​Firstly, yesterday I posted an idea for centralising prize-money, where the number of races and meetings was determined by how much money was in the pot. The hazy concept of the idea that sponsorship money should go into a central pot, with the race the sponsor is associated with still carrying its name, and the prize-money for that race becoming what the sport can afford. I forget to take into account entry fees, which obviously would plump-up prize-money from the central pot. It remains, I suspect, an idea with severe limitations, though I remain convinced someone with a functioning brain could mould it into a concept worth consideration.
As I get older the dumber and more cynical I become. I thought the deal promised in the small-print at the outset of life was that the older you become the wiser you become. (Shrugs shoulders and soldiers on).
I am not always fair when it comes to the B.H.A., my thoughts tainted by my belief that the sport should be captained by someone with a life-long knowledge of both racing and horses, not by someone from the corporate world looking for a good little earner for 3-days work every week. So, in small recompense I now wish to praise the B.H.B.
At least I wish to say a ‘jolly well done’ to James Givens, formerly a successful trainer, who is now director of equine regulation, safety and welfare at the B.H.A., a role he is fully qualified for as he is also a qualified vet. Too often, and this criticism must be levied at not those who twiddled their thumbs at the B.H.A. for quite a long time, though for centuries the Jockey Club, when they ruled over the sport, swept equine fatalities under the carpet as if were the sport’s dirty secret. Now, no doubt driven by James Givens, there is transparency with the subject, with an on-going research study funded by the Racing Foundation, and to taken on and funded by the B.H.A. as a necessary undertaking, cataloguing every fatality and sending out questionnaires to all relevant parties to understand the whys and wherefores of every racecourse death, even if the death occurs days after the race. The project is backed by the Royal Veterinary College’s department of epidemiology.
The aim of this study is to find answers to why horses suffer fatalities during a race and if there is a common denominator to find a solution. Equine fatalities are one of the major reasons why people are put-off attending race meetings and if the work undertaken by James Givens can reduce the percentage of tragedies on racecourse that tenuous ‘social licence’ may be easier to achieve in the future.
Yes, I believe there are people in the corridors of power at the B.H.A. who are doing fine work on behalf of the sport.
Back on track. The B.H.A. have just announced two new appointments, and here I must ask if this is money well spent. Some, I am sure, will say these are vital appointments. I will take some convincing. There is to be a head of environmental sustainability. Why? Does the sport have a need for someone to go on a tour of British racecourses advising on how to collect rainwater from rooves and how to recycle paper cups? Would a newsletter achieve the same aim for far less expense? I will not name the person who has achieved this leg up in her career and I wish her well. To quote (poorly) Sheldon from ‘The Big Bang Theory’, ‘I recognise the work engineers do, I just do not understand why they do it.’
Climate change is a ruse, by the way. Hot, cold and rainy weather used to be called weather when I was growing up, when temperature gages used by scientists were based in open countryside, not at airports, car parks and on the side of buildings. Do not start me off. Just leave it alone. C.O 2 in the atmosphere is lower than fifty-years ago and so on and so on.
Also, there is now a head of social impact, suggesting he heads-up a large team, doesn’t it? Social impact! What does that mean, anyway?

