​On this day in 1978 Peter Scudamore rode his first winner, Rolyat for Toby Balding at Ludlow. And in 1992 Maxine Juster won the European Ladies Championship at an event held in Vienna and Bratislava. 

No one can doubt the cataclysmic impact Affordability is having on punters and the sport, an imposition as unfair and unjust as it is unnecessary. My view is that via the Gambling Commission, the British Government is acting upon orders from outside of its borders, a part of a world takeover by global elites headed by Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum. Ireland’s proposed ban on advertisements throughout the day on Irish television and satellite channels is the Irish Government’s strategy for collapsing its own racing and breeding industry. Everything from electric cars, to solar and turbine power, is about establishing central control of peoples’ movements, speech and day-to-day living. In the future, everything must be able to be controlled through A. I. Denial of what is proposed in the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ is to fight the good fight with an arm tied behind your back. If only it was all just ‘conspiracy theory’!
What is required at this perilous time is for every member of the ‘racing family’ to row in the same direction, to swear loyalty to the cause and help to maintain the sport and to resist the temptation to hoist the white flag. I appreciate, with the high cost of living owners for the sake of the welfare of their families and businesses might have little option but to cut costs and reduce their involvement in the sport. Yet, for the sake of the future of a sport they must love to have thrown so much money its way over, for some, a long period, I urge them to keep some sliver of support for the sport, even if it is only shares, while in the past they might have owned horses outright.
To defeat the injustice of Affordability and the purpose of its imposition, what is not required for the battle to be won is for people to walk away, not because they have lost faith in horse-racing but because the enemy is playing unfairly and causing their lives to be other than how they would like it. Remember, though British racing will receive no revenue from foreign, unlicensed bookmakers, neither will the British Government. That’s all I’m saying. If they do dirty to you, return the dirt. But stay loyal to the core product. British horse-racing needs you, all of you. The phoenix might yet rise from the flames but only if we all stay united. In walking away, all that is achieved is that the enemy is one step closer to achieving their aims.
Let me give you a fact you can check for yourself, something which, on the surface, has nothing whatsoever to do with British horse-racing: the major shareholders in Hawaiian Electricity Company are Blackrock and Vanguard, two organisations that control over 80% of global companies. High winds + fallen electricity pylons + failure to turn-off power-supply + turning-off the water supply for 5-hours = death, destruction and the green light for the 15-minute super city proposed for Maui in the exact area of greatest devastation. 
If the above is true, and even I would hope it is theory and not fact, destroying the world-wide thoroughbred breeding industry would be as easy to accomplish as crushing a grape under a jack-boot heel.

There is a gathering campaign to shorten the distance of the Irish Derby. Where is the resistance? The Irish St.Leger was dying a death,  becoming less and less of interest to owners and trainers. Did they shorten the distance? No. The traditional St. Leger distance is 1-mile 6-furlongs and Ireland opted to stay with tradition. They saved their final classic of the season by opening it up to older horses.
I have proposed that instead of abandoning tradition and playing ball with those who are slowly but surely ruining all of Europe’s historic flat races by making the sport an imitation of U.S. racing, where any distance beyond 1-mile 1-furlong is a stayers’ race, with the idea of a large bonus prize for a horse that wins at the Curragh after winning at Epsom and Chantilly. Or even for a horse placed in either Derby. Think outside of the box before charging into the china shop in your size tens, why don’t you?
If the distance of the Irish Derby becomes allied to the French Derby and not the Epsom Derby as it is has been since its inception, it will be the starting pistol on the slow march towards Guineas races world-wide being reduced to the long sprint of 7-furlongs, the Nunthorpe to 4-furlongs and the Ascot Gold Cup to less than 2-miles. In time, when all breeders care about is speed, the French Derby might be further reduced by a furlong as 1-mile 2-furlongs was stretching the elastic to the point when only a few colts had the stamina for a French Derby.
Part of the problem for the lack of love for the Irish Derby is the swelling of Group 1 races over I-mile 2-furlongs and the attraction for breeders to win races in the U.S. and Australia for purposes of creating stallions to be sold to those countries. The pruning shears needs to be applied to a whole lot of Group races all over Europe. I personally would take the axe to both Champions’ Days in Britain and Ireland, with the concession that a shared ‘Champions’ Day’, staged alternately in each country. I would get rid of both; that, though, for financial reasons, will never happen.
There are far too many opportunities for owners and trainers to win Group races when there are fewer number of true Group horses in training. It is no wonder only 4 ran in the Juddmonte, with French-trained horses becoming as likely to run in a British Group 1 these days as a Japanese horse in the Grand National. Anyone remember Fujino-O?
And why can I recall Fujion-O when without resorting to a reference book I fail to remember the winner of the Grand National he ran in or the year Nijinsky won the Triple Crown?

