​I was watching highlights of Irish racing the other day and a thought entered my head. I experience thoughts on a regular basis, if not either enlightening or thoughts that manifest into life-changing wisdom. I thought this ‘thought’ to be profound, though, and another thought suggested I shouldn’t keep it to myself but will share it in the hope it will be debated by racing people more qualified than myself to gage its true merit.
Would fewer horses suffer tendon, back or other injuries if jockeys were banned from using the whip to gain greater effort from their mounts?
To my mind, whether it be flat racing or National Hunt, the more tired a horse becomes, especially in the final furlong, the harder it is for a jockey to keep it on an even keel. Easier, of course, for the better jockeys and less so for the lesser and more inexperienced jockeys. I noticed, and this is highlighted when viewing the finish of a race from the head-on camera, that very few horses remain galloping in a straight line when a jockey pulls the stick through from one hand to the other as horses tend to roll with the direction of the stick, either left to right or vice versa. This must cause greater strain to go through tendons and the overall musculature of the horse’s body. I am not suggesting this is why horses suffer tendon injuries as this type of injury can occur on landing after a fence or through taking a false step. But it must have a bearing when the horse is at its most fatigued.
When Frankie won on Enable at Ascot this season, he said he didn’t want to use his whip after the first stroke to get her going because he didn’t want to risk losing ground by unbalancing her. My thought at the time was why couldn’t all horses be ridden in a similar vein and it should be template for the way all young jockeys are taught to ride a finish? The phrase ‘poetry in motion’ comes easily to mind.  When Enable was in full flow Frankie was completely in rhythm with her stride and she ran as straight as a gun barrel. Enable was trying her heart out and I accept that some horses are not as amenable. But it provided evidence for those who believe the whip is not vital in succeeding in a tight finish.
If the whip was banned tomorrow, jockeys would adapt and, in a few months, as John Francome has said, we all will wonder what the fuss was about. But what I would like to know is this: do most injuries occur in racehorses during the final furlong and is the risk extenuated at courses like Epsom and Goodwood that have a short pull-up? Another issue that has exercised my mind over the years.
If, as I have championed for many years, a twelve-month trial period of hands and heels races for professionals was instigated, not only would no-whip races be scientifically analysed but data would be provided on whether horses suffered less injuries than when the whip was allowed. Thus far the debate has only been about the benefits and drawbacks to humankind, perhaps now we should seek to discover if the horse population will benefit from a ban, apart from getting a hiding once in a while. Whips, by the way, even the modern cushioned variety, hurt. Have a friend slap you across the face with one and find out. Whether it leave a wheal is really not relevant.
 
After hearing what Patrick Mullins had to say on ‘Luck on Sunday’ about the changes to the 4-miler that is no longer the Cheltenham 4-miler, it seems the B.H.A.’s consultation was not as extensive as they might want us to believe. The National Hunt Chase is a very important race as far amateur jockeys are concerned, yet the sport’s most successful ever amateur, Patrick Mullins, was not asked for his opinion, and neither were Jamie Codd or Derek O’Connor, three men who know a bit about riding racehorses and Cheltenham racecourse. It seems that in shortening the distance the B.H.A. have actually added danger to a race they have tried to emasculate with their alterations. Now, according to the wise and experienced P.Mullins, sixteen novice chasers will be charging into the first fence with only a couple of hundred-yards to get themselves organised before being funnelled into a downhill turn. Congratulations to all concerned. Another fine mess to add to the universal disapproval of the mares chase Cheltenham propose to include into an already diluted Festival. But hey-ho, I dare say the B.H.A. will consult widely with all concerned as to which race to discard in favour of yet another mares only race.
Incidentally, for those who might not know, I wanted the National Hunt Chase upgraded to a 4-mile Champion Chase for professional jockeys. As the National Hunt Festival is named after the National Hunt Chase, a race that predates the Gold Cup, I thought it one of my better ideas. A championship race at what is to all extent and purpose is a festival of champions. 

​Look, I am uneasy to be talking politics – though aren’t we all at the moment – the prorogation of Parliament, who would have thought it - but at some time or another anyone writing a personal blog that will be read by people of all persuasions will give away their political views. I do not believe that up till now I have done so, and no doubt what I am about to say will offend those readers who hold polar opposite political leanings. But here goes anyway: the present Labour Party are a very dangerous organisation and I fear for my country if they ever get elected. I have never in all my long-lived life mistrusted any politicians more than Jeremy Corbyn and his puppet-master, John McDonnell. Every single one of their policy objectives is driven by envy, political and social jealousy and personal ambition.
Which leads me back to horse racing matters.
Animals are of great importance to me. This small house in which I abide is home to eight cats, all of which have had lives improved by our hospitality towards them. In order to win votes, to mask their more sinister objectives, Labour propose to ‘radically strengthen animal welfare law’. On the whip issue I recently exchanged several e-mails with the Labour Member of Parliament for Exeter, Luke Pollard, the leading figure in the debate in Westminster a few months on taking away welfare concerns from the B.H.A. and having the sport overseen by an independent body. It was evident from what he said that he has virtually no interest in either horses or horse racing and that his, and Labour’s, agenda is entirely politically motivated. Our correspondence ended with my hope his concern for the welfare of racehorses would extend to the millions of animals killed on our roads. He did not reply and I construed that his silence was because there was no political gain from lowering speed limits and spending tax payers money on somehow stopping animals straying on to busy roads.
