​Those of us who believe, as I do, that British horse racing is in dire straits should be fearful of what is in store for us in the very near future. The cost-of-living crisis has the potential to irreparably damage our sport. The cost to racecourses to stage a race-meeting will increase at the same rate as peoples disposable incomes decreases, with far fewer people able to afford to attend a race meeting. With the government’s attack on betting, coupled with the same decrease in disposable income, will certainly lower the amount of money returned to racing from off-course bookmakers. As we enter 2023, a perfect storm of damaging consequences will sweep through our sport. Owners will feel the pinch, with the big battalions cutting back their strings, the syndicates, as a result of losing members, will cut back in similar percentages and the one-horse owner will, doubtless, disappear. Trainers will go broke, staff will be lost from the industry and jockeys will have more time to polish their own tack as, other than those with well-paid retainers, not so many of them will be able to afford the assistance of valets.
When they published the 2023 race calendar, the B.H.A. displayed a complete disregard (or ignorance) of what is going on in the world. Less, on this occasion, would definitely have been more beneficial to the sport.
The best suggestion so far has come from Roger Charlton and it should have generated debate amongst the racing public. It didn’t, at least not in my realm of observation.
Capping the number of horses any one trainer can have in his/her stables will contribute to solving two of racing’s greatest concerns. Number 1, it will keep more trainers financially viable, and Number 2, it will spread good staff amongst a greater number of trainers.
Of course, the first conundrum to solve is where to cap the numbers. Pre-government restrictions I would have suggested 150, though taking into account the negativity of what I have written at the outset of this piece, 100 might be the starting-off point. I would suggest that the Gosdens, Johnstons, William Haggas, Richard Hannon, etc, could begin the process by upping their training fees as this would immediately trigger some owners going in search of a cheaper alternative. It must be realised that every trainer must be allowed to make a profit and less horses will doubtless confer less in the coffers of the wealthier men and women of the training ranks.
Next trainers must decide which horses, and perhaps owners, they can get by without. Of course, for example, The Gosdens’ may honour the restriction only to find within a month they have only 95 active horses on their books as 5 have gone lame on them. Do they ask for 5 of their former in-mates to return or do they call-up one of their major existing owners to send along replacements? And then what happens when 1 or all of the 5 lame horses return to soundness?
Yet the benefits, to my eyes, far outweigh the complications of capping. This restrictions should only be approved for a fixed short-term period of time. I would suggest 3-years. At least long enough to see the sport through the heavy swell of gut-busting inflation. Trainers who at the moment are scraping by will receive a fresh intake of horses, with many receiving a boost in the class of horse they train. And with the horses will come the staff laid off by trainers forced to reduce their string.
In some ways the reallocation of staff may well be of the greatest benefit to the sport. The smaller trainer has always had difficulty in obtaining and holding on to good staff. It is a problem written about by Joe Hartigan, Dick Hern’s predecessor at West Ilsley, back in 1975. In fact, he predicted the situation we have now where a select few trainers have all the best horses. The education and care of horses will improve, trainers income will see an upswing and races will be more competitive as horses will be spread over a greater number of trainers and not kept apart as the case can be now.
The capping of numbers in any one stable is not a win-win scenario. The larger stables will lose out, if temporarily, as will their retained jockeys but the sport in particular will be given a greater chance of survival, a survival that in ten-years-time might lead to prosperity. Though only, of course, if horse-racing’s numb-headed/self-absorbed stakeholders can get their heads in sync and source a funding stream that will level up the sport in this country with our competitors abroad.

​‘BRIGADIER GERARD AND ME’,
BY LAURIE WILLIAMSON.

Let me start by one of the only criticisms I have of this book. Like the majority of self-published books, and this applies to me every bit as it applies to Laurie Williamson, this is a book sorely in need of a professional editor and proof-reader. 
The tag-line of the book is ‘A Personal Journey Through Horse Racing’. This is stretching a point somewhat as it is first and foremost a biography of a horse, Brigadier Gerard, and secondly it is a blistering attack on ratings and the people who compile ratings. Laurie Williamson, if you are not aware, was the ‘lad’ who looked after Brigadier Gerard throughout his career. Indeed, when the Brigadier was retired, Laurie Williamson took his leave from the sport. Any horse after ‘the greatest ever flat racehorse’ was always going to be an example of ‘after the Lord Mayor’s Show’. His departure from West Ilsley had ramifications that only add to the disrespect John Hislop earned for himself during his lifetime. You must read the book to appreciate the meaning of the word ungrateful and the phrase meanness of spirit,
Because of this book, I now have in my racing library books by or concerning the owner, trainer, jockey and stable lad, of Brigadier Gerard. Four books that must now sit side-by-side on the shelf.