​Ed Chamberlain and his squaddies continue to provide horse racing and its advocates the best service since the B.B.C. brought the sport to a live t.v. audience back in the last 1950’s. I find it hard to quibble about any of its presenters or commentators. I wish I.T.V. made more use of Ken Pitterson, though he may not wish to be made more use of. At the moment when he is dragged in front of a camera to give his opinion on the horses as they leave the parade ring, it is as if he is being paraded as a token black face. Personally, though he might lack the skill of talking to a camera while walking within a few feet of the back-end of horses primed for the day, a discussion with Francesca or Adele on the main contenders might be more worthwhile to the stay-at-home punter than the hurried dialogue the producer insists upon at the moment.
‘The Morning Show’ I’m less enthusiastic about. In fact, I would prefer the budget to be spent elsewhere, perhaps on visits to stables or proper in-depth interviews with jockeys or racing people in the news. Believe or not, Matt Chapman is a brilliant interviewer, as people who have the racing channel he also works for will be aware. Personally, I don’t care which horse Matt or anyone working on ‘The Morning Show’ thinks will win and the £20 challenge is meaningless unless the presenters’ actual place the bet with a bookmaker, with a scoreboard kept and a prize awarded at the end of the flat and National Hunt season to the presenter with the most money won. Let’s be honest, no presenter on the programme is anymore successful at finding winners than you, me or the cat.

Epsom and amateur flat races are one subject. Epsom hosts the main flat race of the season, yet for the rest of the season the racecourse does not feature on terrestrial television. It’s mad. Once upon a time, when Lord Oaksey was John Lawrence, Epsom’s bank holiday meeting was highlighted by the most important amateur race of the flat season. It used to be a FEGENTRI race and attracted the top amateurs in Europe. Nowadays, like so many of our historic races, it is fallen into neglect, an amateur race like all others.
Throughout the summer, there are a plethora of such races, with some these days given over to the novice amateur and some restricted to female amateurs. In these times of equality, I would have thought it prudent for all amateur races to be open to both genders, with all amateur races leading to a finale, with Epsom on Bank Holiday Monday the obvious destination, with the champion amateur crowned at one of our most famous racecourses. At the moment the amateur rider and the races in which they are restricted to riding in has no narrative. Who could answer correctly ‘who was champion amateur on the flat in 1999, 2008 or 2020?
What Epsom is favourite for is the Epsom Derby. While any race carrying the ‘Derby’ name can only be a poor imitation of the real thing, I think it might be a workable idea to have some form of Derby over the traditional Derby distance at every Epsom meeting, with its first meeting of the year given the title of ‘Derby Trials Day, with the Blue Riband given more prominence, with both a 3-year-old handicap and a maiden run over the full Derby distance.
Every meeting after the Derby at Epsom could have a Derby of sorts on the card. Male apprentice Derby, for instance, female apprentice Derby, male amateur Derby, female amateur Derby. A Derby handicap for apprentices of both genders, a maidens Derby. Even a Derby for jockeys who have ridden only a dozen winners in the season. Yes, the elastic is being stretched to close to breaking point but it would give every Epsom meeting a focus, a reminder, though perhaps unnecessary, of the day in June when the eyes of  world of racing look only one way.

Finally, on this day in racing history not much of real note occurred. In 1950 Edward Hide had his first ride at Birmingham. In 1982, the Mick Ryan trained Boxberger Speed completed the Dutch Triple Crown by winning the St.Leger at Dunduigt. And sadly, in 1988 at Huntingdon, conditional jockey Vivian Kennedy broke his neck in a fall and died two-days later.
We owe our jockeys a deed of debt we can never fully repay; though donations to the Injured Jockeys Fund will ease all conscience. With horses, the debt of gratitude is beyond all resources and can only be part-paid by people and the industry stretching every fibre to ensure retired racehorses receive an honourable and peaceful life.

​On this day – 27th of August 2023 – in 1771, racing was held at Hereford for the first time; Isomony won the Ebor Handicap in 1879; racing was held at Leopardstown for the first time in 1888; in 1921 Charlie Smirke had his first ride in public at Gatwick, he was fourteen; in 1990 at Chepstow, an up and coming jockey called Lanfranco Dettori became the youngest jockey since Lester Piggott in 1955 to ride 100-winners in a season. And today is the birthday of Jamie Osborne, once known as a stylish National Hunt jockey and successful flat trainer trainer but now better recognised as the father of the rather wonderful Saffie Osborne. Jamie is 56. More significantly on this day in 1967, Red Rum won a nursery handicap at Warwick.

