​Because of the method of funding for British & Irish racing, because we place so much adherence on the atmosphere created by bookmakers on racecourses and reject out-of-hand the model for funding adopted by France, Hong-Kong and other go-ahead racing hotbeds, sponsors are our life-blood.
There is no doubt that the instigation of the Whitbread and Hennessey Gold Cups fundamentally changed National Hunt to its benefit. Yet racing’s administrators love-at-first-sight charge toward the golden uplands of ever more sponsored races has driven a coach and horses through the historical record of the sport.
Let me ask a question: during the period when the contract between Hennessey and Newbury ended and Ladbrokes put pen to paper, what was the name of the race previously known as the Hennessey and which is now known as the Ladbroke Trophy? Does this important steeplechase, the most prestigious handicap outside of the Grand National, actually exist at all outside of a sponsor’s name?
It grinds on my nerves when commentators scroll through past winners of big races, as will be done this coming Saturday, naming horses whose owners did not pick up the Ladbroke or the Bet 363 (994 or whatever) Trophy but who went home with a magnum of brandy or twenty-four bottles of Whitbread Pale Ale. Mill House and Denman did not win, for example, the Ladbroke Trophy but another race titled the Hennessey Gold Cup. So far there has been only one winner of the Ladbrokes Trophy. The race, as prestigious as it remains, has no history and it is simply confusing to suggest it has.
There is a call in some quarters of the media to dumb-down our sport for the benefit of newcomers. Yet when one of these newbies is confused by Matt Chapman talking about the Ladbrokes Trophy when all the signage shown on past recordings of the race blare out the name Hennessey and it is explained the race has new sponsors, how can it be explained what exactly is being sponsored. In reality, even if the race is registered as the Newbury Steeplechase, a pointless exercise if the race is never spoken of as the Newbury Steeplechase, all that is being sponsored is a 3-mile 2-furlong steeplechase run in November or December at Newbury. Unlike the Cheltenham Gold Cup that remains the Cheltenham Gold Cup no matter who the current sponsor might be.
The Betfair Chase is fine until Betfair tire of it and it becomes another race entirely. Why the King George can remain the King George no matter who the sponsor is and other races must have name-changes ever two or three years is something that baffles me. Horse Racing has a long and noble history. It deserves to be protected, its day-by-day narrative preserved in the same way editors seek to keep the plots of novels coherent, without misleading sub-plots.
For sponsors who finance important races for long periods of time horse racing offers a brilliant advertising avenue. Long after they departed the scene, brands such as Schweppes, Whitbread, Hennessey, Mackeson and even Massey-Ferguson live on in the memory.
If only Bill Whitbread had been persuaded to name his race the Whitbread Sandown Gold Cup all this confusion to the historical record would be avoided. It is one thing to be eternally grateful to Betfair for their generous sponsorship but short-sighted to not insist the registered name of the race be included in the title. The race in its present form has never been known as the Lancashire Chase, yet that is its registered name. Why it cannot be known as the Betfair Lancashire Chase is beyond all reason.
Most of the prestigious National Hunt races, and it is also becoming the same for Flat Racing, are nameless, a product owned, if only temporarily, by the sponsors, the historical record of the sport kicked out of shape for the purposes of commercial gain. The powers-that-be should demonstrate backbone and insist that sponsorship of horse races is a union of interests and not a matter for arm-twisting or downright hostage-taking. Our sport has a history that runs parallel with the very fabric of society and social change in this country. In allowing misleading plots into its proud narrative the powers-that-be are doing the sport a disservice. Names, as I have advocated a million times before, are important. Without definitive names the sport is nothing more than fluffy clouds floating away into the distance.
Please I.T.V. do not name Denman as a twice previous winner of Saturday’s big race. I will, though, be hoping to hear Richard Hoiles calling Black Corton the winner of the Ladbroke Trophy.

​I am presently reading ‘The Ups and Downs of a National Jockey’, the memories of Ben Lay who rode before and after the 2nd World War and who later became a trainer. I shall not pretend that this book is unputdownable or that it is beautifully written and crammed full of amusing anecdotes and great insight. Lord Oaksey, who wrote the foreword, incidentally, it is not. It is self-published and as with all books of this sort, mine included, I should imagine, it could have done with the guiding hand of a good editor and proof-reader. These people are professional and do not come cheap and as sales will only ever be small without the aid of the advertising budget of a publishing house, such expense can scrub away any hope of profit. That said, the book is an addition to the historical record of the sport and I advise all retiring jockeys and trainers to consider publishing their own account of their careers for the very same reason.