​In today’s Racing Post, the main feature is an interview with David Menuisier, the Frenchman who has made England his home.
Although no anglophile, I like Menuisier. He has opinions and is not afraid to air them. I suppose it is good for him, not that he has reason to care one way or the other, that I tend to agree with him.
In the short-term, measures need to be put in place to ensure the long-term survival of the sport in both Great Britain and Ireland. Prize-money in both countries is rubbish, though in Ireland, due to not racing every day, the sport remains highly competitive, though perhaps not so much at the highest level. It is unhealthy, I believe, and distracting, to have races worth upwards of 1-million pounds for the major races while there are races at other meetings on the same day worth less than £3,000 to the winner. In stringent times we need to encourage people to buy thoroughbreds to race, to keep trainers afloat and to provide work for the dedicated staff the trainers employ.
I have an idea in my head, doubtless impractical, though similar to a proposal the B.H.A. were learning towards a while back, where all prize-money is pooled and doled out accordingly for every race run throughout the calendar year. Though this was the last year Qipco sponsor the King George & Queen Elisabeth Stakes, I will use their name as an example. If my idea were to succeed, the King George & Queen Elisabeth would still bear the Qipco name as sponsor, though the money they put up would go into a general pot along with all other sponsorship money, from local sponsorship at, say Brighton, Redcar or Market Rasen, with the B.H.A. then allocating prize-money for every race of the year. The Derby might still be worth what it was this year as there must be exceptions, as it would be for the Grand National and other blue plaque races. The number of meetings and races would be determined by how much money is in the pot, with every race subject to a minimum value to the winner of say £5,000, with a maximum value of listed and Group races of, say £100,000, with exceptions, though only the truly major races. The same would apply to jumps races. And the Qipco name would appear throughout the year on every racecourse. Bang for their buck, some might say.
As with all my ideas, this one isn’t fully thought out, though I hope the general impression is there for one far cleverer than I am to make a workable blueprint from it.
That said, David Menuisier made a valid suggestion that has common-sense written all over it. There should be a cap on how many horses any one trainer can have. This one radical proposal would, I am quite certain, increase competitiveness, especially at the top level, as there would be a larger pool of trainers wanting to be involved in the bigger races.
The great knock-on effect of a cap on the number of horses in any one stable is that the staff laid off by one trainer would soon find employment elsewhere in the industry as most of the trainers outside of the top twenty or so have trouble finding enough staff of the right outlook and dedication. 
To me, short-term at least, a cap would be a win-win for the sport, even if the top trainers would suffer a hit to their own earnings. It may be unfair to a degree to some but in levelling the playing field, the sport would be overall healthier, and in time, who knows, when the economy is stronger and the sport back on its feet, the caps could be increased.
David Menuisier is a man to be listened to and, as a trainer, to be followed as incrementally he is making his mark on British racing.

​Brighton is one of the British racecourses I have never visited, and, as I am in what used to be referred to as ‘my dotage,’ I doubt if I ever will. For some unfathomable reason, without ever setting foot in Sussex, let alone Brighton, I have a fondness for the place. I also have a fondness for David Ashforth, who I am pleased to see is writing for The Racing Post once more. I suspect Mr. Ashforth has a fondness for Brighton, too, as he does all worse-for-wear racecourses, I, again, suspect.
Mr. Ashforth, as with many of his colleagues at the T.R.P., can always be relied upon to knock racecourses with no greater ambition than to cater for class 5 & 6 racehorses, which I find annoying. What they should be knocking is the poor levels of prize-money on offer for lower-banded races as in most endeavours promotion and stability is usually achieved from the ground up and not the opposite way as the B.H.A. seem to prefer. I also object to this grade of racehorse being described as ‘bad’ or worse still, as one leading pundit said, ‘rubbish.’ 
If the B.H.A. were to suddenly ban racecourses from staging Class 5 & 6 races, what would happen to that grade of horse? There is no form of point-to-point race meetings for them to fall into and they would not be wanted for export to other racing jurisdictions. The meat market is where they would end up and what a poor look that would give the sport. Instead of being critical of the likes of Brighton for staging Class 5 & 6 races, there needs to be a push to get the B.H.A. to press racecourses to increase the value of these races by a thousand-pound or so. Indeed, as I have called-for in the past, there should be an aspiration for every meeting to have at least one race worth ten-thousand-pound to the winner. Small steps towards less embarrassing prize-money.

There is also a moan today about the sorry state of sprinters in Ireland, with most of the Group and top handicaps being won by British-trained horses. Sob! Sob! was my reaction. Heavens to Betsy, try being a British trainer of jumpers and watching the Irish hoards coming here time and time again and gobbling up most of our prize-money. So be it. Suck it up. It will do the whole of Ireland good to feel just a smidgen of the great pain Britain has suffered for a decade. You in Ireland have Willie Mullins and Aidan O’Brien. By heavens, do you want the whole of the cake all of the time?

Charlotte Jones has just become the latest female jockey to ride out her claim. It is a fine achievement for any young jockey, be them male or female, to ride the requisite 75-winners that reduces them from 3-Ib claimer to fully-fledged professional. The sad aspect for such a fine rider as Charlotte is that all of those 75-winners were from the stable of Jimmy Moffat. Of course, her dilemma is that if she spread her wings a little in an effort to achieve outside rides, she might then not be as available to ride for the man to whom she owes her career. I would advise her, if she does not already have one, to get herself an agent and, if she does not already, ride out once a week for one of the north’s leading stables to demonstrate to them how capable she is. She cannot moan about not being booked for outside rides if she stops herself from doing the hard yards of promoting herself. In my opinion, she is as good as any male professional and it would be unfair if she failed this season to get legged-up on winners for trainers other than the excellent Jimmy Moffat, a trainer who also deserves greater recognition for his talents.

