​As it is with Matt Chapman, I am not good at diplomacy. But I hope his plea from the heart on today’s racing from Newmarket does not get him in hot water with his bosses. Anyone who cares for this sport, as Matt obviously does, must sympathise with his frustration that in public, at least, the B.H.A. and its stakeholders twiddle their thumbs and plough their own furrows, while as time passes, the sport we all love drifts ever closer to freefall.
I must admit I had fallen asleep by the time the interview with Mr. Delmonte of the Jockey Club was broadcast, though Richard Hoiles’ delight at the crumbs of comfort he apparently offered is very much in line with papering over the cracks. The Levy may get us through the six-months of soulless racing but what of the six-months that follow? There is no promise of spectators in March or April, is there? If the government don’t get their vaccine by the spring this nonsense might go on into summer and beyond.
Of course, Matt’s big faux-pas today was in claiming, rightly, as it happens, and full marks for his courage and honesty, that we all know Covid is not the reason the government is refusing to allow spectators into racecourses, while allowing lower league football grounds (I hope this remains the situation) to have spectators and having allowed 2,400 people to attend the World Snooker Final.
As I have commented before, the reason it benefits the government to have empty racecourses and football stadia is it re-enforces its strategy of spreading fear and stress to the viewing public – empty stands equals, in the programmed minds of the masses, the deadly nature of the virus, a virus official data confirms has gone away, of course. But when has true science played a part in what is being perpetrated on us all?
As I.T.V.’s anchor, the face of televised racing, Ed Chamberlain, who also obviously loves this sport and wants the best for it, his brief is to be measured in tone, he must ask the questions his interviewees, especially people of the ilk of Nick Rust, expect to be asked. He is the voice of reason, if you like. And when the plug was pulled on Doncaster recently, he was undeniably peeved. You could see and sense his frustration as he could not understand why, even though he trotted out the tired old line ‘public safety must be prioritised’, the sport was yet again stabbed in the back. 
In these blogs, against good judgement, I suspect, I rant and rave about the c-word situation. I do not sit on the fence with my views. I believe to the depths of my soul that we are being lied to by our government and to my relief more and more the general public are also questioning the official narrative. My nature would be to storm the barricades or at least, and I have fleetingly considered this, to chain myself to some relevant railings and go on hunger strike to show the public how uncaring the Johnson Gang really are. After all, as with every other country, remember 62% of Covid (of, with or involving) deaths in Ireland were in care homes, they sacrificed the elderly to boost the death toll in the early months of the Plandemic.
When Nick Rust claimed it was the B.H.A.’s good relations with government that allowed racing to be the first sport to return he was being disingenuous as at that stage the Johnson Gang were desperate to get as much money flowing into the Exchequer as they could and they really needed the betting duty. If we are not allowed spectators back in very short order, if whatever plan is cobbled together to present to government is given short shrift, I believe the B.H.A. should consider suspending race for a week, to put a stop to the betting duty, to give the sport a bit of leverage. It may be cutting off a nose to spite a face but desperate times require desperate measures.
Matt Chapman was correct to air his frustration and I applaud him whole-heartedly for his candour. If diplomacy and common-sense win us no favours then storming the barricades might be the only option left to us in our God-given right to save the sport from financial ruin.
One final note: as much as owners are vital, in the short term, if we are allowed the return of spectators, those who come through the turnstiles should be paying spectators. It will be small pickings for racecourses for however long a period this nonsense goes on for, they should be allowed to earn as much money as they can. Our racecourses must be given every opportunity to survive these turbulent times.

​I have no journalistic experience to fall back on in determining how busy a working life befalls an editor of a national newspaper. I suspect The Racing Post, though smaller in size to most of daily national newspapers in this country, does not carry a large workforce and Tom Lee, the present incumbent of the position, may undertake tasks editors at the Mail, Telegraph, Times etc would have underlings do on their behalf. So, I do not underestimate Tom Lee’s workload. But does that excuse him ignoring e-mail correspondence from his readers? Even his predecessor, Bruce Millington, once had an underling respond to an e-mail I sent asking how he might go about nominating Alastair Down for a knighthood. 
As anyone who occasionally finds their way onto this site well knows, I am as mad as hell at the way government restrictions are pushing this sport to the abyss. We are not alone in this, all sports in this country are in the same leaky boat. But horse racing is my sport; it is the central pivot of my life and I resent deeply its use by government for propaganda purposes and its need to fill empty corners of the exchequers coffers through betting duty.
17 racecourses did not survive the 2nd World War: Gatwick, Oswestry, Torquay, Quorn Hunt, Shirley Park, Derby, Bungay, Colwall Park, Bridgnorth, Wenlock, Hethersett, Glamorgan Hunt, Pershore, Cardiff, Tarporley, Hawthorn Hill, Melton Hunt and in 1948, Newport.
