​I find it alarming when certain journalists make the proposal that the easiest way to cut the race programme and save money would be to cut summer jumping. Not all criticism of the summer jumping programme is without merit, though, that I will freely admit. For the most part, through the summer there is a lack of competitive races and that is the aspect of the dilemma that needs to be addressed.
Back in the days of my youth, the National Hunt season began in August and finished at the end of May, with a complete break in June, July and part of August. Of course, this fallow period, though it gave staff, jockeys and trainers time for holidays, meant no income, a state of affairs that made it ever harder for the smaller trainers to make ends meet. Summer jumping was established to fill this gap; in part to allow the smaller trainers a greater opportunity to train winners while the bigger stables were out of the picture. This, sadly, is no longer the situation as Henderson, Nicholls and O’Brien, with Gordon Elliott coming over from Ireland to farm races at the Scottish tracks, plundering a high percentage of the low-key races that through the main part of the season they might not bother with.
And let’s not make out that back in the day when National Hunt resumed after the summer lay-off at Newton Abbot, Devon & Exeter (as Exeter was known back then) and, before my time, Buckfastleigh, the racing was ultra-competitive because if anything it was often less so. There was no watering back in the fifties and sixties and without rain meetings were held on ground described as ‘hard’, something that would not be allowed now. And because of the hard ground many meetings would take place with six-races drawing less than thirty runners between them. On many occasions no race would have more than four-runners.
The problem with the National Hunt summer jumping programme is the lack of structure, coupled with the season proper ending at the end of April to accommodate the handing out of jockeys’ trophies at Sandown, a wholly great idea on the day A.P. McCoy retired but rather pointless, I feel, today, when the day after the end of the season National Hunt continues without any meaningful break.
Personally, I would prefer to go back to something similar to what went before, with a definite start-date to the new season. I would have the season extending between August and June, beginning with a Devon Festival and ending with the Summer Plate at Market Rasen, with no jump racing throughout July.
Yes, that would mean racecourses that rely on summer racing losing the prime month for evening racing and that would be unfair on Worcester and Newton Abbott in particular, though both these racecourses could be given priority in June and August. Uttoxeter would also have to find a new date for the Summer National but again that could be staged after my proposed Devon Festival.
That’s my thoughts on that chestnut.

Alan Sweetman in the Racing Post this week made his thoughts known about the upgrading of the Irish Cesarewitch to the value of 600,000 euros. His predictions when this was announced at the start of the season were profound with the race dominated by the three trainers who dominate Irish racing from January through to December.
That does not make the upgrade wrong, though. Ireland needed an ‘Ebor’ type handicap and the Cesarewitch fits the bill to a tee. The mistake was two-fold. First, with a reserve list above 70, why not a ‘silver Cesarewitch? This would have at least given the smaller trainer a second crack of the whip. And why not a race to the value of the old Irish Cesarewitch, to attract the grade of horse that in previous years would have run in the race, on either day of Irish Champions Day, as a sort of trial for the big race three-weeks later? 
My proposal might or might not have sweetened Alan Sweetman’s tone but it would have evened the playing-field for everyone.
That’s my thought on the Irish chestnut.

​It is to be applauded that after a prolonged period of sitting on their hands, the tripartite group that hold all the decision-making choices for the sport have agreed to thrash-out ‘a radical plan’ to sort out the crisis their intransigence has created. Though given the history of the three-way governance structure that has hamstrung the sport for decades it is hard to be optimistic that they will substantially agree on any of the sticking points and form the radical plan the sport is desperately requires.. The B.H.A. have promised the ‘radical plan’ will be published and put out for public debate in the spring of 2023, with the final agreement in place for 2024. I realise the horse racing industry is a big beast to manoeuvre but I would have hoped the B.H.A. might have imposed a hurry-up given the precarious state many sectors of the sport are in.