Where has summer gone. Already we are approaching the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes – I somehow wish they would shorten the title to the Queen Elizabeth the 2nd Stakes, she deserves the honour, don’t you think? – Glorious Goodwood and the Galway Festival, with York’s Dante meeting on the horizon. Also, today, first news of Constitution Hill in T.R.P. He is hail and hearty, apparently, with Nicky Henderson reporting that he has never seen him looking better. In little over 4-months the big news story will be his reappearance in the Fighting Fifth. Soon be Christmas now!

​At Uttoxeter this week there are 258 entries over seven-races. This is a positive statistic, obviously, and flies in the face of the majority view of racing journalists who rather summer jumping did not exist. I for one support the need for summer jumping, though I wish there were fewer meetings. Although the high number of runners this summer may be a result of the wet winter and spring, I fear there will there be a knock-on effect come late autumn going into the start of the main season. The hue and cry last season was in complaint of the general lack of competitiveness, especially at the major meetings, with low numbers of runners and too many odds-on favourites. It may just be that those racecourses who choose to race during the summer may be made more profitable by doing so, the cost to the sport in general may prove to be too high. Also, there are now too many, in my opinion, valuable prizes to be won between May and August, and this too might well be having a detrimental effect on field-sizes in the winter months. If there were no summer jumping, the horses presently racing would be available for October onwards. 

Full Gallop: Part 2. More of the same; a reprise of the jumping season just gone. Glossy, if still watchable, more like a televised version of an equine Hello magazine pull-out, with too much emphasis on prize money on offer as if the jockeys themselves are in line for the six-figure pay-outs. The overall impression this cynically-minded soul receives from the program is too much emphasis on the winning mentality of jockeys and far too little emotional attachment to the horse.

The dumbest idea I have seen in print must be David Carr’s desire to see horse racing in the Olympics. Too many reasons why it is unnecessary, not feasible, with no chance of even being suggested to the Olympic Committee, to waste any more time over it. End of.

Trainers giving ‘bollackings’ to jockeys, and no doubt their staff, seems to both acceptable and at times a source of amusement. Wrong, it is uncivilised and no substitute for balanced debate. Trainers must make mistakes all the time – one trainer stated he regularly makes a dozen mistakes by breakfast – yet who bawls them out? We all make mistakes, those who deserve ‘bollackings’ are those who deliberately chose to do wrong. Honest mistakes, freely admitted, are a way of life and trainers who shout before they think should learn to rein it in as harmony will always beat discord. And anyway, horses do better in a harmonious atmosphere.

There are many aspects of this sport that its participants can be proud to be associated with. The rehabilitation centres that mend and repair our jockeys; the aspiration for care of horses from birth to death, even if it needs to be better funded; but most of all the British Racing School and the Northern Horseracing College, the former at Newmarket, the latter at Doncaster. You only realise how fortunate and blessed we are when you discover that Australia does not have the equivalent of either a racing school for young riders to hone their skills before entering a racing stable, nor does it have a thriving pony racing circuit. Prize-money may be an embarrassment in this country, yet we do a whole lot more than even the richest of racing countries can achieve, even when they benefit from a more forward-thinking governance. 

