​The flat season in Britain resembles, figuratively speaking, an expensive dress shirt when it first comes out of the washing machine. You can feel the quality of the fabric, even when it is crinkled, if not a mite deformed. But once dried and ironed it returns to its neat, showy best.
There is so much quality in the British racing calendar that it is done no justice by the almost apologetic way it opens each spring and by the ragged manner of its conclusion. Tomorrow is the beginning of November, the traditional start of the core National Hunt season, yet we still have flat fixtures mingling with both jump racing and the all-weather, with abandonments to flat meetings a common occurrence through the latter days of October and the early knockings of November.
Why couldn’t the flat season have ended last Saturday with the final Group 1 of the season, the Futurity at Doncaster? Why not run the November Handicap – yes, it was still October but what is in a name these days – alongside the Futurity to make it a more interesting card? Why must the flat season be dragged out to the point when it seems flat fixtures are just a road block put in place to deny National Hunt the limelight of television exposure?
It is the same with the all-weather. Though a traditionalist at heart, I have come to accept that all-weather fixtures play a significant part in the structure and financing of British racing. I dislike the slow creep towards giving all-weather more and more listed and minor Group races as all-weather tracks were instigated to prop-up betting revenue during those months of the year when National Hunt fixtures in particular were most likely to succumb to the weather. I see no point to the Winter Derby and believe all-weather finals day is a waste of precious resources and takes focus away from National Hunt at a time when the season is building to its glorious climax.
If I held any influence in the sport, I would make the all-weather a season within itself, separate from the flat season, with its own jockeys’ and trainers’ championship, with wins and prize-money not included in the various turf championships. I would have no problem with one all-weather fixture a day but only rarely more than one. And I would have a month in the summer without any all-weather fixtures to give the all-weather season a beginning and an end, with perhaps one valuable fixture on the last day for presentation of all the various championship trophies.
Neat, clean and defined edges to the seasons. Not messy as the flat turf season has become and removing the obscurity of beginnings and ends.
I would like to see the Grand National run earlier in the calendar, not as late as April 15th as it was last season, with Doncaster’s Lincoln meeting (see what I mean about what’s in a name? Lincoln is in Lincolnshire, not Yorkshire.) opening up with a bang, not as a whimper as has become the situation since the Lincoln lost all its prestige when it was inexorably linked with the Grand National as part of the Spring Double.
The Grand National should be staged on the Saturday before the start of the flat season, with the National season ending at Aintree. It’s all about peaks and valleys and at the moment both the flat and National Hunt seasons end either at the bottom of the valley or a distance from the peak. The F.A. Cup culminates at Wembley, not at Watford. The Wimbledon finals culminates on the Centre Court, not on Court 14. 
I have laid out my ideas for the Lincoln meeting many times before. In essence I propose the Lincoln would regain its notoriety in the sport, plus attract outside attention, if it were to be as it used to be, a 40-runner race started behind a barrier, to mimic the way the Grand National still holds elements of its history and to give flat jockeys a taste of what it was like for their forebears when there were no starting stalls. I would also have 5 or 6 other valuable handicaps on the card and design an I.T.V. 7 type bet around the day with a guaranteed first-prize of half-a-million quid in an attempt to focus the eye of the public on our sport for at least a day.
To wrap-up: the National Hunt season should start a week after the Grand National, with a month’s break in June or July, and should end on the day the Grand National is run. The flat should begin one-week after the Grand National and start with a bang and not a whimper and finish with the Futurity and the November Handicap run on the same day. The all-weather should be an 11-month season with a break in May or June, culminating with presentation of the various championship trophies, with no winners achieved during the season included in the actual jockeys’ and trainers’ championships.
Neat, clean and precise, with no messy edges. I rest my case.

​Be honest; do you think the Grand National is suffering death by a thousand cuts? Sadly, that is my opinion and I am beginning to believe it would be grace-saving if Aintree and the B.H.A. simply announced the date when the last-ever Grand National will be run as it would be more dignified if the sport itself buried its jewel in the crown in the annals of sporting history rather than allow its ignorant detractors achieve its ghastly ambitions. 
What Aintree, Suleka Varma, the Jockey Club and the B.H.A. do not comprehend due to their impulsive need to protect not a race but its cash-cow, is that every change to the race they implement, every time the distance is altered, the number of runners reduced, the threshold rating raised or the fences lowered or moved, they are empowering protestors to protest longer, harder, to up the ante and cry crocodile tears down more lenses of more cameras. And after the Jockey Club’s success in the courts to ensure the Epsom Derby was run without incident, it will annually cost the Jockey Club a similar amount of money to achieve an uneventful running of the Grand National.