If it is decided that the B.H.A. must have control of the sport and that someone from within the industry is placed as some sort of supremo, I will see it as a result. I do not, though, have high hopes for anything approaching radical will be presented for discussion. I expect a mish-mash.
It must be remembered that horse racing is not alone in having difficulties at the moment. Rugby Union seems at the precipice, too, with major clubs threatening to go under. And most sports must address a reduction in spectator numbers. It’s the cost-of-living crisis, you know, and beyond the scope of sport to correct. 
Three problems speedily in need of attention are the recruitment of racing staff, racecourse attendance and encouraging more people into ownership.
Recruitment of staff: Jamie Gormley has announced he has left the sport to read utility metres. I do not know Jamie Gormley and have no knowledge about either his work ethic or character. I do know the sport is allowing him to take from it a skill-set that is desperately needed by trainers up and down the country. Has no one tried to persuade him to remain in the industry? No jockey, apprentice or amateur, should leave the sport without being advised on the possible jobs available. If we cannot keep skilled labour, skilled riders, what chance is there in persuading young people that a job in racing is a job for life?
I know in a limited form it is already happening but trainers should find time to occasionally host open days to show youngsters the benefits and joys, hardships and graft, of working with racehorses. If one youngster from each visit decides to work in racing it is an endeavour worth the hassle of organising.
Spectators at racecourses: here’s a radical idea, free entry or taster days for people in the local area. Free entry for senior citizens should be a given, as it is for under sixteens. Cheap entry for people living within the post-code of the racecourse. Guides to help newcomers understand the basics of a day out at the races and to introduce them to the various stands, betting opportunities and where they can and cannot go on the racecourse. `Horse racing grew-up around local fairs and saints days. A reinvention of such themes might help align people with the notion of the local racecourse being a friendly and welcome venue for recreation.
Ownership of racehorses: Owning a racehorse is expensive, really silly expensive, and with little or no chance of breaking even over a twelve-month period due to the really poor level of prize-money in this country, it must be bloody hard work for trainers to attract new owners. I suspect owners are more likely to attract new owners to a yard than one finding his or her own way to the trainer. So, yes, enticing new owners to the sport is the toughest nut to crack and I have little or no idea on how to solve the problem. Perhaps leasing a horse for a period of time might be a way for potential owners to sample the sport. Or perhaps some form of club system where for a monthly fee members might be invited to the stables to experience a day in the life of a stable, to watch horses on the gallops or schooling grounds, to watch and learn in the ins and outs of caring for racehorses. Dangling temptation in front of potential owners in hope one or two will join the ranks.
Naïve suggestions, perhaps, and others will put forward more advanced ideas. But something must be done otherwise the crisis in our sport will pass into critical.

​Richard Forristal writing in today’s (Sept 22nd) Racing Post echoed most of my thoughts regarding the Racing League, though he did so, obviously, far more eloquently and succinctly than I could ever achieve. To use a quote from his column, used on the front page of the paper, ‘A gimmick that celebrates mediocrity, its cheerleaders screaming for attention while the city around it burns’. A far better educated overview than one of my original comments ‘this is a kitten that needs drowning at birth’. That’s why he is paid handsomely for his thoughts, whilst I just prattle on in my own sweet time.
Anyone who thinks the Racing League is a step on the long road to survival of the sport should stick to watching and supporting mud wrestling, with or without the highly-skilled and doubtless poorly-paid scantily-clad young ladies for whom it is a breadwinner. And as for the comment from Jeremy Wray, the brains behind the team competition, and whose company/investors are still to make a profit from the Racing League – oh, yes, he’s not in it purely for the sake of the sport – ‘You never sit and say that’s the finished article – Twenty20 cricket evolved through several iterations before it got to where it is now’. Well, it may be doing well at the box-office but enthusiasts of the game believe in the long term it will kill off all serious aspects of the sport.