It is true that the sport today could not support as high a number of racecourses this country could once boast, and if this present crisis, Boris’s war, is not met with similar government hand-outs that the arts have received, the sport will not be able to support a dozen or more of our present racecourses. Whether we can afford to lose a single racecourse without losing vital regional and rural adherents I rather doubt.
My rather anguished e-mails to Tom Lee were grounded in my fears for both the future of horse racing in light of having no spectators bringing revenue to racecourses due to unnecessary and brutal government restrictions and the future of The Racing Post, the racing industry newspaper.
I suggested the time was ripe for the Post to stop merely reporting on government restrictions and to head a campaign to defend our sport, to send a message to government that the sport’s acquiescence does not come with a lifetime guarantee. I sent Tom Lee a link (https://youtu.be/8UvFhIFzaac ) to an unbiased health expert who provided graphs and charts from official sources clearly demonstrating that the virus was a dead parrot and that far from being a novel virus Covid-19 had behaved in the exact same manner as all virus and flu outbreaks that had preceded it right back to the infamous 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. No criticism of government, no conspiracy theory, no personal opinion; just pure science. In case the Post had a policy of not downloading links sent in e-mails, I also gave the description of the blog.
I suggested he watched the video, verified its content, even perhaps interview Ivor Cummins (he’s Irish, living in Ireland) to seek out his opinion as to whether having spectators at British and Irish racecourses presented much of a health risk. I also suggested he ask one of his columnists to check out the video and write a measured response to the science and ask readers if they considered the restrictions imposed on racegoers was appropriate given they flew in the face of the scientific data.
Thus far, I have gone unanswered and the Post’s tone has not changed one iota.
I expressed the view to Tom Lee that ‘no or few spectators’ would extend to Christmas. I was wrong, of course. They will extend to Easter. I suspect that unless the Johnson Gang are removed from office in the foreseeable future there will be no spectators at the 2021 Derby, especially if their completely unnecessary elixir of life continues to make ill the trialists putting their life on the line in the name of corrupt science. The trials are presently suspended in the U.S. as two female volunteers have developed inflammation of the spinal cord.
I want to write about horse racing. I do not want to be railroaded by fear and distrust of my government into writing about the C-word. We are being held at needlepoint by a scandalous preoccupation with testing. Testing is the problem, not the solution. If we had tested people last winter or any preceding winter, they would have found large numbers of positive cases because coronavirus is likely to be found in between 50 and 80% of the population. If you have a cold you will test positive for coronavirus. Are you a danger to the public, do your symptoms demand you self-isolate (like the fit and well Shane Cross) for ten to fourteen-days? All of this nonsense to prevent the fit and healthy getting the sniffles!
If The Racing Post will not put its head above the parapet in support and defence of our sport, who will?

​Chris Pitt writes the books I wish I could write. ‘A Long Time Gone’, a comprehensive record of lost and sometimes forgotten British racecourses, sadly it is a number that the government restrictions of present times that could easily be added to over the next twelve-months, is a book that should be on every racing enthusiasts book shelves. ‘Go Down To The Beaten’, a book dedicated to owners and jockeys that took part in but did not win a Grand National, though oddly the author finished the book with a short chapter on A.P.McCoy and his victory in 2010, is the sort of off-centre book that both appeals to me as a reader but also the like of which I could see myself writing one day in the future, if I could ever get round to the research.
So, I admire Chris Pitt, that is now clear.
‘Fearless’, his latest offering is more mainstream that the two books already mentioned, though in his inimitable manner he has produced a book that is both professional in its adherence to research and fact but also slightly hobbyist in the telling of Tim Brookshaw’s life story. 
Tim Brookshaw’s career as a jockey was in the main before I became aware of the sport. His career came to a juddering halt in 1963, with his final winner coming in December of that year. Looking through the list of his winners, he rode 555 in total, there are a few horses I vaguely recall, Blue Rondo, Joss Merlyn, Mariner’s Delight and Eternal to name but 4. His big three were Happy Spring, one of the few horses to finish in front of Arkle, Mill House, the best horse he ever rode, winning at Cheltenham in 1962 when the future Gold Cup winner was trained by Les Dale, and of course Wyndburgh, the horse he rode to finish second in the 1959 Grand National when from Becher’s second-time round he rode without irons and even then thought he would have won if the race had been half-a-furlong further. It is generally considered the greatest fete of horsemanship seen on a British racecourse.
It is obvious Tim Brookshaw was cut from a different cloth to you or me or even his fellow jockeys. He was admired by his peers, especially those at the top end of the sport. Surprisingly he was better liked and appreciated by the public than he was by his family and equally surprisingly his family are blunt and to the point when describing their relationships with him. A man who would sometimes go the extra mile to help someone, he was also capable of brawling with his brother over what as observers would consider quite trivial matters.
Yet his immediate family, especially his stepson, asked Chris Pitt to write Brookshaw’s biography, believing him deserving of the honour. Indeed, if you recall the meat and drink of his life-story, breaking his back and being told he would never walk again, only to prove medical science wrong by not only walking but riding again, and not only riding but schooling and riding work, it thus far has been one of racing’s great literary omissions that no one has written a biography of him.