When you have both the moral right and the law of the land on your side, you stand firm and link arms, you do not run for cover, hold long meetings in order come up with a plan that on the surface does not look like a white flag or a white feather.
What is much more to be feared, now that Aintree intend to respond year-on-year to any of the many eventualities that might occur during the race, is that come the next equine death, the next pile-up caused by a loose horse or a horse refusing, they will be obligated to make more changes, if only cosmetic and unlikely to put right what was the latest thing to go wrong and look bad in front of the camera. It is death by a thousand cuts. It is the sport kicking itself in the ball-sacks yet again. Ginger McCain and Red Rum must be turning somersaults in their graves at the adulteration of the race they lived-for!

The current whip rule is yet another example of the sport’s administrators slapping themselves on the back for a ‘job well-done’ while ignoring the obvious criticism that banning jockeys wholesale after a big meeting only achieves the populace idea that jockeys must be carpet-beaters and animal abusers. The problem now, as I see it, is the topping-up procedure. It doesn’t matter what went before Ascot’s Champions Day, the trivial violations of the whip rules perpetrated by Frankie Dettori, his sixteen-day ban is evidence to our distractors that the sport turns a blind eye to their perceived view that horse racing’s only use of the horse is for monetary gain and jockeys are allowed to get away with ‘animal abuse’ to achieve the greatest profit.
If Group 1 races are to be treated differently to all other races, jockeys who exceed the maximum number strokes of the whip or if they use the whip incorrectly, bans imposed should apply only to Group 1 races, including the classics. If jockeys were to be banned from riding in the next six Group 1’s or ten or sixteen, the loss of earnings and kudos would be more keenly felt. The only other option is to disqualify the horse so that the owner and trainer also feel the pain. The issue of the whip, as with the Grand National, is causing death by a thousand cuts. I remain convinced the only solution to the problem of public perception is to reduce the whip to ‘one hit and that’s it’ or to remove its use altogether. At present, all we are achieving is nothing at all, just as it was before the whip was seen as any sort of a problem.
And to circle back to the Grand National, one change Aintree could have implemented that would have gained approval from our distractors, would be to stop jockeys using their whip after the last fence. Very few horses run on strongly after the last fence, with most running on empty. The unedifying sight of a jockey using the whip to urge on a very tired horse is grist to the mill of those with the ambition to see evil where is evil is not present and does little inspire the rational observer to fall in love with the sport.

One final comment: in time, given he continues to smile and stays away from alcohol, drugs, the wrong food and naughty women, the jockey the public will next adore, if not in the same ebullient way as Frankie, is Billy Loughnane. One of the leading trainers, perhaps John and Thady Gosden or Michael Stoute, should snap him up as in the next two or three-years he is going to take William Buick’s championship title away from him. Perhaps next year! He is of that calibre.

​In this pathetically woke world created for us by who knows whom or for what devilish purpose, I might be guilty of hate speech for what I am about to point out. One short aside, the word ‘hate’ has now been redefined to mean anything your enemies want it to mean. Soon ‘I hate sugar in my tea’ will be considered ‘hate speech’ against those who prefer to take their tea sugared. Rant over.
I promise you, I am not xenophobic in any way and I am not envious of those who have greater wealth than I have. I pity those who have less but have no beef with those who have made a better stab at life than I have achieved. Yet a quick look at the leading owners on the flat in the Racing Post yesterday told a stark narrative of the sport in this country. What success British racing achieves both here and overseas is due in no small part to foreign owners and their blue-blooded studs.
Godolphin, Shadwell, Amo, Juddmonte, Coolmore, Sheikh Mohammed Obaid, Coolmore, King Power, Coolmore, Coolmore, Wathnam, Marc Chan, Yeguada Centurion, KHK Racing, Qatar Racing, Sheikh Juma Dalnook and the HRH the Aga Khan all appear in the owners table top twenty. The only owners left out of that table are Cheveley Park, Fitri Hay and the Hughes/Rawlings/Shaunessey partnership that own Shaquille.
Coolmore, the real largest earners in Britian this season, appear in the list three-times as their horses are registered in different combinations of Tabor, Smith, Magnier, Westerburg and Brant. All the above, of course, employ British people, with many of their studs located in this country and they should be both thanked and congratulated for racing their bloodstock in this country and for the success they achieve. Without them, British flat racing would be in far more perilous state than it finds itself at the present moment.
I cannot claim that it was never like this in the past. Flat racing in Great Britain has always relied on overseas investment in the sport. At present, and for a good few years, that investment is coming form the Arab States, in times gone by it was U.S. patrons and before that members of the Indian royal families and its aristocracy. British racing still holds great prestige and influence around the world, its history, perhaps, envied by the countries who can provide greater prize-money but who cannot trace their history back beyond the 1900’s at best.