My view on the Racing League has not altered. Horse racing, outside a stable, a trainer and his owners and staff, is not a team game. Indeed, the whole concept of a team in horse racing is against the rules as every horse must run on its own merits and not impede other runners. With so much money up for grabs the temptation for a jockey to impede a competitor from another team in any manner that might escape the scrutiny of the stewards must be tantalising. Also, and this really sticks in my craw, the teams competing are fabrications, spurious, make believe and bogus. Team Wales and the West, for instance, that apparently won the event, have as little to do with the country of Wales and the part of England termed ‘the West’ as Swiss cheese, Wells Fargo or the Sargasso Sea.
Frankie Dettori rode for team Wales and the West. Jason Watson and Tom Marquand for Ireland. Some jockeys listed as team members didn’t turn up for a single ride throughout the contest. 
If the prize funds for the races in the Racing League were transferred to races already in the calendar field sizes would be similar. The comment by Andrew Dietz, the Racing Post’s defence correspondent, ‘Even the traditionalists must recognise that it provides incredibly competitive racing’, is not comparing the prize funds for the Racing League against similar races throughout the year of similar value.
The Racing League only proves how desperate the sport has become to remain relevant in today’s sporting landscape and how useless the B.H.A. and its tripartite partners have been over the past twenty-years at promoting and growing the sport, though the demise started way before the inception of the B.H.B., the forerunner of the B.H.A.
There is no way the Racing League can win new customers to the sport as the concept is so different to the traditional model. Let’s say, for example, Dai Jones, a true Welshman living in Devon, becomes a devoted fan of Team Wales and the West and for six fixtures he goes to every race meeting, backs every W and W runner. What’s he to do for the rest of the year. His ‘team’ disappears into the ether, the jockeys he has cheered on move on, they might not even be a part of the next R.L.. Dai might go to his local racecourse and find the racing different, alien to what he has come to enjoy. Even if the R.L. was to be a success and racing’s finances improve because of it, how do you transfer the concept to the day-to-day calendar. Do you eventually run the Derby as a team event, the Grand National, Royal Ascot, Cheltenham?
The purpose of the Racing League is to make money for Jeremy Wray and his company. End of.
I hated City Street Racing. I only dislike the Racing League. It is lurid in its concept; it will not fill racecourses because no one outside of the horses involved have any affiliation with the make-believe teams and any success it might breed cannot be transferred to the day-to-day of horse racing. Let it fade away in the same way all the teams disappeared after the last race at Newcastle.

​I wouldn’t suggest Michael Seth-Smith’s biography of Harry Wragg is poor in any way, though, to me, it only ranks as ordinary or okay. And, of course, the book was published back in 1984 and writing styles change over time, and perhaps, though he contributed his own accounts to the book, the subject didn’t give the writer all the insight he might of. Certainly, Harry Wragg’s contributions to the story-lines elevate the narrative as a fresh coat of paint brightens a room.
I am, no doubt, being disingenuous as the opening line of the acknowledgement makes it plain that Geoffrey Wragg, son and inheritor of his father’s stables on his retirement, approached the author at Newmarket in the spring of 1983 to write a biography of his father.
The foreword of the book was supplied by Lester Piggott who first rode for Harry in 1950 and Lester being Lester wished he had ridden Psidium for him in the 1961 Derby. Obviously, a Derby winner that slipped from Lester’s net. I would like to know how many ‘forwards’ Lester wrote over his lifetime, and what the charge was.
Harry Wragg rode in what for me is the mystical era between the two world wars, the era of Elliott, Carslake, Richards, Beary, Childs, etc, a time before I was born where the results, with the exception of classics both flat and jumping, are at best fuzzy in my mind, more like tomorrow’s results than yesterday’s. The contemporary jockeys of Harry Wragg wrote and spoke of horses that only exist for me in the lists of winners of great races and in the yellowed pages of ancient form-books. Because they read to me with the mystery of a whodunit must be the reason why I am so fascinated by the memoirs of jockeys and trainers who Harry Wragg would have associated with day-to-day.
