​A merry how’s your father and a grinling great New Year. May you stay healthy, wealthy and wise beyond your years.
For all of you blessed to have book tokens as Christmas presents, I say overlook the laziness of the giver, the lack of insight and lack of knowledge of the type of book you read or would be grateful to receive. This is the season, remember, of the forced family fun, of bonhomie to the world and its wife. If you have a token up to the value of £20 in your wallet I highly recommend ‘The Scudamores’ by Chris Cook and the three jockey members of the Scudamore family plus contributions by Michael junior. This book is informative, debate-inspiring and, oddly, brought alive by the posthumous contributions by Grandad Scudamore, and most importantly different in style and content from most other racing books. A must-have for any racing library.
As with anyone with a long and abiding love of our sport I like to be proved right, for the rightness of my opinion to be backed-up by people far more knowledgeable and respected than myself. When Bryony Frost won the Cheltenham Foxhunters on Pasha du Polder, I thought it one of the rides of the meeting. When she won the Warwick Classic on Milansbar I declared her a special talent. It may have been the first-time application of blinkers that transformed Milansbar that day, they certainly helped, but it was I believe the positivity from the saddle that transformed him from fence-thumping disappointing to a potential Grand National winner, which on very soft ground I remain convinced he is, even at the age of twelve. She has only ridden him once since and proving wrong the wisdom and judgement of no less a judge as Matt Chapman she finished fifth at Aintree. When given quality rides in big races she invariably delivers. I hope in 2019 she is given even greater opportunities to shine. The sport needs her. And returning to ‘The Scudamores’, it perked up my sense of self-worth to read that Peter Scudamore, thought by Clare Balding to be ‘sexist’, said on seeing Bryony ride she transformed his opinion and now believes she has the talent to be champion jockey. I doubt she’ll get the opportunities on a daily basis to be champion, though Grand Nationals and Gold Cups may not be beyond her. Rachael Blackmore may though be a champion. Again, a female champion jockey is exactly what the sport needs.
Of course, today is not the big day for those of us who have looked forward to the Christmas period for several weeks now. Tomorrow is the big day, one of the best in the whole Racing Calendar.
The King George is a funny old race that caters for some horses and mitigates against others, which is why over the years several horses have won the race more than once, with the two greats running up sequences. Which is why Might Bite should not be written off despite his poor showing at Haydock, another course that is a horses-for-courses venue. It is arguable that though winning last year, Might Bite’s King George success was his poorest run of the season. Scrambling home from Double Shuffle was not Gold Cup winning form yet at Cheltenham he made Native River go deep to the well to beat him. I’m not convinced Might Bite is a Kempton specialist.
The two horses that interest me most tomorrow are Thistlecrack and Coneygree. This may insult the Tizzards but I suspect tomorrow might be the first time they have had Thistlecrack fully fit since his titanic tussle with Many Clouds. Thistlecrack, by the way, was finishing out the Betfair better than his stable-mate and despite the fences getting in the way, he was the one pulling double entering the straight, looking the likely winner. The fences may be his undoing tomorrow as Coneygree is going to be putting them all to the sword and if he is 100% fit and 100% the horse he was when he won the Gold Cup, a big ask, I know, he might yet roll back the years. At 25’s and 33/1 he must be the value, especially after his encouraging run at Cheltenham last time. Anyway, ignore him at your peril.
I hope Coneygree wins if only so that Sean Bowen achieves the big race success his undoubted prowess in the saddle deserves before his little brother steals all the thunder in the Bowen household.
6.30 am, Christmas morning. Sad old me, aye!

​In last Sunday’s Racing Post there was an illuminating and rather sad article featuring Kayley Woollacott and the suicide of her husband Richard. It was illuminating as Kayley Woollacott was brave enough to fill in the gaps, the pieces of the tragedy thus far untold publicly. She must feel somewhere in the depths of her heart that in some way she either contributed to the fatal actions of her husband or she might have prevented his death if she had made differing decisions to those she made.