We no longer have the likes of Lord Derby or Lord Roseberry playing pivotal roles in the sport now occupied by the ruling dynasties of the Desert kingdoms. That is neither bad nor wonderful but it is a trend that seemingly will not be reversed in my lifetime. Is there anyone born and bred in this country planting the seeds that in time may fruit and establish a British owner at the top of the owners’ tree or least competing with owners born and bred overseas?
I am not xenophobic. It would just be nice to witness a British-bred, Brirish-owned Epsom Derby winner once in a while. The days of Morston and Blakeney seem so long ago their Derbies might have been filmed in Black and White.

On this day, October 25th:
In 1881 the U.S. bred Foxhall completed the Autumn double, the Cambridgeshire and Cesarewitch, ridden on each occasion by Jack Watts.
In 1949, the man who invented the Totalisator, died in a plane crash in Maryland.
In 1967 the last race-meeting look place at Le Tremblay. It is now an airport.
In 1992, a celebration of the life of Prince Monolulu took place at the pub bearing his name in Maple Street, London. He was Abysssinian by birth and was best known for his cry ‘I gotta horse’ at the Epsom Derby. 

​When I suggested in a letter published by the Racing Post that Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore were the best flat jockeys of my lifetime, I got pretty-well rounded on by several diehard Lester Piggott supporters who could not countenance any debate on the matter. It is a subjective opinion, of course. They believe one thing; I believe something different. I was not in any way knocking the legend that is Lester. Only a fool would criticise the talent of a man with a career record like his and who dedicated his life to be able to ride at the weight flat racing demanded. How much more would Lester have achieved riding today, with top-weights in handicaps and the weights in Group races being so much higher than in his day? He might have afforded himself two-slices of unbuttered bread first thing in the morning rather than the one legend tells of him.
The difference between Lester, Frankie and Ryan, is about style and grace, for me. Although Lester could sit as quiet as a mouse on a horse, especially when riding the classy horses of Vincent O’Brien, think Nijinsky or Sir Ivor, compared to Frankie and Ryan he was a steam train, all-action and forceful persuasion, his whole body galvanised to extract the 100% effort needed from his mount to change certain defeat into barely believable victory. Frankie, in particular, is grace in the saddle personified. His body barely moving as he gains lengths on his opponents by keeping his mount balanced, gently persuading rather than demanding 100% effort, use of the whip kept to a minimum.
As with Frankie, Ryan Moore has no need to get in the car and attend the races seven-days a week, an advantage most of his colleagues would like to possess. It is my opinion that Ryan edges Frankie in the ‘greatest-ever’ category only because I detect fewer riding errors, not that Frankie can be accused of that oversight this season.
What cannot be denied by anyone, even if the Frankie farewell circus has become an overpowering narrative this season, is that no one will ever be able to fill the void in the coming flat seasons that the great man’s departure for California will leave. He is irreplaceable and that is no exaggeration. 
The boy coming through who will, I predict in time, become the next ‘best-loved jockey by the public’ will by Billy Loughnane. If he keeps his nose clean and maintains his weight at where it is now, he will be champion jockey in the next few seasons, perhaps even as early as next season. Though next season may be too early in his development as a jockey and adult, by the end of next season he will riding as stable jockey to one of the big stables, though I hope if Amo come calling his advisors will guide him in a different directions as it obvious along with a fat retainer comes mighty pressure. And if capable young jockeys like Rossa Ryan and Kevin Stott couldn’t stand the heat, it would be folly to throw a wide-eyed, smiley Billy Loughnane into the cauldron.
Remember, when the pressure heated up for Frankie last season, he, too, exposed himself as only human.
Returning to Frankie. Would anyone be surprised if Amo offers Frankie a retainer to come over to Europe next season to ride King of Steel in all the big races he will be running in? I doubt if any jockey outside of Dettori, Moore or Buick – neither of them have any pressure on them as they have no need to prove their big-race ability – would have won on King of Steel at Ascot. I have been an admirer of King of Steel since the Epsom Derby and predicted that as a 4-year-old he would rule the roost, but I think he was flattered in the Champion Stakes by running past very tired horses, rather than winning by superior speed.
The genius of Frankie was better demonstrated by his ride on Trawlerman. It is a given that on very soft ground it is rare for a horse to be able to make up the sort of ground, for example, Trueshan was given to do. I am not being critical of Hollie Doyle as I suspect the horse was never travelling particularly well and Alan King did say he would be held up, rather than make the pace as he did in France last time. I also believe Trueshan needs a trip in excess of 2-miles these days to seen at his best. But as with everyone else, she was a long way off the pace on a horse with stamina to burn.