There is no reference to what year the book was published, though through quick research I discovered he died in 2007, aged 92 and the photograph of the author on the back cover suggests he was in his seventies at the time of publication.
Though he cannot be considered a successful jockey, Percy Dennis Lay, as he was christened, was no also ran. He rode several winners at the Cheltenham Festival, including the Cathcart Chase when it was still a handicap and was second in a pre-war Grand National and might have ridden Freebooter if circumstances had been different. He was what is referred to in the present day as a ‘journeyman jockey’, riding what was offered to him and supplementing his income by milking his small herd of cows, farming in general and buying, breeding and selling horses. As all jockeys are, he was a grafter. His life-story is interesting simply because he was a jumps jockey who mingled with and was friends with people who today are merely familiar names that crop up now and again when the roll-call of great races is required by journalists or t.v. He played his part in the writing of the sport’s history and deserves to be remembered. If nothing else, he gave Jeff King, said to be the best jockey never to have been champion, his first ever winner and who knows if without that winner on that day if Jeff King would have been given the opportunity to make his mark on the sport.
When he started training, Ben Lay moved to Rectory Farm, Broughton, near Banbury, and it is here my vague association with him occurred.
As I have admitted before, I have a poor memory and most of the story I am about to relate is lost to the mists of my malfunctioning brain.
I cannot remember if I applied for a job at Vic Lay’s yard, Vic being Ben’s youngest son, a trainer at the time, or whether he replied to an advertisement I placed looking for work. At a time when good staff were more easily acquired than now, I had little confidence in my ability and thought I had an advantage if trainers contacted me. It was poor policy then and not recommended now. Anyway, I cannot even recall where I lived at the time, who I was working for or how I travelled to Rectory Farm. All I recall with clarity is this:
I never met Vic Lay, I believe, and cannot remember being shown around the stables. I was though ‘interviewed’ by a woman, perhaps Mrs.Vic Lay. As usually occurs during an introduction to someone who either owns horses or is a trainer of racehorses, I was shown a photo album filled with horsey pictures. Mrs.Lay stood at my shoulder, as I sat at a table, turning each page and giving me chapter and verse on the equines and humans in the photographs. There were no Grand National winners, of course, to eulogise over but every home-bred and every winner is a source of pride to the teller.
About halfway through the album she turned a page and started to talk about whatever photograph was on the left-hand side. Unfortunately, at least for my host, my eye fell on the photograph immediately in front of me of a spreading oak tree adorned by a nude young girl standing on a bough without inhibition as if on the bowfront of sailing ship. Eventually my host witnessed what took my undivided attention and snapped the album shut, without even pausing to offer explanation or apology.
I never worked at Rectory Farm. Understandably so, perhaps. I vaguely remember leaving without a bag or suitcase or whatever and they kindly transported it to Worcester races where I was either working or attending as a racegoer.
It’s odd how these coincidences come about and how they can stir the tentacles of memory, as Ben Lay did for me, reminding me that back in the days of my history I lived a different sort of life. Perhaps a more fulfilling life, though one equally led by an ambition to be more than I capable of attaining.
 
 

​I have a whole lot of sympathy for jockeys who must starve themselves just to make a living at the sport. How they do the job they do on virtually nothing more than a slice of dry toast, a boiled egg and, if they are feeling carefree, an ice-cream or a packet of Haribos at the end of the day, is beyond anything I can imagine. I had to make a pot of tea and raid the biscuit barrel simply to write the ‘less than a thousand words’ which will comprise this piece of thought-extraction.
The ‘but’ that was surely coming is that I am not wholly convinced by the call for minimum weights to rise to accommodate the super-sizing of jockeys. Given the bare fact that those destined to become jockeys are no longer subject to malnutrition and rickets as children and grow-up to be healthy young adults and subsequently struggle to ‘do light’, the case, even to a born cynic like me, for allowing bottom weights to drift upward should be unarguable. I have reservations, though, and believe the powers-that-be should give the subject a good deal of thought before any decision is made.
