​It goes as read that television over the festive period is a diet of repeats, rubbish and little worth setting the video recorder for, if anyone still uses such ancient technology. But does the festive racing programme have to mirror the lack of insight and ambition of television programmers?
Compare the Irish racing over the last few days to what was put before the racing audience in Britain. 4 days of top-class racing from Leopardstown, plus a similarly long meeting at Limerick, if somewhat of a lesser class but which boasted the most anticipated race of the holiday, Faugheen versus Samcro. Yes, we had a 2-day fixture at Kempton, plus the Welsh National from Chepstow. But we very much second-bested.
The much-vaunted King George was not even the most notable Gold Cup trial, with the Savilles Chase providing 5 possible winners of the blue riband come march, whilst of the 5 that competed at Kempton only Clan Des Obeaux looks even remotely likely to win at Cheltenham. Whatever excuse they come with for Lostintranslation, and I admit that beforehand I thought him the most likely of the starters to win the Gold Cup, his jumping at speed may prove his Achilles heel. In fact, if I were to offer any punting advice drawn from what I witnessed, it would be to back Aso at long odds to run into a place as he looked nothing but a stayer to my eyes.
What I would say, and I have thought this for a long while, is to ignore Kempton form when the ground is soft to heavy as such ground at Kempton is vastly different to similarly described ground at Cheltenham and elsewhere. A horse that appears not to stay 3-miles at Kempton could easily win at that distance somewhere else.
If we saw this season’s Gold Cup winner it ran at Leopardstown in the Saville’s. I doubt if it was either Delta Work or Monalee as one is not a steady-enough jumper and the other has yet to show any aptitude for races beyond 3-miles. They patently ran Road To Respect in the wrong race at the Festival last year and are unlikely to make the same mistake again. Kemboy can only improve for a run and Presenting Percy is, I believe, a proper Cheltenham horse and is the one of the five I would be hopeful of winning in March.
That brings us to Faugheen. To assess his potential as a chasing prospect, if you are championing him running outside of novice races at the Festival, you must ask yourself this question: how highly do you rate Samcro? If you took Faugheen out of the Limerick race, Samcro beat rather easily three young horses who if fate is kind to them will win plenty of races between them in the future. If Samcro has the potential to win one of the novice championship races at the Festival, Faugheen must be the best novice chaser around and as such, given his age, it would not be the height of folly for his connections to seriously consider the Champion 2-mile Chase, the Ryanair and even entering him in the Gold Cup itself, though as he never looked a stout staying hurdler that might prove an overly-ambitious target.
At Chepstow, I suspect we saw the winner, if Tiger Roll sidesteps the race, of this year’s Grand National as the first three all look proper 4-mile horses and if burdened with a little less weight at Aintree I can visualise Elegant Escape running a big race.
My comments about the poor quality – compared to Ireland – race programme of late revolves around the Challow Hurdle at Newbury as the top race of the day. It was a Saturday, there was brilliant racing at Leopardstown, and the best we could do over here was a 5-runner hurdle for inexperienced horses. The same can be said for The Tolworth at Sandown this weekend. I understand the importance of races of this kind but at best they should be the supporting race, not the main race of the day. Newbury have allowed the Mandarin to slip so far down the quality scale that it is now no more than ordinary. If there are not enough top-class handicappers around to warrant upping the ratings for the Mandarin, how about showing some initiative and making it a novice handicap or a conditions chase for horses that have not won a chase over 3-miles. Daft, you think, well if Altior had been abscess-free Nicky Henderson would have had another option to aim for. The Mandarin honours one of the most popular horses of my lifetime, even if I was only a nipper when he was in his pomp, and Newbury should really give some thought as to whether they are giving him due respect in allowing the race that honours his name to become what is, ordinary.

​Harry Cobden may be young but he’s man who knows his own mind. Paul Nicholls also knows his own mind and is even more likely choose right than Harry. Only a fool would bet against their advice. So, don’t be a fool and have loads of dosh on Clan Des Obeaux.
Fools, though, can get lucky. Remember that.
A good many years ago, the year Desert Orchid won his first King George, I walked part of the course at Kempton and was amazed how deep the horses’ hooves went into the ground. There were no divots to be seen, just holes the size of cereal bowls in the ground where the horses had galloped. Since the introduction of all-weather racing at Kempton ground conditions may have altered so I may be proved incorrect in my analysis but I believe there is a strong possibility that although proven on soft ground and right-hand configurations Cyrname may not be able to keep up his relentless gallop due to the energy-sapping, horseshoe-removing ground. Remember, heavy rainfall is predicted for Boxing Day, with the clerk of the course fearful of heavy ground for the second-day of the meeting.