​The Saturday after ‘Super Saturday’ always has the feel of after the Lord’s Mayor Show about it. After watching highly competitive racing from both Market Rasen and Newbury the idea came to me that the day might in future be celebrated as ‘Ordinary Fare Day,’ a day to celebrate the lower echelon of the sport, with every race on the day restricted to horses below top-grade handicappers, with one meeting designated a jockey-restricted meeting. Mad idea? Perhaps. It ties in, though, with my belief that every owner, trainer, jockey, horse, etc should be given every opportunity to be successful, if only for one day.
On that theme, inclusivity. There is no one sector of the sport that is more important than the other. Yes, without the owner, there is no employment for trainer, jockey, staff and no outlet for breeders. But without jockeys there is no one to ride the horses. Without stable staff there is no one to care for the horses. Without trainers, owners would have to do all the work themselves. Without farriers, horses would have to run without shoes. Without racecourses …. So on and so on.
In my perfect world the sport could do without, and be better for it, bookmakers and tipsters and the major racecourse owners who, to my mind, pick the pockets of the sport while trying to come across as benefactors. Ideally, in my perfect world, there would be a Tote-type monopoly and all racecourses would be independently owned. It is what it is, though. For the sport to thrive and survive all sectors must be considered indispensable, their voices heard, their problems solved. Arc, for instance, are not as important as they think they are, yet as owners of a great portion of our racecourses they must be made happy while at the same time being put in their place, which is as one evenly sliced part of the racing pie.
Increased prize money for owners. Lower entrance prices for spectators. Greater opportunities for jockeys and trainers alike, especially those who work at the lower grades of the sport, if only for the sake of the sport’s integrity, though I would like to think to allow them the opportunity to earn a higher salary. Less working hours and better pay for stable staff. A better funded after racing programme for those horses leaving the racing world, which is getting better, though I feel more should be done within the sport to raise the funds needed to meet the aspiration of ‘from birth to death.’
Less argument and more conciliation. The Sport First, should be the over-arching motto.

There is, 21/7/24, a really nice feature on trainer Brian Ellison in today’s Racing Post. What I liked most about the feature were the photographs. A wide-angled view of the obviously well-maintained turn-out paddocks at Spring Cottage Stables was one of those photographs where there was more to see the more you looked at it, and what I though unusual for a trainer’s feature, three photographs of the trainer in family-friendly intimate poses with his wife. A wife, incidentally, who once wrote to the Queen to suggest she might like to support northern racing by sending a horse to her husband to train. If we want to sell this sport to an apathetic public, for them to engage with jockeys and trainers, they need to step out of the shadows and show the viewer, reader and observer, snippets about their lives outside of the ‘day job.’  If the public are to ever take them to their hearts, they need to know them, to witness aspects of their lives and personality, that they can equate to, to recognises similarities between them and us.
Brian Ellison comes across as straight-as-a-die, the sort of trainer anyone tempted to get into racing should get in touch with.

No one, I notice, is suggesting the distance of the Irish Oaks should be shortened. That is odd, considering the hue and cry from some factions within Irish racing who believe the Irish Derby is a dead thing that can only be revived by reducing the race to 10-furlongs, a distance that is not a Derby distance. Yet as day follows night, shouldn’t those same people be arguing the Irish Oaks also be shortened to 10-furlongs, to keep it and the two main Irish classics in line with French racing? Yesterday’s Irish Oaks looked a fine race to me, with a competitive field and a good deserving winner. It might be an idea, before the loud minority voices get their way, to try running the Irish Derby on the same card as the Oaks. It would, at least, be run on a day when British racing is very ordinary for a Saturday.