Whether after reading ‘Fearless’ you think him, as a man, worthy of the honour will depend on whether you can get a psychological grip on his character. To my interpretation, he was as down-to-earth as any man can get, a spade was never a shovel to him, and when he considered himself right about a subject no other argument would persuade him otherwise. Like many before him, he seemed to have a greater affinity with horses than humans, especially family. Yet at the same time he did not seem troubled by ego or bigheadedness.
He died of pneumonia in 1981, he was only 52. I think he would have wanted to die on that Sunday in November as shockingly, almost mockingly, after being able to defeat medical science by both walking and riding again after breaking his back, a fall from a horse at home had resulted in two broken bones in his neck, rendering him, once again, paralysed. 
‘Fearless. The Tim Brookshaw Story’ by Chris Pitt, can be bought from the Injured Jockeys Fund, priced £14.95. It is a soft-back, so is annoying to read as the book keeps wanting to close but for all of that I recommend it to all racing enthusiasts.

​The news that horse racing in Ireland will be restricted to a maximum of 500 spectators until the spring at the earliest is cause for concern for everyone in Ireland and in Great Britain. What is especially concerning, at least to me, is that Ireland is famous the world over for its production of thoroughbreds, being home to studs of world renown. The thoroughbred industry in Ireland must be a source of great revenue for the Irish exchequer yet there seems no will amongst its politicians to protect either the sport of horse racing or those employed in the breeding industry. It is also a clear indication that ‘they’ intend to keep the scam going until they have found their golden vaccine, the next stage in the agenda that ultimately will lead to top-down governance and population control.
As with our own government, within the ‘clarity’ there is a fog of hope in that certain sporting events, given the size of the sporting arena, that on occasion numbers may be extended beyond 500, though as the Irish government has thus far in the Plandemic not given racecourses so much as an inch of charity, I suspect that as we go through winter all Irish racing fans can look forward to is disappointment followed by false hope.
While I understand how unfair it is on owners that they are yet to be allowed to watch their horses run in person in Ireland and how frustrating it must be for them, I believe it is more important in the first instance that Irish racecourses survive the tyranny of Covid and suggest that 500 paying spectators offers better hope of keeping racecourses afloat than owners being apart of that 500. Racing fans should also be prepared to pay a little extra on the price of admission, after all, we are all in this together.
The racing authorities in both Britain and Ireland are not fighting hard enough to protect our sport. Back in August 2,400 people attended the World Snooker final at what is quite a small venue in Sheffield. Although there was anti-social distancing, no one seemed to be wearing a mask, yet there was no ‘spike’ in infection rates attributed to the snooker. People ascending en-masse to the beaches of this country, mass rallies against the lockdown restrictions and Black Lives Matters marches also did not cause any spikes. All evidence that thousands of people in close proximity to one another does not automatically spread infection. Oh, and here is an opportune moment to recommend anyone reading this blog click on the following link for up-to-date information on where we are in Europe and the U.S. with the coronavirus. Hint, hint, it is already too late to pay our goodbyes, it is almost out-of-sight. https://youtu.be/8UvFhIFzaac

To follow-up on a previous blog. I have joined the David Pipe Racing Club and proudly display my badge of allegiance on my favourite body-warmer. For my £250, yes I went for the Gold Standard membership, I have thus far received several videos uploaded by David’s mum of To Fly Free and Airton breezing up the Pond House gallops and invitations to a stable visit that in short order were rescinded due to Boris the Bastard restricting social gatherings to six. When you have visited the video, I recommended you will be asking why, bloody hell why? Night curfews might yet be an additional option in the ceaseless pursuit of a shadowy enemy that like Monty Python’s dead parrot is gone to ply its horrors in the vestibules. It is a deceased virus!
I digress. I do not regret my gift to myself. Indeed, further down the line I might join another trainer’s racing club. (Any invitations?) I only wish I could contribute financially to a greater extent to help the sport survive. If I won many millions on the Lotto, I can assure everyone I would either donate money to prize money or buy several horses. It will depend on how much I win and how helpful the B.H.A. are when I stipulate how and where I want my donation to go.
More so than ever, the sport needs the little man to man the barricades. I ask every reader of this blog with a few hundred quid to spare to join a racing club, to do your bit to ensure the sport survives this crushing blow to its finances. In fact, racing’s stakeholders should be actively promoting the concept of micro ownership, syndicates comprising thousands of members owning a few hairs of a horse’s tail. It might be going too far to suggest the concept is the saviour of racing in Australia but it certainly has had a major effect on racecourse attendance and the interest of the general public. In the U.S., this year’s Kentucky Derby winner is similarly owned. It is a concept that over here and in Ireland, I imagine, is not being fully exploited. The £250 I paid for my racing club membership could easily in the future allow me a few hairs in a horse running in the Derby or Cheltenham Gold Cup.