Frankie Dettori, more than at any other time throughout this season, showed us at York exactly what we will be missing from next season onwards. He was tactically sublime in the Juddmonte International, outwitting, I suspect, the equally sublime Ryan Moore, and then in the Ebor his supreme jockeyship was the difference between winning and losing. Even the genius that is Willie Mullins couldn’t sing Frankie’s praises high enough. And then to emphasise what will be missing from our racing lives in the very near future, he displayed his panache and beautiful and kind riding skills on his ‘cash machine’ Kinross. Ralph Beckett gave a hint that his stable superstar might also be out of our lives next season when suggesting he must name a barn at his stable in honour of a horse ‘the likes of which he will never see again’. Hope not. I’m really warming to Kinross, at last.

Referencing Ralph Beckett. One aspect of the Racing Post I remain critical about is the abbreviated manner in which they report on the previous day’s racing. Doubtless the paper no longer sends reporters to any race-meeting other than the main events, relying on the coverage by the satellite racing channels for their reports. I find this lazy method of journalism wholly inadequate and disrespectful to readers who pay them hundreds of pounds each year for the privilege of reading their newspaper.
Last week Ralph Beckett had three winners – too lazy (hypocrite, yes) to delve into the R.P.’s data-base as substitute for my ever-failing memory – all of which were ridden by Laura Pearson. It is a great achievement for any jockey to ride a hat-trick of winners in a day, especially for a female jockey just out of her claim. I am sure her close family would have liked to have seen in the trade newspaper a glowing report on the achievement of their family star, cutting out or cut and pasting the report for both posterity and to proud display to visitors and friends. The Racing Post needs to be reminded that it exists not for its own self-importance but for the documenting and neutral reportage of the sport as a whole and has a duty to its readers to supply as comprehensive as is possible coverage of racing at all levels on all days of the week. Every racing day matters.
Another example of the R.P. missing a story line was at Chepstow last week when Holly Doyle and Georgia Dobie rode 5 of the winners on a six-race card. Not as jaw-dropping as it might have been a few years, though still worth a paragraph, don’t you think?
That moan over, I have to add that without the Racing Post my life would be poorer by the length of the straight at Newcastle.

The public polls that the Racing Post conduct are doubtless popular, even though their readers don’t always come up with the right result. The poll before the present poll to find Britain’s favourite racehorse, actually came up with Dancing Brave’s Arc win as the greatest race ever run! I shake my head still to this day. Why wasn’t there a stewards’ inquiry?
The problem I have with the present poll is that it asks readers to choose between favourite sons and daughters. It reminds me of Ricky Gervais’s best joke, his answer to what would you risk your life to save if you came home to find your house on fire? ‘The fridge, the t.v. and one of the twins’. 
And that’s what this poll reminds me of. If you came home and found the stables on fire which one of the great horses would you save from the flames? It was agony for me to chose Spanish Steps over Frodon, Sprinter Sacre, Desert Orchid and many others. I never expected Spanish Steps to win or indeed Frodon and as Red Rum, Arkle and Desert Orchid will win the posthumous award, it will not rankle with me as other ‘winners’ of R.P. polls did. I just wish they had divided the poll into eras or decades so the likes of Brown Jack at least received a mention. How can anyone under the age of fifty appreciate the achievements of Arkle or anyone under the age of 100 appreciate the impact Golden Miller had with the racing public? 
It is like me trumpeting Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori as the greatest flat jockeys of all-time when Steve Donoghue, to give but one example, had long gone prior to my birth? 
A bit of fun, yes. Fills a few column inches, yes. Yet unlike other Racing Post polls I just want this one over and done with. The great horses should always be celebrated for the excitement and debate they brought into our lives. We could dissect their achievements and decide which, speculatively, was the best of all-time but how can it be determined which horse was our collective favourite?
Ricky Gervais, by the way, is not father to any children. That is why his 
‘twin gag’ is funny, and appropriate for referencing for this article.