​‘Champions: Full Gallop’ is the B.H.A.’s and horse racing in general’s great white hope of boosting the popularity of the sport amongst those who thus far have lived their lives as non-horse racing supporters. Yes, I was a bit disappointment.
The problem with the first episode of the programme was I could not view it through the eyes of someone who knew little about the sport. It was, to me, the same as when I re-read a Raymond Chandler novel. I still enjoy Chandler’s writing style. I still like the character of Philip Marlowe and I still hear Humphrey Bogart narrating the dialogue. And though I have a poor memory, which allows my brain to play guessing games with the plot development, as the book closes in on its climax, I know how the storyline will reach its conclusion. Once seen, one cannot unsee. But then the series is not arrowed towards the likes of me.
Perhaps I am being ungenerous. The production values are A.1. and for the viewer with no knowledge of the human players, the horses or the result, it came across as highly watchable. But did you not feel that you had seen it all before. Even the footage of Frodon leaving Ditcheat for the last time and arriving at Jimmy Frost’s stables was similar to the film published on YouTube last spring.
And that leads me to Bryony Frost. Yes, I am a big and its doubtful I will ever have a bad word to say about her, so perhaps I am biased. But if your nan watched ‘Full Gallop’ who would she pick out as the person of most interest, the person who stepped through the screen and showed the sport in the sort of light the B.H.A., for instance, would approve of? When Bryony spoke about her old pal Frodon, she spoke from the heart, not from ego, her bank balance or any excellence she had performed on him. It was ‘an honour’ to be responsible for his well-being now he was retired. He never let her down. And the girl who looked after him down the years at Ditcheat saying he would never be replaced at Ditcheat. It came from the heart, unscripted, without a glance at the camera or seeking the light of publicity.
Harry Cobden is a fine jockey, blessed with a smooth West Country accent; a credit to the sport. Yet in this first episode I did not witness ‘Hollywood Harry’ as was highlighted in the Racing Post’s write-up of the programme. Indeed, what I wanted to see more of was Nico de Boinville at home with his children, the little girl hoisted on to that big grey horse. Hopefully as we go from episode to episode, we will get more insight into the private lives of the jockeys involved in the series. To engage fully, for viewers to want to invest their time and imagination, we need to be given exclusivity, not the sort of material served-up on a regular basis by I.T.V.. But again, the programme is not aimed in my direction. I just do not think it will, for example, escalate my other half’s passing interest in the sport.
That said, they could not have started with a better race than the King George as it had drama, a characterful winner and the retirement of one the great equine stars of the past twenty-years.
But let’s be clear: Bryony on her own, being herself, could sell this sport to people. She is a nice person, modest, I should think, and would give my praise no credence. Yet every time I hear her speak, I cannot help thinking that the sport has not only let her down but gave away a great opportunity to have a Frankie Dettori of the National Hunt game. Someone who quite naturally connects with people. And if you disbelieve me, go back to her reaction to winning the Ryanair Chase. Gold-dust + class.

​The only problem I can see with ‘Super Saturday’ is that it is a little bit too super. Would ‘Super Saturday’ fail if there were one less meeting? Would it, really? Why should eight-meetings be more ‘supery’ than seven? 
Why would Chester want to be part of the day rather than switch their meeting to the following Saturday when the day is as far from being super as can be imagined. Come on Chester, stop moaning about poor attendance and just move to the following Saturday. Small problem, easily solved.
That said, for premier racing to succeed it has to be seen to be fair to all, so for the B.H.A. to expect Chester to like it or lump it, to put up with having their attendance cut by half through being forced to begin racing at a start time that is neither late afternoon nor early evening, is unacceptable. Favouring Ascot, Newmarket and York is a poke in the eye to one of our countries best run racecourses, as iconic as anywhere in the world and a candidate for being one of the oldest racecourses in the world. Chester achieves a fine mix of modernity and old world charm and should be applauded and celebrated, not made to feel second-class.
The coming weekend is highlighted by a 2-year-old sales race at Newbury and a competitive summer jumping card at Market Rasen. Chester will fit nicely in the spot between the two.
The great win for Super Saturday is that it allows opportunities for riders to get on horses and to ride for trainers that would not normally come their way. For that reason, if no other, is why Super Saturday should be championed.
I always thought the Commonwealth Cup to be quite an innocent sort of race. It never crossed my mind it would generate controversy and become a source of such hot debate. Matt Chapman has never liked the race, believing it detracts from the 5-furlong all-aged sprint – is it still the Golden Jubilee? – it used to be the King’s Stand – and what is now the King Charles the 3rd Stakes, which used to be the Cork and Orrery – that’s what I dislike, changing the bloody names of races on a regular basis. Would King Charles care if whatever the race was called before he ascended to the throne was named after him or not? I would not think so, though as he now owns Ascot racecourse, he might have demanded his new title to be honoured just to let everyone know of his elevation to the very summit of British society.
Where was I? The Commonwealth Cup. Why not just appease everyone, and before the European Pattern Committee stick their noses in, and demote it to a Group 2 and wait for it to become a race so jammed-packed with quality there will be a roar from journalists to have it reverted to Group 1 status? It is just a dash up the straight, for pities sake, and has provided exciting finishes since its inception, which, if I recall correctly, was heralded with joy and satisfaction. I would like to bet if the Commonwealth Cup was given a life-span of another twenty-years, the record books would show that it has as many top-quality winners as any of the longer established Group I’s at Royal Ascot. I would suggest giving the race more time to develop or failing that, just quietly downgrade it to Group 2. No one during the race will notice any difference.
Soon to our t.v. screens will be the latest great white hope for improving the sport’s reputation ‘Champions: Full Gallop’, horse racing’s answer to all the other sporting docuseries that have achieved for the sports involved. I am not sure what they have achieved. I dipped in and out of the British Grand Prix the other Sunday and found it as boring as a drunken wake. Unless it pours with rain, Formula 1 is just cars at spedd circulating in random formation, rather like watching cctv footage of the M.1.. The mystery of tiddlywinks would be more compelling viewing.
So let us hope that Nico de Boinville and Nicky Henderson et al intrigue the viewers to the point where a good majority of them go to bed saying it might be fun to go racing one day. Let us all cross our fingers while falling to our knees in prayer. Perhaps, our salvation, at last!