I see no reason why Trueshan should not be campaigned over hurdles this season. If he jumps okay, there are plenty of races to be won with him, even if they decide to skip the Stayers Hurdle at the Festival to preserve him for the early staying races on the flat. If he has lost his sparkle, he is going to be a long-time retired if they do not give him a chance at a second career over hurdles.

​Yesterday afternoon, while the rain prevented me from taking my daily constitutional, I exercised my mind in some off-the-cuff research into the Grand National from 2008 to 2023. I wanted to gain a dispassionate insight into whether the alterations to the Grand National since 2012 has made the race safer for horse and rider and if jockeys were riding from the start to Bechers any differently, to prove my belief that there is more scrimmaging at the first three fences than in the past.
My conclusions are not based on science and others might take a different point of view as the approach of jockeys seems to remain fairly similar to post-2012. What I can say with assurance is that not one of the alterations instigated to ensure a safer race have proved effective and in fact the ‘easier’ Aintree try to make the race, the faster has become the speed of the race, a danger to life and limb in itself.
The one change to this year’s race that will perhaps might prove beneficial is starting the race mid-afternoon rather than at 5-15 pm to appease the national media. It was always a pointless exercise to water the course during the night when the sun had all-day to dry it out. Slow ground makes the race safer, even if fewer horses finish the race, than fast ground. Also, as Ruby Walsh pointed out in 2012 when the Aintree fences had the sting taken out of them, to make the race run at a slower pace the fences need to be higher rather lower. I was saddened to read, now that Ruby is employed in television, that he has retreated to the other side and congratulated Aintree for nullifying the appeal and history of the race even further.
I chose 2008 at random. I thought if I went back to the days when the B.B.C. televised the race and when there were fewer cameras used, I wouldn’t get a fair reflection and if I went back to pre-1960, when the fences were upright and black, it would be looking at a completely different race.
The years 2008, 2009, the whole width of the course was used, though in 2009 after the second fence the field became compressed between middle and inner. In 2010 the field were still spread right across the course at Bechers. In 2011 the field came together in middle-to-inner after the third fence, and again in 2012, though by Bechers they had again fanned out to use almost the whole width of the course. In 2013 the whole width of the course was used until going to the fifth fence. In 2014, two-years after changes were made in light of the accidents that caused two equine deaths in 2012, the field raced middle-to-inner from the second fence.
In 2015 the field were pretty well spread to Bechers, though at the fourth the jockeys on the outer had come towards the middle of the course. 2016 saw the field occupying the middle-to-inner from the second fence to Bechers. In 2017, for whatever reason, the field were spread right across the course until Bechers when they were middle-to-inner which resulted in several fallers.
In 2018, the outer was unused, with the whole field going to the second fence in the middle-or-inner of the course. In 2019, the width of the course was used all the way to Bechers which resulted in no fallers. In 2021, we were back to the middle-to-inner all the way to Bechers and again in 2022. In 2023, they were again largely on the ground between middle-to-inner, though a few did stay wide.
I did not want to concentrate on fallers or why they fell. In steeplechasing, there will always be fallers; it is inevitable and if horses and jockeys parting company were to be eliminated, like it or not, a good deal of the excitement would be lost, as well as 99% of the jeopardy. Some horses were either brought-down or baulked by jockeys lying on the ground after being unseated, a circumstance that is pure happenstance. 
I wanted to discover substantive prove that fallers, and fatalities, if I am honest, at the first three-fences, are as a result of scrimmaging due to jockeys starting on the outside drifting towards the middle and compressing the field. I did not find overwhelming evidence to support my theory that a draw be made to ensure 20-jockeys line up on the inside-to-middle and the other 20 (I remain committed to 40-runners, though this season 17 and 17 would be equally appropriate) from middle-to-outer, with all jockeys instructed to keep a straight line until after the third-fence.
In fact, the evidence provided by the race in 2019 has emboldened me to think jockeys should remain on a straight line until after Bechers, which with Bechers now so neutered there is no advantage or disadvantage for it to be jumped inner, middle or outer, might be the best and perhaps only method of making the race safer and a better exhibition of equine athleticism and jockey skill.
If Aintree are to make alterations on a regular basis due to outside criticism and inner nervousness, the race in ten-years will be as different to what it was in 1960 as 1960 was different in comparison to 1860. I do not want to see stone walls and plough but I do want to have a Grand National that is representative of the history of the Grand National. Once the sense of awe has gone, when jockeys approach the race as just another long-distance chase, the magic too will disappear and Aintree’s present custodian, Suleka Varma, will have left a legacy of despair and treachery in her wake. Personally, I do not believe she understands what the Grand National is all about. It is not simply a cash-cow for the industry and Aintree, it is a precious jewel in the crown of British racing.