​I am not someone who obsesses about having the facts all in a neat row. This blog is based on my opinions and ideas and I accept I get my opinions and ideas in a tangle on occasion. In ordinary life, we all make mistakes, misspeak and commit errors of judgement. Although by definition of public access this blog goes can be read by someone living on any of the continents, I am pretty sure only the very few ever stumble upon this site.
‘Horseracingmatters’ exists for the sole benefit of my mental health. I have lived for horse racing all my adult life, which is over fifty-years, and as a kid horse racing found favour over football and all other more normal activities for someone growing up on a Bristol housing estate. That said, my mental health wasn’t really mature enough to manage a career in the racing industry, a regret that lingers to this day. If I can write about the sport, I can content myself with a life not well lived. I am seventy next April, so nothing much in my life will change for the better.
Last week, as much because of the lazy streak that I must always fight against, I thought I knew my subject to the point I had no need to check my facts. And though the point I was in want of making was correct, I failed to get all of my facts into a neat row. No one was hurt by my mistake and the planet was not tilted off its axis because of it. Yet I was internally humiliated to make such a gaff, both on this site and in a letter I sent to the Racing Post intended for publication in their letters column. Thankfully, they recognised the falsity of my opinion and figuratively threw the letter in the bin.
(For a period of twelve-months, a few years ago, I wrote a column, as an unpaid contributor, for ‘Racing Ahead’ magazine. For eleven months my efforts were well-received. In what I chose to be my last contribution to the magazine, though, I made a similar gaff, referring to who I believe is the best t.v. commentator the sport has ever had as Andrew Hoiles. It was pointed out by the boss to the editor who also did not pick-up on the error, who then pointed it out to me. I chose to slink away, never to be seen again, my confidence in tatters! I also considered, given how well my pieces were received, apparently, that it was about time the magazine started to pay me. Lost my arguing position after naming Richard, Andrew!)
The point is, though, the gaff did rock my confidence to the point I vowed not to attempt to have a letter published in the Racing Post every again. That vow will wilt over time but it highlighted to me how easily it must be for a sportsman to lose confidence when an open goal is missed, a three-inch putt goes wide or you lose when all the evidence suggests you should have won. It tells its own tale when this is possibly the third-time I have written about this topic in little over a week. Thank the heavens I have no editor to bawl me out over my incompetence. 

To get my facts in a neat row, I have just taken advantage of my ultimate subscription to the Racing Post to access their data-base, which I hope is up-to-date. As of today 22/08/2023, the following are the ten most successful jockeys riding on the flat in 2023.
1. Rossa Ryan 122 wins from 672-rides, success rate of 18%
2. Oisin Murphy 109 from 633-rides, at a rate of 17%
3. William Buick 101 from 501 rides, 20%
4. Hollie Doyle 88 from 543 rides, 16%
5. Daniel Muscott 87 from 563 rides, 15%
6. Billy Loughnane 81 from 472 rides, 17%
7. Tom Marquand 79 from 545, 14%
8. Kevin Stott 78 from 506 rides, 15%
9. Robert Havlin 76 from 383 rides, 20%
Tenth of this list is David Probert 76 from 633 rides, 12%, with only Rossa Ryan obtaining more rides since January 1st.
Percentage-wise, the leading jockeys are, and no surprise here, Ryan Moore with 44 wins from 191 rides at a percentage of 23% and Frankie Dettori with 22 wins from 98 rides at a success rate of 22%.
The above table is fuel for my dislike of the jockeys championship being determined by two arbitrary dates after the start of the flat season and before it officially ends, all because Qipco and the B.H.A. want to give ‘Champions’ Day’ greater significance than a creamy bun-fight for the rich and successful of the sport. Who can ever remember the horse that was Qipco champion sprinter in 2021 or the champion middle-distance horse of 2020? William Buick would always be a rightful champion if the title was determined on skill and personality alone, yet dedication and hard endeavour should also be determining factors in where the title lands. 
In a sport so nuanced that anyone coming to the sport from outside its horsiness that a college degree could be designed around the varied aspects of the industry as a whole, someone thought to confuse the narrative to a greater extent by awarding championship titles to jockeys that invariably have not won the most races during the year in which the record books show them as ‘champion’. If I was Luke Morris, I would be livid!
The two stand-outs in the above table are Rossa Ryan and Robert Havlin, the former for his consistency throughout the year and the latter for achieving a 20% strike rate from only 383 rides. Once upon a time Hollie Doyle would have been a stand-out but she is no longer a female jockey but simply one of our best jockeys.
If I could change one rule of football it would be the foul-throw. In flat racing, in a heartbeat I would change the foul-throw that is the determination of the jockeys’ title back to the days when workaday jockeys like Seb Sanders could lift the trophy through hard work as well as skill in the saddle.