In a recent article in the Racing Post I learnt to my surprise the extent of French racing Retirement of Racehorses programme. Though slow off the blocks, it seems to me the French have caught up and passed our efforts to ensure racehorses are as cared-for in retirement as when racing. Indeed, I was really surprised by how well the Aga Khan looks after his retired stallions and broodmares.
With the threat of a Socialist Government near at hand, the B.H.A., indeed everyone of racing’s ‘stakeholders’, should be on the front foot on all welfare issues, not least of which is our Achilles Heel, the whip issue, my views on which I have stated many times. Every owner, every syndicate manager, and trainer, has a duty to ensure horses out of training are cared-for, with anyone found guilty of neglect or cruelty removed from the sport. The greatest sin, or violation of the rules of racing, must be neglect and cruelty, with the sport itself funding any prosecutions.
Although the sports does have fund raising days for the Retraining of Racehorses charities, we really must have one big day, spread over many race-meetings, to raise awareness of the work done on behalf of retired racehorses, for the public to get close-up and personal with retired racehorses and for demonstrations of horses already trained in different equestrian disciplines. And, of course, to raise donations for the appropriate charities. This ‘Retraining of Racehorses Day’ should extend to betting shops and stands on any agricultural or cultural event taking place on the same day. This might be a perfect day to have a final of a veteran’s race series. It might also be a good day to trial ‘hands and heels’ races for professional jockeys.
99.9% of the time this sport has nothing to be guilty about when it comes to equine welfare, now though is the time to be on the front foot and engage with the public and media, to challenge them to call foul on us. I have had letters published on this matter – that no racing rule should undermine the principle that horse welfare is paramount – since the days of the Sporting Life. To my mind the B.H.A. is too focused on committees and seeking the opinions of diverse sections of the sport, twiddling their thumbs in other words, no doubt hoping any problem will go away. Now though ‘twiddling’ is very much retreat. This sport must be seen to be proactive in the care of retired racehorses. In reply to a letter I sent to The Jockey Club when they ruled the sport, I was told the fate of retired racehorses was very much the responsibility of their owners. The B.H.A. are not that cynical, I am glad to say. Neither, though, are they carrying the standard at the forefront of the conflict.
Financial resources, of course, limits what can be done and I propose that everyone licensed by the B.H.A., owners, trainers, jockeys, racecourses, even, should pay a small subscription, tax, donation or levy, call it what you may, to fund the purchasing of a stud which can be turned into a retirement home for racehorses open to the paying public. The Irish National Stud do something very similar, I believe, combining the famous horses at rest there with a wonderful garden and other attractions.
We should not be organising race meetings in aid of cancer, the sport should be raising funds for something that is vital to our reputation, image and securing the future of the sport and the B.H.A. must get its finger out and start to put something akin to my vision into practice. With the evil spectre of a Socialist Government, taking advice from the vile organisation that is ‘Animal Aid’ advancing onto the horizon time is limited to us. Now is not the time for the ‘twiddling of thumbs’.

​Who is the world’s greatest horse trainer? Of course, the answer will be subjective? An American reader might answer completely differently to the one I, and perhaps the majority, would choose, an Australian would doubtless vigorously disagree with both points of view. And does quantity of big race successes outpoint someone who through their career boxed above their weight, winning good races with cheap, unsound or few horses? But the champion trainers of the U.S. or Australia will only have succeeded in one division of the sport, the flat, with neither country having any worthwhile history of steeplechasing or hurdle racing.
It is hard to imagine someone whose record continues to outshine the current incumbent of Ballydoyle, even as ridiculously successful as Aidan O’Brien has been over the past twenty years since he won the Irish 1,000 Guineas, Irish 2,000 Guineas and Irish Derby in 1997. Some way to announce yourself to the sport on your journey to near world domination. Yet for all he has achieved on the flat, and it must be admitted Aidan has already outstripped his predecessor with his runners on the flat, even if Vincent O’Brien put down the foundations for Aidan to build upon, he would be no one’s candidate for the G.O.A.T award.
Incidentally, did you know that Aidan’s schooling went no higher than secondary level (no better than myself) and that his first two jobs were weeding strawberries and driving a fork-lift at the Waterford Co-op? And he survived the hard-knock apprenticeship as an underling of Jim Bolger’s academy of high achievers.
Aidan, it can be said, only played at the jumping game compared to Vincent, albeit that he trained Istabraq, the horse Aidan nominated as the best horse to have graced Ballydoyle during his tenure, to win three Champion Hurdles. Vincent, as is famously known, won 3 Grand Nationals in sequence, each time with a different horse. And 4 Cheltenham Gold Cups, 3 Champion Hurdles and 10 individual winners of either division of the Gloucestershire Hurdle, now the Supreme or is it the 2-mile 5-furlong novice, whatever it is called?