Because this book is self-published, with a good amount of the pages taken up in criticism of Timeform, the handicappers at the B.H.A. and individual journalists when the author believes Brigadier Gerard is not accorded the respect he deserves, the book will not receive the glowing reviews  it richly deserves. I was once told by a well-known racing author (alright, I’ll name him, Sean Magee) that every book needs mud on the page to sell. This book has dollops of mud. Laurie Williamson has an axe to grind and boy does he do a good job of it. And he does it with facts, lots of them, and long-lived sentiment. He loved the Brigadier and this book is his quest to have him remembered as the ‘greatest of all-time’.
Although I am 100% on his side when it comes to Brigadier Gerard, I do not agree with his evaluation of Frankel. The data and charts he uses to prove his point are impressive and really unarguable. It is simply that the heart has as much to do with the awarding of greatness as the head. I was not, in retrospect (and this is where ratings, to use my terminology, are bollocks) blown away by Frankel’s 2,000 Guineas win. He beat nothing worthy of Group I with ease. Indeed, throughout his career Frankel beat no horse of any great merit. In beating Mishriff, Baaeed has achieved more than Frankel. But, and it is a very big but, in winning the International at York he made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and flat horses do not ordinarily do that to me. My heart told me that Frankel had been, up to that day, been running over the wrong trip.
I also have a bias against 3-year-olds being given the accolade of greatness. But that’s a whole different topic.
I will not steal Laurie Williamson’s thunder by reciting here the data and facts he uses to prove his point, though as an appetiser I will give you the startling fact that between them Nijinsky, Dancing Brave, Frankel and Sea the Stars broke fewer course records than Mill Reef on his own and only equalled Brigadier Gerard’s score. 3 to Mill Reef, 2 to Brigadier Gerard and the four horses people have the temerity to suggest were superior to Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard.
This book is worth buying if only for the charts and data provided by the author.
As with practically everyone, the author has hardly a kind word to say about John and Jean Hislop, though Dick Hern comes out of the book well and Joe Mercer especially so.
I loved this book and you will too if you forgive the misplaced commas. Of course, this book is written with as much bias as affection and I love that too about the book. Obviously, I cannot know if the manuscript of this book was offered to Racing Post Books but if it was and they turned it down they should consider contacting Laurie Williamson to offer the services of an editor and proof-reader. Everyone with an interest in horse racing should buy this book, even those firmly of the belief that a horse other than Brigadier Gerard should be accorded the honour of ‘greatest of all-time’.
I highly recommend this book. A worthy addition to the library of horse racing history.

​Should Baaeed finish his career in the Champion Stakes at Ascot? Or should he be allowed to strut his stuff in the Irish Champion Stakes, followed by a career-defining last race in the Arc? These are the questions being banded about in the Racing Post and I dare say out in the wider racing world.
Personally, I think these are entirely the wrong questions to be asking of Shadwell. My question would be this: why not keep him in training as a five-year-old?
Unlike the two horses who dominate my thinking as to which was the greatest flat horse of my lifetime, Brigadier Gerard and Frankel who both ran for three seasons, Baaeed has only raced for two. And in the course of those two seasons for the majority of his races he has had hardly to exert himself to confirm his status as the best around.
Again, personally, I do not believe he has achieved enough to be considered alongside Brigadier Gerard and Frankel. The Brigadier won fifteen races in a row before his baffling defeat to Roberto in what is now the Juddmonte International at York. Also, not only did Brigadier Gerard win over 12-furlongs, he also beat the best horse any of those considered by experts to be ‘great horses’ in the interim period. In beating Mill Reef by an extending 3-lengths, winning over distances from 5-furlongs to 12-furlongs and setting many course records, makes for a pretty solid argument for him being the greatest flat horse of my lifetime.
Yet, I have to admit, Baaeed could surpass the Brigadier’s achievements, though only if he is given the opportunity by his connections. By selecting the Champion Stakes at Ascot for his swan-song, Shadwell and William Haggas will be playing safe, protecting his commercial value as a stallion before the riskier alternative of allowing breeders to discover the full range of his abilities as a racehorse.
For all their unpopularity during their lifetime, with their reputations unrecoverable, it seems, since their passing, it is to their credit that John and Jean Hislop campaigned Brigadier Gerard with the sporting bravado that involved exposing him to possible defeat multiple of times. His breeding – he was by an unfashionable sire who was basically a miler – suggested he had little hope of staying 12-furlongs, yet the Hislops were determined, even after a hectic schedule as a 4-year-old, to run him in the King George & Queen Elisabeth and were equally determined to take on Mill Reef again.
As with Frankel, there is little doubt in my mind that Baaeed is a ten/12- furlong horse. When Frankel won at York, he won going away with his head in his chest. It was the biggest wow moment, on the flat, of my lifetime. It left an indelible impression on me and for a day or two I thought I would have to revise my opinion on Brigadier Gerard being my personal ‘greatest horse’. Baaeed was impressive at York, I concede, but I have my doubts whether the form truly adds-up to much.