​In both Ireland and Britain, the use of saunas has become a hot topic of debate. Jockeys want saunas restored to Irish and British racecourses, the medical advisors to the racing authorities both sides of the Irish Sea are adamant in their belief they are bad for health and must not be reinstated. Finding a resolution to the disagreement will be difficult as both sides, in my opinion, have a slice of right on their side.
The overall health, as much as they can legislate for it, is the primary concern of racing authorities and the medial staff they employ. On the other hand, jockeys are obligated to draw the correct weight for each and every ride they have on any given day. At the moment, jockeys with weight issues are trying to take off the last pound by running around the racecourse before or during racing, sweating in very hot bathes before driving to the races, some wearing sweat-suits, with the car heater turned-up to full-blast, or spending an hour in a sauna close to the racecourse. Unregulated and unmonitored; more dangerous to health than saunas?
Both parties agree it is injurious to health to ride when dehydrated. Jockeys do, on occasion, faint after a ride due to dehydration. Personally, I believe the devil you know provides better resolution to any problem than the devil you don’t know. That is why I believe the return of saunas to racecourses is the way forward, with observed rules followed by all jockeys making use of them. Limited time use, drinking a stated amount of water after use and monitoring by a health official. As an olive branch, the wealthier jockeys could put their hands in their pockets to either pay for the saunas or at least pay a sizeable contribution to their return. Perhaps a small charge should also be imposed on sauna use.
I have also suggested, though this is not a bridge between both divides of the debate, that ‘heavy-weight’ and ‘light-weight’ races could be introduced to help both the very light jockeys who are disadvantaged by the rising of weights to accommodate the heavier jockeys and the same jockeys struggling to do the weights carried by horses at the top of the handicap.
It is a disagreement that must be resolved with speed afoot. 

Yesterday I posted a blog in which I got my facts wrong. I deleted the post within five-minutes of reading my on-line copy of the Racing Post. The previous day I had also e-mailed a letter to the Post’s letters column opining the same lack of knowledge. I trust they will not publish my gaffe. My excuse I present for my ignorance is wrapped-up in ageing, ailing memory, laziness in checking facts and the blindingly obvious conclusion of anyone who reads my musings, that I am not a journalist, trained or otherwise, and publish without the aid of an editor.
The basic premise of the blog was correct, that premierisation of racing will eventually lead to Saturdays without any racing for I.T.V. to televise as the weather in this country has an annoying habit of intervening on our entertainment. My error was in believing only two meetings would be scheduled on a Saturday in the time-slot given to the two premier meetings, when a third non-premier meeting will also be permitted. This small but relevant fact torpedoed my argument. 
In winter, though, you can bet your boots, there will be Saturdays when both premier meetings will fall victim to the weather, with any meeting scheduled for morning or evening being unavailable to fill the void. It is a basic failing of premierisation, even if 99% of the time the weather gods will play nicely.

On another, even more controversial subject, does anyone think there is a connection between the Gambling Commission’s war on betting and the Irish government’s apparent determination to destroy its profitable thoroughbred industry by banning betting adverts throughout the day on both terrestrial and satellite television, thereby denying horse racing in their country of millions of pound’s worth of advertising revenue? And would Singapore closing its only racecourse also be part of a similar connection? Or the manner in which horse racing in the U.S. is slowly beginning to implode upon itself?
I will leave you to conduct your own research. But in the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, a plan for the resetting of the world which all the leading nations and organisations have signed-up to, there is no place for animals other than those in the wild, and no place for racehorses that require so much of the Earth’s resources. And wild fires? Quite recently a conference took place on Maui, in Hawaii, on the possibility of turning the island into the first super-city, of 15-minute city of infamy. Join the dots and you might discover that ‘they’ have cleared the land of people, vegetation and buildings. Cars incinerated, yet wooden telegraph poles left unsinged!
The truth is, we are unwanted by the future developers and ‘guardians’ of our planet. Only that which A.1. can command will be allowed to remain! 

