horse-orientated people are put off working in the racing environment because of this perception.
Then there would be mainly young people with ambitions to be jockeys or work-riders who would take horses to the gallops to exchange for horses already galloped by the work-riders. These employees would be expected to work as grooms and as they progress they would be taught to become work-riders.
The industry might be best advised to introduce skills certificates so when applying for a job a trainer can easily judge what abilities an individual can bring to the yard. These skills certificates should advance someone into higher paid jobs such as head-lad, travelling head-lad, assistant trainer and so on.
I believe there are nearly 2-million people unemployed in this country. That is a work-pool that is generally ignored by the industry. If a trainer took on three people with no experience of working with horses and taught them the skills of a yardman and groom this would release most of his or her work-riders from the dull routine of mucking out and allow them more time to ride more horses on the gallops. National Hunt trainers could take on and train these people during the summer and a flat trainer during the winter.
There are two more ideas I would like to put forward. One is simplistic yet vital. Listen to the people who currently work in the industry and seek out the reasons why people leave. And secondly, and this is revolutionary yet doable. Treat everyone who work in racing stables as one universal workforce and take 2 or 3 or perhaps 5% from prize money to put into a pot to be divided equally amongst every member of every stable. This should not be a substitute for the prize money that already goes to individual stables but an additional reward.
The racing industry must have a spread of people covering every generation from school-leaver to O.A.P. so that knowledge gained over decades can be passed on and preserved. Read a stable management book written prior to 1914 and it can easily be gleaned how much knowledge and how many skills have either been lost or abandoned during the intervening years.
 It should not be left to individual trainers to solve this crisis. The powers-that-be must be persuaded to do their bit. Without the bread and butter workers we would not have an industry. To protect the future of the sport we must look after these people. They deserve a Living Wage not the Basic Minimum and they deserve a day off every week and weekends off more than just occasionally. Stable staff are taken advantage of but only because trainers have no other option. Horses are living creatures, they need constant care and attention.
This situation needs to be addressed today, the future of our sport may just depend on it.

​Sheer weight of numbers would suggest Aidan O’Brien to be the greatest trainer of racehorses in Europe. He may even be the Christian Ronaldo of world racehorse training. Some would even claim that Ronaldo is the Aidan O’Brien of world football. Whether he is or isn’t top of the world rankings, and as Ronaldo recently said ‘numbers do not lie’, is a matter of conjecture. I doubt if the great man cares a fig either way. O’Brien, I mean. I suspect it matters a lot to Ronaldo to be regarded as the best in the world.
It can be argued that with the quality of thoroughbred at his disposal Aidan would have to be as dim-witted as Father Maguire of the priest’s house Craggy Island not to win a classic race or two every year. In fact the slow decline of Godolphin over the past few years has allowed Coolmore to dominate classic and Group 1 races and for other workaday trainers it has become like trying to win a stage of a rally with a Reliant Robin while your main competitor has the selection of every Ferrari, Maserati and Porsche ever made.
I think what sets the successful trainer apart from the less successful is the want to continue to learn about animal husbandry coupled with an ability to think outside of the box. Aidan certainly does not contain himself within the orthodoxy of tradition. To see him in turn saddle six Derby colts in the middle of the parade ring, relying on no one but himself to fit girths, stretch legs and brush flat the hairs of the hind quarters, is to watch an instinctive perfectionist at work.
There are other trainers of distinction, of course, but what about the trainers who do not benefit from a conveyor belt of blue-blooded thoroughbreds a trainer must have to compete with Coolmore. Could any of them be potentially in the same league as Aidan O’Brien? How about David Elsworth? Classics have never come his way, at least not on the flat. But he always, perhaps with barren years in between, comes up with a good one. In The Groove, Norse Dancer, Heighlin, to name but three top class flat horses. And of course Persian Punch.
How great an achievement was it to keep a big, heavy horse like Persian Punch sound and winning into his tenth year? Cup races are notoriously hard on a horse, and yet David Elsworth brought him back year after year, with two forays to the Melbourne Cup thrown in for good measure. And not two abortive missions, either. But two third places in the toughest, perhaps most prestigious race on the planet. It can be argued that Persian Punch was as good on the day he died as he was six years previously when he began to put down roots in the hearts of the racing public.
I remember that good 2-mile, 2 and a half mile chaser Barnbrook Again when against the wisdom of the racing media Elsworth tried him over 3-miles. He finished 2nd and when it was put to the trainer that Barnbrook didn’t win because he failed to stay, he replied. “He certainly stayed the 3-miles better than those he beat.”