​I am no fan of racing fiction based on skullduggery as it gives the reader, most of whom have no real interest in horse racing, the idea that the sport is inherently corrupt, which it is not. For those looking for racing fiction that celebrates rather than denigrates the sport, I do have on offer a collection of horse racing short stories, ‘Going To The Last’, all written a long-time ago and which you can purchase, if you glance to your right and up a bit, for a favourable price. I am not recommending you buy a copy and I am certainly not going to regale you with a sales pitch that might suggest your life will greatly improved by simply having the title on your bookshelf. All I am pointing out is that it is available. And in buying a copy you will have a rare book to add to all your populist titles. I will add that I am old; I could yet become homeless and destitute. The writers of the books you already have in your library are rich, while I am not. Is that fair? They are almost to a man or woman talented. Is that fair?
Chris Cook – he is talented - this week in his mid-week column in the Racing Post made much of Cartmel marketing the 50th anniversary, or was it the 40th? It is hard to believe it would be 50-years ago. Surely not? – Good God, I have just looked it up and it is the 50th anniversary, August 26th, 1974!
Anyway, horse racing writer of the year, Chris Cook was metaphorically shaking his finger at the good people of Cartmel for promoting their fixture on August 26th as a celebration of the Gay Future coup 50-years to the day. I began to read his piece slightly shaking my head at Chris Cook, not because I have a liking for successful skullduggery but because I have a soft spot for Cartmel, the most beautiful setting for a race meeting in the whole of the Union. If not the world. Knocks Happy Valley, Melbourne, Sha Tin, Longchamp and Saratoga into a cocked hat, whatever a cocked hat might be.
Yet, Chris Cook was right in his condemnation of successful and unsuccessful betting coups. They are a stain on the reputation of the sport and should not be celebrated as a win for the little man over corporate business. It is a fraudulent activity and wastes a lot of time for a lot of people. I did send an e-mail to the Racing Post reminding them the Cartmel coup should be given as the only example of fraud in the history of the sport and though that particular coup went astray, Barney Curley should not be lionised for the successful coups he masterminded. Fraud is fraud, even if the only misdemeanour carried out by Curley was taking the only phone-box at Bellewstown racecourse hostage to prevent bookmakers cutting their substantial losses if, as he did, Yellow Sam won the amateur riders’ race. In Curley’s case, at least in this instance, it was an honest gamble conducted in rather an ungentlemanly manner. Curley had no liking for bookmakers and choose to publicise his view of them in the only way that would hurt them most, through their pockets.
If anyone wants to know the a-to-z of the Bellowstown coup, there is no better way than through Nick Townsend’s book ‘The Sure Thing’, as good a book as you will ever read.
That is the thing about coups and gambles, they make fascinating stories, whether they succeed or fail. The Gay Future coup failed and yet I would suggest it is the most famous coup of them all. In my possession I have at least four books that deal exclusively with the people who set out to make a fortune by bending the rules a tiny bit. The aforementioned Nick Townsend book; ‘Great Racing Gambles & Frauds’ by Richard Onslow, though he only acted as editor and wrote the introduction, some of the contributors being Reg Green, George Ennor, John Tyrrel and Geoffrey Hamlyn. ‘Ringers and Rascals’ by one of my all-time favourite writers, David Ashforth, Paul Mathieu’s wonderful book ‘The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy’, perhaps the greatest example of clever fraudulence in the whole history of British racing.
There will be a gamble on a particular horse today, and when I say today, I do not suggest on this day the 7th of July 2024 a coup will be landed, but any today when someone happen to stumble across this ‘blog’. An owner will be told by his or her trainer that their horse has come on a bundle for its first race and they will back it accordingly, perhaps getting 20/1 and driving the price down to 8/1, with punters then witnessing the tumbling odds and availing themselves of the lesser prices before the horse goes off the 5/2 favourite. ‘Gamble landed,’ the headline will read. But not one that will stay long in the memory. Gambles are good for the sport, at least the honest ones.
I would like to believe the sport is so tightly observed these days by stewards, by bookmakers and the integrity units of the B.H.A. that skullduggery is a thing of the past - especially as Barney Curley is now long gone.