I doubt if she was to blame in any way and being someone who inhabits the dark side on more occasions than is healthy for a fulfilling life, I also doubt if there was anything she could have said or done to prevent the inevitable. For the clinically depressed suicide is ever present. It sits on the shoulder as a convenient solution to all of life’s problems. They say love conquers all. Sadly, it is not true. The thought of suicide is a thing of beauty to those who cannot see any light at the end of the tunnel. The love and concern of a wife or parent can even make the situation more untenable as it adds extra weight to the burdensome feelings of inadequacy and failure.
It is not that Richard Woollacott or anyone with his condition cannot feel love. It’s just so depressed by the negativity of the condition that the love so willingly offered to him by family and friends becomes just another burden upon the soul. I would be amazed if Richard Woollacott did not love his wife, his daughter, the horses in his care to the same extent as any other racehorse trainer. Perhaps more so. In fact his love was perhaps so fertile and real that thoughts of letting them down, of not fulfilling all the dreams in which they were a focal part, fragmented his reality, locked him within himself, a state of mind that only allowed the dark side of his personality, the hidden part of the soul people of sound mind can suppress, to dictate his moods, his actions, to plan for a future that could only end with the kindness of a shotgun or the length of a rope.
On many occasions during my life, and I say this honestly and with deep shame, access to a gun would have seen me take the same course of action as Richard Woollacott.
What I cannot understand, though all of us are different, our reasons for having suicide sit on our shoulders as varied as reasons for living, is that Richard lived amongst horses, working in horse racing. My salvation has always been horse racing. Jack Leach wrote in his autobiography ‘Sods I Have Cut On The Turf’, how can anyone die when they don’t know how last season’s two-year-olds have trained on?’ Though I am somewhat indifferent when it comes to how last season’s two-year-olds do as three-year-olds, how Lalor progresses or whether Presenting Percy is as good as I think he is, or will Bryony Frost become the first women to win the Grand National, or will Rachael Blackmore make sporting history also by becoming champion jockey in Ireland, as well a hundred or more questions relating to the sport, give me the hope to carry on making a mess of my life, to be just as much a  disappointment to myself tomorrow as every day that has gone before.
If it is brave to go ‘over the top’ during a battle, to face the enemy straight in the eye, to almost seek certain death, then it is equally brave to take your own life. Perhaps I am too much a coward to follow Richard’s example. Perhaps he knew in the depth of his soul that Lalor would achieve what he felt was beyond him; that in leaving Lalor in the care of his wife he was presenting her with the opportunity of a lifetime, that the horse could look after her future to better effect than he could.
No one knows if my thoughts on this sad topic are right or wrong. No one, I suspect, knows what was going on in his mind when he chose the kindness of the shotgun. Hopefully in taking away his own darkness, in Lalor he has given Kayley a light that will guide her path for the rest of her life.
Don’t do as I do. Seek help. Be brave. Think of those you risk leaving to uncertain future. Not everyone has a Lalor for a saviour.
 

​I have Peter Scudamore’s autobiography winging its way to me and I’ll be surprised and disappointed if he does not declare Carvill’s Hill the best he ever rode.
Those of you who remember Carvill’s Hill will doubtless have catalogued him in either the ‘what-he-might-have-been’ or ‘ultimately disappointing’ list. He was certainly a conundrum, a ‘riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ as Winston Churchill once said of Russia. Yet his performance in winning the 1991 Welsh Grand National must rank as one the best weight-carrying triumphs since the days of Arkle. Indeed, I believe it ranks up there with anything Arkle achieved, or at least almost.
The Welsh National of 1991 – it seems so long ago, doesn’t it – was run on rain-softened ground and comprised the likes of Twin Oaks, Esha Ness, Aquilifer, Cool Ground, Party Politics, Zeta’s Lad, The West Awake, Kildimo and Bonanza Boy. Horses that won the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Grand National, the Hennessey, a horse who ‘won’ the National that never was, a twice winner of the Welsh National and a horse who regularly served it up to the great Desert Orchid. It was a cracking renewal of the race. A far classier race than in present times.
