​There is more to take from the shake-up at the Professional Jockeys Association than simply the change in the lead characters. To me, it is blueprint for how the board at the British Horseracing Authority should be comprised.
The complaint many of the jockeys cited against its former Head Man, Ian Mahon, former professional footballer, was his ‘absenteeism’ when it came to talking with the membership over important changes to the rules of racing that impacted on jockeys and that he didn’t ‘speak the language’ of the sport, that he was an outsider who needed a translator to better understand the subtle and sometimes complex nuances of the sport.
The term ‘speaking the language’ resonated with me. If you, as with myself, have ‘spoke the language’ for most of your lives, talking with someone with a burgeoning interest in the sport, or someone you meet socially and has asked what your interest in life is, it can be similar to speaking with someone from another country. And you, of course, can come across as if you have a very broad regional accent that mangles the English language. Even the word ‘furlong’ can need explanation.
This, in a nutshell, is my problem with how the B.H.A. is set-up. I am in no way critical of Julie Harrington or any of her predecessors and horse racing is both a sport and an industry, which makes it very different to other sport’s management authorities. And that is the point, the nub of my argument. I dare say Julie Harrington has learned a good deal of the horse racing ‘language’, yet she is more than halfway through her tenure at the B.H.A. How much of her time at the helm of the sport was she ‘catching-up’, in need of a ‘translator’?
The new ‘board’ at the P.J.A., fronted until a permanent successor to Ian Mahon can be appointed, by Dale Gibson, former jockey and someone who, seemingly, has the support of the membership. Why not appoint him on a permanent basis? Experience, speaks the language, up-to-speed with past issues! Henry Brooke, Neil Callan, Tom Marquand, Andrew Mullen, Jonjo O’Neill and Tabatha Worsley make-up a diverse and vastly experienced committee, alongside David Bass and Nick Attenborough, who has great experience within the sport as he has worked at Great British Racing, the British Racing School and Sandown Park.
Whether as a committee they will always sing from the same hymn-sheet will be discovered sometime in the near-future, I imagine. Initially, though, they will reform the association into a shape that best suits the needs of their colleagues. Although the main gripe, as I understand it, with jockeys had with Ian Mahon, Jon Holmes, etc, was their views on the whip and the closure of racecourse saunas were either ignored or circumvented. The tears in the fabric of the association were stimulated, though, by what will become known as ‘the infamous abuse case of Frost v Dunne’; a sorry tale that damaged the reputation of both the P.J.A. and the sport.
Looking in from the outside it was apparent the P.J.A. had an issue with this case and that ‘issue’ was more important to them than defending one of their members who was being intimidated by a senior member of the weighing-room. All that was needed for the situation to be prevented from becoming a story for the national newspapers to get their teeth into was for the P.J.A., and not necessarily the pen-pushing executive members, though certainly David Bass, to have taken Dunne to one side and told him he would be thrown out of the P.J.A. if he didn’t change his attitude towards another member of the association. Even if Dunne was correct in his criticism of Frost, a problem no one else had ever highlighted, he was wrong to think he was the one who could remedy the situation.
I believe Dunne’s problem was brought about by jealousy. I would hope the new ‘board’ would be quicker to snip such buds of potential embarrassment for the sport with more immediacy when and if they occur in the future. Jockeys work with danger every day of their working lives, as fanatics of the sport we owe them big-time and I, personally, am in awe of their bravery and skills. 
Robbie Dunne let down the P.J.A., the sport and fans of the sport, yet, seemingly, the P.J.A. wanted, in the first instance, to protect him and suggested his victim should keep quiet. I may be wrong in that summary, but it is the view I gained from reading newspaper reports on the issue. I would hope the new broom at the P.J.A. sweeps clean the past mistakes and they represent fairly and with integrity every single one of their members and without favouritism. 
I would also hope when it next comes to appointing the next person to head-up the B.H.A. is that the new incumbent can ‘speak the language’ from day one of his or her occupancy of the position. 

​I suppose the sport won the ‘battle of Epsom Downs’, though it might be described as a pyric victory; a victory for the iron-fist of a court injunction. The precedent of having to go to the High Court to ensure a sporting event takes place without interruption by people protesting an issue for the purpose of gaining publicity and news coverage is a precipice of unimaginable financial cost. Lawful, peaceful protest, must not be lost in a country of true democracy, yet the activists of Stop Oil and Animal Rising could easily become the excuse for governments around the world to ban all forms of protest. In their ignorance, Animal Rising may well be facilitating ‘the need for an act of parliament’.