​The ‘power hour’ hit the spot, didn’t it? I would say Saturday’s racing from Doncaster and Leopardstown was as good a day’s flat racing as my memory will allow me to remember. It’s all very well fancy pants racing journalists categorising this year’s St. Leger as ‘not top-class’ – whenever is it? – but as a horse race you would have to walk many a mile to find something better, at least where no obstacles are involved.
To start with the ‘Leger’. I am sick to death hearing jockeys and trainers taking defeat with the hackneyed phrase ‘didn’t stay’. Well, Martin Dwyer, and, yes, you were the one on top and perhaps in a better position than any of us to comment, but I suspect you are in a minority of one with your opinion. When a horse is beaten a length and a neck, and as described in the Racing Post, ‘kept on final 110-yards’, the evidence suggests Pyledriver did get the trip, though perhaps not quite as well as the first two. I have no doubt he was the best horse in the race and the one to follow for next season.
Though circumstances counted against Dwyer, in so much as he found himself treading a lonely path after Hukum took his ground, the two factors that got Pyledriver beat, and I do think he should have won, was the swerve between the final two furlongs and Dwyer’s decision to stay where he was rather than track across to where the race was developing. Jockey error? Easy to say when mounted on a settee in front of the t.v., I know, but his ‘See, I was right. He should have come down in trip not up’, after the race, was disingenuous and I hope after sleeping on it he will present his father-in-law with a more honest assessment of what went awry.
I am afraid I cannot be as diplomatic as Kevin Blake on the Shane Cross affair. It is a bloody scandal that a young sportsman can be denied the right to earn a living for a fortnight due to a failing a flawed coronavirus test. He is a young man who is 100% fit, for pities sake, he has ridden for months on end, has no symptoms and is not ill. There is no evidence that someone with no symptoms can spread infection, mainly because they have no live virus to spread. It’s dead virus they are finding, folks. Do your research and then decide whether to be diplomatic on the subject.
I take no pleasure in Ghaiyyath’s defeat, though it proves, at least to my satisfaction, that ratings are bollocks, especially world ratings. Ghaiyyath’s an admirable horse; he has been brilliantly cared-for and trained by Charlie Applelby, someone who only grows in my admiration, and ridden to perfection by William Buick. A free running horse is a beautiful image and Ghaiyyath has the looks to go with the beauty. He was beaten in the Irish Champions Stakes not necessarily by a better horse, as wonderful a mare as Magical undoubtedly is, but by tactics, tactics that from now on might always be Ghaiyyath’s Achilles Heel. 
How any horse, at present, can be considered better than Enable, the winner of 2 Arcs, 2 King Georges and so on and so on, is beyond me. Yes, Ghaiyyath beat her in the Eclipse but she trounced him in the Arc last season. Enable wasn’t fit at Sandown and Ghaiyyath was not at his best at Longchamp. Two reasonable excuses for defeat.
Ratings for Group horses should not be reassessed until the end of the season when all the data is available for a fair and frank assessment. Ghaiyyath beat a stayer having his first run of the season in the Coronation Cup, an unfit Enable in the Eclipse and the York race was as weak a Group 1 as will be run in this country this season.
Ghaiyyath is a horse anyone would be proud to own and in time he is going to make a super stallion, and he might yet prove me wrong and go and win the Arc or a Breeders Cup and outshine Enable once and for all. I just don’t think he has achieved the honour of ‘best horse in the world’ so far. Ratings are mere opinion. They should only be official at the end of the season when all the form is there for consideration.
A great weekend, of course, for the O’Brien family, and though number one and number two son threatened to outperform the old man, I suspect Aidan is in for a great end to the campaign. I thought Armory looked a good prospect in the Irish Champion Stakes, finishing off his race with alacrity. Tiger Moth was an easy winner of the Group 3. Mogul came good at Longchamp, as well as Serpentine pleasing his trainer, with talk of the Arc next. Can he do at Longchamp what he did at Epsom? And even his ‘poor’ Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck returned to winning ways and I doubt if any of us saw that coming.
Oh, I should mention that in my last piece I predicted that Tom Marquand had a big day coming to him. Yes, it wasn’t English King, though I didn’t suggest English King would win the Leger but I boldly predicted that the gods were going to shine on him. Great jockey and seemingly an even better human being. Holly is a lucky girl.

​First, I must apologise for what is to come.
To a degree, and by now only to a degree, I appreciate, sympathize and understand the predicament that is belabouring the B.H.A., racecourses and all human-life in general. Even though statistics do not corroborate the necessity for the extreme measures imposed on racing and racecourses, no one, at least publicly, at the B.H.A. are seemingly engaging government in any sort of skirmish and are rather just accepting the tiger-traps and hoop-la as inevitable in the circumstances. This ‘pandemic’, this Covid-crisis, has thus far produced less related deaths than the seasonal flu-outbreak of 2017/18, a virus that was not politized and was contained without ruining the economy, making millions unemployed, did not cut-off treatment and diagnosis of heart, kidney and cancer sufferers and did not cause the abandonment of the Grand National, muzzled jockeys in masks and separated spectators from racecourses, football grounds and all sporting arenas. 