​The Racing League fails to deliver on its projections for the very basic reason its promoters chose to ignore – horse racing may be a team sport but at the heart of that team is not a product that can be bought in a showroom or store. The founding fathers of the Racing League foolishly beheld a dream that their invention could save the sport, that it held the potential to bring the racing audience back in droves to the racecourse. Bewitched by Formula 1, they preached a grandiose scheme that had Godolphin, Coolmore, Juddmonte and the leading flat trainers priming teams of horses for the challenge of winning the Racing League trophy. Except Godolphin, Coolmore, et al, recognised the flaw in the concept and have given it a wide berth.
Team Godolphin, Team Coolmore, Team Gosden, etc, have had to be replaced by Team Scotland, with few actual Scottish team members, Team this and Team that. Putting together teams for the series has been like the method kids use to make-up teams in the school playground. 
In Formula 1, Ferrari, Maclaren, Red Bull, etc, exist in real life. If you have the wealth required the man in the street can buy a Ferrari or Maclaren, they can drink Red Bull. The Racing League peddles the myth that somehow the racing fan can similarly be part of one of the spurious teams simply by wearing a scarf bearing the motif of one of the ‘teams’.
The Racing League cannot change the direction of horse racing for the simple reason that the two are not compatible. It is like suggesting a five-a-side football tournament can alter perceptions of the Champions League or even National League South. Can anyone remember who won the Racing League in its first year? Or the season after? Yes, Saffie won it last year. Beauty is always memorable. 
Owners and trainers support the Racing League for the enhanced, though not by much, prize money that can be won by horses of modest ability. Though why if ‘enhanced prize-money’ can be raised to support a poorly conceived concept, why can’t that same money be distributed to races throughout the summer? Let’s get real, owners and trainers do not support the Racing League because they believe the concept is a wonderful thing in itself, they are merely taking advantage of an opportunity. In fact, taken as a whole, I believe the Racing League is doing harm to the sport by shrinking competitiveness at other racecourses.
The Shergar Cup, though, makes no pretence that it exists for any other reason than to entertain. The teams are actually real, even if no enthusiast can buy a product the team represents. The concept of a ‘girls’ team’ is stamped in reality and allows for annual support. Wherever Hayley Turner, Holly Doyle and Saffie Osborne are riding today or during the coming week, if so inspired, you can go along to cheer them on, to ask for a selfie or autograph.
Look, I would change the format of the Shergar Cup so that along with the girls team, there would be a British male team, an Irish team and a World team. I realise there would be financial constraints on developing the format further but I think the concept is popular enough amongst the racing public to either include a fifth team or to expand the existing teams to four-members.
Also, what the Shergar Cup demonstrates year after year is that no matter how successful foreign jockeys are in their own countries, the home-grown jockeys, although it must be admitted they have home advantage, hold their own and usually go home with the trophies, as occurred again with the latest renewal. Personally, I would be happy to see other ‘team’ races staged throughout the season. Perhaps a series involving teams comprising British-born professional male riders, their female equivalent, apprentice equivalents and foreign British-based riders. Five teams, perhaps twelve races staged through the season, with teams of six-riders, with three of the six riding in each of the races, with a ‘final’ at the end of the season, with the intention of raising funds for the Injured Jockeys Fund.
Yesterday (12th August 2023) Holly Doyle won the trophy for leading rider at the Shergar Cup and between herself and Saffie Osborne (shouldn’t Ed Walker appoint her stable jockey before someone else nabs her services) won four of the six-races and yet again, although contributing not a single point to her team’s score, Hayley Turner was presented with the winning trophy and everyone present went home happy, no doubt looking forward to next year’s Shergar Cup.