The race is rather easy predict as Cyrname has only one way of running and none of the riders on his rivals will want him to poach too large an advantage. I don’t expect to see Robbie Power sitting too far off the pace on Lostintranslation and they like to be prominent with Aso, so Harry Cobden is unlikely to get the uncontested lead he has enjoyed in his last few runs.
I expect Tom Scudamore to sit last on Thistlecrack to watch developments. Kempton is Thistlecrack’s sort of course, flat and where the fences come to him in lines. I admit to wanting him to win, not that I am expecting him to win. His owners, though, have made the right choice as participation in the Long Walk Hurdle last weekend would have sapped all the strength and enthusiasm out of the old boy.
Footpad is the joker in the pack. Last season I called Willie Mullins all kinds of regrettable names for keeping him to the shorter distances. I thought Ruby would have known better and advised Willie to up the horse in trip. Well, come mid-afternoon tomorrow we will see who is the greatest fool. Me, undoubtedly. Even if Footpad is the one with the turn of foot to get by Cyrname after the last. At the prices currently available – 8, 9 and 10/1 – he should definitely not be overlooked.
So, to Clan Des Obeaux. I thought he looked magnificent at Down Royal, as if he had thrived over the summer months. He jumped beautifully and to my mind ran better first time out at Down Royal than he did in the Betfair at Haydock last season. He looked to me like a horse that had matured and improved as an athlete. My impression that day was that he would win a second King George and I am tempted to remain loyal to that impression.
One of my other ‘impression’ also leads me to Clan Des Obeaux. Harry Cobden is young; he has a star-studded career ahead of him and compared to Sam Twiston-Davies he has already achieved a high level of big race successes. For all his talent, Sam has not really rung the big bells to the extent he should have. Boxing Day may change all that. He is far too good to end his career without a clutch of major victories to his name and though he might like the name of his father on the winners’ roll of honour alongside his own I am sure it will be just as sweet winning on a horse trained by Paul Nicholls.
Lostintranslation will blow his Boxing Day opposition away come the Gold Cup but I feel inclined to exclude him from my 1,2,3. Clan Des Obeaux will win from Footpad and Cyrname.
In the other Grade 1’s on the card I expect Jarveys Plate to win the Kauto Star and Epanante to win an interesting but below standard Christmas Hurdle.
I have my doubts that Chepstow will survive the weather but if it does, I have a leaning towards Bennys King, with Elegant Escape and Now McGinty to follow him home. Expect no more than six to finish, that’s where the value is to be found.

​The clerk of the course at Fakenham, David Hunter, has proposed that the B.H.A. should consider (yet another good idea for marketing our sport to a new audience that has not come from the sport’s regulatory body) following the example of Ireland, and other countries across Europe, and stage a meeting on a British beach. A day at Laytown races is, apparently, common to a good number of racing enthusiast’s bucket lists.
Now, I am not one to blow my own trumpet, though if I don’t do so myself no one will do it on my behalf, but in one of many criticisms of the absolutely stupid proposal for City Street Racing I put forward the more sensible idea of racing on a beach, citing Laytown as an classic example. Whereas City Street Racing involves taking a fit and highly sentient racehorse into a toxic environment overloaded with a cocktail of scents and smells that could easily fry a horse’s brain, beach racing would involve taking racehorses into an environment loaded with fresh, salty air, and racing on what is far closer to a natural surface than that proposed by C.S.R..
Whereas with C.S.R. a huge area will have to be secured to prevent a loose horse running amok amongst spectators, or disappearing down a city side street, a beach venue has the advantage of the wide open sea for security, with perhaps the addition of a few boats positioned close to the shore to head off any horse in want of a cool-down.
North Norfolk seems a good starting point for such an experiment, with a host of holiday venues in close proximity to David Hunter’s suggestion of Holkham. With Yarmouth (or is it Great Yarmouth? Never quite sure) holding regular summer meetings, promoting a beach race meeting nearby should be easily achieved. Novelty always attracts interest.
I could envisage, not only in North Norfolk but elsewhere on the coastline of Britain, beach meetings becoming traditional draws, as is Laytown in Ireland.
 
It came as a surprise, I have to admit, but the Sandown Park 7 have had their appeals upheld by the B.H.A. disciplinary committee. Common-sense, for once, has prevailed. But it begs the question that if the jockeys were not at fault for the embarrassing debacle, who should carry the can?
Obviously, the fault lies with the ground-staff, (the disciplinary committee as good as said so) as the rules on stopping a race are presently written. Will Sandown and its Clerk of the Course be sanctioned? Obviously not. I do, though, have sympathy for the racecourse, its clerk and those involved in the incident. The heart attack that brought about Houblon Des Obeaux’s sad demise could not have occurred at a more inconvenient spot on the racecourse. Sandown has a quite unique lay-out, with the siting of the Pond Fence and then the track narrowing on the turn into the straight. But that would not have been a contributing factor in the fiasco if the procedure for stopping a race were more 21st century rather than 19th century.