From the outset of the ‘little big reset’ – I would explain that particular reference but it would take-up too many words but believe me in time ‘The Big Reset’ will enter your consciousness – horse racing has been used by government for propaganda purposes and for the betting duty it so desperately needs to help refill the empty state coffers. If I was head honcho at the B.H.A., to get a bit of leverage off the government, I would threaten to suspend racing for a week unless spectators, perhaps in half and quarter doses, were allowed back into racecourses.
I am an aging male, getting older and more fraught by the day, seemingly watching the sport I love being led to hell in a handcart. Masks were to be worn to slow the spread – well, if you believe the ‘case’ numbers that ain’t happening. What is happening is that ‘the tests’ are catching dead viruses that have lingered in bodies affected in the past by one of the seasonal flu outbreaks or from the common cold. The test is not to detect Covid but the coronavirus and most flu strains and the common cold are all part of the coronavirus family.
I detect, especially after the Doncaster ‘trial’ was pulled at the last minute, a tactic used for Goodwood, if you remember, that even the mild-mannered, state asset, that is Ed Chamberlain is getting peeved by it all. I even denote a weakening of resolve to stay on song by Racing Post columnists and the Daily Telegraph is more and more questioning the inconsistent direction our government is taking.
Will someone just pop their heads over the parapet and take a lead? Our sport is in jeopardy, as are most sports, and yet in typically British style we are allowing Boris and his boys to lead us by the nose to the cliff-face. The situation as it stands holds the likelihood of being the situation come Christmas, come Easter. It is a chilling prospect.

When Hukum won the Geoffrey Freer at Newbury, my instinct told me I had just seen the St. Leger winner. But then I was impressed by Pyledriver’s win at York, and he certainly beat better horses than Hukum. There is no doubt I want Pyledriver to win and if he turns up in the same form and frame of mind as he did at Ascot and York there is no reason why he shouldn’t give William Muir his first classic winner.
Do I think it is a two-horse race? No. There is English King to consider. What goes against him is that his rider Tom Marquand is attempting to break the record for the most second-places in a week. This past 7-days it has seemed as if Tom was making charitable donations to Oisin Murphy’s championship challenge. The girlfriend rides eight-winners in a weekend and the boyfriend counters with as many runners-up spots.
Bad runs change, though, and there is a big day coming for Tom Marquand. Too little, too late, to put the frighteners on Murphy but mark my words Marquand is due a good day or three and English King might be the centrepiece.
For once, and this a dangerous thing to say, I do not fear any of the O’Brien runners, including Galileo Chrome for the number one son. I will stick with my instinct and go with Hukum to win as I think he is the big improver in the race but expect English King to bustle him up. But my heart wants Pyledriver to win, not only for his trainer and jockey but when owners turn down offers of a million-quid or more they deserve to come out on top.

​In Edward Hide’s very fine autobiography, ‘Nothing To Hide’, the final chapter is titled ‘Reflections’ where he indulges himself in looking back at what he considers has improved during the length of a career that began in 1950 and the niggles that remained upon his retirement. I don’t know how much influence Mike Cattermole had with the writing of this book, whether Edward Hide told his story to Cattermole over a bottle of wine in front of a roaring fire, who then went to his typewriter in his cold attic abode and assembled and distributed his words into a flowing narrative or if Hide wrote the manuscript and Cattermole merely ensured the punctuation, spelling and grammar was up to speed? Whatever, ‘Nothing To Hide’ is a jolly good book.
Hide began by reflecting that the Jockey Club, they were still racing’s overlords back in 1989, should consider raising the minimum weight for races to take into account that boys were coming into stables much heavier than in his time. As he said, ‘since the welfare state came into being and the supply of skinny, under-nourished boys from deprived areas thankfully began to dry up, it has become harder to find true lightweight jockeys.’ Blessed with such insight and wisdom it was nothing short of reckless and insular that when the Jockey Club had the opportunity to employ Hide they chose to turn him away. Sadly, though not to the same extent, the same happens today, with jockeys and trainers of wisdom and practical experience allowed to retire without anyone in authority thinking that they may have knowledge that the sport might benefit from. 
Given the upset caused by the B.H.A. decision to change how apprentice jockeys are to be paid, with trainers losing their 50%, Hide was ahead of his time when he reflected that the abolition of the old-fashioned indenture system of apprenticeship was a cause of regret. As he put it, ‘Some people seem to think that training an apprentice is just a matter of giving him the odd ride now and then on one of the stable’s no-hopers. Nothing could be further from the truth’.