​If I recall correctly, the sport of show jumping went down the ‘innovation’ route and look where it found itself – not on mainstream t.v. They built an indoor ‘Hickstead style bank’ in an attempt to duplicate the jeopardy of the real outdoor ‘uphill and down-dell’ obstacle synonymous with the Hickstead Derby. They also tried betting on show-jumping classes.
The rather elemental and beautiful sport of athletics is not to spared innovation, with razzle-dazzle lighting effects and mixed-sex relay races amongst innovations to tempt more people to the sport. All needless and gimmicky; the work of go-getting entrepreneurs with no appreciation of workaday gold-dust or history.
Has innovation improved any sport? Cricket now has so many formats it has become a circus of hit, run and pyjama-costumes. W.G. Grace, Don Bradman and the other founding fathers of the game must toss and turn in their graves as ‘the Hundred’, the rough-coated terrier of all-sports’, denigrates the history and tradition of a once leisurely pastime. 
A small annoyance at the proposed innovation of micing up jockeys so they can talk to interviewers or trainers as they mosey down to the start or indeed during a race is the word ‘micing’ itself. Sounds too much like mice-ing-up or even mincing-up. The last thing horse racing needs is to have the piss taken out of it.
Here's a scenario that will be repeated time and time again: a jockey will be cantering down to the start on a favourite and he or she will be asked if their mount feels as if it will cope with ground that might be firm or heavy. The jockey will truthfully return a negative response and the horse will ‘drift like a barge in the betting’, only for it to scoot in at twice the odds it was in the morning papers. ‘Foul’ many will scream. ‘The jockey was prompted to give a negative response by an owner wanting better odds and a bigger killing’. Jockeys will be put in ‘a damned if I do and damned if I don’t’ situation which will be unfair on them.
Jockeys also swear and curse. Racehorses behaving badly can make a vicar blaspheme, I assure you. As nice a bloke as Tom Marquand is, when that horse kicked him down at the start at Newmarket this season, lacerating his arm and putting him off-games for a week, I doubt he said ‘damn and blast’ as he slipped painfully out of the saddle. And what sweet oaths will fall from jockeys’ lips during a race when they get cut-up going for a run up the rails or when they their mount rears-up or goes down on their knees in the stalls.
What really sticks in my throat though is the constant comparison between horse and motor racing as if a Formula 1 car is a sentient being or jockeys have the safety protection as a driver. They use so much coded messages in Formula 1 that for the viewer it becomes more a game of ‘Only Connect’ than insightful involvement into a sport that is 90% high-tech and 10% perspiration. 
Our sport is both simple to understand and as complicated as you want it to be. Would it help the punter if it was known that a trainer had changed the feeding regime at his stables? Or that a jockey had gone without breakfast to do the weight on a horse whose form suggests it has no chance of winning? I would suggest the only innovation in horse racing that would wholescale benefit horse racing is around the science of finding-out cheats and the welfare of the horse. Micing-up (or mice-ing up or mincing-up) jockeys would bring little sunshiny benefit and a myriad of unnecessary grey undertones.
If we are so desperate to engage with a new audience, the young and affluent, we have to make the sport palatable for their dainty senses and that will require less whip and a higher degree of ‘My Little Pony’.
This sport has evolved from match races across open farm land and heath to the competitiveness of today; from when it was a sport for the aristocracy and the gentry to a sport for all classes; the domain of men only to a sport where both genders compete on equal terms. From starting flat race from barriers and delays lasting twenty-minutes to stalls and races starting bang on time. Horse racing continues to evolve; it has no need of youthful intervention that mimic other sports. The Racing League was innovation designed to engage with a ‘new audience’ and yet it fails on an annual basis because its concept is based on a fallacy; that the public can acquire an allegiance to a team that in reality does not exist.
The beauty of horse racing is its history, its diversity and the human interaction with the thoroughbred racehorse. The sport is called horse racing. We race horses, don’t we?

​I’ve never used a sauna, either for pleasure (?) or for weight loss, and I imagine only jockeys know the full extent of the benefit and downfall of using one on a regular basis. The first thought on whether racecourses should reintroduce their use is that surely it is the thin edge of an unhealthy wedge to encourage stick-thin people to sweat, dehydrate and then engage in physical exercise in front of thousands of people. But as jockeys will inform you, it is not a straight up and down issue.
In the past, sweating was a communal event for jockeys, with Turkish baths doing a roaring trade when the jockeys came to town. The late, great, Terry Biddlecombe and his pals were infamous for sweating and drinking together, with champagne their favourite hydrating drink.
A jockey with a sauna at home is free to spend an hour shedding a few pounds, get in the car, perhaps with the heater on whether it be mid-summer or dark winter, and arrive at the racecourse dehydrated and perhaps remain in that bodily condition for ten-hours or more. Whereas, if a sauna was available at the racecourse, the period of dehydration would not only be a lot shorter but the health and well-being of he or she could be monitored by the attending racecourse doctor. The use of saunas is not banned on health grounds, the B.H.A. has only banned their use at racecourses.
The obvious compromise is for saunas to be allowed to return to the racecourse but for individual jockeys to be given only limited access to them and that they must be seen to have consumed a small amount of water before leaving the weighing room to go to the parade ring. After all, racehorses are offered a small drink on arrival at the racecourse as they too cannot perform to their best ability if dehydrated.
Also, there is another way the heavier jockey can be accommodated or allowed a better standard of living – high-weight flat races, where no horse carries less than 9st 5Ibs, for example, with top-weight a stone more. I believe the sport should give all jockeys an opportunity to earn a living and high-weight races, as well as low-weight races for the lighter jockeys, are a way of spreading the love.
Tom Marquand seemingly has no need of a sauna. He, I believe, is more an advocate of ice-baths every morning. Whereas I am more an advocate of hot salt bathes, though that has more to do with medication of haemorrhoids than anything uplifting. He is, if anyone else has noticed, slowly but surely closing the gap on William Buick in the struggle to become champion jockey this season. As I am writing, though I haven’t checked yesterday’s results, he is only 9-winners in deficit and it would make a good narrative for the rest of the season if he could get upsides Buick and give us a good tussle for honours up to the premature and perfectly stupid conclusion to the title race in October on ‘Champions Day’. Either of them would be deserving champions, though for public acclaim and mention in the media, it would be better if Marquand’s other half stole the title from them.
I’m not going to agree with the public vote organised by the Racing Post to establish our favourite horse as too many people will vote for the same horses they voted for in the best horse of all-time, won appropriately by Arkle. The aspect of this vote that skews it from favourite horse to best horse is that we all loved Arkle, Desert Orchid, Red Rum, Frankel, etc. These horses, and others, are equine gods that will never be forgotten.
I voted for Spanish Steps because he was the horse that first took up residence in my heart. Others have followed but none have removed him from the throne of majesty, though Frodon, recently, has given him a nudge or two. If this poll had been undertaken in the 1930’s or late 20’s there would have only been one winner as Brown Jack was head and shoulders the best loved racehorse in the country. He had trains and public houses named in his honour. Different times, of course.
I just hope Spanish Steps earns a mention in dispatches.