And as good as Istabraq was, he never added to his 3 Champion Hurdles (should have been 4 if it was not for the outbreak of foot and mouth) as Vincent achieved with Hatton’s Grace when he not only also won the Irish Lincolnshire but the Irish Cesarewitch two years in succession. He also won the Irish Cesarewitch with Cottage Rake and just for good measure the Naas November Handicap, not bad going for a staying chaser. In my book that is an achievement deserving of greater accolades that those he received for winning 6 Epsom Derbies. Can you imagine Willie Mullins running Al Boum Photo in similar flat races? Actually, yes I can. Or Nicky Henderson preparing Altior for the Lincoln? That’s a better example.
Oddly, compared to his success over jumps on this side of the Irish Sea, his success in his own country was quite meagre, with only 5 major victories, and only 1 Irish Grand National to his name. He did win, though, both the Galway Plate and the Galway Hurdle.
The most over-used word in the English language at present is ‘genius’, a description of so many people, especially sportsman, that we all know, as they do themselves, no doubt, that is utterly unfitting. The English cricketer Ben Stokes was only today in The Times thusly applauded. I know little about cricket and though I would be easily convinced that Ben Stokes is a brilliant batsman and perhaps the best in the world as of today, I cannot accept he is a genius, a man of similar merit to people through the ages who through influence or imagination have altered their sphere of influence.
And perhaps the word should not be applied to Vincent O’Brien. He is not Mozart, Hawking, Newton, Churchill; his life’s work has not altered the way the common man lives his life. He was though, in his sphere of influence for several decades, the dominant force, a spirit that reigned supreme. He didn’t achieve his immortality in the sport without the help and guidance of others, of course. Through sheer hard work and believe in himself he most certainly set the ball of destiny rolling. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He did not set up training with a stable bursting at the seams with horses with an excess of blue-blood running through their veins. He started with 1 winner in 1943 and finished in 1994 with 1,529, a moderate total by today’s standards. But then he never had more than 60 horses under his care in any one season.
But who else is their to rival Vincent O’Brien when it comes to the title ‘Greatest of All Time’?
If anyone is interested in reading up on O’Brien’s career, I can heartily recommend Raymond Smith’s exhaustively researched and well-written biography of the great man, ‘Vincent O’Brien: The Man & The Legend’. A book befitting any racing library.

​It is my considered opinion that this year’s Ebor Meeting was the most enjoyable flat racing I have witnessed for a very long time. Apart from the seemingly pointless two-day ban metered out to Ryan Moore for hitting his mount when clearly winning – I would argue, as I dare say Ryan did himself, that he was teaching a one-raced two-year-old to stretch all the way to the winning post (to ban a jockey for using his whip in earnest four-times is yet another example of the rules bringing the sport into disrepute) – only the truly miserable could find fault with either York or I.T.V.’s coverage.
The star stand-out for me was, as he has been all season, Frankie Dettori. The emotion he displayed after winning the Yorkshire Oaks was a revelation that must have won over the hearts of many a casual viewer to our sport. Jockeys care about their horses. That is what Frankie’s tears explained to a viewing public who might think otherwise. As Frankie’s wife must have known for a while now, there is another female lodging in her husband’s heart and her name is Enable, the horse everyone except the world’s handicappers knows is the best horse in the world, a horse perhaps the equal of Frankel and, if she wins the Arc for a third time, a contender for the greatest racehorse of all-time. Prince Khalid, please keep her in training as a six-year-old. She’ll win you more in prize money than any foal she provides you with and the sport in this country desperately needs its own Winx. Enable swells attendances; at the moment she is priceless to flat racing. Given good luck she’ll provide you with ten or more foals during her time as a broodmare, none as good as her, of course. And can you expect to have the good fortune to own another racehorse of her or Frankel’s class?
Incidentally, is it simply a coincidence that since Bryony Frost has appeared on the scene that male jockeys especially now feel it’s not a demonstration of weakness to show their emotions? If it is not coincidental, the sport owes that young woman a great debt. In mythology the maiden is usually rescued from her plight by heroic or romantic knights. In this case, it seems, it is the maiden who is doing the rescuing.
The equine heroes last week were obviously Battaash – a fine example of why colts, like cats and dogs, should be gelded – and Mum’s Tipple, a colt who is either going to be a firework or a stick. Only time will tell. Given the choice between Mum’s Tipple and Threat I would choose the former, though it is good to see Richard Hannon with a couple of top-class colts again.
I am not wholly against Matt Chapman’s misgivings about the million-quid Ebor, even though I have advocated a British equivalent to the Melbourne Cup and suggested the Ebor as the best candidate. As with the Grand National, enticing an overall better quality of horse to the race cannot necessarily be a bad move. But as with the Grand National, the new Ebor has killed off the old Ebor, as indeed the historic Grand National is no more. Why can’t there be a race at an earlier York meeting, which might be some sort of trial for the million-quid race, under the same conditions as the old Ebor, then the type of horse that would traditionally run in the race would still have that kind of race in the calendar. I know next year there will be two ‘win-and-your-in’ races at York which might serve the same purpose but I doubt if either race will involve three-year-olds or the improving older horse. Having said that, the Ebor was a magnificent race, beautifully staged. Long live the Ebor.