The fly-in-the-ointment here, with this debate, is that there is right on both sides of the argument. It is wrong that the majority of the fee paid to an apprentice to ride in a race should go to the trainer who employs him or her. But equally it is wrong that a trainer can teach someone to ride work and race-ride over a period of several years and then see his diligence come to nothing when the apprentice decides his particular pasture is better on the other side of the hill.
Personally, I would do away with the whole apprentice concept and not allow anyone to ride in a race until they reached the age of eighteen and then I would describe them as ‘conditional’, as inexperienced jockeys over jumps are called. An apprentice in a racing stable should be an apprentice stableman, someone being trained to look after racehorses. If this change was to come into force applicants for apprenticeships would not need to have the build of a Victorian chimney sweep, allowing young men and women of a sturdier build a career in the sport. 
I admit that I have often changed my opinion on this subject and now more understand the perspective of trainers like Andrew Balding. If the boys and girls who come into the sport with the ambition of becoming jockeys, who are sincerely taught by their employer to a standard where they are the equal of his work-riders, I now see no objection, in their first full season as ‘conditional jockeys’, to have 50% of their fees go their employer, with a sliding scale over succeeding years and the diminution of their riding allowance. 
Trainers who employ young men and women with the ambition to race-ride are supplying the sport with generation after generation of jockeys and there needs to be an incentive for them to carry on this vitally important element of the sport. In jump racing jockeys can come from the point-to-point field or from the pool of jockeys who get too heavy to ride on the flat. Generally speaking, though there are always exceptions to the rule, flat jockeys come from the stables of trainers prepared to encourage and train them up to something close to jockey standard. They need to race ride to learn the actual craft of jockeyship. 
The world in which we live-in, a world we all might like to change but cannot, there is no longer a large reservoir of undernourished boys and girls capable of riding at even 8-stone. I am of the opinion that we need highly trained stableman (grooms if you like) every bit as much as we need young jockeys to make their way through the grades to take the place of their elders as they retire. The apprentice stableman seems to have gone out of favour; yet in teaching someone how to properly care for a horse that person is being taught skills that could stand them in good stead for the rest of their working life.

​I was tempted and I succumbed. I am now a gold member of the David Pipe Racing Club. It is my gift to myself. I assured myself we live in troubling times and that we all need some sort of comfort to make life worth living otherwise this Covid-nonsense will make one-way journeys to cliff-edges just as tempting as joining racing clubs or even shady massage parlours or to go for a swim in the ocean on the off-chance of discovering the whereabouts of Flight MH370.
I am now privy to inside information on six racehorses; how well they are bombing up and down the gallops, if they are eating their greens like good children and whether they are opposed to the word soft under their racing plates. I have already viewed a video of one the horses who should have run this weekend but didn’t, from which I can tell you she looked very shiny.
The current David Pipe Racing Club squad are: Great Tempo, a six-year-old gelding that I am assured is capable of winning again. Dusky Hercules, a 5-year-old yet to be exposed and a half-brother on his mum’s side of the family to a Cheltenham Festival winner. Little Red Lion, which to the French would be Vieux Lion Rouge (I took a punt there, as I don’t speak a word of French – I took French at school but have successfully forgotten every word, feeling so much better for it – my translation may not be quite accurate) who is a nice staying handicap hurdler to look forward to. Let’s hope I don’t look back in twelve months and wonder what there was to look forward to. Airton, a gelding that won on debut for David and reading between the lines has verged on disappointing ever since. Perhaps they should give Bryony a go on him. Just a suggestion and no reflection on the ability of Tom or any of the Nicholashayne jockeys. Queen Adelaide, a mare (I know that is obvious by the name but Harry Fry has a gelding called Acting Lass) who ran with credit on her two runs last season. Already she is the one I like the most. To Fly Free, the shiny one I referred to earlier, who was bought in France over the summer and has already brought a certain about of pleasure to her trainer when finishing in the money at beautiful Cartmel and functional Market Rasen.
Do not expect me to pass on any inside information on any of these horses as stable confidentiality must be maintained at all times. If you want to be privy to the ups and downs of these six horses, and the four that in time, if the membership grows, will make up the entire squad, join the club. It costs literally pennies a day for a full-year of stable visits, racecourse badges and a button in the black and white colours of the club. And, I suspect, much, much more. Unlike Martin, whose winners always started odds-on, David occasionally has long-priced winners and a tenner on one of those will pay for Gold membership in one swoop at the local betting shop.
Given I got myself into this … No, not mess, that would be disingenuous, on this journey by informing Martin about a two-year-old in training called Blowing Wind, the horse that should have been A.P.’s first Grand National winner, and how annoyed I get seeing the names of horses who have entered the public consciousness being replicated when the English language is as vast as the stars in the Milky Way and possible names are as vast as the stars in the entire universe if you add all the languages of the world, plus dialects and words that can be joined to make a name, Great and Tempo, to give an example, plus names you can make-up, Multio, Cantango, Scudapipe, etc, though not Pipescud, that would be a terrible name for a horse, but you get my drift. Get My Drift, see how easy it is to make up an acceptable name.