We can determine the winner of a close three-way finish down to fractions of an inch; we can detect a miniscule amount of a banned substance in a blood or urine sample; yet we wave flags in an attempt to stop a race. In France they use klaxons, in Britain we use a whistle. In some countries they have microphones attached to furlong poles. We have a dozen cars following each race, yet not one of them is equipped with any sort of device for attracting the attention of the jockey to instruct them to pull-up. It speaks for itself, doesn’t it? The B.H.A. do not have enough true horse people in its ranks, or indeed anyone who is proactive in this or any other matter, to see a problem and to invent solutions to prevent embarrassing incidents as the debacle or fiasco of the London National.
The B.H.A., of course, will not find against itself. It will not make the judgement that its own procedures were not robust enough to prevent such incidents. What it will do, I have no doubt, is put in place a study group that in six months, or longer, will come up with the radical idea of using a different colour flag to the one used for starting a race. When what is required is investment, with every racecourse given the same audio equipment, if that is the solution, microphones on every furlong pole, klaxons or whatever, with Sandown treated the same as Fakenham, Ascot treated the same as Redcar.
Mind you, I would solve the problem thusly: I would ask the jockeys to come up with the answer. They are the ones in the firing line on a daily basis; they are the ones who get punished when the sport’s regulatory body mess-up. Mind you, what I am suggesting might be called the common-sense approach.
 

​Horses, in general, not only the thoroughbred, are prey animals, their ancient position in the food-chain was as sustenance to feed the big cats. It is why horses have developed large ears and eyes on the sides of their heads to more easily see the approach of predators and large flaming nostrils to detect the aroma of trouble close by. It is also why, even to this day when no such predators exist, that when there are a large number of horses in a field, as with broodmares on stud-farms, one horse will remain standing while the others snooze on the ground. Also, because of their size and weight, horses can only sleep for short periods off their feet, I think twenty-minutes or so, otherwise the weight of their bodies crush their lungs. It is why stable staff were traditionally given afternoons off so to allow horses a peaceful period in which to doze on their feet without interruption.
Because it is embedded in their D.N.A. to always be alert to danger, at least as I have come to recognise it, racehorses can be easily distracted on the racecourse and during a race. You see at the start – a horse staring into the distance at something the jockey, whose concentration is much more on the here and now, can neither see or comprehend how or understand why his horse should be interested in it. It might be a fox or deer moving about in woodland or something equally innocuous as a cat on a fence-post or ewes calling for their lambs. Of course, as they rely as much on smell as either eyesight or hearing, it might be a strange smell that has stirred their curiosity. Horses, I read in an old book, recently, are particularly spooked by the smell of pigs, stallions especially so.
This topic came to mind after seeing Sam Spinner make that horrendous error at Doncaster on Saturday. A jockey will say that he was on the wrong stride approaching a fence where his horse fell or made a bad error or that his horse does not have the capability to lengthen or shorten going into a fence. I have no doubt that on many an occasion they are right. Who am I to argue or question their greater knowledge? But why should a good jumper of a fence like Sam Spinner jump every fence in a 3-mile chase accurately and then be so wrong at one particular fence?
Some of you may be aware of an American author and animal scientist by the name of Temple Grandin. She is autistic and her condition allows her to perceive the world in which she lives in a similarly visual way to animals. She was known in the U.S. as a translator, trouble-shooter and advisor on animal welfare issues to everyone from Drug Administration to Burger King and Macdonalds. Her powers of observation are boosted by her autism and many of her resolutions to problems can be quite left-field. Her books are well-worth reading.
She is so expert in her field that MacDonalds’ employed her to overhaul their methods of slaughtering the cattle used in their hamburgers and such-like. A strange project, you might think, for an animal lover to take on but Grandin saw it solely as an animal welfare issue. The problem she had to solve was that the cattle, unsurprisingly, needed to be forced to go toward the slaughter-house and were stressed when they reached the point of departure. Grandin came to her solution not by giving the problem extensive thought and research but by getting down on her hands and knees in the runs and experiencing what the cattle saw, heard and smelled as they approach their destination. Her solution was to redesign the runs, having the walls built higher and the actual runs changed from straight to curving. Macdonalds, to their credit, implemented Grandin’s design in every one of their slaughter-houses.