Of course, I am more familiar with Harry Wragg as a trainer than a jockey and it proved how fallible my memory is nowadays to be reminded that he was perhaps even more successful as a trainer than he was as a jockey. Through the 1960’s he trained so many horses whose names resonate still, though in a quiz I would have failed miserably to name the races they won. Sovrango, Violetta, Miralgo, Atilla, Twelth Man, Salvo, Chicago, Intermezzo, Full Dress, Moulton, Furioso and Lacquer, the last horse to do the Irish 1,000 Guineas/Cambridgeshire double, and in the same year. Trainers and owners had a different mindset back in those days. No modern trainer would even consider running a classic winner in a handicap and would be thought half-mad even for entering a Group 1 winner in such a race.
Harry Wragg rode in 11,658 races in Great Britain and Ireland (no evening races, then, remember) during his career, winning 1,774 and was champion jockey in 1941. His best season was ten-years earlier when he won 110 races. As a trainer he was remarkably consistent with his lowest score being 21 in1971 and his highest 46 in 1955. His best year for prize-money was his last, 1982, £259,572.
What I liked about this book is that Harry comes out of it an honest man, with integrity and most definitely a horseman. On page 119, for instance, he tells a story about the King’s filly Sun Chariot and how temperamental she could be. At one point her trainer Fred Darling was even thinking of taking her out of training and returning her to the National Stud, from where the King had leased her. Harry describes how the filly ducked out with him on the way to the gallops and Fred Darling threatened to ‘thrash the life’ out of her with a long tom. As the trainer played hell, Harry said to him, ‘Well, now, if you’d told me this sort of thing would happen, I could have avoided it’. And he took the filly back to where they started, telling the trainer that it would not happen again. And it didn’t, at least not when Harry was riding her.
Incidentally, during the war Harry was a serving soldier, stationed around the Newmarket area and could only ride when he was allowed leave and that was usually only when he had completed a full shift with his unit. Modern jockeys have it so easy, don’t they?

​It can justifiably be said that no one is irreplaceable. Yet the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth has shown those of us in the horse racing fold that extraordinary people can be irreplaceable. Her Majesty is irreplaceable.
Our sport is blessed with such people as Sheikh Mohammed and his family, J.P. McManus, the Aga Khan, and others, and before them similar wealthy and enthusiastic breeders and owners. Yet each great benefactor of the sport was replaced, even if only in time, by other generous benefactors, though whether National Hunt will ever see someone of the quality of J.P. McManus again is unlikely, one must presume.
Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth is that rare human being who, if only to our sport, will prove irreplaceable. For all of her reign she has owned and bred racehorses and as with all similar competitors in this sport she achieved great highs and suffered the lowest of lows. Horse racing is a bedevilling leveller, treating everyone in its thrall with equality, as was proved when her final runner was beaten a short head. Horse races bestows no favours, not even on royalty or prime ministers, as Winston Churchill discovered.
The Queen adored horses, ponies, equines of all disciplines, with the thoroughbred racehorse holding a special place in her heart and I would recommend Julian Muscat’s book ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ for full documentation of her lifelong love affair with the horse and horse racing. She gravitated naturally towards horseman and took absolute delight in visiting the stables of those blessed to be on her roster of trainers, with everyone having a story to tell about her sense of humour and her knowledgeable interest in each of their training methods. In ‘Her Majesty’s Pleasure’ I am pretty sure someone is quoted as saying that the Queen was a frustrated racehorse trainer.
I am sure once the period of mourning has finished, the royal horses will return to the racecourse and it would be happily received if one of them won one of the remaining major races of the season, the Cambridgeshire, perhaps, with Saga. And let’s hope one of her 2-year-olds gives the impression of being a classic horse for next season to set ablaze the Queen Consort’s anticipation. The Queen may have won 4 out of the 5 classics in her time as an owner but I for one craved an Epsom Derby winner for her and was as heart-broken as she must have privately been when Carlton House was somewhat of an unlucky loser. I believe Ryan Moore’s first words to Her majesty on dismounting was an apology for costing her a Derby winner. She replied something along the lines of ‘That is racing’. Exactly the same tone as her mother took when Devon Loch did his leap into nowhere when winning the Grand National was only a few strides away.