​It just never goes away, does it? The truth is this: the B.H.A.’s history in dealing with the whip issue is so poor that it is time the matter was taken out of their hands. How that is achievable I have no idea? Yet surely, we have reached the stage when enough is more than enough. The whip debate needs to be silenced.
The problem that besets finding a solution is the divide between those who cannot see what the fuss is about and those who believe the whip and its place in horse racing may become the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I am in the latter category.
In days of yore, it is perceived that it was a free-for-all, with jockeys barging and boring without censure and any amount of whipping tolerated by stewards as ‘horses were only a beast of burden’. Yet Fred Archer in conversation with a friend easily admitted ‘that I have lost more races through the use of the whip than the whip ever helped me win.’
And the B.H.A. is right to be concerned about public perception of the whip. Yet it is unconcerned that banning jockeys for many weeks when found guilty of going beyond the set number of strikes might be reinforcing public perception that the sport is inherently cruel. To ban Jim Crowley, for instance, for 20-days will have him vilified by the ignorant critic of the sport as a ‘carpet beater’, when in fact he is the absolute opposite. If Jim Crowley had used his whip ten-times in the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, instead of nine-times, three above the limit, Hukum would have been disqualified, not on the day but three-days later. Would that be satisfactory?
The ignorant critic of our sport will doubtless go on social media and claim Jim Crowley was suspended for 20-days for whipping Hukum senseless in his selfish need to win at all costs, when in fact the 20-days was a combination of his ride on the day and a totting-up process that includes other, perhaps trivial, whip offences accrued over many months. When it comes to punishing jockeys, the B.H.A. would do better to look at the problem in a more rounded way. Jim Crowley’s ban looks bad for racing. Paula Muir’s 35-day ban was even worse. As is Kielan Wood’s off-the-wall suspension.
I remain fixed to my assertion that ‘1-strike and that’s it’ should be the rule. But if the racing industry as a whole is okay with 6-strikes, then I’ll go along with the consensus. The warning, though, is this: if the Labour Party were to win the General Election in 18-months, as the polls suggest, and they carry out their threat to legislate against the use of the whip in horse racing, the current debate becomes irrelevant. To this end I would suggest this: it would be a more proportionate penalty for jockeys found guilty of exceeding 6-strikes to be restricted to riding in races without the aid of using a whip in earnest. In effect, riding a finish using hands and heels only. If this was the rule on Saturday, Jim Crowley would still receive a £10,000 fine but would still be able to ride, though without the use of the whip for 20-days. I see this as a ‘happy’ compromise.
Also, in order to have real time data to hand for the day the B.H.A. might need to defend the use of the whip should a Labour Government legislate against use of the whip, a small number of races per week should be run on the flat restricting professional jockeys to riding ‘hands and heels’ as there are a number of such races for apprentices. The world line of travel on this issue is less use of the whip not more and the sport needs to ready itself for when the imposition is imposed on us.
Jockeys should not be allowed to drive the debate. They must be consulted and their views taken into consideration. The truth is though, that jockeys reliance on the whip, their belief that to be a good jockey they must be free to use the aid as they see fit, must be allied to scientific data that determines the whip is not the difference between losing and winning and might, if Fred Archer was correct, be the reason for defeat in a close finish. Flat jockeys like Dettori, Moore, Buick and Marquand prove day after day that winning is achievable without excess use of the whip.