Firstly, and thank heavens they do, no one compels anyone to become a jockey. They know the pitfalls of the profession as well as the life-enhancing benefits. Though of course if jockeys year on year fail to do the weight allotted to their mounts the sport will suffer and the sport is far more important than any individual aspect of the sport. There would also be a kind of discrimination involved if the minimum weight was to rise two or three pounds. Female jockeys, I would suggest, might find it easier to ride at eight stone than their male counterparts and though their number increases annually very few of them find opportunities to ride in the more important handicaps and if the minimum weight were to rise the limited opportunities available would be reduced further. Also, and again there is a smudge of discrimination, those lightweight jockeys, the Jimmy Quinns of our sport, who at one time made a far living by being able to ride at 7st 7lb, let alone 7st 10lbs, will be pushed even further down the path of subsistence. As is usually the case when change is imposed the beneficiaries are those already making a steady living, with little of no thought given to those who must grasp every straw in hope it might lead to an increase in their living standards.
This issue must be resolved by taking in the whole picture and not favouring one group of riders above another. I would suggest the guideline of a minimum weight should be scrapped altogether and clerks of the courses or whoever frames handicaps should be able to set the minimum weight within a set parameter, with some races having a minimum weight of 7st 10lbs and others ranging up to 8st 4lbs, and I would suggest that in races where the minimum weight is set at the lowest scale the top weight should similarly be reduced to say 9st 7lbs.
As always, the above is simply an example of the idea floating around in my head. I dare say with banded racing and major handicaps like the Royal Hunt Cup, where the bottom weight can be as high as 8st 10lbs, my suggestion is invalid. My concern is for every jockey with a licence to get a fair crack at earning a living, a theme I have written about many times over the past decade.
Also, at what point will the minimum weight stop rising? When flat horses are allotted similar weights to the jumpers? And by increasing the minimum weight a horse can carry those at the top of the handicap must carry more weight than at present. Jumpers are mature horses. In the main their bones are as strong as they will ever be and their muscles fully developed. They are also, in the main, mentally mature. This is not the case with flat horses, with the majority being two and three-years-old. A horse is not considered mature until it reaches the age of five or six.
I realise that if minimum weights were allowed to go down as well as up there will be pressure brought to bear on jockeys struggling to make a living as things stand to eat even less than they do at present to achieve 7st 10lbs as this will allow them greater opportunity to gain more rides and extra income. But I believe fervently that every man and woman who is brave enough and has the dedication to work with and ride racehorses deserves the chance to earn a living from the sport. The likes of Ben Curtis, a jockey who has made his mark this past flat season and who has publicly said minimum weights should rise, is doing alright for himself. He has been given opportunities and he has grasped them with both hands. I just suggest others should also be given similar opportunities. Raising the minimum weight would hurt as many as it would help, I suggest.
But I am at the point of being ‘overweight’. It is easy for the full-of-stomach to suggest the hungry should stay that way. ‘Hope you are hungry’, in our world, is an invitation to eat. In Somalia or the home of a jockey it is an unkindness bordering on cruelty.
 

​I have just subjected myself to knee-jerk sentimental blather of ignorant Australians crying animal cruelty and an end to ‘the annual slaughter’ after the Cliffs of Moher, as he was known here, broke a shoulder during this tear’s renewal of the Melbourne Cup and had to be euthanised. A tragedy for those closely connected to the horse, a convenient excuse for the ignorant to cry crocodile tears and insult our great sport.
This piece will be short as all I will doing if I write to my normal ‘no more than a thousand words’ will be to reiterate everything I have said many times in the past. The issue emanating from Melbourne is not misuse of the whip but misuse of one of God’s creatures, apparently. It does not matter how often you remind these idiots that horses are not bred for slaughter but to be admired and loved. It does not matter a jot how often you remind them how long they would howl if they went to their supermarket for dog food to find empty shelves because they had horse racing banned and there was no requirement anymore for the thoroughbred racehorse. It wouldn’t even cause them to twitch a fascial muscle if you informed them how many people around the world would lose their jobs if horse racing were to be banned as they wish.
These people are being mobilised by Animal Aid. Read their tweets and ingest their vitriol. These people are bad-mouthing good people who have cared for animals all their lives and trying to infect the majority with their ignorant judgements.