I left my point behind. I do that. I am getting old, you see. Do you remember when your mum said ‘you would forget your head if it wasn’t screwed-on? Well, it’s only a matter of time. That and forgetting where I live. And when I get arrested, my name, no doubt. Oh, yes, I am sure the Pipes will be relieved that I approve of the names of all six horses that are central to the racing club experience.
For anyone who is already a member of the club or own whole bits or part-bits of a horse trained by David Pipe you will be relieved or saddened to know that it is unlikely I will make your acquaintance any time soon due to my abhorrence of Covid restrictions, protocols and the very idea that anyone might think I am collaborating with the needless corruption of society and a world agenda (hence my reference to arrest) – No. Two different subjects and I must refrain from conjoining them. But really, it’s not social distancing but anti-social distancing and if anti-social distancing works to keep this virus (which has said au revoir and gone hunting elsewhere on the planet) why must everyone on a racecourse need to wear an ill-fitting mask? Why? Just ask yourself why? Why? Answers, please. 

​In Edward Hide’s excellent autobiography, written with the assistance of Mike Cattermole, in the chapter ‘Waterloo’, the filly on which he won the 1971 1,000 Guineas, he writes ‘I had no objection to allowing women to ride: I thought it was only fair that if boys were given the chance then so should girls. However, I always felt they were fighting an uphill battle. Even if some girls might be physically strong enough to compete on equal terms with men, and this I doubt, the prejudice of owners and trainers against female jockeys means that most would be extremely lucky ever to have enough experience of race-riding to be much good at it.’
Of course, it is rather unfair to quote someone writing in 1989 as so much of life has altered in the intervening years. And I doubt if Edward Hide was being in anyway sexist in his belief. But it does demonstrate how times change, and when I read that particular chapter on the evening after Hollie Doyle had ridden five winners at Windsor, I wondered if he had changed his opinion since his retirement. And she went on to ride a further 3 winners at Yarmouth the next day, as if to rub it in. If boyfriend Tom had ridden those eight winners the title race would have got rather more interesting.
And she is now retained to ride the horses of Imad Al Sagor, the owner/breeder of Authorize, Frankie Dettori’s first Derby winner. Something that would have been unthinkable in Hide’s day. As, no doubt, would Hayley Turner riding 2 Group I winners and Josephine Gordon being champion apprentice. And then there is Blackmore, Frost and Kelly, to name but three successful females.
‘Nothing To Hide’ is one of those books that catches the reader by surprise, at least it caught me by surprise as I had no expectations of it. I learnt from the book, it added to my reservoir (admittedly my rather leaky reservoir, these days) of racing knowledge. ‘Nothing To Hide’ is not simply a canter through the author’s big race wins.
In the first chapter, a pleasant escape from opening chapters that begin with date and place of birth (that comes in chapter 2 in this book) Hide starts with ‘To enter the doors of 42 Portman Square, London, the headquarters of the Jockey Club, can be a nerve-wracking experience’. My first thought was a disciplinary hearing that changed his life, not that I could remember any controversy during his highly successful riding career. I think he remains the ninth or tenth most successful flat jockey in British racing history.
But no, although the event he described was in some other way both life-defining and illuminating. He was being interviewed for the vacant position of Stewards’ Secretary. He passed the first interview and had three challengers when it came to the second interview. Oddly, though we are taking about The Jockey Club, known for little else but their ‘jobs for the boys’ policy, the advertisement Hide had read and said quite markedly ‘no racing experience necessary’, which should have given Hide a clue to how the Jockey Club were thinking.
Also interviewed that day for the position of Stewards Secretary were former trainer Tony Gillam, former National Hunt amateur rider Jeremy Speid-Soote and Terence Brennan, a former household cavalry officer. On the day all four applicants were unsuccessful, though the panel had second thoughts a few days later and gave the job to the former household cavalry officer, who if Ladbrokes had opened a market on the outcome, given The Jockey Club’s track record, would have been a warm-order favourite to be first passed the jam-stick.
If I have one complaint about this book, and this a general complaint not specific to ‘Nothing To Hide’, is that the narrative is not sequential, it jumps around, which for the night-time reader can be a little confusing. But overall, I can give it my wholehearted recommendation as Hide’s personality is on most of the pages and, as he demonstrated with his thoughts on female jockeys, he is not shy at giving forth with his views.
Edward Hide, I am sure he was ‘Eddie Hide’ during his career, and his generation of jockeys, he started in 1950, were the link between the ‘old era’, the era of Pathe Newsreels, of Gordon Richards, Joe Sime, Edgar Britt, Harry Carr, etc, and the new age of Steve Cauthen, Pat Eddery, Joe Mercer, Willie Carson, etc. The number of winners he rode 2,591, Cock of the North 17-times and flat jockey of the year in 1972, determines he was the equal of the very best who rode with and against him. He is now 83 and as far as I am aware still in the land of the living and I hope both of us live to see the day when a female is champion jockey. It’s only a matter of time, surely.