There will never be another, not for horse racing, and Charles the third – I am having great difficulty coming to terms with having a new monarch – has a very hard act to follow. I wish him peace, good fortune and a long reign. I also wish him, if the royal horses are to run in his name, a Derby winner to complete the full set for Her Majesty’s Sandringham stud.

​Last Sunday was undoubtedly a brilliant day of racing. But why was there no comment, negative or positive, on the scheduling of two St.Legers on the same day, let alone within the same hour. Yes, it is a valid argument that as one is restricted to 3-year-olds and the other open to older horses in effect they do not in reality clash to any extent. Yet the English St.Leger is in serious decline, with the class of horse running in the race hardly acceptable for the final leg of the Triple Crown, the fifth of five classics. The classier St.Leger last Sunday was indubitably the Irish version, which is another argument that cannot be denied.
I have long argued that if the Eclipse were to be restricted to 3-year-olds and upgraded to the fifth classic, the season would be better balanced, with the Sandown race quite possibly the definitive 3-year-old race of the season, with, perhaps, the winners of both Guineas, Derby and Oaks, candidates for entry. Whereas the Doncaster St.Leger is more of a consolation race, with the winner rarely going on to greater successes the following season.
A classic season that takes in 2 races of a mile, 2 mile-and-a-half races and one over 1 mile 2-furlongs, would be far more appropriate to horse racing of today than the present arrangement of 4 classics run by the first week of June, with the St.Leger a tail-end Charlie in September.
Instead of allowing the Doncaster St.Leger to become less and less relevant as the decades slip by, when once it was the natural staging post for Derby winners, with the winner destined for the following season’s Ascot Gold Cup, why wouldn’t the B.H.A. and Doncaster show some ambition by upgrading it to an alternative to the Arc, though over a rather longer trip? Yes, this requires my radical proposal to reinvent the Eclipse as a classic race to be agreed upon and for a sponsor willing to invest a whole heap of prize money to ensure the new race got off the ground, with a date in the calendar that doesn’t fall on the same day as Irish Champions Weekend. And why shouldn’t British racing have a brand-new international horse race? Every other racing province around the world continually invents new races with the purpose of enticing foreign invaders to their shores and to improve their ‘brand’.
Eldar Eldarov was a perfectly satisfactory winner at Doncaster and we can but hope he becomes a serious challenger to Kyprios next season. I suspect, though, especially with Trueshan putting in a rare poor run in the Doncaster Cup and Stradivarius getting older by the day, that Kyprios, barring accidents, will rule supreme in the stayers division for as long as Coolmore want to campaign him.

Lester Piggott was quite rightly lauded as one of the best flat jockeys of all-time, if not the best. But why isn’t Ryan Moore appraised in a similar fashion? I am sure in time, when Ryan bows out, William Buick and Tom Marquand will be heralded as two of the best in the world. But at the moment we are blessed with race-riding masterclasses on a weekly basis by Ryan.
On any given day I will claim Frankie Dettori is the best I have ever seen – I always hated Lester’s riding technique and how hard he could be on a horse – while on any other given day I will claim Ryan Moore as the best I have seen. One thing I am sure of is that Ryan is by far the more consistent of the two, making fewer, if any, mistakes than Frankie, with his work ethic also far in excess of Frankie’s, though the Corsican may exert more energy in the gym than Moore. Time better spent, I would think, riding as many horses on the track than he allows himself at present.
Finally, as an example of how far in arrears British racing is when it comes to prize money, at Sha Tin last Sunday there were two handicaps worth £187,000, won by Silvestre de Sousa, by the way, and another worth £142,000. There wasn’t a race at the meeting worth less than £43,000 to the winner. On the debit side, there wasn’t a race over more than a mile and there was only one at the distance, the rest being 5, 6 and 7-furlongs.