It is the view that should have prevailed after this year’s Derby. If Cracksman and Eminent are thought be true 1-mile and a half horses then in finishing in front of them it cannot be argued that Cliffs of Moher didn’t see out the Derby trip as he certainly stayed better than those he beat.
And of course only David Elsworth thought Desert Orchid would stay 3-miles and only David Elsworth thought he would win the Cheltenham Gold Cup on a course he had never won at, on ground he loathed and over a trip he had never attempted. To this day I contend the 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup to be one of the top three most memorable races ever seen on a British racecourse. I even had the audacity many years later to write two short stories about the day, one of which ‘Grey Day’ can be found on this website, the only piece of fiction amongst a plethora of idea, opinion and radical thought.
I suspect the reason Elsworth is overlooked by the top owners is because he is too much his own man, too old and wizened to kowtow to the whims and fancies of those used to getting their own way. Yet surely his talents deserve at least one more ‘superstar’ before he hangs up his boots. This is the man who trained not one of racing’s all-time greats but two. And the reason the racing public took both Desert Orchid and Persian Punch to their hearts was because neither of them knew how to lose without giving all they had to give. To be blessed with that mentality they had to be fit in mind and body, and that is David Elsworth’s greatest achievement. He knows his horses, knows when to shovel on the coal and when to back off. With the possible exception of Yeats, for all the domination Coolmore has achieved they have never had a horse the public have taken to their hearts. In fact Elsworth’s achievement can only be matched by Paul Nicholls courtesy of his good fortune of having trained Denman and Kauto Star.
Recently there was a memorial service at Westminster Abbey for Ronnie Corbett. Nice for his family, and though comforting for the rest of us to think that somehow Ronnie could acknowledge the honour, the recognition of esteem might have served him better in life. Let Elsworth not leave us before the racing world, the racing family, acknowledge in solid form his handling of two of the most popular horses ever to grace a racecourse. Perhaps a plaque. A race named in his honour. An Elsworth Esplanade. His name preserved from extinction. His achievements forever recalled.

The following piece first appeared in the June edition of 'Racing Ahead', Britain's premier racing magazine.
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​Sometimes jockeys try too hard. It is an occupational hazard. And the top jockeys seemingly always try hardest in the most prestigious races. Not that they don’t try their best in every race, it’s just in the big show-stopping races they are prepared to throw the kitchen sink and all the cutlery at the job if they believe it will make the difference between winning and losing. It has always been the same, I suspect.
The whip, and the use of, remains a contentious issue in racing; a knotty problem that lives for the limelight. Something needs to be done about it. And I have the solution.
There is the argument that if a jockey breaks the whip rules in winning a race the horse should be disqualified. At the stewards discretion a horse can be disqualified from first place if it is deemed the jockey was culpable in any manoeuvre that caused interference sufficient to suggest a rival was prevented from achieving a fair opportunity of winning. So why should a whip offence be any different? Owners, trainers, stable staff and punters lose out if a horse is disqualified due to interference, so why argue that it would be unfair on connections and punters if a horse is disqualified because a jockey has used his whip once, twice, three or thirteen times more than the rules allow?
The definition of rule suggests there is no wriggle-room for discretion: ‘official instructions, often written down, which tell you what you are allowed to do and what you are not allowed to do’.
Joe Mercer was quoted as saying that if a horse does not go faster for one crack of the whip it will rarely go faster for two or more. I would argue as many races are lost because of overzealous use of the whip than are won by it. Another contentious argument, I agree, though one that my solution might provide a definitive answer to.
Banning jockeys has never worked as a deterrent. And never will. When it comes to the classics or any of the big races jockeys assume a must win attitude. I dare say their employers expect it of them. What is a ban anyway but a period of rest in a busy and relentless life style? The top jockeys are too wealthy to worry about not riding on a mundane Monday, a tedious Tuesday or a wearisome Wednesday, unless, of course, the Tuesday coincides with the first day of Royal Ascot, Goodwood or Cheltenham. Then it is a punishment worthy of petition to the Supreme Court and a promise to be a good jockey in the future. And if there is a Group 1 on any day of the ban, as things stand, it is not included as part of the ban. So if Ryan Moore has to give one of Aidan O’Brien’s ten cracks rather than eight to win the Derby that is exactly what he will do and commentators will wet themselves in eulogy of his brilliance. Not that Ryan will care one way or the other. He gives the impression of being one step removed from the ordinary world. He may be part horse, part human.