I would propose someone of a similar nature be employed to take a similar approach to every fence on British racecourses that is considered ‘awkward’ or that horses make more than the average number of mistakes at each meeting. There may well be something in the far distance that is distracting the horse as it approaches the fence. And the horse may not be seeing whatever this object happens to be when in the wings of the fence; it may be ten strides from the fence that this object captures its eye. Of course, it may be random, as I said before a fox or cat, the smell of a barbeque, which cannot be legislated for. Sometimes though it might be a danger than can be removed or camouflaged. Or perhaps a fence could be moved forward or backward or a line of fences realigned.
Gary Moore lost a good horse at Cheltenham on Saturday, Knocknanuss. I dare say Cheltenham and the Inspector of fences Richard Linley will enquire into the circumstances that led to his sad demise but will they have the special skills of someone like Temple Grandin who can see what the animal sees as it approaches that particular fence? Of course, the circumstances that conspired to the sad death of Knocknanuss may never be replicated again. It may have had nothing to do with something in the far distance distracting the horse. But it might. And if it does, the racecourse and the B.H.A. has a duty of care to take remedial action.

​American authors write books on racing differently to their British counterparts. I am not suggesting the American author is better talented in the words department, just that they come at their subjects from a varying perspective. Dorothy Ours book on the American-owned Grand National winner Battleship is as much a social diary of the upper-class of their time as it is a racing story, and is more distinctive because of it.
British racing books set pre-world war 1 must similarly include the social and political climate of the age, as with Nicholas Clee’s exceptional book on Eclipse and Tony Byles book on the Running Rein affair. Once upon a time, to use a hackneyed phrase, horse racing in this country was very much an upper-class indulgence, as it was in the dear old U.S. in between the two world wars. The fabulously wealthy constructed their own racecourses, so great was their interest in horses and gambling. Apparently there are no less than five racecourses buried beneath modern New York.
John Dizikes biography of Tod Sloan, ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, takes a broader brush approach to the zeitgeist of the period when the man who invented ‘the monkey seat’ went from ‘never-has-been’ to the Lester Piggott of his era, to, sadly, a has-been who became a has-been through his own refusal to accept that the rules of racing applied to everyone, including himself.
Sloan was very much an individual. The phrase ‘on your tod’ was coined in his honour, or should that be in his reflection? For better or for worse, he was always determined to plough his own furrow and to say whatever he liked to whomever he liked. Although he did not exactly invent the forward seat, he adopted, popularised and persisted with it despite repeated criticism thrown in his direction. Before him, jockeys rode as their forefathers rode, virtually in the same fashion as was considered correct and traditional in the hunting field. It is arguable that Tod Sloan, as much as he was disliked by so many of his colleagues, changed horse racing, and jockeyship, to a greater respect than anyone who came before him or after. Yet he is better remembered, if you are not aware of it, by George C. Cohan’s ‘I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, A Yankee Doodle do or die, A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam’s, Born on the fourth of July’, which I know from the Jimmy Cagney film ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, though apparently it was originally coined for the musical play ‘Little Johnny Jones’.
Tod Sloan was the archetypal rags-to-riches character so beloved of writers and thespians. He dressed in the best clothes, often changing his clothes oft-many times during the day, smoked long Havana cigars and craved the company of attractive women. He was a dandy off the racecourse and a dandy on a horse, with his chin close to his mount’s ears, his body arched forward, slip-streaming, lessening wind resistance and allowing the horse to run faster. He rode to percentages unheard-of. If he wasn’t riding to 33% or more, he was having a poor time of it. He was, as even his most fevered critics would have to accept, a truly accomplished rider. Of all his faults, the least excusable was the high opinion he held of himself, believing that being Tod Sloan allowed him privileges not granted to lesser mortals.
Of course, such arrogance brings with it envy and enemies. When he left America to find fortune and greater fame in England, his absence was not mourned. After a stuttering start, he took English racing by storm and Newmarket, the heath and the racecourse (his favourite racecourse in all the world) became his home from home. He was at the forefront of what was termed ‘the American invasion’. American born trainers took up residence in England, who were an asset to Sloan, all of whom seemed to have no remorse at using every kind of dope they could get into a horse. Which, surprisingly, wasn’t against the rules of racing at the time. It took the honourable George Lambton to wake-up the Jockey Club to the problem and get doping made illegal. Then there were the American jockeys who were taking advantage of the less-artful English jockeys of the time – the Reiff brothers, Lester and Johnny, ‘Skeets’ Martin and perhaps the most successful of them, Danny Maher, a jockey Lambton was a great fan of.
Though the Jockey Club were slow to catch on to the doping of horses, what they were hot on, even if every jockey of the day seemed to bet in order to make ends meet, were jockeys who bet regularly and Sloan was a compulsive gambler. He even admitted the charge when the Jockey Club finally had him up before them, warning him off for a year, a sentence that was in effect a life sentence as they had no intention of granting him a second chance to redeem himself.