Yet Carvill’s Hill, whether by design or simply because he was a horse who determined his own tactics, annihilated, as in destruction of soul and body, the opposition, under top-weight jumping and galloping to a long-measured victory that has to be seen to be believed. Look it up on YouTube; I defy anyone not to be awe of the horse. And yes, he did jump, nearly every fence taken in Frodon and Bryony Frost style, with only the odd bunny-hop as reference to how bad a jumper we seem to remember him being.
Controversy courted Carvill’s Hill all his life. Any son of a famous father, a father who had trained the best steeplechaser ever to grace the planet, and, at the time, the second-best steeplechaser, must dream of one day emulating the success of the father. Jim Dreaper found the horse to transport him to those realms when Carvill’s Lad came into his life. In Jim Dreaper’s care he was either spectacular or a blundering ox of a horse and his subsequent transfer to Martin Pipe was seen as both an insult to Dreaper and to the whole of Irish racing.
He is undoubtedly the classiest steeplechaser to come out of Ireland since Arkle. As a novice he soon had the burden heaped upon him as ‘the second coming’, the horse to return the Gold Cup to Ireland for years to come. Experts either eulogised over him or condemned him as racehorse easily beaten, an opinion that Jenny Pitman was to prove all too correct in the 1992 Gold Cup.
Until the Welsh Grand National, if I remember rightly, there was little love for the horse, his despatch from Jim Dreaper leaving a bad taste in the mouths of enthusiasts’ both sides of the Irish Sea. After the Welsh National all that negativity went out of the window and there was a wave of hope that he would silence the doubters and assume the mantle left vacant since Arkle retired.
Jenny Pitman took a lot of flack for the tactics she insisted Martin Bowlby employ on outsider Golden Freize, reining back so that Carvill’s Hill could be hassled at his fences, not allowing Scudamore to dictate, trying to get Carvill’s Hill ‘at it’, to put him on the floor, as many thought post-race, to make the job of winning the race easier for her main horse Toby Tobias. I very much doubt if a horse lover like Jenny Pitman would ever seek to harm a horse. The tactic was undoubtedly to prevent Carvill’s Hill from dictating as he had done at Chepstow, and there was no love lost when it came to her professional relationship with Martin Pipe, with envy preventing her from accepting that her greatest adversary was a bit of a genius and not the cheat she suspected him to be.
Carvill’s Hill made a mess of the first fence and a few after that and his failure was attributed to the first blunder. He finished lame, his injuries preventing him ever running again. In my memory Carvill’s Hill pulled up at Cheltenham, which he did, but not out in the country as I thought before re-watching the race on YouTube. He pulled after the last fence, Scudamore walking him past the winning post.
Cool Ground won the 1992 Gold Cup, beating The Fellow and the admirable Dockland’s Express in a pulsating finish – a very poor commentary by Peter O’Sullivan, by the way. Cool Ground had pulled up in the Welsh National, unable to get within a furlong of Carvill’s Hill at any stage of the race. The turnaround in form barely credible.
I suspect Carvill’s Hill was fragile. He was either right at a fence or he wasn’t, with the jockey unable to do much about it. He was bold and brilliant but he couldn’t dance, change his stride inside the wings. He was big, beautiful and clumsy. Perhaps it was a combination of the Welsh National sapping his strength and the tactics employed against him that exposed his weakness in the Gold Cup.
I started by saying that I’ll be surprised and disappointed if Peter Scudamore does not rate Carvill’s Hill the best he ever rode. I doubt, though, if he was ever a favourite of his. One swallow does not make a summer, of course but he was, though, even if only on this one day, a great steeplechaser. Watch the Welsh National of 1991 and dare to tell me I’m wrong.