​Let me begin by congratulating all of those who voted for Frankel to top the Racing Post’s poll to find Britain’s favourite racehorse of all-time. I have no sour grapes to eat as I had no personal connection to the four beaten contestants and I never believed Denman would finish any higher than fourth. My all-time favourite, Spanish Steps didn’t get past the first round, which was to be expected given how long ago he graced the racecourse with his indomitable presence.
No sour grapes, even if I was knocked sideways by Frankel topping the poll. On reflection, though, it was inevitable and though I don’t recall the price he was chalked-up at to win, I suspect it was very good value as he had the most recent form. He is also still alive, which was another advantage in taking home the prize to Juddmonte.
Make no mistake, this was a win for recency over long experience or nostalgia. I believe if Racing Post journalists were to go on to the streets of their home towns or cities and ask members of the public to name a racehorse from the past, the greatest majority would name Red Rum or Desert Orchid. I doubt if many would come up with Frankel or indeed Kauto Star and Denman.
I am not bitter at the result of the poll and nowhere near as baffled or appalled as the result of ‘The Greatest Race of All-Time’ poll when voters somehow thought, if only by the narrowest of margins, that Dancing Brave’s Arc victory surpassed the 1973 Grand National won by Red Rum from Crisp, where the first four to finish broke the existing course record! With Spanish Steps in fourth.
Frankel edged the poll and in no way do I intend to distract from his brilliance as a racehorse and stallion. But more than a part of his allure with the public was affection for his charismatic trainer Sir Henry Cecil, who would be odds-on favourite to win any poll to determine Britain’s favourite all-time racehorse trainer. The other advantage Frankel had was that voters in their mid and late twenties could remember all his races, most likely accompanied their parents to the racecourse to watch him race, some might have had the privilege to have touched the great horse.
Frankel is, and will remain, great, a legend of the sport. But I have lived through not only his career but the careers of the four great, and sadly now deceased, racehorses he defeated in the poll and believe me young people, Red Rum and Desert Orchid were by far more popular with the racing public than Frankel. Even now the names of the two chasers remain part of the nation’s vocabulary. Desert Orchid was even the first animal to feature on Radio 4’s obituary programme. He was genuinely a celebrity, as was Red Rum, and I know this is unfair as Frankel being a colt when he raced and a now a stallion worth many millions and could never be risked in an uncontrolled environment, but Dessie and Red Rum were so well-known outside of the sport they were invited to open supermarkets, fetes and High Street betting shops. 
The fault-line in this perfectly worthwhile poll was the edge recency had with voters. I doubt if there is anyone alive who saw Brown Jack back in the period between 1927 and 1934 but he was the Desert Orchid of his age and was revered by everyone from champion jockey Steve Donoghue to the shilling each-way punter.
Subjectivity should have been factored into the poll. Perhaps handicapping in some way, so that the most recently raced horses needed a greater percentage of the votes to win. Yes, this was a poll conducted as much to support and promote National Racehorse Week as it was an attempt to determine the racing public’s favourite racehorse and shouldn’t be taken too seriously or on face value. Yet, the result of this poll is now in the public domain; other media outlets may take it up as a two-minute filler and Frankel will forever be cited as the greatest horse – you know how the media twists facts these days to fit official narratives – ever to have lived, which will remain the legend even if City of Troy or any other horse proves on the racehorse to be his superior, however unlikely that might be. Horse racing exists on hard fact and, in my heart, I doubt the result of this poll is representative of hard fact.
My head and heart believe Red Rum and Desert Orchid to be slighted by this poll, their contribution, gallantry and charisma lost in the mists of time, the will of the young overcoming the experience and memory of the old.

​“It’s what I.T.V. racing has been doing all these years.” Matt Chapman said yesterday. He is correct. On a Saturday, I.T.V. highlights all that’s best in the day’s racing. In effect I.T.V. has been running a 4-year experiment to understand if highlighting the days’ best racing in a 2-hour golden slot will improve audience or racecourse attendance and though not a failure as sofa-attendance has increased to a degree, racecourse attendance remains in the doldrums and betting turnover, the main vector the B.H.A. wishes to see expand, is only going south due to outside forces.
When Kevin Blake quite rightly suggests it is the race programme that next requires attention, he is pointing the finger at the lower end of the sport. And Matt Chapman is right yet again when he says what is the point of shedding fixtures if racecourses then stage eight, nine or ten races per meeting. Reducing the fixture list and not allowing anymore than seven-races per meeting is the quickest route to improving competitiveness on a daily basis.
What no one seems all that bothered about is the increasing number of Group and listed races that only attract three and four-runner fields. Six were due to take part in the Group 2 at Newmarket yesterday and with two withdrawn due to the ground, only four fairly ordinary horses went to post. Non-competitive Group races should be excised and converted into limited handicaps.