To attract the top breeders and best mares, I doubt if Baaeed needs to achieve anything more as his reputation now goes before him. But for an ailing sport, wouldn’t it be the most marvellous gift if Shadwell rolled the dice and kept him in training for another season. Just one more season. They can have the pleasure and financial reward of Baaeed as a stallion for twenty-years or more, with reasonable luck, of course. One more year in training, though, would bring incalculable reward for the sport.
Keep Baaeed in training and the Eclipse, King George & Queen Elisabeth and Arc await to be added to his already impressive C.V. and with the added bonus that if the season rolls out as I predict he can be marketed as the universally acclaimed ‘greatest horse’.
I have always said that owners fortunate and blessed to own great horses have as much a responsibility to the sport that feeds them as to the horses they race. Shadwell have bred horses now for 40-years or more, if I am correct, yet Baaeed is the best of magnificent cohort of thoroughbreds. They will not breed a better one, that’s for sure. Despite their pompous claim that Brigadier Gerard was the result of great breeding knowledge, the Hislops got plain lucky. Juddmonte, as with Shadwell, have bred top-class horses for decades, yet they will never breed any horse better than Frankel. For all their longevity of success, Coolmore are yet to breed a horse that can be placed alongside the horses already mentioned. The same can be said for Godolphin.
Will Baaeed be kept in training for another year? Of course not. Commercial interests will take sway even though Baaeed is blessed with a kind temperament and is as easy a ride as a kids pony. But there we go. We can’t have everything can we?

​Look, I was sort of wrong. Baaeed won hard-held and my fancy Native Trail ran like a hairy dog in a monsoon. I hope he was dope-tested. I hope they find no suggestion of foul-play. And you can’t say he didn’t stay the distance in a strongly run race because he wouldn’t have won at any distance yesterday.
Baaeed is very, very good. How good we will never know as he is set to avoid the type of opposition that might make a race of it with him. Also, as with Frankel, as I suggested yesterday, it is at the very end of his career that we discover he has been running over the wrong distance for twelve-months. At no stage up till now has Baaeed been as impressive as yesterday.
But in all honesty what did the opposition amount to? Mishriff was always a Grade 1 performer, hoovering up mega big prize money in newly created races light on top-quality opposition. True, last year he won the Juddmonte International with the same ease as Baaeed yesterday but he is a horse that is beaten more times than he has won and yesterday he beat Sir Busker, Dubai Honour, a bitterly disappointing Native Trail and the habitually failing High Definition. Not stellar opposition, I would suggest.
I doubt if St. Nicholas Abbey would have been beaten as far as Mishriff.
That all said, Baaeed is the best around. I still believe the accolade of ‘best in the world’ is undeserved, as it would be for any horse as such a claim cannot be proved beyond any doubt. How good Baaeed is; where he stands in the history of the sport, we shall never know. Just as he is at his peak, when it is clear for all to see that all the top middle-distances races around the world are at his mercy, he is to be retired. British horse racing needs Baaeed in training next season, not covering mares. He can have that pleasure for the rest of his life. It is so sad that owners these days place commercial interests before sporting endeavour. John and Jean Hislop may have had few cheer-leaders during their lifetime, with their reputations mud since their passing, but credit where credit is due. They campaigned Brigadier Gerard without any real regard for his value at stud, placing emphasis on finding out his limitations so that breeders knew exactly what his qualities were. It is why despite his breeding, the Brigadier ran in the King George & Queen Elisabeth, why he ran on soft/heavy ground that he disliked and why they were considering keeping him in training as a five-year-old. Yes, they caved on the last aspiration but when he retired to stud breeders knew the sort of horse the Brigadier truly was, a horse of outstanding courage and rare ability, a winner from six-furlongs to twelve, on all types of ground.
Will they run Baaeed in the Champion Stakes if it comes up soft/heavy. Will they risk his reputation, risk him losing his unbeaten tag?
I have no criticism of Baaeed. He is a beautiful, uncomplicated horse. To use a phrase of Nicky Henderson’s, he appears a really nice person, a horse in the mould of Brigadier Gerard, at least temperament-wise. My moan is toward Shadwell for putting their own commercial interests before the health of the sport. Horse racing in this country needs Baaeed kept in training. Just as the people have accepted him as a champion he is be withdrawn from public view. Is it no wonder that in this country and Ireland National Hunt is so much more popular with the public than flat racing. Owners, especially those fortunate to own brilliant racehorses, have a responsibility as much to the sport as they do their horses.