We cannot afford to dismiss these people as cranks anymore. We only need one of their number to rise to political power somewhere in the world and the dominos will start to fall.
Now is the time to be proactive, to be on the front foot. Ignorance must not be allowed to prevail. We owe it to the horse, the breeding and racing industry, to everyone who works with racehorses, to take steps to stay one step ahead of our enemies. Our love of the horse must be made publicly known and without emasculating our sport we should begin the process of change. Placing restrictions on the use of the whip must be our first line of defence.
Yet another brilliant day in the resurgence of Godolphin, by the way. And a 1,2,3 for British trained horses.

​Back in the early days of National Hunt, between the two world wars, I believe, a meeting at Catterick was about to fall victim to frost. In days of yore, of course, they were perhaps not exactly fussy about ground conditions, so one can only assume the frost had bitten hard into the ground. The Stewards, all local dignitaries, no doubt, would be keen for racing to go ahead as in those days race meetings were carnival affairs, looked forward to with mounting anticipation by sportsman and workers alike, but were cautious in giving the go-ahead in fear of generating adverse publicity.
A farmer, though, came up with a possible solution. As the temperature was rising and they had nothing to lose the stewards gave the farmer permission to execute his plan. So right up to the advertised time of the first race the farmer drove sheep around and around the course, the accumulation of hooved feet removing all trace of frost and leaving the course fit, if more than a little manured, for racing.
As I write, the main weather condition is a general lack of rain, soon to be alleviated, in the South-West, at least, by rain-bearing clouds that will visit our racecourses on a daily basis during the following seven days. Although Meteorologists continue to forecast feast or famine when it comes to weather over the coming years due to global warming, that does not mean National Hunt enthusiasts will not be subject to the anxiety of ‘Stewards’ Inspections’ and eleventh-hour abandonments due to frost.
Of all the extremes of weather that affect horse racing in this country I instinctively feel that frost should be the easiest to overcome. The incident at Catterick almost a hundred years ago suggests that a solution, in our technologically advanced society, should be at hand. Whether the powers-that-be have initiated any research into solving this wintery problem I cannot say, though if they have one can only surmise that they either failed to come up with an answer or that if they have found the answer it is too expensive to put into practise.
It is not recorded how deep the frost penetrated at Catterick. For the pounding of sheep hooves to have made the ground raceable, it is probably it was only minus two or three. Minus eight or more, as we know from experience, will defeat the best of modern-day fleece-covers and even if man could remove such a hard frost from the ground racing would no doubt still be abandoned due to the unsafe condition in and around the grandstand for race-goers. It is frustrating, though, when racing is abandoned due to slight frosts that refuse to budge from shadow or on the landing side of fences. Surely there must be a bit of kit that can be pulled behind a tractor to remove minus one to three from the ground?
I am not an inventor, and I dare say any ideas I come up with have already been mooted by far cleverer people than me. Like many of you, I have watched for years my other half drying her hair and thought ‘surely blades of grass are not that dissimilar to strands of hair for a similar device to be successful in defrosting the soil?’ When it comes to frost in shadow, if the air temperature is above nil degrees, why is there not a beefed-up version of a hair-dryer for clerks-of-the-courses to deploy?
In my minds’ eye a leaf-blower sort of device with a low-heat source attached is a possibility. Or a sprayer that applied a mist of warm water across frosted areas. Giant, though thin, hot-water bottles applied direct to frozen ground. Underground heating, as at football stadiums, in known vulnerable areas. Cleverer people could no doubt come up with more high-tech solutions than my Heath Robinson suggestions. By the way, the madcap, or ingenious and complex, devices of the cartoonist Heath Robinson did actually work, even if his name can be mistakenly associated with hare-brain ideas that have little chance of success.
I should know the cost of covering a racecourse in fleece to ‘ensure’ racing goes ahead. I don’t, of course, though it is easy to imagine it is many thousands of pounds. I am also unaware of the life-span of fleece-coverings, whether they are recyclable or what impact they have on the immediate environment once they begin to fray due to the rough handling needed to deploy them. And given the number of people required to lay the fleeces and to remove them before racing, it would perhaps be cost-effective to have at hand a more technological piece of kit to remove the frost rather than to cover the course to prevent frost penetrating the ground.