So here is my solution to the age-old problem:
Let’s assume Ryan Moore exceeds his quota of cracks in the Derby. My solution, though, would apply to a seller at Fontwell to a Group 1 at Royal Ascot, a maiden at Brighton to the Cheltenham Festival. Instead of a 4-day ban, which as I have said is nothing more than an enforced and sometimes inconvenient holiday, the jockey should be allowed to carry on riding but not be allowed to use his whip. He can carry it for purposes of safety, to keep a horse straight, for instance, but even in the tightest of finishes he is not allowed to use the whip in earnest. If he does use his whip during this 4-day period the prohibition is doubled, with no opt-outs for Group I’s. A jockey riding under such a prohibition might have to wear a hi-vis pink armband so that it is clear to the stewards and public that the prohibition is in place.
If an owner or trainer still wants a jockey with the prohibition to ride their horses, they will still be free to do so.
Every time a jockey breaks the whip rules the prohibition should be doubled what is was the previous time. And the prohibition kicks in the very next day. No ten day wait for the ban to be implemented. This, if nothing else, will keep a jockey’s mind focused, knowing he or she could be seriously disadvantaged in any coming big race, with the possibility that they might be jocked off in favour of a jockey riding without the prohibition.
I know jockeys will say this is unfair. That come the Derby and other big races some jockeys will be unable to use their whips while others can whip crack away. But that is the point. This possible solution to the ticklish problem is at the same time more lenient than the present procedure and yet far harsher.
As anyone with an eye to the changing world will fear the day when the call for a total ban on the whip may become impossible for the authorities to ignore; the prohibition solution might be the answer to allow jockeys to keep whip cracking away. Also, jockeys might also come to understand that some horses might respond with more enthusiasm if cajoled with hands and heels rather than having their bottoms smacked every time they race.

​Given the furore over Diore Lia and whether or not Gina Mangen was experienced enough to tackle the downs and curves of Epsom, it was somewhat ironic that the winning jockey should be someone who has ridden only 3 more winners in the past eighteen months than Miss Mangen, a woman wronged if ever a woman was wronged. I hope some good hearted owners now give her rides to help heal the scars inflicted by the mauling she received from the B.H.B.
I am not going to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes by saying I fancied Wings of Eagles but after Chester he was the one I marked down as a horse to run well at Epsom. In the event I neither tipped nor backed any horse, only wishing Sheikh Mohammed would finally see his colours in the winner’s enclosure. I nearly tipped Best Solution but managed to caution myself with memories of how badly my tips turn out. It was not to be for the good Sheikh this year, though I think Benbatl is a horse to stay friendly with for the rest of the season. Indeed if he runs in the Irish Derby I can see him turning the tables on those who finished in front of him at Epsom.
Wings of Eagles was a good winner, though, even if he was an ‘inconvenient’ winner for Coolmore. I tend to think that given the choice ‘the lads’ would have preferred Cliffs of Moher to have won and Aidan’s wry smile as Wings of Eagles pounced in the last hundred yards spoke volumes. Cliffs of Moher will win plenty in time, especially as a four-year-old, as Aidan keeps referring to him as ‘babyish’. Given that Cracksman, Eminent and Capri all ran with distinction and the aforementioned ‘Benbatl came from a long way back to finish fifth, this year’s race might prove a better renewal than the experts previously thought.
Of course the most satisfying part of the race this year was the winning rider, whoever he is? Padraig Beggy, that’s who. One of Aidan’s work riders. A jockey having only his ninth ride of the season and only his second winner. I wonder where he ranks now in the Ballydoyle pecking order? It also begs the question of how many other accomplished work-riders-cum-jockeys earn their crust away from the spotlight and the winning post? And if P.B.Beggy can be given such an opportunity why not many others? Like Wings of Eagles I expect Beggy to go on from here and establish himself as more than a morning glory. And it speaks volumes for Aidan O’Brien as a human being as well as an employer that he gave a Beggy the chance to redeem himself after his indiscretion with cocaine, promising him opportunities if he worked to earn them.
The reason the Derby was so enjoyable this year was the variety of scenarios a large number of runners bring to the race and there should now be every effort to have a similar number every year. At the moment the prize money only extends to sixth place and I would suggest this should be extended down to tenth place. The winner won nearly a million quid, so there is plenty of dosh in the pot to find the extra place money.
I would also stop fillies running in the race and place an embargo on apprentices riding in the race. To suggest a jockey should have ridden ten winners, though, as I believe is the rule for the Grand National, would be wrong, as Padraig Beggy so ably proved.