But that said: wasn’t he impressive yesterday? And finally, Shadwell have a stallion to match Juddmonte’s Frankel and Godolphin’s Dubawi.

​The other question still to be answered is how Baaeed, or any horse for that matter, can be beefed-up to be described as ‘the best in the world’? Baaeed is certainly the best miler in Europe, though unless he is pitted against the best miler in the U.S., Japan or Australia, it is not about fact but someone’s interpretation of his form and whatever rating is put next to his name.
He is about to step up in distance, which apparently, if he wins, will be the crowning of him ‘as best in the world’. It is possible, of course, that Vadeni, the recent Eclipse winner might have the beating of him if they were to meet over 1-mile 2-furlongs. Who can say until they meet? And with the age and gender allowance it is possible Nashwa night get the better of him over the same distance. We don’t know. It is all pure supposition. And as for him being the successor to Frankel …. Though, of course, as with Frankel, it is possible Baaeed has been running over the wrong distance for the past twelve months and will scintillate at York this afternoon. Incidentally, it is not Frankel that Baaeed attempts to succeed but Brigadier Gerard, the best flat horse of my lifetime and before anyone gets hot under the collar, the Brigadier is the only horse of my lifetime to have beaten, by three extending lengths, a horse comparable in class to himself, Mill Reef, a horse forever overlooked when lists of great racehorses are produced.
Baaeed is very good, make no mistake. He doesn’t though set the pulses racing. Well, not mine, anyway. When Frankel won the Juddmonte the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and flat horses rarely excite me to that extent. That day, I recognised the hype surrounding him to be fact. He won like a horse that could easily step up another two-furlongs, another six-furlongs, whereas when racing over a mile he looked capable of winning a July Cup or King’s Stand. Baaeed doesn’t look like he might win a sprint race, though on breeding he should stay 1-mile 4-furlongs or even further, though to attempt such a distance would stain his reputation with breeders, apparently. No, I don’t understand such thinking either. Sea The Stars won an Arc and it doesn’t bother breeders one jot.
And going back to Brigadier Gerard for a moment. His owners, the Hislops, I think it can be fairly said were not well-liked in their lifetimes, with Dick Hern particularly scathing about John Hislop’s wife, Jean. Yet they campaigned Brigadier Gerard not to protect an unbeaten run but to search out his limitations, which is why they stretched out his stamina by running in the King George & Queen Elizabeth at Ascot. If only all owners of great horses were as sportingly brave and not choose to protect their investment and think only of the covering shed.
I sort of hope Baaeed wins today. It would be the best result for the sport. And William Haggas is such an endearing chap that you hope the horse wins for him, as much as anything. And Maureen Hagges, presently recuperating from broken bones in her neck. But it’s Native Trail for me, though. He seems to be forgotten about, with Mishriff seen as the only danger to the favourite, a horse that is in the habit of coming out of the stalls with all the grace of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Think back to April and Native Trail was the second coming, the horse to anticipate for the rest of the season.
He has won a classic, even if it was the Irish 2,000 Guineas not as expected the English version. And now William Buick knows for certain that the horse gets every yard of 1-mile 2-furlongs, he can be more positive on him and ride a race to beat Baaeed for stamina. Defeat for Baaeed will not be career defining. In fact, a narrow defeat giving away the weight allowance might even enhance his reputation. Brigadier Gerard was beaten in the Juddmonte by Roberto, a poor Derby winner but a Derby winner nonetheless. In the Brigadier’s defence he came to York after his stamina-sapping win at Ascot and a slog before that in heavy ground in the Eclipse at Sandown and all connected with him were convinced, he wasn’t himself on the day.
To my mind, Native Trail is well worth an investment.
York, amazingly, has missed virtually all the rain that has been around this week. We had an inch and a half in two-days in North Devon, with other parts of the country having much more. No Trueshan, then, sadly. But good news for the Strad, obviously.

​To know how impoverished British horse racing is in comparison to Hong Kong, Australia, Japan, France and the U.S., we need to ensure we are comparing apples with apples and not pears or bananas. How many racecourses operate in Australia, Japan, France and the U.S.? How does the funding of racing in those countries compare to how we fund the sport in Britain? How many individual races are there throughout the year in the aforementioned countries? Are we comparing British prize-money only against prize-money in the metropolitan racecourses we are familiar with? I suspect, and I may be wide of the mark here, the crisis of now, though it has been on the boil for decades, is one of over-indulgence and a lack of forethought.
Over the past twenty-five years or more new racecourses have been constructed, many turf tracks have converted to all-weather, with the knock-on effect of flat racing now taking place all-year round and not restricted, as in racing’s history, from mid-March to early November. We also now have summer jumping, an initiative that during the zenith of National Hunt in the sixties and seventies would have been considered unnecessary and counter-productive.