The sight of armed police at a British racecourse was quite chilling. Epsom Derby Day is usually a pretty picture of British people at play, a throwback to the time when the Derby stopped, if not a nation, at least, the capital city of that nation. Indeed, Epsom on Derby Day always used to remind me of the origins of the sport when horse racing truly did mingle with ‘all the fun of the fair’ on important festival days in local calendars. Yesterday’s scene was far removed from a ‘pretty picture’ with security fencing, men and women in high-vis tabards and a regiment of police on high alert for anyone wearing a pink t-shirt. The triumph in Ed Chamberlain’s voice came across as hollow as a brandy snap where I was lounging. 
I remain convinced that if I.T.V. gave Animal Rising a ten-minute platform to air their aims, the public would see through them. Viewers watching I.T.V. will contain a high number with a dog or dogs at their feet, cats on many laps and parrots and cockatoos making themselves known in the background. Veganism verges on the evil, when taken to the extreme views of Animal Rising. In truth, it is not people who must rethink their association with animals but society rethinking their association with extremists intent on pressurising government into actions that benefit no one and, in this instance, will make extinct not only the thoroughbred racehorse but all varieties of cats and dogs. If veganism was natural, our ancestors would have been purely fruit-eaters and lions, tigers and crocodiles would be seen in petting zoos alongside rabbits and goats. I, by the way, eat very little meat and our oven would be mystified to have beef, lamb or pork to cook.

The Derby itself was interesting, wasn’t it? I am still to be convinced that Auguste Rodin is a world-beater, though his victory should be taken on-board by trainers too quick to rule out Derby bids just because their ‘big hope’ runs below expectation in a trial. It should be remembered, albeit his legendary status is beyond dispute, that Aidan is not always right when he ‘bigs’ up a Ballydoyle horse. Australia comes to mind, and though Auguste Rodin is now a Derby winner, I wouldn’t go mad on him coming out of Epsom as the best horse in the race as King of Steel looked positively burly in the parade ring and if Kevin Stott could ride his race again, he would, I suspect, hold on to him a little longer as he gave Ryan Moore the perfect lead into the final furlong. There is only natural improvement to come from Auguste Rodin, whereas King of Steel has both natural improvement and an improvement in fitness as a benefit over the next few months. Roger Varian is a stellar trainer but no one, I would contend, could get a 17-hand, 3-year-old colt, absolutely spot-on to the extent it could win a Derby. He might was, perhaps, 95% ready but not the 100% of Auguste Rodin.
Isn’t it time British trainers studied Aidan’s way with his horses? He doesn’t mind them being beaten if they come out of their races in better shape and having learned from the experience. His horses run and run. He achieves long seasons with his 3-year-olds especially as he doesn’t overtrain them early in the season and allows for natural progression. Yes, he has a battalion of purple-bred horses at his disposal, yet, even at Ballydoyle, the percentage of Group 1 horses is quite small. Look at a ‘Horses in Training’ from past years and you’ll see names of horses that are unfamiliar, that never came close to achieving a place in peoples’ memories. The man truly is a walking legend.
The other horse to take out of the Derby this year might be Artistic Star who stayed on like a top stayer for the future. When, and if, White Birch matures, he could improve leaps and bounds as at the moment he leaves his potential entangled with his unstable behaviour.
A very interesting Derby spoiled by the long anticipation of ignorant and selfish protest. It could have been worse, though, couldn’t it?

​The Epsom Derby is 1-mile & 4-furlongs long. Alas, the story of Derby Day 2023 will take far longer to tell. 
It is a mad world when in order to do all that is possible to stage a legal event, land owners must fork-out five or six-figure sums of money to seek a court injunction against people who by simply stepping onto your land are breaking the law. Animal Rising have publicly informed the authorities of their intention to break the law today. The threat has been communicated on social media and carried by national newspapers. Yet nothing, seemingly, can be done in anticipation of the threat until the perpetrators have committed the unlawful act. As things stand, given the large acreage of Epsom Downs is common land and the softly-softly approach of the police, I cannot see how there will not be disruption to the Derby, can you?
I think the tactics of the police would be markedly different if the threat was against government property or a direct threat against the King’s property. I am afraid the truth is, as proved by the softly-softly approach to ‘Stop Oil’ protests – you need to drive an electric car for 100,000 miles, by the way, to get it to net zero given they are built using power from nuclear power-stations – out-of-control protests will be used by our government in the near future to cut a swathe through our freedom to protest peacefully or otherwise about anything. It is good publicity for their future aims to allow people in pink shirts to be seen on prime-time television climbing security fencing, fighting the police and disrupting public life.
That said. 