To my mind, given the overall approval of York’s initiative, I would propose two similar million-quid races for the flat, though not the Cesarewitch. How about a million-quid five or six-furlong sprint and a mile race, with Newmarket given one of the races. Thirty-odd horses thundering down the July course would be a sight for sore eyes. Again, though, if the Royal Hunt Cup were chosen for the upgrade, I would advance the idea that a reserve Hunt Cup should be staged to provide opportunities for what is for now the obvious candidates for the race. The sprint race should be a completely new, especially if it is run at Newmarket.
One further thought: Ed Chamberlain made a very good point on Saturday and as a result I think, apart from when it is raining, perhaps, that jockeys should always enter the parade ring carrying their helmets. Seeing the faces of the jockeys riding in the Ebor was, for me, a bit of a game-changer. Jockeys are the centre-forwards of our sport, yet how many of them could the ordinary race-goer recognise in a parade? Not many, I would suggest. It is something for the B.H.A. to ponder.

​I have written before about the difficulties trainers face when it comes to recruiting a steady flow of staff, a problem that, at least in the short term, could be made even more taxing when we finally regain our freedom from under the heal of the despotic and undemocratic European Union.
I am of the opinion that adherence to tradition, to the tried and tested ways of organising a racing yard, is a hinderance to solving a crisis that has the potential to bring the sport to its knees. Around me, as I write, are several hundred racing books written over a period of one-hundred-years. From the time of Eclipse, no author had need, even during the war years, to mention a shortage of labour in the industry. In his autobiography ‘They’re Off’, Sir Jack Jarvis, who retired from training in the late sixties, suggested that a shortage of suitable labour was a constant worry, though by his own admission he refused to bend to newer, and what he considered, slacker methods of stable husbandry. So, by evidence provided by Jarvis, we can assume the crisis that presently grips the industry has had its roots in the ground since the late sixties and early 1970’s.
Modern employment law, as well-intentioned as it is, does not assist trainers. A racing stable cannot be put in the same box as an iron foundry or supermarket. People employed in those sort of work environments do not necessarily do so out of choice, whereas stable staff have made a very definite career choice. The 38-hour week and the care of horses is not an easily managed fit in todays regulated working environment. Of course, people must be paid a fair wage for their efforts, though personally I would find it hard to accept extra payment for, as an example, being summoned back to the yard in the wee small hours to help pull a cast horse off the wall of its stable or walk around a horse with colic. I would suggest the finer emotions of life play no part in the workings of an iron foundry, though they are the mortar that bonds humans with their work with horses.
Working with racehorses, perhaps in any form of equestrianism, is not reflected in such noteworthy novels as ‘Black Beauty’ or ‘National Velvet’, especially during the winter months. It is hard graft, yet even when winter is at its most unforgiving, the horse will always come first, the hungry and cold human second in the queue for comfort and rest. How can such considerations be regulated or understood by either unions or ministerial department?
In the racing stable there is one job, the main occupation, no doubt, that not every boy or girl will necessary master. The work rider should be at the top of the stable employee pyramid, and while these people may be the most skilful in the saddle, they are not always the best members of staff when it comes to the dirtier and more mundane jobs that require doing through the day. To be frank, most of the ‘feet on the ground work’ that comprises a typical day in a racing stable could be taught to anyone from seven-stone to sixteen-stone. Why trainers, either individually or as a collective, during the quiet months of their seasons, do not organise ‘work-fairs’ is beyond me. Remove the veil of mystique from the racing-world and the pool of potential recruitments will increase many-folds. The vital ingredient in the success of the venture will be in the tutoring and mentoring. I believe in the U.S. and Australia there are stable employees who ride and those who are ‘feet-on-the-ground’. This is, I believe, the way forward in this country.
 For instance, I could walk into any racing stable and after a few minutes briefing, and without supervision, muck out stables, clean tack, sweep yards, fill hay-nets, groom and carry feed to mangers. Yes, I have some experience but anyone with a will to learn could master these jobs in the same period of time it takes to teach someone to stack shelves in a supermarket.
I honestly believe that a small part of the staffing crisis is manufactured by employers, who though wishful of a full complement of staff, are all too aware that their biggest overhead is the wage bill and that it is cheaper to pay overtime to fewer staff than it is to have the right number of people for the job. I’m sure such a claim is not true for those trainers at the top of their profession but it must be a factor further down the food chain.
I have always advocated that weekends should be worked the same as week days. If horses were exercised seven-days-a-week, as I believe is the routine at Ballydoyle, it would make it logistically easier to allow every member of staff a day off every week. Fit and healthy young horses left idle in their stables makes no sense, especially in an era when the majority of trainers have access to horse-walkers, pools, turn-out areas and other forms of unridden exercise. The sport is a 24/7 these days. In the days of Jack Jarvis it was not. Yet we persist with the easy day on the Sabbath.