If you want to search for the core reason why field sizes have shrunk and prize-money has continued to decline, the profusion of all-weather tracks and the creation of Chelmsford and Ffos Llas is a good starting point.
As with all initiatives in horse racing the argument for all-weather racecourses is based on sound principles. National Hunt is vulnerable in the winter months to abandonment from frost, snow, waterlogging, fog and low sun, so to ensure there is racing to feed the High Street betting shops all-weather racecourses were the obvious solution, even if the term ‘all-weather’ has proved a misnomer at times.
If all-weather racecourses were a planned exercise, one track in the north, one in the midlands and one in the south would have been a sensible way to go. Newcastle, Wolverhampton and Kempton, perhaps. Three all-weather racecourses should easily have kept the show on the road between November and mid-March. Yet we also had sanctioned Lingfield, Southwell and Chelmsford. Why? More racecourses requiring more fixtures, more funding, more everything. On some days Kempton and Lingfield race on the same day, as do Wolverhampton and Southwell. It makes no sense whichever way you look at it.
We have too much racing, a fact accepted by 99% of the racing population, yet in a week in high summer there can be more all-weather racing than turf. It is plain madness. It is over-indulgence. I am not suggesting we axe three of the all-weather tracks but could we not limit any of the three to operating solely through the winter, with the other three operating through the summer months. Lingfield and Southwell can race on turf for both flat and jumps racing, and both Newcastle and Kempton have National Hunt tracks to be proud of. Limit the number of all-weather meetings, especially during the summer months, and a significant step forward would be achieved in increasing field sizes. It’s not rocket science. In fact, given the bare facts primary school children might come up with the same answer. They might even come up with a solution to leave mine in the shade.
Summer jumping has its place in the calendar but there needs to be less meetings, with the creation of more local festival meetings over two and three days, with no more than three-days of National Hunt per week, with the summer jumping coming to a climax with a Galway-style summer championship fixture, though not extended to seven-days, followed by a three-week hiatus before the start of the new season.
I would also remove all Group 3’s – controversial, the European Pattern Committee will be livid – converting them into limited handicaps. Race conditions should also be more flexible, with the removal of some bandings to allow for larger fields and races designed to help the small-time owner achieve a level of success that will encourage them to continue in the sport. There used to be a thing called ‘upside down handicaps’ where instead of balloting starting at the bottom weights, as is the policy today, when there are too many entries horses from the top down are balloted out. The sport needs solid foundations and the small-time owner/breeder must be given encouragement to invest in the sport.
And no restrictions that have the potential to limit field sizes, as with the needless ban on lower grade Irish horses coming across to run in Britain.
The present ‘crisis’ is long in the making, yet it is comparably easy to fix. Of course, as things stand, the B.H.A. have no powers to cancel unnecessary meetings; it is a toothless authority. Indeed, it is not in any real sense an authority, given it must always go cap-in-hand to its stakeholder partners. On the flat, the problem is quite clearly the profusion of all-weather meetings during the summer months. 
A spade is a spade with me, it is not a shovel. And a trans woman with a prostate is still a man in women’s underwear. Just saying it as it is. This sport is poorly governed, with those at the apex lacking both the short and long-term knowledge of the sport to lead on any bedevilling issue. 
For instance, we have a crisis of small-field sizes, yet with Bath having no irrigation system two meetings were transferred to all-weather tracks. Why not just abandon the meetings? Wolverhampton has enough meetings already. By common consent we have too many race-meetings and here was a golden opportunity to rid the calendar or two meetings. A drop in the ocean, yes, but a marathon must always start with a single step.

​I am not always wrong in my opinions. Occasionally, I am right to the point of brilliance. Not often enough, of course, for it to be noticed. I wouldn’t like that anyway, being caught in the spotlight. I do not even publicise this website, preferring to have visitors stumble upon it, not expecting anyone to stay longer than a browse. This is purely a vanity site, an outlet for thoughts on a sport I love and care about, a method for self-preservation and mental well-being.
I rarely indulge in research, relying on thoughts tumbling from my brain, hopefully in an order that suggests I am not as dumb as first appearances might suggest. I am not impeded by the control or dictates of an editor and when tired, which I often am, ‘that will do’ becomes a legitimate excuse for publishing what more professional writers would put aside for polishing the following day.
If it becomes obvious to me that I have published facts that are in fact not true facts, I will return and make the relevant corrections. Not that being always correct is important. Never be afraid to make mistakes as knowledge always wings itself to you as people are quick to put you right.
If I have no respect for a body of people, the B.H.A. for example, I do not feel any responsibility to put on record any of their successes. Journalists at the Racing Post have a duty for the good of the sport to detail both sides of any situation. They are respectful and work as a collective, with not one of them, seemingly, possessing an opinion at sharp angles to that of any of their colleagues. Which is fair enough, though not necessarily good for the paper’s readership.