There seems a belief that good quality horse racing is solely limited to Group races. Yet isn’t a blanket finish to a Grade 5 handicap exciting to watch for punters and viewers? Experts may get over-excited by a wide-margin win by a two-year-old at Newmarket, for example, but was it as eye-grabbing for the first-time viewer as a blanket-finish to a Grade 5 handicap? Which is more likely to attract viewers back to Formula 1, Max Verstappen starting on pole, lapping most of his opponents and winning by 30-seconds or a lap after lap tussle between two or three drivers with the final result unpredictable till the chequered flag is reached?
Group races have to be competitive as well as Monday-fare. The European Pattern Committee may have a hissy-fit at the suggestion but the number of Group 2’s and 3’s around the continent must be reduced to increase both competitiveness and prize-money.
I am beginning to believe that the sport could do worse than to invite Matt Chapman to run British horse-racing for a limited amount of time.

City of Troy looked special in the Dewhurst but please do not get carried away with the superlatives until he has won a classic. Remember all the other ‘jet-engined’ superstars from Ballydoyle, and elsewhere, that were given markedly high ratings going into winter and then bombed-out as three-year-olds? Also, do we really know the strength of the opposition in the Dewhurst or if they will improve ten-lengths when raced again on firmer conditions? Frankel was not an expression of greatness until he won the 2,000 Guineas – against poor-quality opposition – and beyond. City of Troy looks exceptional but he also might have reached his peak and that others, perhaps stabled at Ballydoyle, might improve with racing next season. Keep the superlatives bottled until next spring or summer.

On This Day: and to prove the validity of my argument above.
In 1982 Gorytus trailed home last of 4 at 1-2 favourite in the Dewhurst. He, too, was touted to be the next superstar of the sport.
In 1990 Lester Piggott had his first comeback ride since his retirement 5-years earlier, finishing second in a photo-finish. At the same meeting, Walter Swinburn rode 5-winners.

​If reducing the number of runners in the Grand National by six is not ‘significant’, is this a case of change for the sake of change. And anyway, the reduction is not the point here. What Aintree and the B.H.A. has said loud and clear is that the protestors are right, the race in its present form is dangerous and they are obliged to placate them by shearing the race of its unique character, denuding it further to achieve the purpose of having it look like every other race in the calendar. Not one alteration the B.H.A. has authorized since 2012 has the made the Grand National safer for horse or jockey because you cannot make the sport of National Hunt racing any safer than it is because galloping a horse at speed and over any sort of obstacle you wish to mention is an inherently risky occupation. Reducing the field by six is like improving your odds of winning the lottery by buying two tickets rather than one.
This year’s race, I guarantee, will have half the field, perhaps over 50%, comprised of horses trained by Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins or owned by J.P. McManus, with the smaller trainers unrepresented, even if they have genuine 4-mile horses with unimpeachable jumping records. For instance, Chantry House, a notable sketchy jumper, who because of his inflated rating, will get to run if connections decide to run but unless his rating goes up markedly, Kittys Light, one of the best long-distance chasers in the country, could easily not make the cut. And the B.H.A. want to make the race safer!
Tom Scudamore has made the comment ‘the race comes first’. Well, he’s wrong. Placating an ignorant public comes first. Virtual signalling flown from the highest mast is more of a priority than safety. ‘We care about horses’. ‘Horses come first’. Yet no restriction on jockeys using the whip on the long slog from the last fence! Mustn’t upset the jockeys, must we!
What happens next year if there is another equine fatality? Take out fences and replace them with hurdles. Reduce the distance to 3-miles 3-furlongs. Allow only 15-horses to compete. In 20-years the Grand National will not exist; it is has been the line of travel since 2012. The race makes the B.H.A. nervous and there are those in its fold that would rather not have the bother every April. The Grand National is not safe in the hands of the present clerk of the course and the B.H.A. are poor overseers of National Hunt racing.
It is one thing to point out that if 34 was the limit in 2021, no female jockey would not have won the world’s ‘greatest race’ but its chastening to think that out there somewhere in one small stable or another there waits another Red Rum, not that with the ratings rise and the new field limit he would get a chance to display his stamina and jumping expertise.
I predict that both during the ‘Morning Show’ and Ed Chamberlain during the racing in the afternoon that the I.T.V. presenters will be unified in their praise for the changes. As it is with all the grandees of the sport to have commented so far, including Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. They are all wrong. They see no further than their noses. The future for the Grand National is bleaker for this latest capitulation, this latest round of virtual signalling. The hole that has been dug for the sport is wider and deeper than ever, with the day the sport will fall into it ever closer. We are on the road to Hell in a handcart made of bad decisions and pointless change.
