​I must admit to skipping the Racing Post’s main story in today’s edition. It was not because I do not appreciate the threat to the sport that the Gambling Commission represents but simply because, without a united, tactical counter-attack, to read what is threatened is depressing. I know, deep in the heart, that what is happening is orchestrated outside of Parliament and that if the sport had embraced a Tote Monopoly instead of walking hand-in-hand with the multi-national bookmaking industry, we might today be on the outside of this blitz on gambling and gambling addiction, as if the two are universally intertwined. If we had a system of gambling similar to our horse racing neighbours and competitors, we would be contributing more money to the Exchequer, enough to ring-fence us from the addictions of casinos, on-line bingo and poker sites and one-armed bandit machines, otherwise known as ‘slots’.
My hope for the future is this: in 5-years, hopefully sooner if Two-Tier and his socialist highway robbers are found guilty of more heinous crimes against the people who voted them into office, the political revolution (evolution?) about to sweep the U.S. and countries such as Italy, France and Germany, will happen here, with Reform becoming the political powerhouse of the country. Like him or misunderstand him, Farage will sweep away all this woke nonsense and put common-sense back on the political and social tables.
We must think short-term; we must plan for the future, and we must stop using the phrase ‘that ship has sailed’ whenever someone advocates a funding stream for racing resembling how France, Hong Kong, Japan or Australia, finance the racing programmes of their countries.

It may have caused controversy when Ireland introduced sixty-races restricted to trainers outside of the top four but I propose the B.H.A. look to a similar idea for this country as a way of helping and preserving the smaller stables who are, I suggest, the bedrock of our sport.
We have already lost, as good as, the permit trainer, the owner, trainer and usually breeder of two or three of the horses he trains himself or herself – the Waley-Cohens, for example, the Frank Coton’s of the past, owner-trainer of Grittar, and the sport cannot afford to allow the smaller yards to go the same way. The battle at the top of the sport between Nicholls, Skelton and Henderson, and the forays of Mullins and Elliott, may add intrigue, headlines and intensity to the sport, yet horse racing came into being and still exists as a country sport and places like Market Rasen, Taunton and Hereford are made more dynamic by the inclusion of the local smaller training establishments. 
The top always needs a bottom for stability, which is why I suggest sixty-races set aside for trainers with no more than thirty-five horses in training should be established simply to give a boost to the owners and staff of licenced trainers who give just as much in effort and dedication as the aforementioned superstar stables.
In today’s Racing Post, Sarah Bradstock is featured – Mr.Vango, her current stable star runs at Sandown on Saturday in race bearing ‘National’ in its title – bemoaning that she is down to just six horses in training and how in caring for her late husband, Mark, her owner-base slipped through her fingers. The Bradstocks, not only because Sarah is Lord Oaksey’s daughter, are the sort of people that bring more to National Hunt racing that they can ever expect to take from the sport. Remember Coneygree winning the Gold Cup and Carruthers the Hennessey; when Mark was alive, they proved they could do the job to the highest efficiency and no doubt Sarah and her offspring can continue the legacy if just one or two new owners offered their support. The sport needs the Bradstocks and others like them to prevent the sport morphing into a Premiership League that will render ‘all the surviving rest’ into non-league status.
Sixty-races, that might all it would take to give the smaller yards a better chance of survival until 2029, the year in which, at the latest, we can vote out the stupidity of woke and net-zero and vote in commonsense and a Britian comes-first political mentality.

​Having championed the writing exploits of the champion amateur rider Patrick Mullins, I bask in reflected glory at his award as racing writer of the year at the Racing Writer and Photographer Awards bash last night. It is his greatest achievement as his father, apart from being his father, had little or nothing to do with his son being lauded above so many wonderful writers employed by the Racing Post. Indeed, the success is greater still when you take into account that though he may be a member of the journalists’ union, he himself is not yet a full-time journalist.
In picking-up the Clive Graham Trophy, his are the last hands to raise it aloft as from next year the award is to be named in honour of the late and irreplaceable Alastair Down, for whom Patrick, if he chose to turn his back on his Closutton inheritance, is warm favourite to step into the great man’s socks, as it is impossible to imagine anyone stepping into the master’s shoes.

In today’s Racing Post, Julian Muscat puts data alongside opinion that the Pattern programme has laid waste to the heritage handicaps over jumps. Although the field size was disappointing for the Coral Gold Cup on Saturday, I think time might tell it was at least an average running of the race, if not slightly better than average. The first three are all young horses with their futures looking bright. The first two are Grand National bound and the third achieved great honour in finishing so close when so far behind entering the straight.
But Muscat is correct, the pattern programme, and I would argue the whole National Hunt season, is in need a tweak here and a radical overhaul elsewhere. Where I might take issue with Julian Muscat about the race at Newbury since the halcyon days when it was ‘The Hennessey’ is that he believes the demise in quality is a direct result of the introduction of the Pattern, where I would suggest it was the introduction of the Betfair Chase at Haydock that hammered extra nails into the body of the race. 
I have always been in favour of downgrading the Betfair to last season’s novices but now I am persuaded by the idea put forward by those advocating that British-trained Gold Cup horses are being asked too severe a question first-time out by running them over 3-miles. So why not trial the Betfair at 2-miles 4. It works for Irish-trained horses and the John Durkan, so let’s copy Ireland.
We clearly need more novice chases at the start of the season. A novice should be redefined, as Ruby Walsh has suggested, by races competed in and not by the calendar. A good horse that wins on its chase debut but suffers an injury preventing it from running until the following season is at a major disadvantage by being forced into open company when clearly it has no more experience of chasing than those running in a novice chase on the same day.
So go read Julian Muscat’s column where he attaches data to an opinion I share. Oh, and I hope someone from the B.H.A. also reads it and shares it amongst his or her colleagues. Someone, I suppose, employed by the B.H.A. must read the Racing Post, even if the decisions and ideas to come out of Portman Square leave the impression only The Times and Daily Mail are ever read.