It was said, doubtless exaggerated, that Sloan had accumulated nearly half-a-million pounds in his relatively short career, yet after many ill-judged business ventures, an attempt at a vaudeville career and several marriages and divorces, he was in quick order penniless.
John Dizikes’ book is well worth reading, and Tod Sloan is well worth remembering, his story worth recounting as a reminder to the young as to how easy it is to think too much of yourself and to throw away both a hard-earned reputation and a fortune.

​The older reader will be aware that Paul Mellon owned and bred Mill Reef, along with many other great horses this side of the channel and back in the good old U.S.. Horse racing is what I best know him. He also acquired honorary degrees from five universities, Oxford, Carnegie Institute, Yale, Cambridge and the Royal Veterinary College, London. Amongst sixteen other honorary awards and memberships he was made an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
During his lifetime, in both his own name and the Old Dominion Foundation, his educational and charitable contributions were truly staggering. For instance: $638,000 to the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre, its existence in Stratford, Connecticut was a surprise to me. $1,500,000 to the Buffalo Bill Historical Centre in Cody, Wyoming. A mouth-watering $142, 741,000 to the National Gallery of Art, founded by his father, in Washington, D.C. $510,000 to the National Horseracing Museum at Newmarket. $2,277,000 to the National Museum of Racing, Saratoga. $846,000 to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. $1,738,000 to Clare College, Cambridge. $8,115,000 to Yale University.
I could go on. Briefly, I will. In all, encompassing science, psychiatry and religion, conservation and preservation, education and the arts, directly and indirectly, Paul Mellon contributed to 65 organisations and institutions in Great Britain and the U.S., and that does not include smaller donations to charities local to where he lived. The total amount is beyond my expertise to calculate but the aforementioned examples are just the tip of a very large dollar bill iceberg.
I suspect anyone privileged to know him personally will vouch for the kindness and loyalty of his character. Oh, and by the way, his sister Ailsa had her own charitable foundation, Avalon, and she too gave away large amounts of the Mellon inheritance. As it is with fabulously wealthy families, there are many books on the Mellons’, including ‘The Chronicle of America’s Richest Family by David Koskoff and Richard Hersh’ ‘The Mellon Family: A Fortune in History.
‘Reflections in a Silver Spoon’ was co-written by John Baskett, an art dealer who lived in London.
But to get back on topic. He owned the winners of the Maryland Hunt Cup (1937), The Grand National Point-to-Point (1935) and the Grand National Steeplechase, both at Belmont Park and Far Hills (1948 & 1990). He won the Carolina Cup 7 times, The Middleburg Hunt Cup 7 times and the Deep Run Hunt Cup 8 times.
Drinmore Lad, winner of the Carolina Cup and the Deep Run in 1935 and the year before the winner of the Middleburg and the Deep Run, was shipped to England and won the Valentines Chase at Aintree and once dead-heated with Golden Miller at Gatwick.
Mellon also won the Stanley Chase at Aintree with Blakely Grove and the Topham Trophy with Red Tide.
Without mentioning years or horses, he also won the Belmont, Jockey Club Gold Cup, Futurity, Travers, the Handicap triple crown, the Brooklyn, Metropolitan and Suburban. The Man O’ War and Washington International also came his way, as well as 3 Horse of the Year accolades – Arts and Letters, Fort Marcy and Key to the Mint.
Oddly, though in a footnote he reminded his reader that Blakely Grove and Red Tide won for him at Aintree, ‘Reflections in a Silver Spoon’ has no record of his big race winners on the flat in this country, which given he owned Mill Reef, arguably the best horse he ever owned and bred, is quite an oversight. But then perhaps the editor was of the opinion that the British reader would undoubtedly be interested in Mellon’s U.S. conquests but the U.S. reader would have little interest in his British and European successes.
Now, in case I have wetted the readers’ curiosity in Paul Mellon’s memoir, I must warn you, as I have informed the National Equestrian Book Club,’ that ‘Reflections in a Silver Spoon’ is not a racing book. It is so very much more an arts book, with only a small number of its pages dedicated to racing. The book has appeal, and given my diet of racing books in the past year, it made for a pleasant diversion, but I must admit when I ordered the book I was expecting chapters on his American and British jumping interests, as well similar chapters on Mill Reef, Fort Marcy, Arts and Letters, and even anecdotes on that old-stager Morris Dancer, the Balding family and the establishment of his Rokeby Stables. Alas, that was not to me. Having said that, it will sit comfortably next to Brough Scott’s ‘Churchill at the Gallop’, another book to be marketed as a racing book, which for all its excellence and the number of equines mentioned, is also not a book on horse racing.