​It is said that the Epsom Derby is the greatest race in the world. I disagree. I believe anyone with any sense of perspective would disagree. It is undoubtedly the greatest three-year-old race in Europe. But in the age in which we live, it possibly only just cracks the top ten, with the Grand National and Cheltenham Gold Cup being both more popular and greater by any rational definition of the word. In flat terms both the Melbourne Cup and the Kentucky Derby out-rank the Epsom Derby, and due to its humungous prize money the Dubai World Cup is beginning to overhaul it too.
Which is wrong. Plain wrong. The Epsom Derby has history, a heritage that all these other races lack. Restoring the race to its former glories, though, will not be an easy matter. Just getting people to accept the Derby is no longer what it was will be hard enough. Counselling may be required. Seminars may have to be organised on a monthly basis. It may take hypnotism to stop Frankie Dettori saying ‘It is da greatest race in da world’, to anyone who will listen.
Like Epsom, Madonna is not what she was fifteen years ago and no amount of plastic surgery or conical bras will return her to the days when she ruled the pop world. It is the same with the Epsom Derby. No amount of plastic surgery – I reference the re-naming of the free enclosure ‘Poundland Hill’ –or stewards wearing conical bras will right the decline. Nor will pouring millions into the prize fund. This Saturday’s race would have the same field if the prize money was halved. Churchill is absent not because the prize money is an insult to his status as Coolmore’s next wunderkind but because he will devalue himself if getting soundly beaten.
That’s the problem, isn’t it, sort of? Once upon a time the Epsom Derby was the buzzing bee all and end all, the only flat race worth winning and trainers gave it a go even if their top colts were not bred to stay an inch beyond a mile. Churchill can wait for Royal Ascot, while others can cross the Channel for a try at the French Derby. The poor old Epsom Derby isn’t even the bee’s knees in its own country anymore.
The solution, if there is a solution, indeed if there needs to be a solution, lies in the past, in the not so long ago days when the Derby had gravitas with ordinary folk, the sort of public who had two bets a years, the Grand National and the Derby. These days the people on the street will not be aware, even on Saturday morning, that Saturday is Derby Day. Many will even go shopping rather than watch the race on the telly.
The Derby must revert to being run on a Wednesday, so attending the race is a holiday, a day away from the dull routine. Run on a Wednesday the race will retrieve some of its uniqueness. On a Saturday the Derby must contend with and contest for coverage with whatever sporting events are on around the world.
Back in the fifties, sixties and seventies, before the O’Brien’s came along, before Coolmore and Galileo took the race virtually hostage, the twice-a-year punter had a choice of twenty or thirty runners, with the argy-bargy out on the rollercoaster switchback of a course almost designed to give the good outsider a chance of victory now and again. 6/5 favourites are of no interest to Joe Public, as are ten or twelve runner fields. Aidan O’Brien having the first six home will be forgotten about by the general public come strawberry-eating time.
The Derby has become elitist. It is no longer a race for the one-horse owner, yards with a small number of horses, the journeyman jockey who for a ride in the Derby will forego six rides somewhere else on the day.
It is all very well for Ryan Moore to claim that it was ‘deadwood’ getting in his way that cost him victory on Carlton House but it is not unheard of for horses at the head of the betting to become unbalanced coming down the hill and rolling into outsiders making steady progress through the field.
It is like in the sixties when people argued for the abolition of capital punishment, citing the odd occasion when there was a miscarriage of justice. It is the same for the Derby, with the elitists wanting a restriction on horses they consider ‘no-hopers’ and citing 1962 when seven horses fell because of scrimmaging and the stewards blamed no one in particular though blaming owners for running horses ‘with no business to be in the race and getting in the way of fancied runners’.
Very soon, if we are not careful, and already the powers-that-be have taken the sad, bad and mad precedent of disallowing Gina Mangen to ride in this year’s Derby, citing their responsibility toward health and safety, a case of making up the rules as they go along, the Derby will be subject to the sort of debate the Grand National recently endured, with talk of realigning the course, running the race on a ‘proper’ racecourse or taking the route of the French and shortening the race two furlongs.
For the Derby to revert to challenging for the title ‘greatest race’ it must be diverted from the elitist race it has become and remember the time when it was known as the ‘Peoples Race; the Derby the centrepiece of a Cockney Festival. It shouldn’t be about future stallions and the millions they will earn their millionaire owners but a horse race. Simply a horse race.
For what it’s worth I hope Godolphin win this year. Sheikh Mohammed deserves to see the Godolphin blue in the winning enclosure.