I believe that British horse racing has the distinction of having the least effective leadership of any sport. The situation of poor prize money is not new. Indeed, it is not even relatively new. It goes back the best part of fifty years. Go compare the prize money of the sixties, seventies and eighties in this country to the levels in France, the U.S. and Australia in the same time period. Whereas in other countries prize money has increased in real terms, in this country the opposite is true. It has never been addressed by racing’s governing bodies through the Jockey Club, B.H.B. and now the British Horseracing Authority. 
The selling-off of the Tote into private hands was an opportunity lost for the sport to be self-sufficient through betting. We had the open goal of a concept similar to other countries and no one had the business brain to make it happen.
And of course, allowing the tail to wag the dog was the catalyst for the overkill of meetings that is destroying the competitiveness of the sport at the moment. All that needs to be done at this moment to steady the ship is for the B.H.A. to demand that any meeting with seven or more races advertised should delete one race. With so many meetings that would lose up to four or five races per day and up to twenty-five races per week with nobody noticing any appreciable difference. In two-months, especially with, crossed-fingers, autumn ground, field sizes would be back to acceptable numbers. That is all that’s need to be done. But will it be done? Can it be done? No, not with a tripartite agreement that is a water-boarding torture for the sport.
The solution to the prize money crisis is complex, especially when solutions acted upon by the countries we are in envy of, are ignored. But the field size solution is so easy to implement that it is staggering it was ever allowed to be a problem in the first place.
And that is my biggest beef about the B.H.A. It is far too reactive when it should be proactive. The B.H.A. workforce is paid to oversee the health and wealth of the sport. They are the people, supposedly, with their fingers on the pulse, with plans A. B. C. in place to combat any conceivable problem that appears on the horizon. But that is not the case, is it? There should not be a situation when all three of the sport’s stakeholders must agree before any change of any hue is agreed upon. A majority vote should be enough to remove the possibility of stagnation.
I only wish the Racing Post would crusade for change at the top of the sport instead of reporting the latest sightings of the elephant in the room. It is my view that the B.H.A. is a failed organisation and should be replaced by a governing body with a supremo at its head, someone who has first-hand experience of the sport and the people and horses at the heart of the sport. I may be wrong, of course, though on this subject I would bet this is one of the few occasions when I am 100% right.

​It doesn’t really matter if you like him or not, whether you rated him as a footballer or whether he impresses you as a racehorse trainer; the fact is, Mick Channon is a remarkable man. To have started out in life from such humble beginnings and to achieve success and fame at two completely different sports, to own, for now, (it is presently on the market for a cool 7-million) a famous racing stable bought from no less a person than Her Majesty the Queen, says all that needs to be said about his work ethic and management skills. Mick Channon is a one-off; there will never be another like him, I suspect.
When he played for England back in the day of long-hair and after-hours drinking, I always believed World Cups were just a matter of the manager of the time picking the right eleven and the Cup would be in the hands of whoever was captain at the time. No disappointment was too much. Every four-years along would come another tournament, followed by yet more bitter disappointment. My cup of hope ran out with the semi-final defeat to Croatia and it has never returned. In fact, it will never return as for the past 10-years my love of the game has transferred to the women’s side and after the European Championship win when, as any independent observer would have witnessed, the joy and spirit of the game was restored, who would want to watch the cynical male version?
It doesn’t help the modern men’s game that there are no longer iconic footballers of the ilk of Channon, a maverick then and still an independent thinker today. I can’t remember if he talked sense as either a footballer or pundit; he does though display a great understanding of horses when he talks about those under his care. At least he did back in 2003, the year Peter Batt’s book ‘Mick Channon. The Authorised Biography’ was published.
I’ll be honest, it is not the type of racing book I would normally read, a bit too modern for my nostalgic tastes, but I fancied something different and at the time of purchase it appealed. I was not disappointed.
It did take me longer to read than usual but there were interruptions for the recent England games, followed by a bad dose of summer cold. Remember summer colds? Replaced, of course, by government edict by ‘covid’, an illness categorised by myth and shadow diagnosis from no symptoms all the way through the gamut of symptoms associated with colds, sore throats and full-blown flu. I had a summer cold, accompanied by a stomach bug. End of.
Mick these days hobbles around worse than Martin Pipe, with football-born arthritis the bane of his life. You don’t see him on the racecourse these days, with his son the face of West Ilsley Stables. There was a famous Dick in residence at West Ilsley before the famous Mick, not that Channon ever seemed in awe of walking where once Major Dick Hern trod. He just got on with putting into practice everything he had learned while in the company of his good mates Richard Hannon (senior) and David Elsworth, maestros of the craft.