Paul Mellon inherited more money than any man has a right to expect and I suspect the privilege lay pretty heavy at his heart and soul and after turning his back on the source of the family wealth he set about dedicating his life to the arts, his love of horse racing and giving away as much money as his financial advisors would allow. I think his greatest achievement in life, though, and I hope those who knew him would agree, is that he was a very good human being.

​In what universe is yellow, even fluorescent yellow, the colour associated with the cessation of movement? If the B.H.A. were given the task of managing our road network it would doubtless remove red from traffic lights and replace it with a warm shade of fuzzy yellow, with a hazard flag replacing amber.
Personally, I exonerate the clerk of the course at Sandown, I also pour no scorn on the stewards who eventually voided the London National and suspended seven jockey, even if they demonstrated no concern for the problems their action will cause trainers and owners come Boxing Day. The blame for the fiasco lies one-hundred-per-cent at the door of the B.H.A. As someone said, there are L.E.D. advertising boards all about the racecourse, yet in this modern age the B.H.A. seem to believe a man with a flag, on this occasion a static flag, is suitable for relaying the message that the race is to stopped.
Let’s be honest, here. No one at Sandown could have foreseen or prepared for what occurred on Saturday, and the bend into the straight was the worst possible part of the course for any incident to happen. But the reason the race was halted where it was halted was because at that point there happened to be the recall flags used by the man tasked with stopping the race if the starter called a false start. As Neil Mulholland quite rightly said: they should have stopped the race a minute and a half earlier than they chose to, or could do with the procedure the B.H.A. insists upon. What if a horse had fallen and suffered a fatal injury or a jockey was badly injured at one of the fences in the back straight? As the clerk of the course and the stewards knew the race would have to be voided, they could be accused of putting protocol before the health and safety of both horse and jockey. Expediency in such cases should be the first concern, and that applies also to the stewards’ inquiry and getting the voided verdict out to the public.
One of the more sensible solutions to help remedy the problem is the idea to place warning lights in each fence. Easier to accomplish with a fence than a hurdle but a suggestion worth looking into. What colour will the light be? Red, of course. The main problem with this possible solution might be a horse injuring itself if it came into contact with whatever material the light is manufactured from. If anyone got a glimpse of the damage Vintage Clouds did to the Chair fence at Aintree on Saturday you would understand my reticence at a light situated in the fence.
Given the number of vehicles that follow a race I did wonder if the lead car could have bells and whistles, or some sort of microphone or megaphone or L.E.D. light system, that could get ahead of the runners to direct jockeys to pull up. We live in a world where it is possible to switch on central heating from your place of work and where a vehicle on the Moon or even Mars can be directed from a control centre on Earth. Yet the best the B.H.A. can do to stop a horse race is a man with a yellow flag.
Incidentally, I was little annoyed over the weekend that the fiasco of the voided race was being given precedence over the tragic death of Houblon Des Obeaux, one of my favourite horses. No horse deserves to suffer a heart attack mid-race, as indeed in a perfect world no horse should lose their life in pursuit of our enjoyment, but Houblon Des Obeaux particularly didn’t deserve such an epitaph. Died in battle may should heroic, even laudable, and at least he didn’t suffer as horses with fractured limbs must do, but the honour he brought to those who cared for him and about him should have allowed him, if there were such an entity as a god of equines, a full and active life followed by the ease of a retirement spent at his leisure. But that is the world in which we choose to vicariously live.

​You can understand why Richard Fahey, Andrew Balding and Richard Hannon, respected trainers one and all, have got their knickers in a twist over the issue of payments to the apprentice jockeys they employ. Of course, their collective attitude toward the matter has overtones of the Victorian era when racehorse trainers were often Machiavellian in their approach to the management of their stables, regarded as ‘lord and masters’ of all they surveyed and their apprentices treated as mere ‘servants’. In those days, trainers were not averse to locking apprentices in their dormitories at night for fear of any of them getting out and selling stable secrets to touts. If for no other reason the situation regarding the trainer/apprentice working relationship was in desperate need of being brought into the modern era.
Instead of 50% of riding fees and prize money going to the trainer the apprentice is indentured to, now the ratio will be 80/20 in favour of the apprentice, though from next flat season onwards apprentices will be obliged to supply all their own kit and pay their own travelling expenses. For the three aforementioned trainers, this will result in a severe drop in income as they are known for employing talented apprentices who prove popular with other trainers. Given the number of major handicaps won by apprentices from these three stables over the past, say, 10-years and the top jockeys who started their careers with them, races not necessarily won on their horses but the yards of other trainers (the employer of the apprentice receives 50% of the prize money irrespective of who trained the winner) you can understand their ire or downright outrage.