The racing industry should aspire to a work pool of the most skilled labour force in the whole of equestrianism. For too long racing’s foot soldiers have been considered by the other equine sports as ‘inferior specimens of the horse-caring community’. Racing grooms, as they are now called, should, with assistance, have the skill to clip the horses they look after, for example. Indeed, every equine skill, within reason, should be taught to every man or woman working in the industry. It shouldn’t be a badge of shame to work in the racing industry, a rank or two down from working with show-jumpers, dressage horses or three-day-eventers. Working with racehorses should be considered the prestige career within the equestrian world, after all, the most famous horse events in the world are not the Show-Jumping Derby, Burghley or the Dressage World Championship, are they?
 
 
 

​By the tone of the comments printed in yesterday’s Racing Post by people far more educated than I, with far greater experience of real-life racing than I’ll ever be able to claim, I stand alone in my condemnation of Cheltenham’s decision to reduce the distance of the National Hunt Chase on ‘welfare grounds’, especially when it claims that by introducing a mares chase it will be improving the standard of the overall meeting.
By giving as ‘welfare considerations’ for its reason for reducing the distance of the National Hunt Chase Cheltenham has cast the first stone in what might become the struggle to save all races over a similar distance. Will in time the opposition to the Grand National demand on ‘welfare considerations’ that it too should have its distance reduced? Will Uttoxeter one day have to shorten the distance of its Midland National or Newcastle its Eider Chase?
Not only have Cheltenham given away a penalty with this strange decision but it has missed a golden opportunity to upgrade the National Hunt Chase to championship status. The Cheltenham Festival is the crowning glory of not only National Hunt in this country but I would argue racing as a whole. There is no other meeting like it in the world and as Royal Ascot has no defined championship race in its entire five days, I would suggest, even it does not rival the Cheltenham Festival. Here was an opportunity to revive what used to be the second-most important race, second only to the Grand National, of the season. The National Hunt Festival is named after the National Hunt Chase as the race has a longer lineage than the race meeting.
At its inception amateur riders ruled the sport and it was rare for a professional to win even the Grand National. The sport nowadays has changed beyond recognition to the days of Arthur Yates, Harry Brown and gallant army captains riding their own horses for the amusement of it.
For a championship meeting amateurs are adequately catered for, even if the National Hunt Chase was taken from them. They have the Kim Muir and the Foxhunters, and apart from the Martin Pipe they are eligible to ride in every other race, including the Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle. It can be argued that amateurs have more opportunities to ride winners at the Festival than the professionals.
The National Hunt Chase should be upgraded to a 4-mile Championship race. There is no such race in the calendar and given the importance of staying chases to the sport it is absurd that there is no championship 4-mile chase to make the division the equal of the 2-mile chasers and the 2 and 3-mile hurdlers.
As for which race to sacrifice for the inclusion of a mares chase? I would suggest the mares hurdle as though it is not the least classiest race, year on year it does devalue other races at the meeting by providing relative easy pickings for Messer’s Elliott and Mullins who farm the race between them since Quevega departed for greener grass.
Though I agreed with every word of Julian Muscat in today’s Racing Pot about the insanity of rewarding three-year-old races above that of the older generation, he is hopelessly wrong in his criticism of the 4-year-old handicap at the Cheltenham Festival. He may want it sacrificed in favour of the mares chase but the race draws the lesser lights away from the Triumph and the other novice hurdles. I do believe it might be a better spectacle if there were qualifying races throughout the winter but the appeal of the race is that it gives the smaller owner a chance of a runner at the festival. The Triumph Hurdle needs to be protected from lesser quality horses running simply to give owners a day out. For the Triumph to remain a true championship race it has to be restricted to the best of the juvenile hurdlers, even if this lowers the number of runners relative to the days before the inception of the 4-year-old handicap.
Personally, I would like to see the Cheltenham Festival brought forward a week, with the Imperial Cup run on what is now the Saturday after the big meeting, which alongside the Midland National would make a great day of racing. I have also advocated a ‘fifth day’ at Cheltenham, with the Saturday following the Gold Cup a ‘heath day’, as Royal Ascot used to have, allowing for the consolation races for the handicaps to be run at Cheltenham and not Kempton, a course of completely different character. This ‘heath day’ could also accommodate which ever race is removed from the festival and could be used as a trial for any race that might one day be included in the festival, as is the case with the mares chase. There might even be an argument for the inception of a new race restricted to amateurs. But only if the National Hunt Chase is upgraded as I hope and pray it will be one day. 

​You know you have read a good book when at its close you are disappointed there are no more pages to turn. Some books are interesting, worth reading, but are fluffed out with flannel to achieve the agreed number of pages. ‘Born Lucky’ has no such flannel.
Of course, it has its faults. All books do. As already mentioned, at 150 pages it is too short. Way to short for someone as opinionated and amusing as John Francome. Published in 1985, which is another problem with this book as it is a reminder of how old we have become since the great man retired; the second volume is long overdue. The title is also not appropriate as the author was born smart, not lucky. Smart people make their own luck in life, which is why Francome was both as successful in the saddle as out of it.