To affect changes in the wake of a race that was compromised by protestors is a knee-jerk reaction that shows the B.H.A. and the present clerk of the course in a very poor light. They are entrusted with the crown jewels of the sport and they have betrayed the race and its heritage. They have not protected the race; they continue to put it in grave danger of extinction.
The problem with the Grand National is not 40-runners, the course is wide enough to accommodate 60-runners (recall what was said when it was first reduced to 40? No one suggested going to 34 then; in fact, the overriding feeling was that the reduction was unnecessary) but the scrimmaging at the first three-fences. The course is wide enough to accommodate 60-horses, yet jockeys all verge toward the inside of the course. The solution is simple if radical: a rough draw on the morning of the race so that 20-horses start on the left-side of the course, a gap and then 20-horses starting on the right, the jockeys instructed to stay straight until after the third-fence. In this year’s race, I will guarantee, 34-horses will be packed between the inner and middle of the course. Horses will still fall, horses will still be brought down or baulked. And in the near future a horse will be fatally injured. I don’t want to see it any more than the B.H.A. but that is the sad nature of our sport.
I am angry about these changes and my love of the race is diminished, a man who has worshipped the race for the best part of sixty-years, a man who has four books close to him dedicated to the Grand National. Reg Green must be turning in his grave!

​I am caught between a feather-bed and the floorboards about my feelings towards the B.H.A.’s much-vaunted plans for the premierisation of weekend racing. I want it to work and provide all the benefits the B.H.A. aspire to, while fearing the consequences of it failing or even if it succeeds. After all, the B.H.A. do not have a good record when it comes the radical changes it promotes.
I am pleased the Sunday has been included in the scheme, though I think more could have been achieved if terrestrial television was included in the Sunday package, with the ‘Sunday Series’ elevated to an afternoon slot, perhaps. The six Sunday evening slots I abhor, even if the Stable Staff boss has given it his blessing, though if he had to get out of bed pre-dawn the following day, he might not be quite so enthusiastic. 
Fixtures during the ‘golden slot’ between 2pm and 4 pm will undoubtedly benefit from larger amounts of prize-money, though I.T.V. do a pretty good job showcasing the best races already and if the idea is to engage with a new audience, long build-ups before off-time will more likely drive people away than engross them with the intrigue of it all. The lure and excitement of racing is the racing, not the chatter of ‘experts’.
Will it improve revenue for the sport? Only time will tell, though it is worrying that computer modelling has been channelled to formulate the B.H.A.’s aspiration and hopeful promises.
Though it might be of help, given the huge prize-money on offer at the countries that regularly gobble-up many of our above-average flat horses, I am sceptical it will reverse to a meaningful extent horses sold to race abroad.
The hope that juggling the times certain race-meetings start and end will ‘transform’ the sport will no doubt will prove correct, though whether that transformation will be to the sport’s benefit or loss is a matter only time will inform us.
Why the B.H.A. went for a 2-year trial when the Levy Board have only guaranteed an increase in funding, £3.2-million, for 2024 is a little baffling? It can be compared to riding on the gallops without a helmet.
There are good ideas announced by the B.H.A., it has to be admitted. The creation of breaks for jockeys riding under both codes is to be applauded, even if moaning Tom Marquard will doubtless object to being forced to take some down-time. For the mental well-being and general health of jockeys there should be more not less days when only one code of the sport is in action. I was also pleased to see geographical breaks are to be included, though how this can be policed is rather vague. Does this mean a jockey or trainer based in the south will not be allowed to travel north or vice-versa? Rider-restricted race-meetings I have advocated for years as this will allow the less-lauded jockeys an opportunity to earn a better standard of living and hence will be a boost to the integrity of the sport.
Computer-generated estimates that premierisation might improve by £90-million should be taken with a grain of salt. Computer-modelling proved worse than useless during the ‘pandemic’ as what you get out of a computer is only a reflection of the figures you insert into it. Might be £90-million, might be more, might be less. Again, only time will tell.
Premierisation will only attract new customers if a concerted effort is made to make a day at the races value for money, with the removal of all dress-codes and allowing people to wander where they please without the need for the correct badge, with the exception of the racecourse, obviously.
Premierisation will not be a success if Ascot, Newmarket, Cheltenham, etc, thrive, whilst Beverley, Thirsk, Taunton, etc, perish. Premierisation must serve and develop the whole of the sport equally or all of the B.H.A.’s aims and aspirations will go up in smoke. I remain to be convinced by this ‘transformation’ of the sport and will keep my fingers crossed my scepticism will be proved misplaced.
On This Day:
In 1837, jockey Thomas Lye won the first race at Northallerton having won 2-races at Edinburgh the day before.