Although my sympathies tend to lie more with the apprentice than the trainer, I do think the B.H.A. might have found a more equable solution to the dispute. Firstly, why is it that young jockeys on the flat are termed apprentices, while young jockeys over jumps are termed conditionals? By using different terminology, it is too easy for trainers to cry foul, to argue that an apprentice is a horse of a different feather to a conditional. For arguments sake, let’s get ride of the term apprentice and refer to all young, inexperienced jockeys as conditionals and treat them the same.
Personally, I do think the B.H.A. may have shot themselves in the foot by removing entirely the incentive for trainers to employ a large number of apprentices. Just as an aside, trainers, too, might be shooting themselves in the foot as with the pressing recruitment crisis in racing I just don’t think they are in any position to disregard this source of stable staff.
I would have resolved the problem thus: For their first 10 rides, a period when they would ride under a probational licence and claim 10lb, and this would be controversial, apprentices/conditionals would receive no riding fee, though valet fees, insurance, etc would be paid, with any prize-money won split on a 50/50 basis. As this would save owners money it would incentivise them to put an inexperienced jockey on their horses. After 10-rides young jockeys would be accessed by one of the racing schools and if they have demonstrated the necessary skill-set will be rewarded with a full licence to ride. Upon their 11th ride, the new system would kick in, with the 80/20 split and a claim of 7lbs regardless of who they ride for.
Where the B.H.A. has erred, even though what they have achieved is laudable, is that apprentices/conditionals are not only jockey-wannabes but essential work and schooling riders. Despite the highfalutin bellyaching of Messrs Fahey, Balding and Hannon, trainers need these young men and women to the same extent as the young men and women want opportunities to race ride. In essence what the B.H.A., in their quest for fairness have achieved, is to make more difficult to resolve, even if the outraged trainers are equally to blame, the staffing crisis that exists in racing. If young people ambitious to become jockeys are not encouraged into the sport, the long-term damage will be catastrophic as those that fail to become professional jockeys will not be there to fulfil the equally vital roles as work-riders, head-grooms or simply the foot soldiers that keep the job ticking from one day to the next.
The Trainers Association must realise that the system in place of today is too reminiscent of the bad old days of masters and servants. The B.H.A. must realise that the regulations they are about to implement may not be in the long-term good of the staffing situation in racing.

​When I see jockeys riding at Kempton in the afternoon and then travelling on to a racecourse perhaps a hundred miles away to ride at an evening fixture, especially when their reward for such dedication is only a riding fee or two at each racecourse, a work schedule that jockeys adhere to for most of the months of the year, I truly wonder how their minds and bodies cope and how much profit there is for them when expenses are taken from their riding fees. Is there any other group of sportsman who must work so hard to pay the bills or to achieve their ambitions?
It is no wonder, is it, that mental health has become an issue over the past few years, with burn-out yet another health concern that jockeys must contend with?
I believe that during the summer months, and perhaps too through the winter, jockeys are only allowed to ride at two meetings a day four times in a seven-day period. This addresses the problem to some extent, though for the jockey classed as ‘journeymen’ that can, I suppose, remove opportunity on occasion and gives cause to have to make choices between the one ride at one racecourse in the afternoon and another ride in the evening.
Here I offer a slightly improved solution to all this environmental-unfriendly car rides about the motorways and A-roads.
Although in truth it is a case of a jockey fulfilling contractual and promised commitments, it does come across as greed when a top jockey riding at Royal Ascot, for instance, goes on to ride at an evening meeting. Our top jockeys are elite athletes; it seems madness to me for them to commit themselves to the unnecessary risk of injury and the mental anguish of ensuring they make the evening fixture on time. After all, they don’t need the money.
In Ireland they occasionally stage meetings where the participating jockeys are what we might term ‘journeyman’. Last week at Limerick they held a meeting where the likes of Paul Townend, Rachael Blackmore, Davy Russell, Robbie Power, etc, were excluded as they have ridden too many winners, thereby giving the lesser lights of the weighing room a day in the sun, when they might expect more than the single ride.
During Royal Ascot, as an example, why can’t there be an evening meeting restricted to jockeys who have ridden a limited number of winners during the past twelve months? Indeed, why can’t there be similar fixtures once a month? Or at least once a month. On the flat this might be better applied during the summer and in National Hunt it might be better applied during the winter.
It would do no harm to the top flat and jumps jockeys to have a day off once a month and would give the lesser lights both a boost in income and open up opportunities that otherwise would not present themselves. And opportunity, here, is the optimum word.
The cream will always rise to the top, so it is said. But what is increasingly happening, especially in National Hunt, is that being a son or daughter of an established trainer is the golden highway to the top of the ladder, which can make the journey to success that much harder for anyone not born and bred into racing. A Monday at Leicester restricted to the ‘journeyman’ would only put a bit of jam on the bread and butter for the individual but for the sport it could bring big benefits, especially when it come to integrity. A starving jockey with unpaid bills will always be more susceptible to criminal intent than the jockey happy in his work.
