​If I were a professional, before penning this article, I would search out my last published opinion on the subject of the summer jumping programme. My defence for not, at least, pretending to be in any way professional, is my dislike/horror for reading anything I wrote in the past. Occasionally, when forced by circumstance to read past efforts, I am taken by surprise at the sagacity of my idea and how I framed my point of view. Usually, though, I am left somewhere between appalled and embarrassed at my inability to express myself with greater coherence. In my mind, I believe Lee Mottershead or the part-timer Patrick Mullins can bash-out a thousand-words, press send and give the article no second-thought, safe in the belief that their boss Tom Ellis would have no need to suggest they ‘re-write a paragraph’ or change ‘an emphasis’.
So, no, opinions held in this article may not conform with anything I have written on this subject in the past.
Ben Pauling has suggested there should be a separate trainers championship for the summer jumping programme as is the situation for flat trainers during the winter. He did not say there should be a separate jockeys championship as well but for continuity there should be.
By the by, for context. I have never embraced the perfectly logical process of ‘digital folders’, the putting into one file all articles of a similar nature to make sourcing them at a later date quick and easy. Which is why there is more than one-thousand individual titles in the index, not all of them related to this website, including all the fiction I have written over a very long period.
Whether Ben Pauling or any of his colleagues would agree with a suggestion I posted not too long ago that the National Hunt season proper should start later and end later – I think I proposed late October to early June (the actual dates I proposed are unimportant, it is the concept that should be debated) – though the beginning and end of a summer jumping championship is of secondary importance to the B.H.A. taking on-board his proposal and acting upon it.
He believes a summer trainers’ championship would improve competition and lead to more horses being available to increase field sizes. I doubt if field sizes will increase as only a certain percentage of National Hunt horses need a firm surface to show their best form. I doubt if a trainers and jockeys championship will alter that fact.
That is not to oppose the suggestion. I think, if only on the point of equality between the two codes, that a summer championship be initiated as flat trainers already have a winter championship. The best step for increased field sizes is to limit the number of meetings through the summer period and having more two and three-day meetings to cut down, possibly, on traveling for horse, jockey, trainer and possibly owner and helping hotels, restaurant and general commerce in the areas around the racecourses. The horse racing industry can be too insular at times; we should give consideration to being of greater use to people of trade in the towns and villages around our country racecourses.
What grieves me is that innovation is rarely initiated by the B.H.A., except in circumstances that cause controversy as with ‘premierisation’ (not that this topic was their idea, they have just run with it) and the never-ending saga of whip reform. Ben Pauling’s idea is perfectly reasonable and sensible and would give many more jockeys an opportunity to be champion jockey during the main part of the season. It will not alter the trainers’ championship, of course, that will remain a dog-fight between Nicholls and Henderson, with Willie Mullins nipping at their heels if he should dominate the Cheltenham and Aintree Festivals. It will, though, give parity between the flat and National Hunt codes and cost very little to implement.
It might be worth pursuing the concept of a B.H.A. forum group being established where members of the ‘horse racing family’ can lodge similar ideas for discussion. Or perhaps the Racing Post might want to take the lead and have a panel of their journalists thrash out the pros and cons of ideas put forward by professionals and enthusiasts alike.
The B.H.A., of course, would start with a forum on whether a forum would be a good idea or not. There would be an experimental period of three-months with five forum members, extended to a trail of twelve-months with ten-members, then a steering group for the implementation of part of the proposal and a research study amongst the public. The idea would be ratified and pencilled in for inauguration in 2027 by when summer jumping would be in such a parlous state no fix would be affordable.
I hope Ben Pauling has more faith in the B.H.A. than I have.

​The saddest part is that the Curragh and the Irish racing authorities seem to be sitting back believing that only time can solve the problem in the decline in popularity with owners and trainers of the Irish Derby. That said, the decline is not wholly the fault of the Irish. It is the fault of breeders and their insatiable quest for speed, speed, speed. The proliferation of top 2-year-old races over sprint distances and the greater limelight put on Group sprint races to the detriment of the top middle-distance and staying races is at the heart of this particular problem. And not only with the Irish version of the Derby. The Epsom Derby isn’t what it used to be either. Watch old Pathe News videos on YouTube if you want corroboration of what I mean. The Epsom Derby used to halt a nation; it was great day-out for both the working class and the social elite. It should be returned to being staged on the first Wednesday in June.
To turn the ship around there has to be greater incentives for breeders to breed again for stamina and to forsake the rest of the equine world’s obsession with sprinters and milers. In the first instance, the proliferation of sprinters is doing the classic races of Europe more harm than good and it is also playing its part in a fewer number of ex-flat horses available to National Hunt trainers. 
But to return to the fall from grace of the Irish Derby.
Something above and beyond changing the day of the race from Saturday to Sunday must be attempted, especially as there is very little hope of the European Pattern Committee even considering moving the race to another month during the summer. To my mind, as radical an idea as it might be, that the Irish Derby might be more attractive to owners and trainers if it were run in August, a time of the year when Group type 3-year-olds must take on older horses. But that isn’t going to happen, so let’s move on.
The obvious suggestion is to include a bonus prize if the winner of either the English or French Derbies should win the Irish version. £1-million, perhaps, with a supplementary bonus of £500,000 if any placed horses in the English and French Derbies were to win at the Curragh. Or perhaps ‘win and you are in’ races throughout Europe and the U.S. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I suspect, though, that money will not solve the problem as Sunday’s prize-fund will have fed the starving of third world countries for the next twelve-months. But bonuses must be considered as the Irish Derby has too rich a history to be allowed to wither on the vine, to be harvested year after year by one man, one set of owners or, as likely in the future, the families of the before-mentioned. 