The B.H.A. made the wrong call in deciding to run the Derby at 1.30. They have known since before the disruption to the Grand National that Epsom, too, would be targeted by Animal Rising and yet put the financial gain of the World Pool before the safety of horses, jockeys and members of the public. The discretionary move, at least this time around, would have been to stage the race during the F.A. Cup Final, with a replay of the race shown either at half-time at Wembley or after the game, denying the protestors the limelight of a maximum amount of exposure to the maximum number of viewers.
By the by. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if the F.A.Cup Final is not interrupted through invasion by Stop Oil or Animal Rising protestors. 
It is time to stand firm. I hope Ed Chamberlain informs I.T.V. viewers of the large number of people employed directly or indirectly by the horse racing industry. Horse racing is a diverse society. It is not an entertainment for the mega-rich. It is not an upper-class sport. Horse racing is very much a working-class sport. Flat jockeys in particular tend to originate from working-class families, though more and more it seems our leading jockeys are sons of former jockeys. I doubt if anyone in the country, working in any industry, works a similar number of hours per week that a leading or workaday jockey must do.
But this issue is not about jockeys or owners but the equine stars of the show. I once had a letter published in either the Sporting Life or the Racing Post – I have a copy somewhere but you know time and bother – suggesting that the first rule of the sport should be the horse comes first. This was at a time when handicappers were campaigning to have all horses ridden out to the winning post irrespective if they were likely to be in the money or tailed-off. No one, seemingly, supported me as no letters for or against were later published.
All through the whip debate, there seemed little support for banning use of the whip altogether. Yet this is issue is the stick our objectors use to beat us with most frequently. Frankie Dettori is rightly spoken-of as one the world’s great jockeys. As is Ryan Moore. Yet both use their whips sparingly. It is body-strength and horsemanship that wins the day with both of them. Yet the sport decides to go with six aesthetically-pleasing strikes.
Charlotte Jones received a 12-ban at Cartmel for mistaking the winning post. Pat Cosgrave got a 28-day ban for stopping riding before the winning line and being pipped at the post. Yet jockeys still receive shorter bans for a whip offence. Right or wrong, the issue is how the public view the discrepancy. This is about the public licence to continue as a sport.
I have absolutely no doubt that racehorses are the best cared-for animals in this country. I cannot comment with honesty on the situation in other countries. Can the sport do more? Of course, it can, yet, criminally, we are always on the backfoot, playing catch-up. Horses will die on racecourses, on the gallops, while turned-out at grass and sometimes even in the comparative safety of their stable. Yet I know that as soon as a horse requires the attention of a vet all that can possibly be done to heal the injury or cure the illness is done promptly without recourse to thoughts of cost. 
There is so much cruelty and neglect in this world, yet Animal Rising choose to protest against an industry that puts an animal on a pedestal, that when reading the result of a race it is the name of the horse that comes first, not the jockey, trainer or owner.
Excepting our late Queen and Winston Churchill, racehorse owners of sound repute, there are more statues of horses in this country than there are of jockeys, trainers or owners. Animal Rising believe large areas of this country should be rewilded so that horses can run free where we can go to enjoy them. Of course, many will die in agony of broken legs, illness and the cold British climate, though, of course, rangers could be employed to monitor the thousands of equines patriated to wild, uncaring nature. Animal Rising, no doubt, also believe in fairies and unicorns.
Epsom today will be a battleground of ideology. The protestors will largely be young, no doubt the same people who take part in Stop Oil protests; people who ignore the 33 dire warnings by climate scientists since 1958 claiming the Arctic will be free of ice by 2000 or famine will ravish the Earth by 2005 and so on and on. What every claim of catastrophe has in common is that they have proved to be wrong. 
Animal Rising are not opposed to horse racing per se, they are using our sport and threatening the employment of many thousands of people to publicise their belief that the connection between animals and humans should be terminated. No domestic pets is also their goal.
We live in a government directed world of wokism, where people are allowed to believe that if they object to anything, they have the right to protest against it and strive to have it banished from society. I object to Animal Rising. Perhaps I should glue myself to one of its activists or invade a members’ garden or disrupt one of their gatherings by fair means or foul. 

​I refer to the Epsom Derby, of course. Those with encyclopaedic memories or form books extending back to the beginning of Timeform and beyond, will doubtless raise a persuasive argument against me. Until then I will claim that the years between 1968 and 1972 sparkled so brightly that even someone with as poor a memory as myself can recall their glory. (clearing throat) With the aid of Stewart Peters book ‘Derby Days’.
I was going to extend ‘the golden period’ to 1967, the first Derby I can recall watching on t.v. As a schoolboy, I remember running home from school – 3-miles from home – to watch Arkle in Cheltenham Gold Cups but not to watch a Derby. I was thirteen in 1967 and I suspect I was canny enough by then to fake illness on big race days that fell midweek.