Lossiemouth being currently favourite for the Champion Hurdle is not a sound defence for the continuation of the Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, not as it is, anyway. She is a sound defence for the mares’ programme, however. If the Mares Hurdle is to remain at the festival, it should not be allowed to detract from the Champion Hurdle itself. At the moment, the festival is becoming pot-hunting exercise for the major owners, allowing them to use Cheltenham as a route to either Aintree or Punchestown. 
It was an unforgettable occasion when Honeysuckle ended her career by winning the Mares Hurdle, though half the outpouring of love that day was for the de Bromhead family after the tragic loss of their son. But as a former double Champion Hurdle winner Honeysuckle should have run in hurdling’s Blue Riband race. Yes, give connections the option of the Mares’ Hurdle but with a 7 or 10Ib penalty as a Grade 1 winner.
Personally, I would prefer the Mares Hurdle be run at what is called ‘Trials Day’ as the main feature and renamed the Champion Mares Hurdle, then the top mares can go on and run in the actual Champion Hurdle in March.

Finally, with seven-figure purchase prices being paid at the breeding stock sales at the moment, my belief is reinforced that a levy on auction prices is a way to both fund the aftercare of racehorses – why shouldn’t those who bring racehorses into the world pay a share in their aftercare when they are no longer fit to race – and provide prize-money for the buyers of yearlings, horses-in-training, foals and broodmares to help pay the bills and keep the racing show on the road? Caught U Looking made 1.8-million guineas yesterday. Do the math. Would the seller miss 2% of 1.8-million guineas? Would the auction house?

​Although it would be niggly to criticise any element of Newbury’s two-day November meeting, it was put in the shade by the action at Fairyhouse on Saturday and Sunday. The poverty of the Long-Distance Hurdle at Newbury was balanced by a very taking first novice chase by The Jukebox Man, the best horse Ben Jones has ridden and in time The Jukebox Man might become the best British-trained horse we have seen since the heady days of Denman and Kauto Star. Here was a horse who skipped around Newbury with the aplomb and exuberance of a seasoned Gold Cup standard horse and at race end gave the impression of being disappointed to be made to stop. He is certainly my horse to follow this season.
In Ireland, there were many a good horse on show, with very few balloons burst even in defeat. Yesterday’s Drinmore, made unusual by the absence of a runner from Closutton, was a corker of a race, with barely a head and a neck separating the first four, with the fifth only a length or so in behind. If ever a race proved that a single digit number of runners is as capable of providing a spectacle to heighten the senses as a maximum field then this was it. 
Croke Park may have been a surprise winner but he was a deserving winner, making the running and then displaying bags of spirit and stamina to hold on from Heart Wood (not a Gold Cup horse, at this stage of the season), Firefox (not to be written-off) and Gorgeous Tom, a horse in dire need of 3-miles and the one to take out of this race.
On the novice chase front, Caldwell Potter did all that could be expected of him at Carlisle, a racecourse fast becoming the go-to track for trainers’ keen for their star novices to have a fair introduction to fences. He attacked the first fence with the enthusiasm of a chocoholic espying an unguarded chocolate gateaux at his best friends birthday party, and for a brief moment it looked like Harry Cobden was not fully in control of the situation. Of course, the champion jockey was soon very much in control of both the horse and the race and though it would be stretching credulity to say Caldwell Potter won with his head-in-his-chest, he did win without need to go full-throttle. Whether he wins back his purchase price is for the future to decide, but up till now he looks the best horse bought that day at the dispersal sale of some of Gordon Elliott’s most promising young horses.
Of course, the star of the weekend, even usurping Sir Gino, was Lossiemouth. Although she disposed of Tiaheapoo (no doubt a misspelling) with the authority of an Olympic archer hitting the bulls-eye, should she have shortened as favourite for the Champion Hurdle for beating a long-distance Champion hurdler? The Hattons Grace was over 2-mile 4, it can be argued that Teaheapoo needs every inch of 3-miles to be at his best and his stamina was hardly used to the maximum due to the slow pace of the race. And who is to say that the champion 3-miler was not at his best for one reason or another? Lossiemouth is good, better than good, and if she turns up at Kempton on Boxing Day against Constitution Hill all will be revealed if she should be better favoured for the Champion Hurdle than either her stable-mate State Man or either of Nicky Henderson’s two contenders.