Peter Batt’s biography weaves Channon’s two careers into an interesting and entertaining account of a life well lived. If, like me, you fail to grasp how one four-letter word has come to replace all the adjectives in the dictionary, then Mick’s ‘colouful’ language will leave you a little cold but I’m grown-up now, I can put my hands over my ears when Mick is recorded recounting stories from his past. And though he makes no apologies for the late-night drinking before big matches, Mick is no longer an ‘ale-house brawler’, a name given by Bill Shankley to the Southampton team of Mick’s day. He does remain, though, as testified by his friends, the same generous and big-hearted man he was when he was a footballer.
In the recent piece with him in the Racing Post recently, he had few regrets to recount, other than those associated with family, yet back in 2003 he yearned for a classic winner and was confident that in time one would be delivered. Time, of course, is running out on that ambition. It would be a popular result if he could achieve it whilst still in residence at West Ilsley.

​I shouldn’t, I know, be forever critical of the B.H.A. Even if they make criticism so much easier to supply than praise, which I would prefer to send in their direction. The hurdle that prevents me from being ‘on-side’ is that they do not care-for and love this sport as I do, and if they do care-for the sport it is only so they can earn a living from it. Their care is only as relevant as the length of their employment contract.
Peter Savill, on the other hand, does care for the sport and any criticism I level at his intervention into the crisis that presently holds horse racing in its grip is on the grounds that his solution is interlaced with the term ‘premierisation’ and his pre-emptive defensive position when the term ‘elitist’ is used in criticism of his proposals. Any proposal that leaves behind the bottom tier of our sport will not garner my support. I also fear my criticism comes from a baseline of ignorance, a common fault I have not in 68-years managed to evade.
A prime example of my ignorance of his proposal, highlighted by Lee Mottershead’s excellent column in today’s Racing Post, is that he proposes fewer races at the top-table of the sport and more at the opposite end, bulldozing my fear that he proposed to build this new sparkling racing house from the roof downwards, leaving the sport vulnerable to the certainty of collapse due to having no solid foundation. The racing calendar should be shaped like a pyramid, with the lowest levels supporting the global events that form the top tier, with, I suggest, given its familiarity around the world, the Grand National at it very apex.
Banded races have led to the problem of small fields, along with, sadly, the decline in horses available to the sport. I am not knocking banded races as such, and they make life easier for handicappers, no doubt, but the tighter the banding the fewer horses are available that fall into that band. 3-runner handicaps, as at Newmarket last Saturday, represent a failure of the sport. Of course, having six-meetings on one day would be no help when it comes to field sizes, with 4 other similar(ish) races at Thirsk, Hamilton and Goodwood vying for the same pool of horses. I’m just suggesting it might help matters, not solve matters, if there were more variety in race conditions, with handicaps unrelated to ratings and more 0 to a hundred. Though the solution to small fields – we all can recognise an elephant in the room when we see one – is too much racing. This is definitely a case of less is more.
And though I accept my overall condemnation of Peter Savill’s manifesto was hasty and ill-judged, I remain sceptical when it comes to his defensive position regarding allegations of ‘elitism’. ‘There are a lot of people who are not super-rich at the top level’ is the response of someone as ignorant of the situation as I am. The mega-rich, and Peter Savill may fall into that category, have no conception of what constitutes the lower classes of society. They lunch at fancy restaurants as a matter of course, a £3,000 Panama hat is far from a luxury for them and buying a new car every year is just a given. The super-rich do not know what it is like to have coins in their pocket. The days when a successful butcher or hairdresser could have a horse in training with a local trainer have long gone. That said, heritage handicaps can fall to the smaller training establishments and the one-horse owner, so in that respect the Savill manifesto may not be as elitist as I labelled it.
Two other matters to mention. Making a better fist of Sunday racing is the weak link in the Savill proposal as Sundays are the main day for racing in Ireland and France. I have said for many a long year, mainly in connection with jump racing but it equally can apply to the flat: a two-day meeting, as with Newbury’s Ladbroke Trophy meeting, should be Saturday and Sunday, not Friday/Saturday. Three-day meetings should end on the Sunday and so on. Oh, and what constitutes a ‘good race’ anyway? And who decides? The finish of the Stewards Cup was closer and more exciting, as handicaps of all bandings tend to be, than either the Sussex or Nassau Stakes. It’s in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it?
Also, small fields are afflicting U.S. racing with only 3-runners in The Jim Dandy Stakes at Saratoga over the weekend and six in the Alfred G.Vanderbilt (Grade 1) handicap. The former worth close to a quarter of a million dollars to the winner.
Oh, finally, before I forget, can the sport stop fixating on the drop in racecourse attendance. Horse racing is a rich man’s sport, or at least that is the public perspective, and the cost-of-living increase is sapping the working man’s disposable income. It might cost a prospective racegoer a hundred-quid at the moment just to fill the car with fuel, let alone to pay get in, to bet and so on and so on. If racecourse managers want to fill the grandstands it might be an idea to give away discounted tickets for people living in local postcodes and free entry for the elderly.