In 1920, U.S. superstar racehorse, Man O’War won his 21st and final race at Kenilworth Park
In 1982, Chaplin’s Club won the first of his 24 wins at Folkestone, ridden by John Reid.
In 1989, Peter Scudamore rode his 50th winner of the season at Wincanton, the fastest fifty winners at the time.
In 1992, the Princess Royal officially opened J.P. McManus’ Jackdaw’s Castle, the £1.8 million training complex then used by David Nicholson and now home to Jonjo O’Neill.

​Sadly, newsvendors no longer loudly inform potential customers of that day’s Epsom Derby or Grand National winner, and there will not be a report on racing’s biggest races of the year on the front page, either. If the King & Queen were to be so lucky, then that would a horse of a different feather. Holly Doyle, too, might make the front page if she won the Derby. Or Saffie Osborne, of course, as she’s the coming lady of the flat.
In sporting terms, socially the sport of horse racing in waiting in line to become pariah status, with air-headed warriors for animal welfare achieving greater media attention for their wrecking mentality than those of us who actually care for animals of all kind and, as the case with the sport of horse racing, continue to put the needs of horses before all else and when tragedy strikes, as it must in all walks of life, the tears are real and not of the crocodile type.
The death of a racehorse, as with any domestic pet, is a blow to the heart. Just because life goes on after the tragedy of losing a horse to a fatal injury or heart attack or whatever, it does not imply a lack of sympathy or a callous nature. In Afghanistan, in the aftermath of the earthquake a few days ago, life goes on because it must go on. Israel and Gaza are going toe-to-toe again at the moment but people still need to go to the shops, to tune in every evening to whatever soap opera they have become addicted to. But it does not mean people go about without a heavy heart and a deep desire for the world around them to be a better place.
Personally, I only read the Racing Post and for many years I have not watched mainstream news as to my mind they are institutions with scant regard for truth and integrity. Today, sadly, perhaps criminally, Britain has a controlled media, very much in alignment with Russia, China and other nations who we are told are our opposites when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of association. From the wordsmiths of the Racing Post it seems the sport has gained ground in its dispute with animal activists, with the looney left giving our sport a wide berth at the moment. Doubtless they will return, unknowingly doing the work of the foreign bodies that have planned the destruction of societies around the world for decades and are now slowly but surely achieving their aim. We will not survive just because of our elitist image.
This is my greatest fear in life, even though you would get short odds on me not living long enough to witness the eventual destruction of every department of society that I have enjoyed, and taken for granted, all of my near seventy-years. Affordability checks are, in my opinion, an opening salvo in a public debate on the ethics of gambling, a debate that will over the next few decades be opened up to include the moral viability of the sport itself. Love of the racehorse will, in the end, not be enough to save the species when children will be indoctrinated, amongst other social about-turns, that horse racing is the modern-day equivalent of bear-baiting or cock-fighting. It is, I’m afraid, the line of travel, even if the speed of descent is so slow the eventual destination is unknown to all but those in charge. And I do not mean the B.H.A.
Racecourses, as with golf-courses, are, when they are located in cities and towns, green lungs, an oasis of non-development. Yet think of all the racecourses of the past that now lie under the brick and tarmac of housing estates, business parks and shopping centres. We nearly lost Cheltenham and Aintree to the developers, remember. How many present-day racecourses are in the firing-line to go the same way as Folkestone, Stockton, Birmingham and Manchester?
The long-term aim of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, a proposal for extreme change in the way people live their lives and adopted by nearly all the ‘democratic’ governments around the world, is to rewild the countryside, to ban the farming of animals for human consumption, for people to only eat plant-based foods, to ban the keeping of domestic pets, all, and a whole lot more, in the name of climate change and net zero, both of which are challenged by far more scientists and experts in the field than mainstream media will allow you to know about. Where in the above scenario, which, if you can now find it, is laid out on the W.E.F. website or in any book Klaus Schwab has ever published (he is founder and small king of the W.E,F. – think Bond villain and you will have his image clearly defined) do you think the racehorse can be found?
To provide the food a horse needs to be the complete athlete it is, takes up many thousands upon thousands of acres. Oats, hay, straw, every ingredient that goes into horse nuts, etc. It also needs miles of land to be trained on and a racecourse to be raced on. All of which goes against the policies urged by Klaus Schwab and his unelected cronies and to be adopted by governments worldwide. It’s all about saving the planet, you see!
Affordability checks is just a distraction. An important battle to win short-term but not by a long chalk the biggest battle the sport will face by the year 2040 or the following decade.
Just glad I won’t be alive to witness the diabolical plan unfold!
I might be labelled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for my views, a tag that really should be seen as ‘truth-seeker’, which we all should be, not blind followers of political rhetoric or idealism, but fighting for the survival of my sport is a hill I am prepared do die on. Are you?