​If I were Nicky Henderson, and I am certain as any right-thinking man can be that he will appreciate the advice I am about to offer, which I provide free of charge and without want of any form of reciprocity, by the way, I would keep Altior to 2-miles until after the Champion Chase at Cheltenham as he must be a shoe-in for every Grade 1 race at the minimum distance both here and across the Irish Sea. Where I would deviate from the Henderson plan is that come Aintree I would have a crack at the Betfair Bowl. Why plan the following season around trying the great horse over longer distances when at the outset you have no direct evidence that he will be improved for 3-miles? My advice would be to get the experiment out-of-the-way this season and plan next season according to how the Aintree race pans out.
For what it’s worth, the evidence so far accrued suggests Altior would almost certainly be an improved horse over 2 mile 4, with every hope that 3-miles was within his compass. Staying with this question for a moment, and this applies to every trainer with a top-class horse they are thinking of stepping-up in trip. Why isn’t there a 3-mile chase at the end of October or early November confined to horses that have not won a chase over 3-miles or longer? At the moment, if he sticks to his plan for next season, Nicky Henderson will only discover the answer to the question by running Altior in either the Betfair or King George.
Of course, running Altior over 3-miles this season or next presents Nicky Henderson with the problem of where to go with Might Bite. I’m sure Nico de Boinville would not want to solve the dilemma of which to choose if both were to run in the Betfair Bowl. But that’s what comes with having so many top-class horses.
 
Today, I believe, the B.H.B. will publish their report on the unfortunate equine deaths that occurred at the 2018 Cheltenham Festival, or at least the four horses that perished during the final race of the meeting, the Grand Annual Handicap Chase. Until this race, the meeting had been incident-free and it came as a sad and shocking surprise to learn of so many casualties in what is, at least in context with the meeting as a whole, a relatively low-key race. The report, I am given to understand, goes far beyond what happened during the Grand Annual and will focus of equine welfare within the sport as a whole.
I have to say I warmed to Nick Rust reading his column in the Racing Post on Tuesday, especially when he emphasised the need to address peoples’ perception and the duty he and others have to protect the sport from its detractors and enemies. My only complaint with Nick Rust’s overview of the problem is that at the same time as he is stressing all the improvements being brought about in equine welfare and how it is the sport’s prime concern, the study that suggested that orange is not the best colour for take-off boards etc is still to be acted upon. I dare say experiments and trials have taken place but we are not talking ‘rocket science’, as they say. There are only a set number of colour choices available. Acting on the guidance from this study should have top priority. A colour must be decided upon and every racecourse given money to implement the change. We cannot prevent by 100% the number of equine casualties, we can though demonstrate to the public our desire to get as close to 100% as nature will allow us. If I were in charge of the B.H.B. I would move the Heavens and most of the Earth to get on top of this problem.
 
 
If I were you, and again I offer this advice without want of gain or favour, when ‘The Series’, or Formula 1 style racing, comes to ungodly fruition, I would blank it with all the indifference you can muster. If you are a racegoer, spend your money at another track. If you are a t.v. viewer, watch something else. Indeed, if you are a jockey, trainer or owner, have nothing to do with it. Put common-sense and conscience before monetary gain. It’s unnecessary, not needed and an insult to everyone and everything that has gone before to set in place good solid foundations for the sport. It is a nonsensical concept and is at odds with how racing has developed down the centuries. No other racing country has thought to go down similar lines and yet our powers-that-be have given it their blessing. Boycott this road to nowhere, I beg of you.
 
Finally, for now, Matt Chapman is right to suggest that Kieran Shoemark should be given all the assistance required to cure himself of the addiction that has hold of him and which threatens to bring to an end his career as a jockey. None of us are alike and as anyone of us might fall off the short and narrow at any time we should not be quick to criticise or sermonise. Yes, the day-to-day life of a jockey is hard and sometimes unrewarding. But it should not be overlooked that the majority of men and women in Kieran Shoemark’s line of work do not resort to drink and drugs to get them through the day or over a bad day at the office. Kieran should first be helped and then given a lengthy ban, though for the good of his health, and to remind him of the better life he will have if he stays free of addiction, he should be allowed to work for a trainer. An eighteen-month period of mucking out and just being a paid-hand  might be the best medicine for him. I wish him a happy Christmas and a sober New Year.