It is championed by Racing Post journalists that the distance should be shortened to that of the French Derby. Yet for the future such a move would exacerbate the decline in the breeding of middle-distance and staying horses. When the historic distance of Derbies becomes too far a stretch, how long will it be before the clamour is heard for 1-mile to be more appropriate than 1-mile 2-furlongs? And that Guineas races should be reduced to 7-furlongs? In the U.S., any distance beyond 1-mile 2-furlongs is considered a long-distance race.
The truth is this: breeders put greater prestige on the Guineas, and Group 1’s over 1-mile 2-furlongs. It is this thinking, the world perspective view, that is slowly choking the life out of the historic middle-distance races in both Britain and Ireland. The situation is not new in the making. There was a horror-afoot back in 1972 when John Hislop insisted his great horse, the winning machine, Brigadier Gerard should have his limitations exposed by running in the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes. He won, his courage, perhaps, greater than his stamina. The best example of this horror of exposing the limitations in a potential great stallion was Frankel, a horse that breeds stayers for fun and on the racecourse a horse with limitless stamina and class, yet his owner and trainer always played safe. “Why should we,” rather than “Why not”.
Although Auguste Rodin has now won twice at 1-mile 4-furlongs, you can bet your bottom dollar that to ‘improve his standing amongst breeders’ Coolmore will be desperate for him to demonstrate the speed to win over 2-furlongs less, especially when in receipt of the age allowance.
As for the horse himself; he’s an ordinary Derby winner. In eyes he is no ‘collector’s item’. King of Steel is the best 3-year-old around and I hope at some point this season Roger Varian gives him the opportunity to prove his superiority. 

​The recent post Royal Ascot spat between Newmarket trainer George Boughey and Sheikh Abdullah Almalet Alsabah over the performance of the owner’s Asadna in what ever race it was, (the Chesham?) is a case of the trainer being damned whichever way he managed the situation.
I am sure you are all aware that Asadna suffered a cut to his shoulder the week before Royal Ascot. I suspect he caught the door of his stable as he was being led out for exercise. Pure speculation on my part but from my experience more likely than the horse being kicked. The horse was never lame, was treated accordingly and Boughey kept the B.H.A. informed of the horse’s welfare throughout and Asadna passed the obligatory pre-race veterinary examination upon his arrival at the racecourse. In effect, the trainer did everything by the book.
Two things he didn’t do, seemingly, was to inform either the owner or the press/public. The first instance is a moot point. The horse was not lame, there was no suggestion the participation of the horse at Royal Ascot was in doubt and Boughey had a hundred and one matters, many of greater importance or urgency, to attend to at a crucial time of year for his business. Perhaps the owner should have been informed but where does a trainer draw the line at what information he must pass on to each and every owner? Should a trainer inform an owner that his or her horse was naughty when being shod that morning and the farrier had need to use ‘sharp words’ to bring the horse to order. Or a horse kicked the wall of its stable while being groomed. Or that his or her horse stood on a stone on the way back from the gallops and may or may not have bruised a foot.
Likewise, what information is relevant to a racing journalist/tipster? Or punter? If the trainer of every runner in the Royal Hunt Cup was obliged to report every little mishap and incident that had occurred to each runner during the lead-up to the meeting, wouldn’t that become information overload? How would all that information be disclosed to the press and public?
Should a trainer running a horse in blinkers for the first time on a racecourse provide video footage of the horse on the gallops when first trialled in blinkers? Something, I would suggest, far more relevant to the press and public than a small cut.
The story on Asadna was the owner taking umbrage at a lack of communication with his trainer, not what Boughey should or should not have informed the press. Owners like the Sheikh pour millions of pound into owning racehorses to run in this country, there has to be a level of confidentiality between owner/trainer that the press/public have no right to be a party of. When assessing the form of any race there has to be an element of it being a guessing game, it is why last week people won money on a 150/1 outsider that every professional journalist and punter ignored. Form and ratings do not equate to science. If Boughey had announced that Asadna had suffered a small injury and might not run, then he did run, he could easily be accused of ‘putting punters away’ if the horse won at longer odds that it was prior to the announcement.
Asadna may never win another race. Or he might win a classic. Who knows? What is certain is whichever scenario comes true, it will have nothing to do with his run at Royal Ascot.
Training racehorses is a stressful business. As Sir Mark Prescott once said something alone the lines of (tongue in cheek as it normally is with the great man) horses spend all their time trying to injure themselves, while the staff do their best to abet them. Every minute of every day a horse in a stable of a hundred could bang a knee, go off their food, suffer a bout of colic, spring a tendon on the gallops and so on. He or she must cater for the wants and needs of every owner and for every minute of every day the telephone might bring problems in need of immediate answers from the press, from owners with helpful suggestions on what is best for their horse and so on and so on.
Trainers, I believe, would need to employ a press agent to comply with any regulation or request to inform the press/public with every trifling occurrence to the horses in their care. There has to a be a line and that line should be if a horse suffers an injury that puts its next scheduled racecourse appearance in jeopardy. Anything beyond that is intrusion on matters governed by owner/trainer confidentiality.
The mental well-being of trainers is as important as any other member of the racing industry. Racehorse trainers are not running a charitable organisation for the financial well-being of punters, they are running a business. Journalists want their cake and to eat it. They eulogise the gambling exploits of Ryan Price, Barney Curley and the Druid Lodge Confederacy, yet wish total openness in the modern era. Journalist will soon be campaigning to force trainers to allow punters free access to yards and grandstands erected by the side of gallops and a running commentary on the horses flashing by.
George Boughey was the victim here, not the punter.