​I am tempted to join the David Pipe Racing Club. I mean really tempted. I am getting on a bit now and the odds of me ever having the money to buy a horse of my own are far longer than any odds a bookmaker would chalk-up for this Covid nonsense to be over by Christmas.
Why the David Pipe Racing Club, you may ask when there are so many other racing clubs. Membership only costs £100 for 12-months starting the date of joining. That works out at £2 per week. I would only need to not to buy the Racing Post on a Saturday and I would be £1.50 a week better off. Looking at it like that, it’s a no brainer, isn’t it?
Of course, I am commitment-phobic, parsimonious and social awkward (even at this advanced age) to the point of being uncongenial and introverted. And I would be in awe of Martin Pipe, one of the truly great men of our sport. Lesser of David, of course, even though he will tower over me. And Tom is a Scudamore, another of the great dynasties of the sport. Talk about walking amongst giants.
For your hundred-quid you get gewgaws like pin badges, the chance of race-day owner’s badge, regular training updates (just like a real owner) videos and information on club runners, with nothing more to pay. And, of course, the big incentive, stable visits.
But I know me. Patting the neck of a horse wouldn’t be enough. I would feel guilty that the Pipe workforce would be doing all the work and for my miserly hundred-quid I get to stand and watch, no doubt asking stupid questions and generally getting in the way. I am still physically able. I would want to help, if only to muck out or sweep the yard. For their sake, it’s good that Wellington is a far distance from Bideford, even if Somerset and Devon are neighbouring counties.
Why this sudden temptation to join a racing club, something I said I would never do as nothing short of actual ownership of a horse would satisfy me? And why do I know so much about the David Pipe Racing Club?
It’s like this. I abhor the re-use of names of horses that through their endeavours on the racecourse have penetrated the consciousness of the racing public. The B.H.A. do not get this. I suspect they never will. When, a few years back, I noticed Coolmore had named a two-year-old Spanish Steps, after they did not acknowledge my letter of complaint, I actually seriously considered going over to Ireland to camp outside Ballydoyle with a placard and a large flask of tea. I wouldn’t have lasted an hour and a half and no doubt I would have been driven back to the airport or the local looney house by the Guarda. But I would have registered my displeasure. I put a hex on Coolmore horses so the last laugh is on me. Think how many Group 1’s and classics would have been trained at Ballydoyle if it wasn’t for my curse upon them?
The O’Brien family, though, are too damn decent to have to live with English curses so I have relented and simply hope the O’Brien boys have very few children between them as there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
But to return to the point. There is a two-year-old around at the moment called Blowing Wind. Now, for heaven’s sake, what does a horse have to do to have its name die with it. You would have thought a horse so associated with the names of Pipe and McCoy would get a little more respect. The horse, as the fashionable saying goes, danced all the dances, won a hatful of races and ran with honour and distinction in many a Grand National. Not a truly great horse but a horse who provided the racing enthusiast with great memories.
I have ‘campaigned’ on this subject for years. This website is dotted with articles on the subject. All I have to do to get contacts is to write about Spanish Steps and I receive a chorus of agreement with my thoughts. So, I wrote to Martin Pipe to bring this new Blowing Wind to his attention and ask if he could lend weight to my lacklustre ‘campaign’. Last week he telephoned me. It was good that he didn’t knock on the front door otherwise I might have knelt before him. As it was, it was rather difficult to know what to say or how to say it. I’m not good on the phone, much preferring the anti-social distancing of e-mails as they allow me time to gather my thoughts and to chase around my head, the dictionary and thesaurus, the best words to express myself. My brain, these days, often ‘goes down’ like the internet and I find myself looking depressingly at times to come.
And then in the post, I received a package of information on the naming of horses, how to go about naming a horse, a list of the 3,200-odd names that are preserved for posterity. (I know have to go through the list on the dedicated page on this website of random names I have dreamt-up or have come across (it has become an obsession) for any owner having trouble naming a horse can use, to ensure none of them are on the official preserved list. Why didn’t I start by having alphabetical lists?
The name Spanish Steps is still not on the preserved list. I feel another e-mail to the B.H.A. is warranted.
Martin also included in the package details of his son’s racing club. Always sharp as a pin, isn’t he? I have the form here, by my side. My cheque book is the draw. I only have to find it, make out a cheque to the David Pipe Racing Club and I will part of the racing family. I’ve just noticed that for £250 I will receive Gold level membership which includes guaranteed Owner’s badges when the club has a runner. I wonder if for £250 David would let me muck out and sweep the yard. You know, really be part of the racing industry. At least I would be supporting the sport in the hour of its greatest need, wouldn’t I?
And I would have a subject to write about. And my fellow members would get to know about horseracingmatters. I might even meet a friend? It’s lonely sometimes when you are anti-social and downright parsimonious. 
£250 is not even a month’s pension. No-brainer, isn’t it?