And if you tell me spectators want to see the top jockeys, I will reply that the few in attendance at Leicester on a Monday would hardly notice their absence.
This proposition has one factor in its favour, if the B.H.A. should give it their consideration; it would cost nothing to implement. The races are already in place; the prize money already allocated. Our jockeys put their bodies on the line every day of the week – remember these people do not only ride horses on the racecourse, they are schooling and riding work also – it is mean and distasteful for the powers-that-be to overlook them, to see them solely as cannon-fodder. This is not about bank-rolling the less talented. Or taking money from the successful and handing it to the lesser light as the Queen hands out Maundy money at Easter.
If we can justify races restricted to amateurs and apprentices, female jockeys and celebrities, why not the men and women who are the backbone of the weighing room?

​Brother to my disquiet about the names of racehorses is my annoyance at the names of our major National Hunt races. The reason the Ladbrokes Trophy is still after three years often referred to as the Hennessey is because it is a race without an actual name. I dare say it might be registered as The Newbury Steeplechase or something similar but for the entirety of its lifespan the 3-miles 2-furlong handicap Chase has existed only to serve its sponsor. It is not the Ladbroke Newbury Steeplechase, in the same way it was never the Hennessey Newbury Steeplechase. When the present deal with Ladbrokes terminates, it is possible they will cease their involvement of the race citing the sheer number of times the race is referred to by the name of the previous sponsor. Allowing commercial companies carte-blanc to rebrand races in their own image may be a key selling tool in securing new sponsorship deals but in the long term it devalues the importance of the race.
It may just be a blip that occurs from time to time for all big races, but since Hennessey withdrew their sponsorship, the race now known as the Ladbroke Trophy has slipped from being a pointer towards the Cheltenham Gold Cup, with a number of horses going on from Newbury to win at the Festival, to becoming a heads-up towards the Grand National. My fear is that whatever this race is called, it is going in the same direction as the race formerly known as the Whitbread, and that direction is decidedly south. Incidentally, has anyone approached Whitbread, or the corporation that owns the Whitbread brand, if they might like to sponsor the race again? It is after all still referred to by all and sundry as either the ‘Whitbread’ or what used to be the ‘Whitbread’.
I voiced the opinion last year that the Ladbrokes Trophy would be a better fit for the million-quid bonus than the Betfair. Something needs to be done to encourage trainers to run their best stayers in handicaps again. I find the million-quid bonus a limp affair anyway, as this year only four horses had a chance winning it, with only one left as we speak and if Lostintranslation doesn’t win the King George even he will be out of the contest. To generate greater interest, I would prefer the bonus to be decided on a points basis, with the first four in the first two legs gathering points, with the million quid paid out to any of the top four if they won the Gold Cup.
At least this years renewal of the Ladbroke Trophy was a better affair than last year’s race, with the winner looking a nice prospect for the coming seasons and though he is already written off by the experts as a potential Gold Cup horse I would not be so hasty. He is yet to reach his prime, he jumps well, stays and goes on soft ground, and though you couldn’t say he won with his head in his chest or that another 7lb on his back would not have made any difference to the result, he is a horse on the up and it will interesting to see where they go next with him.
Having said that, the horse to take out of the race was Elegant Escape, though I doubt he is a Gold Cup winner in waiting. I seem to be seeing Grand National horses here, there and everywhere at the moment, and though it was uncomfortable to hear Harry Cobden say he made two howlers down the back straight, especially as I put him in one of my ten-to-follow lists as a potential Grand National winner, he remains a favourite of mine over any distance beyond that of Saturday’s race. I am envious, though, of anyone who included De Rasher Counter in their ten-to-follow.
On the topic of the ten-to-follow, my hopes are over already, as they must be for a high number of people, with the devastating news that Buveur D’Air might be off games for the rest of the season. It is not a tendon injury or anything that might be career-threatening, which is no doubt only a small mercy to his connections, but the problem with splinters around the hoof is that there is nowhere for any swelling to go and can cause immense discomfort to the horse. Also, if an infection takes seat within the hoof it can prove terribly difficult to flush out. We must keep our fingers crossed.
One final thought: last season I was keen for Apples Jade to run in the Champion Hurdle. Obviously that did not go so well and I hasten restraint on anyone advocating Honeysuckle be sent the Champion Hurdle route as on Sunday she was running away from confirmed stayers, and though I think going for the mares race at the Festival (the race I would get rid of in a heartbeat) is picking low-hanging fruit, I might at the moment prefer her connections to consider the Stayers Hurdle as an alternative option, even if, as of Saturday, the admirable Cornerstone Lad has become a viable contender for the Champion now we are likely to be deprived of Buveur D’Air.