​My apologies for referring back to one the most damaging stories to emerge from horse racing in the past decade. At least in my opinion. When Bryony Frost accused Robbie Dunne of bullying behaviour, an accusation an independent panel found to be substantially proven, Dunne’s friends in the weighing room in giving evidence on his behalf, suggested the weighing room was a homely, loving place, where everyone got along just fine. Similar sentiments were expressed in the Racing Post and by Charlie Deutsch on I.T.V. Racing after winning a race at Cheltenham.
Yet, in his excellent article in Monday’s (Sept 5th) Racing Post, airing his views on the interference rules, Paul Hanigan suggested otherwise. He wrote: There are some good people in the weighing room but also some who aren’t very nice. He later wrote: The weighing room used to be a safe haven but there are times now when it is a horrible place. There are arguments, shouting and bawling after races every day.
His overtone, though he makes no mention of the Frost/Dunne affair, is that since Dunne was hauled over the coals for his bullying of a female jockey, the senior jockeys are now scared of raising instances of bad/dangerous riding committed by young riders during a race, incidents they were aware of but stewards had missed. If this is true, and why would a respected jockey like Hanagan make such a claim if it was not based on factual evidence, then we must assume that neither the Professional Jockeys Association nor the B.H.A. have instigated any new protocols to deal with the sort of incidents highlighted by Paul Hanagan. 
What is off about all this is that young jockeys almost always have jockey coaches nowadays. Would it not be sensible to have contact numbers for jockey coaches, with the names of the jockeys they coach, on a message board within the weighing room? Then, when a young jockey has erred for whatever reason during a race, one of the senior jockeys, or a jockey nominated to deal with such matters, could contact the coach of the young jockey involved, draw his attention to the incident or even just poor riding skills, and leave the matter for him to make good.
The past may have been ‘the good old days’ but surely it was always wrong for a senior jockey to take a young lad to one side to give him nine lashes of his indignation, to frighten the living daylights out of him, even if it was done for the safety of everyone concerned.
Paul Hanagan, followed-up by many of his colleagues, have voiced their opinion that the lack of consistency by stewards when it comes to the interference rules is the main reason for the present spate of dangerous incidents occurring around and by young jockeys. He even admits to being in the wrong in the Norfolk Stakes at Royal Ascot, even though an independent panel finally ruled in his favour, allowing the connections of The Ridler to keep their ‘ill-gotten’ spoils.
As Hanagan admits, only disqualification of jockeys winning races by pushing the interference rules close to breaking point will provide the remedy he and other jockeys are looking for. Clarity, is the correct description here, I believe. A change to the interference rules that jockeys believe in, with no wriggle room as is so often the case with the B.H.A.
The culture in weighing rooms that Paul Hanagan writes about fits squarely with Bryony Frost’s testimony during the B.H.A. inquiry. One, of course, must assume the culture would be similar in the weighing rooms of both the jump jockeys and their counterparts on the flat. It is sad to think of the weighing room being a hive of discord when the people who assemble there are the heroes of the sport, men and women who the racing enthusiast see as brave and courageous, stout and true.
Of course, jockeys are only human, they will make mistakes, lose their sense of perspective, see red in times of stress, and be quick to point out the faults of others while at the same time not admitting to their own faults. It is chastening, though, to realise that nothing has been achieved to cancel the sort of behaviour Robbie Dunne was guilty of; that no one has been appointed arbiter of disputes, charged with the simple task of contacting the relevant jockey coach and leaving the matter-in-hand for him to deal with. That is an unhappy truth, a fault of everyone within the hallowed sanctum of the weighing room.