​When individuals of influence or a collective of such people that have plotted behind closed doors submits a proposal to a governing body on how ‘they’ would like to see the future constructed, it can be assured, especially when enough detail has been leaked to certain sections of the media to encourage debate and speculation, the result can only be, if acted upon, seismic change from which there will be no way back.
Firstly, it would be wrong to condemn whatever the proposals put forward by Peter Savill and his accomplices contain before they have come into the public domain. I dare say, what lies within the document now in the hands of the B.H.A. is underscored by good intent, with a love of the sport at its heart. It is concerning, though, that even before the B.H.A. has read and discussed the proposals, before you or I have had chance to support or condemn, Peter Savill is denying that elitism is the driving force behind whatever his proposals might be. As proved by the political elitism of the past few years, and across the world, not only in Britain, what we are told to be the truth and the advice of ‘leaders and experts’, is almost certainly the opposite of what is happening and what we, the public, should be doing.
And I will say one thing in support of Peter Savill and his accomplices, at least he is being pro-active in support of the sport, whereas the B.H.A., the governing body of horse racing, is seemingly swanning around as if all in the garden is rosy. Someone or something had to come into the light to combat the long-term inertia that pervades the offices of those paid large salaries to protect the sport’s present and future.
The word that sets alarm bells ringing in my heart is ‘premier’ accompanied by reference to the Premier League. Again, our distinctive, incomparable, sport is being aligned with a sport that has no parallels with our own. First it was motor racing, now premiership football. Elitism already has raised its head above the parapet. 
The Savill Manifesto, I suspect, proposes greater rewards for the mega-rich who compete at the top-table of the sport, with everyone else left to fight for the left-overs. This is doubtless a cynical overview. But you do not build a house from the roof down and that is the principal behind this proposal. The ‘have all the top races run on a Saturday, Sunday and the big Festivals, is to a great extent what happens already, so that cannot be the enlightenment at the heart of the proposal.
And the divisional aspect of the sport already exists, though at present owners of the middle-of-the-road racecourse have the latitude to improve the quality of their racing by increasing prize-money to attract higher-rated horses. I doubt if this will be allowed under the Savill initiative. I am pretty sure a premiership of racecourses will be created, an elite underpinned and protected by the diverting of resources that at present is divided throughout the diversity of racecourses we have in this country. I suspect the smaller racecourses, those that fall outside of the created elite racecourses, will have to survive on any scraps they can forage for themselves. Unless there is provision under the Savill initiative to protect all the racecourses of this country, I cannot understand how we will ever grow the sport. If prospective race-fans living in Cumbria, for instance, are denied a day out at Carlisle or Cartmel to help spark their enthusiasm, I cannot see how they would be enthused by contact with a sport that can only be viewed on television, the owners of winners of a social and financial class the Ordinary Joe cannot relate to. Perhaps television did at first, and to a lesser extent still, attract new followers to the sport, but the sport began as a country pursuit, a local festival that brought people together for commerce, fun and frivolity. Elitism takes the sport a million miles from its origins, even if it began with the local aristocracy betting against one another in match races across heath and common.
I also fear, if you list all the prospective candidates for this ‘premiership of racecourses’, that some of them will be considered surplus to requirements. Another excuse for Jockey Club Estates to close Kempton Park, perhaps.
What I find galling is that while ‘Rome burns’ the B.H.A. does not, seemingly, have a fiddle to play a tune on. The obvious answer to racing’s woes, a betting monopoly to fund the sport, is not only left unpursued, it is actively despised. And the solution to the problem of decreasing field sizes is left on the table as a black banana in a fruit bowl is ignored. The pruning of 300-races from the race calendar was a first step along a path towards redemption, yet because Arc Racecourses squealed and threw the toys out the pram the sport continues to be afflicted by an easily solved dilemma.
The truth is, and it is self-evident, the sport is poorly governed, as indicated by Peter Savill’s intervention. Yes, my thinking tends to verge on the ‘half-empty’ and if the smaller racecourses were set adrift it might allow them to return to the festival theme of their origins, with Galway type meetings becoming their salvation. I have championed the idea that summer jumping should be staged not as one-day affairs but three and four-day meetings, so perhaps good may come out of the elite reasoning of this elite proposal. I just want all our racecourses included in whatever this manifesto proposes. The great indulgence of our sport is in the diversity of our racecourses. Without Perth and Cartmel, Salisbury and Beverley, and every racecourse in between, this sport will lose far more than it will gain by adopting the principles of premier elitism, with all the cynical play acting that accompanies it.