As a pundit you, or I to be more accurate, did not always agree with what he said, but as with Ruby and A.P. he was always worth listening to. ‘Born Lucky’ is not a completely serious autobiography and he makes that abundantly clear in dedicating the book to his friends - ‘An autobiography is not the story of a car!’ As a jockey he had few peers, and certainly not during the best years of his career.
The oddity about his career as a jockey was the number of ‘run-ins’ and disagreements he had with racing’s powers-that-be because the attributes that best describe him, I suggest, are honesty and loyalty. He refused to continue as a pundit for Channel 4 in loyalty to the programme’s producer who was, and doubtless remains, a friend. For 16 years, the length of his career as a jockey, he worked for and rode as stable jockey to a man who could also be summed-up as honest and reliable, Fred Winter. Yet because of his friendship with the bookmaker John Banks the authorities had him labelled as ‘suspicious’. Of course, coming up with the phrase ‘cabbage-patch dolls’ to describe stewards perhaps did him no favours. I doubt if anyone with a sense of humour would have been elected a steward in those days. And making a stand about the use of surnames to summon jockeys from the weighing room possibly added the adjective ‘troublesome’ to his file of misdemeanours.
Francome, though, was always as loyal to his true self as he was to his friends. In his book, as he admits, there is little written about the horses he rode. He refers to them as ‘tools of the trade’, which does not sit well in this more enlightened era, though he goes on to write ‘from the moment I got on one in the paddock to when I dismounted from it after the race I thought of nothing else but their welfare’. With Francome, I suggest, there is no dichotomy between ‘tool of the trade’ and ‘I thought of nothing else but their welfare’. He doubtless looks after his electric drill, hammer and screwdriver with the same duty of care.
Towards the end of the book the intellectual exercise must have become tiresome as chapters 11 and 12, the final two chapters, are the shortest in the book. Whether his then wife read the manuscripts and casually mentioned that thus far she was little but a footnote to his life story but chapter 11 is a brief summary of his courtship and marriage to the said wife, Miriam. In a short passage that in hindsight is a bittersweet insight into the true character of the author, he declares that marrying Miriam was the best decision of his life ‘and after nine years I can put my hand on my heart and say I’d marry her again tomorrow’. A lesson for us all, at least to the young and perennially silly at heart!
As much as I admire John Francome and mourn his decision to turn his back on television, apart from his autobiography, which will be shelved between Ruby’s and A.P.’s autobiographies as I can award it no finer honour, I will never have amongst my library one of his ‘pot-boiling, liberty-bodice ripping, Dick Francis-esque, racing thrillers’, as I shall always avoid similar books by Richard Pitman, Jenny Pitman, A.P’s no doubt error of judgement or even Dick Francis himself, apart from his autobiography, that is. Francome is just too much a legend of the sport to belittle his talent with the tittle-tattle of fiction. He should sit down and write a second volume of his life. I am sure his life since 1985 has been as equally worth recording as the years covered by ‘Born Lucky’. 

​The news regarding the forced retirement of Too Darn Hot is regrettable as he was providing an interesting narrative to the flat season. It would be silly to argue against the informed opinions of John Gosden and Frankie Dettori, as the evidence is there for all to see that the horse possessed a magical turn of speed. Yet though he looked capable of winning over 6-furlongs, as he had as a three-year-old won over 7-furlongs and a mile, to my way of thinking he also looked like he stayed most of the Dante trip and was only beaten by a fitter horse on the day. As with Frankel, Too Darn Hot gave me the impression that if he learned to settle any distance would be within his remit. And, of course, if his connections now must wonder what might have been, they could consider allowing him to come sound – a split pastern is not necessarily a career ending injury as many a horse has returned to the racecourse after similar set-backs– and return him to John Gosden for another season of racing. After all, if, as with Barney Roy and others, he proves infertile, the obvious next step would be to race him again. And anyway, he is only three-years-old; he might have twenty years as a stallion. But then again, financial considerations come into play and Godolphin did not buy into him to have him competing against their own horses for an indefinite period of time, did they? I suspect he was always destined to retire at the end of this season and really and truly we have lost very little of his racing career. I am inclined to believe, as with Frankel, that the majority of his progeny will win over longer distances than he did himself, as long as they settle better in their races than he did.
 
As anyone who has visited this site over the past couple of years will be aware, I am a devoted supporter of the Racing Post. It’s cover price is outrageous, of course, a clear indication that it is a newspaper teetering at a financial cliff-edge. It is the trade paper of the industry, though how it can be part of the campaign to boost the sport’s popularity amongst the wider sporting public when its cover price is the most expensive out of all the other newspapers and therefore can only be afforded by the wealthiest in society, is impossible to fathom. It is very much a newspaper that preaches to the already converted.
It’s new editor, Tom Lee, has, either voluntarily or with his hand forced, made changes that do not sit comfortably with this reader. The squeezing together of the reports on the previous day’s racing reads very much like a cost-cutting exercise, as if Post is no longer represented at the racecourses on a day-to-day basis and the reports are cobbled together from pictures beamed into Racing Post offices. This condensing of reports comes across as cheap-skating; something you might associate with one of the lesser tabloids, not the sport’s only daily news-outlet.