​Writing in 1975, the retired trainer Joe Hartigan made this observation: As we are today, the policy seems to be, ‘Let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’. However, as the vast majority are in the poorer bracket, it seems only a matter of time before the pendulum swings to help the small men. Otherwise, it will mean a dozen trainers, and a handful of millionaires as owners, will control racing, and that will bore us all.
In hindsight, of course, it was the wisdom of Solomon and as can be expected his warning went unheeded, perhaps, at the time, even derided.
Two years later, he wrote an addendum to the book which has proved equally astute: Since I first sat down to write this book (To Become A Racehorse Trainer) the Trainers lot has changed more than at any time in our racing history. Lads wages continually increase. Fodder goes up by leaps and bounds. Mr. Tom Blackwell’s Report suggests a minimum training charge, and for an alteration to the apprentice indenture system. On the brighter side there is to be a slight increase in the overall stake money. In view of these changes, and no doubt countless more to come, I have not rewritten in order to catch up. If I did so, I fear that I might discourage the new young trainer even further and that as you know is not my intention. ‘I never promised you a rose garden’.
Prophetic words. You’ll doubtless agree.
To allude to the book ‘To Become A Racehorse Trainer’ for a short paragraph. As a historical overview of the sport the book is excellent and, in some ways, as long as the young, prospective trainer, is of an optimistic mindset, the book possesses a mine of useful advice. Sadly, Joe Hartigan’s misgivings of a career he loved remain as relevant today, sadly, perhaps unforgivably, as they were back in 1975.
As Emanual Macron told the French people, ‘The days of abundance are over’. Whether he gave any explanation for his dire warning or any advice on how to survive the new status quo, I cannot say. Yet that same phrase may well apply to horse racing around the world. This sport, as I repeatedly say, is a working-class sport underpinned by the wealth and enthusiasm of the mega-rich. If the rich lose their wealth who or what will underpin or finance the sport, and without wealthy owners what will happen to the working classes that oil the wheels of equine industry?
Where are the captains of this industry who might right the ship, to keep it afloat, to offer the coordinated response to the cost-of-living crisis that might yet sink our great sport to the sea-bed of yesterday’s way of life.
The publication of the 2023 racing calendar was a prime example of lazy governance. While the B.H.A. were putting together next year’s race programme, all the problems of today and beyond were in the public domain, yet they were either in ignorance of the financial problems of the world or blithely took the view to carry on regardless.
By common consent, there is too much racing, so the B.H.A. have given the sport exactly the same problem to deal with next year, with no regard to the possibility that the tribulations of next year might be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back.
Here are three proposals that might ease the sport’s financial woes, or at least the financial woes of racecourse executives, and I will not include the bloody obvious suggestion of cutting 500 or more races from the calendar, if only on a temporary basis.
Number one: electricity prices will be a huge drain on racecourse finances. So, no floodlight racing for one, two or three seasons. It must be hugely expensive to power floodlights, so eliminating this outlay can only be of benefit to everyone, including betting shops as they no longer would need to stay open past naturally occurring daylight hours. It would also be of benefit to stable staff for obvious reasons.
Number two: on the same theme, no evening racing with the exception of during the summer months. The use of electricity must be sparing, with racecourses perhaps investing in a turbine or solar panels to cut costs and power all their electrical needs.
Number three: here I am making an assumption, which may be false, though being wrong has never stopped me airing my thoughts in the past and will not do so now. It must be more expensive overall to set-up a racecourse for racing for ten, say, one-day meetings, than it would be for a two-or three-day meetings, so I propose as few one-day meetings as possible.
There must be a hundred or more ways, some small, some substantial, for racecourses to save money in order to ensure they can pay their staff and maintain the racecourse and its facilities in a fit state to be able to open the gates to the public and the racing community. But where is the B.H.A. with a ready plan, a task force to lead the sport to healthier times. In its history, racing has had to navigate its way through other troubled times, for instance, after two world wars, yet for all their faults, the Jockey Club had the authority and concern for the sport to lead the way. I only wish I had the same confidence in this damn tripartite group to come together and speak as one voice.