​In today’s Racing Post, David Jennings wrote a piece on the success of Dundalk racecourse, Ireland’s only all-weather track. At least for the moment as Tipperary has promised to go in the same direction and in time, I think they will. Not that David Jennings needed to have travelled to Dundalk, as good a journalist as he is, and I am a big fan of his writing style, as Lisa O’Connor, marketing manager at Dundalk these past five-years, might have conducted her own interview as she extolled the virtues and pleasures to be gained from attending a Dundalk race-meeting. Successful marketing is about believing in your product and boy does Lisa O’Connor believe in her product.
And that is the thing about persuading people who have never attended a race-meeting to give the sport a chance, it is all about belief in the product. Goodwood, it seems, is chasing its tail when it comes to selling tickets for its Glorious meeting, which does not bode well for Goodwood in general, I would have thought. Goodwood, is, by common consent, a glorious racecourse, as long as the infamous mist and sea-fret do not pay a visit.
I would suggest if Goodwood want sell-out crowds for their premier fixture, the work to sell the meeting needs to start at their very first meeting of the season. Have a free draw at every meeting to win two tickets for the Glorious meeting. Extoll the virtues and pleasures of attending Goodwood’s big meeting, as Lisa O’Connor sings the praises of Dundalk. Give away free tickets in the local paper for the minor Goodwood meetings, lay on a free coach service for people of the local area who would like to sample a day at the races for the first time.
Dundalk have no restrictions on where people can go once they have paid their £15 or should that be euros entrance fee. No bowler hatted official  asking to see your badge, preventing you from transferring from one enclosure to another just for the opportunity of a better or different view. The problem with some British racecourses is that they hold on to the snootiness of the outmoded class system. It is just about still acceptable at Royal Ascot, though the required mode of dress for men borders on both inequality, reverse sexism and, in hot weather, downright cruelty. Dundalk is the way forward, not dress codes and adherence to the ‘old ways’ of different enclosures for different classes of racegoer.
If you want better patronage, racecourses cannot do enough to make people welcome; you have to give to receive as a reward. I believe every racecourse should be made to have an ‘open day’ of free entry. It does not need to be first class racing, though it must provide a first-class welcome. Good food, guides to explain the various elements that comprise a day at the races, stalls selling local products, the work of the various equine charities exampled, with a retired racehorse or two for people to pet, meet and greets with trainer and jockeys, entertainment for kids and perhaps some form of after racing entertainment. I would not, though, go as far as clowns as clowns are too scary, though not perhaps for the hardy young.
Further, I would suggest every marketing manager of a British racecourse should visit Dundalk and try to learn from one of the best.
Horse racing is viewed by the public as an elitist sport. I have argued time and again that horse racing is very much a working-class sport. No one works harder than those who work in racing stables, no matter what their differing backgrounds. Jockeys, too, work long hours, with only the select few lucky enough to live in big houses and drive ‘flash’ cars. Trainers also work from dawn to dusk, even if many of them do live in big houses, if above their station and salary in life. Those outside of our sport do not know this. They see Royal Ascot and think it the pinnacle of an elitist sport and not for the likes of them.
The benefit of under eighteens getting in for free is voided if it costs the parents fifty-quid to get in, added to which another fifty-quid must be spent on petrol/diesel/charging to get to the racecourse and another fifty-quid spend money on eating, drinking and perhaps having a small bet.
If you build it, they will come. Yet the crowds will never again be as great as they were before television, before there was so many other sports and entertainments for the public to choose from. A day at the races is to attend an outdoor event; it is a countryside pursuit, even when urban sprawl means the town or city now threateningly surrounds the racecourse. Do not coop people up in enclosures. Allow them the freedom to roam, which will set racing apart from all other non-equine pursuits. Horse racing should resemble the Badminton horse trials, not Centre Court at Wimbledon.