 

​I’ll admit it, last Saturday was first time Buveur D’Air has impressed me. The bubble of invincibility attributed to him by Irish race fans desperate for ‘a second coming’ to finally produce the new Arkle of their dreams, which over fences he might yet prove to be, may have burst but I am prepared to believe that Samcro is the best, if not the only truly top-class horse, Buveur D’Air has yet to humble.
I suspect come March, when race-hardened and with a stronger gallop set by a Gigginstown pacemaker or two, both Samcro and Summerville Boy will finish closer to the reigning champion hurdler, though it would take a supreme optimist to think either will take the crown from Buveur D’Air. In fact I would go as far as to suggest that the only horse in Britain and Ireland that could take Buveur D’Air’s scalp is Apple’s Jade.
Gordon Elliott is perhaps being professional to the point of boring when he says he believes in running a horse in the race it is most likely to win, and on all known form Apple’s Jade is a proven banker for the mare’s hurdle at the Festival. But what would winning a race she is a near certainty prove? By how much would it swell the bank accounts of Michael O’Leary? Not enough to make a difference to his day-to-day life, I would suggest. Gigginstown is a sporting operation; winning the Champion Hurdle, though not a prime target for an owner for whom steeplechasing is the be-all and end-all, has tickled their fancy enough to re-route Samcro from his destiny. Surely it is worth investigating if Apple’s Jade can be as effective at 2-miles as she is over further.
Whether his supporters will admit or not, Buveur D’Air has won two lacklustre renewals of the Champion Hurdle. Three crowns, though noble, rare and admirable, will only denote quantity. I would argue four such Champion Hurdle crowns would not place him in the same league as Night Nurse, Monksfield, Sea Pigeon, Bula, Comedy of Errors and others. It is true, Buveur D’Air can only beat what turns up on the day. It would be beneficial for the historical record if in the years ahead no one posed the question ‘Now, if that Gordon Elliott had possessed the balls to take on Buveur D’Air with Apple’s Jade, wouldn’t she have put it up to him?’
 
It is not in me to feel pity for bookmakers but on Saturday, on only the second running under their banner, I felt sorry for Ladbrokes for the overall quality of the runners in their big race of the year. Though, as any scroll through past Hennesseys will prove, there were sub-standard renewals of the race that now bears the Ladbroke name and logo, as when Ever Blessed won or Cogent, the race could bounce back as there were not so many rival races around to take the glint from the gingerbread. Although it is a race that has already in its comparatively short life-span provided life-enhancing memories, especially with Kauto Star, the distance of a week between the Betfair and the Newbury show-piece, with the added incentive or blackmail of the £1-million challenge, might yet reduce the once holy Hennessey to the ordinariness of the race that used to be the Whitbread Gold Cup.
As I have proposed in the past, the £1-million challenge should begin not with the Betfair but with the Ladbroke Trophy. We need the Newbury steeplechase to remain as the biggest handicap prize outside of the Grand National. It needs to be protected. Not by a vast increase in prize money but by the powers-that-be showing it the respect it deserves. The Betfair will always be the domain of the Gold Cup horses but by including the Ladbroke Trophy in the £1-million challenge Colin Tizzard, for instance, might have run Native River in one and Thistlecrack in the other. Perhaps like the £1-million challenge for stayers on the flat it might be considered that horses could qualify for the prize by winning the King George and the Gold Cup plus either the Betfair or the Ladbroke Trophy. Certainly, there needs to be longer than a week between the two races.
Sizing Tennessee was a good winner of the race, and a greatly deserved big-race success for the ever-likeable Tom Scudamore, but he won by too big a distance to suggest it was anything other than a substandard race this year and we should never have to place such a judgement on the second most iconic staying handicap chase in the calendar.