Also, now that Tom Lee is up to his knees in decision-making, and no doubt endless meetings with ‘higher beings’ and ‘finance’, the reader no longer has his weekly column to look forward to. I used to rely on Tom Lee to put me right about the political aspects of the sport that quite frankly pass over my head.
If the Post wanted to help in the campaign to regenerate interest in the sport, I have suggested it could come to an arrangement with one of the leading papers, the Daily or Sunday Mail or Times, say, to publish articles that have previously seen the light of day in the Post. For others to see the sport as we are privileged to do we need them to be reading Alastair Down, David Jennings and others, not reading about our sport penned by journalists who care nothing but to sensationalise their script with the muck that make eye-grabbing banner headlines.
On a similar theme, though much more in-house. Having the Post’s journalists writing articles on the great and the good of the sport makes for good journalism and fills space but what is the point of devoting two pages to Kieran Fallon, as in today’s copy, if all that is written can be found in Kieran’s autobiography? It will be the same next week when Frankie is featured or with any of the other celebrities featured in the same slot. On Sunday, Mark Tompkins was featured. Surely it would have been more rewarding to Tompkins if he had been so honoured before he had retired from the sport. I thought the guest columnist on a Tuesday was a great innovation but alas that is now also lost to us.
What is going on, of course, is cost-saving. Writing about Fallon is cheaper than interviewing Fallon and allowing him to comment on his son’s progress, on the current state of racing play. Fallon is rarely anything but interesting.
I would rather the Post sent a reporter to the lesser lights of the sport – owners, trainers, jockeys etc – and shine a spotlight on them, on how they perceive the current state of racing play, inform the reader about people in the sport who are rarely heard about or perhaps seen.
The Racing Post, to justify its outrageous cover price, should be obligated to inform and entertain, not to overwhelm the reader with so many various suggestions as to who will win the 2.30 at Ripon or Warwick. I want race-cards, facts and more than one brilliant columnist a day and far fewer tipsters. I would also like Tom Lee, columnist of the year, back. If that is not too much trouble. Oh, and Steve Dennis. I miss him and want to know what he is up to. And more of Alastair Down, even if it means raising the cover price up again.

​The title of Robin Rhoderick-Jones’ biography of Gay Kindersley, no doubt considered appropriate, an illumination of the character whose life was in need of immortalisation, is the weakest element of what is in general a very easy read. ‘A very easy read’, by the way, in my estimation, is akin to three or four stars out of five. ‘Flings Over Fences’ is not so much a biography of a former champion amateur National Hunt jockey and trainer, but a romp through the life of a sexual predator although otherwise really nice guy.
Gay Kindersley was born with two handicaps in life, or maybe three. He was heir to the Guinness empire, which surprisingly to though of us who have had to manage throughout life without such trappings, was more of a curse than a blessing, and his father somehow believing that naming his son Gay would not in any way be either a hindrance or embarrassment to him in later life. In fact, his son got off rather lightly as if it was not for his mother arguing against it, he would have been christened Gaylord after an American playboy who fell from a speedboat in the South of France and got close up and personal with the propeller. The singer Kirsty McColl met her death in a similarly gruesome way.
The third handicap, I suspect to leading a respectable life, was that neither parent set a good example in the fidelity stakes for him to follow.
To my way of thinking, bit of a prude that I am, Kindersley’s greatest achievement, at least in racing, was being part-owner of Carrickbeg, runner-up to Ayala in the 1963 Grand National, ridden by John Lawrence (Lord Oaksey) as Kindersley himself was injured at the time.
Like so many of us the Grand National held Kindersley in its thrall and his greatest dream, the ambition of his life, I suspect, was to win the race in some form or other. Given that Gay’s only ride in the race only lasted until the third fence, the author may have given either Carrickbeg or perhaps Earthstopper, who he trained to finish fifth in the great race in 1983 at least the same prominence, if not a few paragraphs more, as any of Kindersley’s affairs of the genitals. Carrickbeg, perhaps it can be argued was documented in exquisite detail after the race and in later life by the incomparable Lord Oaksey, so the author can be excused the few lines he devoted to the race for fear of failing in comparison. Earthstopper, though, demanded more than the page a bit devoted to him, especially as he collapsed and died after the winning post. Kindersley trained an honourable number of winners from what was never a prospering stable and Earthstopper’s gallant effort – it can only be surmised that he would have finished closer as he lost his prominent position from the third last fence when many people thought him a likely winner, no doubt because his heart was already ailing him – could so easily have been Kindersley’s greatest moment.
The book, though, to be fair is a mirror-image of the titular character. It is a romp, with no doubt many young ladies left on the cutting room floor to facilitate an abridged version of Kindersley’s scandalous life. He was married twice and begat six children. Which for a man who seemed in competition with Casanova demonstrated that he was never was a devotee of the Catholic church and its teachings on fidelity. Kindersley was a sex-addict, as well as a very serious drinker. In this day and age, he might have sought, or been persuaded to, counselling.