​Thank goodness for climate warming. How cold and miserable would the weather be in this country if the sea was not boiling and the entire planet was not getting warmer by the day? It is a serious question as some climate scientists are predicting the opposite, that we are entering another ice age. I know where my money will going, given a new ice age is the outsider of two by a considerable betting distance at the moment. On Friday evening, July 5th, let us remember, I could have easily justified lighting a fire it was so chilly in the tourist hot spot of North Devon.
The other major debate, of course, now the General Election is behind us at last, is whether City of Troy is a superstar, a horse whose name will warrant mention in the decades to come in the same sentence as Frankel and Brigadier Gerard, the two best flat horses of my lifetime.
As of now, the sensible answer is no, City of Troy is not going to retire as a legend of the sport. What is more time is against him achieving immortality, given, unlike the immortal Frankel and the slowly being forgotten as recency tops historical fact, these days, Brigadier Gerard, City of Troy is unlikely, as he is just too important for Coolmore and the breed, to stay in training as a 4-year-old, with the Breeders’ Cup pencilled in for his final race.
To my mind, winning the Juddmonte at York and the Breeders Cup, on top of his Epsom Derby and Eclipse victories, will fail to elevate him beyond that of the best 3-year-old of his generation, for all he is, to use a Nicky Henderson phrase, ‘a nice person’. A proper dude.
What must be said, as again, recency wins most topics of debates, these days, both Frankel and Brigadier Gerard had to win ugly on occasion, as did City of Troy at Sandown yesterday, though usually on ground far worse than the O’Brien mega-star had to cope with in scrambling home in workmanlike fashion in the Eclipse.
It would be good to be honest, here. City of Troy is the most hyped horse to come out of Ballydoyle since Auguste Rodin. This high-stakes marketing strategy began, I would suggest, with Australia, the first of Aidan’s ‘best I have ever trained’, although on that occasion the great man had to backtrack and place Istabraq above all others. Auguste Rodin, if you recall, was tagged ‘a collector’s item’ and after many false starts is, at last, beginning to live up to the reputation Aidan saddled him with. Talk about selling your onions for top price even before they have poked their bonny heads above ground!
Although Aidan is a genius when it comes to training, his excuses for both defeat and narrow victories are pretty lame. When City of Troy won the Dewhurst on soft ground, Aidan was of the opinion that any distance and any ground would suit City of Troy. Yesterday he struggled to beat an ordinary Group 1 field, receiving 10Ib it must be remembered from the 6-year-old Al Riffa, as he did not handle the turn into the straight - indeed he took a false step – and he hated the ground, ground that was soft, as it was at Newmarket when he won the Dewhurst.
York, of course, might suit him better, though if he can’t handle bends, the Bleeders’ Cup is not going to help Coolmore’s ambition to retire him a super star on a par with Frankel. To my eyes, given his best 2-furlongs at Epsom were the final 2-furlongs, City of Troy needs 12-furlongs to be seen at his best, and doubtless good ground will aid his progression up the ranks. The sport needs a great horse at this time of struggle, sadly it is not going to be City of Troy, no matter how much hype is attached to his name by the trainer and the racing media.

One other moan about trainers. Dermot Weld has just retired his Oaks winner – name I cannot recall – due to a minor injury. Dermot Weld is a great trainer and this is not meant as criticism of him personally but of trainers in general. Too often the racing public are informed that a horse has suffered a ‘slight knock’, a ‘small injury’ and so on. Why can we not be told how the vet is describing the injury? Is a slight tendon strain a minor injury? A suspensory strain, is that marked down as a slight injury? We, the racing enthusiasts, deserve to be told the exact nature of an injury. Saying a ‘slight knock’ can sound as if something is being covered-up and that is not a good look for a sport that should be priding itself on transparency and openness. As the wonderful Sir Mark Prescott once said: my horses are trying 90% of the time to injure themselves, while my staff are 95% of the time aiding and abetting them. Racehorses injure themselves; it is part and parcel of the job. Unlike Sir Mark’s tongue-in-cheek anecdote, the reality is accidents happen. Just say it as it is. Do not say ‘a slight knock,’ ‘a minor injury’.