Royal Palace won in 1967, ridden by Aussie jockey George Moore and trained by Noel Murless. To this callow youth he looked a real stunner, a horse for the age, though history perhaps records him as not in the highest of echelons as apart from the second and third, Ribocco and Dart Board, the beaten horses did not amount to much.
1968, of course, was the year of Sir Ivor. Don’t ask me why, as I am a shy cinema goer, but I never truly appreciated Sir Ivor’s turn of foot until I watched a film of this race in a cinema in Newmarket. Sandy Barclay, a teenager at the time, was in tears after the race as he thought he was a certain winner of the race on Connaught right up to the shadow of the winning post only for Lester to sweep by, the horse doing the proverbial handstands and Lester calculating that year’s tax returns.
Sir Ivor looked a world-beater that day and was always Lester’s answer when asked the best horse he ever rode, though he occasionally, I believe, prefaced his reply with, ‘on his day’. Sir Ivor was beaten in his next four races, including the Irish Derby, without the aid of Lester, and the Arc, with the aid of Lester. He did finish his career winning the Washington International, after which Lester’s riding tactics were derided by U.S. racing commentators. As always, Lester had the last laugh. After trying to avoid the press mob, when finally cornered and asked ‘when did you think you had the race won’, Lester replied, ‘about two-weeks ago’. 
The second, third and fourth, were horses of reasonable ability, Connaught, Mount Athos and Remand, but, other than Sir Ivor, it was not a vintage Derby. But Derby’s rarely are. 
1969 was a strange year in comparison to the golden years before and after. 26-ran that year and was won by a horse having only its second run of its life, Blakeney. I doubt you could have produced a poorer bunch of Derby runners as those that Blakeney beat, though, of course, in 1973, during the same period of racing history, Arthur Budget trained the 1973 Derby winner, a half-brother to his 1969 winner, Morston, also only having his second racecourse experience. So, for that fact alone, perhaps my golden period should extend to 1973.
The golden treasure came in 1970. The first flat horse to blow me away. Nijinsky. I even had a painting of him for a Christmas present, such was my esteem. Only eleven faced the starter in 1970, such was the pre-eminence of Vincent O’Brien’s champion. He won, beating perhaps less quality opposition than Sir Ivor, with the sort of contemptuous ease that only a Lester Piggott ridden horse could achieve.
Nijinsky went on to win the Irish Derby and won the King George & Queen Elisabeth at Ascot in the most-commonest of canters you’ll ever witness in a Group 1 from what was described as ‘a star-studded field’ that included Blakeney. And, let it be said, Nijinsky is the last horse to win the British Triple Crown of 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St.Leger, and I doubt I’ll live to see another colt achieve the same. His defeat in the Arc broke my heart. Lester may have cocked-up his legendary waiting tactics that day but they had worked to perfection in every other race Nijinsky contested. If his owner was not dying of cancer Nijinsky would have remained in training as a four-year-old and what epics of racing history that might have provided.
The most under-rated horse of my lifetime achieved glory in 1971. Whenever wet-behind-the-ears racing commentators list the great flat horses, the name of Mill Reef is usually omitted. His defeat to Brigadier Gerard in the 2,000 Guineas determines my belief that the latter is the greatest flat horse of my lifetime as no other contender for the title beat a horse as good as Mill Reef. 
Mill Reef was a good winner of a Derby field that comprised 21-runners. It was an okay field quality-wise, though no Derby is ever jam-packed with quality. I would say that Epsom did not see Mill Reef at his finest. He was better when winning the Eclipse, absolutely flawless in winning the King George at Ascot and better still when triumphing in the Arc.
If fate had been kinder, in 1971 we might have had a King George and Arc contested by both Nijinsky and Mill Reef and in 1972 we could have had a King George rematch between Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard. I have to admit these three horses are my favourite flat horses of all-time.
I include 1972 in my golden period as the winner was Roberto, no doubt a brilliant horse on his day, though far too inconsistent to be considered as anywhere close to the equal of Nijinsky, Sir Ivor, Mill Reef or even Brigadier Gerard, even though Roberto achieved the shock of generations when he beat a slightly under-par Brigadier Gerard in the Benson & Hedges at York. And, at Epsom, he beat a future Arc winner in Rheingold, though little else of Group 1 quality.
I very much doubt if the 2023 Epsom Derby winner will be of the quality to list alongside the equine gods of 1968, 1970 and 1971. This years victor will go down (I hope not, though I fear) as the winner of the delayed, possibly postponed, year of the Animal Rising Epsom Derby. First horse racing, then 3-day Eventing, Show Jumping, dressage, and then no horses at all, an entire species wiped-out by people who believe they care more than anyone else! Then, no cats, no dogs. No pet rabbits. No parrots. Humans separated from animals.