We are not talking about seeding clouds with silver nitrate to mess around with the laws of nature, as likely a reason, in my estimation, for the erratic weather patterns we are exposed to as global warming driven by the environmentally detrimental habits of you and I. I am merely advocating the temporary removal of frost for the purpose of not being deprived of the life-blood of my existence upon this Earth. Trivial, in the grand scheme of things? Well, consider this buzzkill to Xmas: Kempton Park, Boxing Day, the fleeces are deployed, all the top chasers in Britain and Ireland prepared to the minute to do joyous battle, Stewards Inspection after Stewards Inspection. Frost has got in under the covers on the turn into the straight. They wait for Mother Nature to come to our aid but alas She is busy elsewhere and cannot visit until two days hence! Christmas spoiled, the race rearranged, inconveniently to certain trainers, for January and Sandown Park. It is a great success; reason enough for the Jockey Club to close Kempton Park. And all for the lack of a warm air blowing machine!
 

​Tennis ranks its players on a points system based on tournaments throughout the year, with more points awarded for the majors than lesser events. It is an equitable and straight-forward way of assessing players ability, with no judgement calls required. No one can argue if Roger Federer is ranked number one if he has won the most titles and accrued the most points.
Ranking racehorses on a worldwide basis is a far more arbitrary affair, with judgement calls required throughout the process, added to which many differing factors must be overlooked as to ponder over them would take for every and a day and the quivering public would never gain the benefit of knowing if Cracksman or Winx is the best in racehorse on planet Earth, as Matt Chapman would pronounce.
I have no idea which horse might be considered the best of the best or by which criteria to base my judgement. Winx is on a winning streak that has the hallmarks of the days of Eclipse when long sequences of 1’s were not uncommon. They are now, though and given the majority of the great mare’s wins have come in Group 1’s it is hard to shake off the idea that she might just be invincible. After all, didn’t Frankel have one or three strolls in the park during his winning streak?
I am as certain as horse racing will allow that Cracksman could only ever beat Enable, Roaring Lion or Winx on soft ground, and only then if he was of a mind to put his best foot forward. By being ground dependent, which by the end of his career was undoubtedly the case, the distance by which he won the Champion Stakes, to my mind, is irrelevant. I was so impressed by the manner of his victory in the previous season’s Champion that I predicted he would prove superior to Enable this season. I no longer think that. I also predicted that Cracksman and Enable would never race against one another. I was right, sadly, if for the wrong reason.
On good ground, over 1m-2 furlongs, I would actually put Roaring Lion in front of Cracksman, especially as he would receive a weight-for-age allowance.
The major problem when it comes to assessing horses that race on different continents, on turf and artificial surfaces, in contrasting weather conditions and when soft in one country might mean something different in another country, is that there are just too many prestige races at this time of the year. The big operations can divvy the big races up between their leading owners. Already we have had Roaring Lion winning the Queen Elisabeth, Cracksman the Champion, Enable the Arc and Winx the Cox Plate, and that is without the mega-bucks jamboree that is the Breeders Cup. What hope is there for a prestige race that can have any bearing on informing us which of the present-day champions is the best if it is so damn easy and profitable to keep them apart?
When was the last time two truly meritorious racehorses met on the racecourse, where defeat for one and victory for the other was the defining moment of the sport at that moment in time? Wouldn’t it be truly wonderful if Enable and Winx were to be kept in training so that these two great mares could race one another. Of course, to be fair to both parties both should travel, either to have one race in Australia and another in Britain, or to a neutral country like America.
I don’t know if Australia, as it is here at home, has a need to put more bums on seats, to spread the word about how magnificent our sport can be. But I cannot think of any better marketing spectacle than to have Winx and Enable eyeball each other at Royal Ascot and then for the re-run Down Under. The publicity such a spectacle would engender would knock for six the Kauto v Denman clash in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Australia’s greatest ever racehorse versus one of Britain’s greatest mares. If that didn’t put flat racing on the front pages of the broadsheet newspapers then all hope is gone?
And to end by returning to the nonsense that is world rankings. Who is to say that a middle-distance horse is worthier of the accolade ‘best in the world’ rather than a sprinter or stayer?