He was, though, it seems, a very affable guy who very few thought badly about. He took little seriously and was always up for a laugh, with his natural charm a magic bullet for getting him out of all-manner of scrapes. He was both a racecourse steward and an elected member of the Jockey Club and rather like John Francome could mix cordially with all members of society from road sweepers to monarchy, he had no airs and graces and could be found on the back of a tractor or mucking out in the morning and dressed in a tuxedo wining and dining with the elite in the evening.
In 1955, at Stratford, he suffered one of his worst riding injuries when he broke his back. In 1962, the reason he was unable to ride Carrickbeg at Liverpool, at Hurst Park, he broke his back again. He was advised to retire from race-riding, advice he ignored. From his teenage years to his death, aged 80, in 2011, Gay Kindersley was devoted to National Hunt racing. Hopefully by then his pursuit of whatever records Casanova held was but a distant memory. His philandering made for a more interesting book, no doubt. I for one would have preferred to have learned more about Kindersley’s racing life. ‘Flings Over Fences’, though, is an enjoyable read and recommended if you should ever stumble across it.

​I have offered-up suggestions in the past on how British horse racing might better finance itself, many of which, no doubt, could fall under ‘the naïve in the extreme’ category. If not one ‘golden bullet’ exists, which it cannot as the B.H.A. is yet to apply it as the solution to the big dark hole created by the withdrawal of the rather immoral FOBT money, then I have always advocated the scatter gun approach of implementing any scheme or idea that brings in a funding stream.
But there is a golden bullet, isn’t there? And I was reminded of it when I recalled, for no apparent reason, a conversation I had on the matter many years ago with an anonymous racegoer at an evening meeting at Worcester. How we became engaged in conversation I cannot recall. I am not what anyone might think of as any kind of ‘bon viveur’. Far from it. As far as I remember he was drinking a pint of lager and reading my Racing Post, which I had carelessly put down beside me as I – well to be honest, I can’t remember. Just moon-gazing, no doubt. Or admiring the lovely ladies as they promenaded hither and thither.
He said, leaving aside words unfit to be heard in polite society, that the prize money was not very good, which initially put the idea into my head that he might be an owner. He wasn’t, though he had a friend who had ‘a leg’ in a syndicate, which somehow made him an authority on the sport and its ills. If I recall, he didn’t think that ‘Irish kid’ McCoy was all he was made out to be. I dare say only A.P. himself would have agreed with him.
I made some sort of comment on the lines of ‘why do you think other countries can put so much more prize money into the sport?’ And as quick as lightning he replied. ‘They have Tote monopolies, don’t they?’ Again, I have amputated his richly-endowed expletives so you will not think him a barbarian.
‘There you have your answer,’ I interrupted him. Which he replied with. ‘But you can’t have racing without bookies. They create atmosphere.’
And there lies, in plain sight, the problem.
Now I would suggest that if the B.H.A. and it stakeholders created its own Tote and Parliament outlawed anyone outside of this Tote from betting on horse racing, in very quick order the sport would be, possibly for the first time in its history, securely financed, with all the benefits which accrue when budgets are no longer tight.
In my golden vision, bookmakers would not be sent into oblivion but allowed to continue to take bets on all the other sports, which I believe is an increasing market for them. And if racing had control of betting on its own sport, it could impose limits on the amount any one punter could bet on any single race, lessening its association with addiction gambling. Although my golden vision would incur a loss of betting shops in our High Streets, ‘Monopoly Outlets’ would partially fill the void, allowing punters to continue to walk-in off the street to enjoy their hobby.
I don’t see any reason why the big bookmakers couldn’t enlarge their premises on the High Street to include gaming, arcades and snooker tables, etc, allowing them to be described as ‘Sporting and Sports Betting Outlets’. Separating horse racing from the ‘betting industry’ might alter how the public at large view horse racing and remove that shadowy element of the fraudulent coup.
Ignoring the obvious change of atmosphere at racecourses that such a radical change would bring, why is the idea of a Tote Monopoly in this country not on the table when the great and the good of the sport get together to discuss future funding? We envy the heightened levels of prize money offered by countries funded through Tote monopolies, countries without the history and reputation that Britain enjoys, and yet steadfastly refuse to even consider going down the same route. I realise that a Tote monopoly would make Matt Chapman redundant and there would be a significant area of concrete in front grandstands that will remind racegoers of the death of a long-standing tradition but I would rather see the bookmaker consigned to history than for horse racing to go into oblivion before them.
Oh, and that punter in the centre of Worcester racecourse. He didn’t agree with my view one little bit. He told me in words that were half expletives and half an insult to my intelligence that racing without bookies would be as enjoyable as a strip club without a stripper. He may have had a better analogy in his head but in the heat of the moment he thought best to keep it to himself, which then, as now, I remain indebted to him.
Oh, and he seemed to think his three-quarter finished plastic glass of lager was fair exchange for my Racing Post. He was wrong, though I kept that opinion to myself as it has always been my experience that half-inebriated men with hands the size of hams and a beard with so much volume a swarm of hornets could live in it without disturbance rarely take kindly to the protestations of people they regard as ‘know-it-alls’.