The Coral Gold Cup on Saturday was a premier race on a premier day’s racing. How was it dissimilar to last year’s Coral Gold Cup or any day in the fixture’s history? None, I would suggest. Which makes ‘Premier racing’ another of the B.H.A.’s white elephants. With so little money in racing’s coffers, perhaps now is the time for the B.H.A. to drown this particular red herring and convene a conference where everyone with an interest in promoting the sport can come together to offer alternative ideas.

​The Coral Gold Cup, or the old Hennessey as it continues to be called, as people of my age will always refer to it, is not the race it used to be through no fault of anyone in particular. Perhaps the days when the prestige handicaps were over-subscribed, with many a trainer sweating to discover whether their lively outsider has made the cut, are gone, never more to be seen. Thirteen, though, was a disappointing turn-out from a British point-of-view when you consider of the thirteen three were from Ireland and one from France.
That said, Kandoo Kid was an impressive winner and if Paul Nicholl’s were not committed to running the horse in the Grand National, we might be thinking of him as a possible for the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Not that I am suggesting he is that class at the moment yet his new rating will put him close to that of a lively Gold Cup outsider and in the past, winners of the Hennessey were often spoken-of in terms of Cheltenham in March.
It is my problem, of course, wanting to be back to the days when the Hennessey was the bright shining light of pre-Christmas, when every 3-mile chaser from Arkle downwards would be entered, with the majority running in the race. They were the golden days of National Hunt and only comparatively recently did it occur to me that I would never experience such days ever again. Those days were consigned to history when Kauto Star, Big Bucks and Denman departed the stage, and even then, I suspect the ‘golden days’ were only hanging on by their boot-straps.
That said, the first three yesterday were all young progressive horses that with the racing gods on their side will win top-class races for seasons to come.

The star yesterday was, of course, Sir Gino, who passed his jumping examination and sauntered his way into Champion Hurdle contention. Why Mystical Power ran so poorly we will no doubt find out over the next few days and the poverty of his performance removed most of the informative interest from the race. Sir Gino won as he should have given the ratings of the horses that separated the two favourites at the finish and he remains ‘a could be anything category of horse’.
It was a nice win for Nicky Henderson to absorb, though if Sir Gino had not won there would be no decision to be made about how to proceed with him. Now, Nicky, Nico and the Donnelleys have a conundrum to untangle, is it plan A and steeplechasing or plan B and the Champion Hurdle. If my advice was sought, and no one seeks my advice on any matter of importance, I would be swayed by Sir Gino’s age. He will be five come January and he has plenty of time to go chasing and if State Man were to get injured, Joe Donnelly might be pleased to have Sir Gino as super-sub for the Champion Hurdle. That decision, though, would hand the dilemma over to Nico who would then have to choose between Constitution Hill and Sir Gino. At least, hopefully come the Christmas Hurdle and then March, Nico will have to untangle the tangle.

Who is the unluckiest man in horse racing both now and perhaps in history. Yes, it is Jack Kennedy, a man, seemingly, in want of getting into the Guiness Book of World Records for breaking bones, specialising on leg bones. To look at him and to go back through his medical records and all the herculean comebacks he has pulled-off at his young age you might think him a man made of iron. Yet despite his rugged outer appearance, Jack Kennedy is seemingly as fragile as a bone China tea-set. Keep everything crossed for him that this period of time on the sidelines is shorter than when recovering from previously broken legs.

A letter in today’s racing Post was written in support of Karen Wiltshire, the first female jockey to win against her male colleagues. That she suffered bias and mockery back in the seventies should not come as a surprise. The past was a different country, as is said in defence of the mores of past ages. The reason why women did not call-out sexual references and discrimination in previous decades was because at the time it is what they expected, with many giving it back tit-for-tat. Anyone was ripe for ridicule; it was a time when people recognised the difference between a joke and racism or discrimination. The stupidity of woke is far more disruptive to good living than a rude joke or sexual overtones.
Karen Wiltshire was trying to forge a career when the expression ‘if you cannot see it, you cannot be it’ was yet to be heard as a rallying cry. Back when Wiltshire held a jockeys’ licence, Holly Doyle and Rachael Blackmore would have also struggled to get a ride, let alone a winner. If society, as collective wokists, keeps harking back to the mores of different ages, history will have to be rewritten from 1066 onwards. What needs to be written about in the racing pages of today is that forty-years on only two female jockeys finished in the top twenty in the jockeys’ championship in 2024. A massive improvement on ten-years ago but minimal in the overall context of the matter. What peeves me is that Holly Doyle, the most successful female jockey of all-time when it comes to Group 1 success, is yet to ride in a classic. Is that sex discrimination, riding for the wrong trainers or simply bias against female jockeys?

David Jennings in his column in the Racing Post on Saturday made the proposal that appeals should be done away with and that the result on the day, irrespective if the local stewards had changed the finishing places, should stand without recourse to the appeals process. As he rightly said, no other sport changes results days or even weeks after the event and in this highly technical age it should be possible to have all the electronic whistles and bells either on tap at the racecourse or back at Portman Square with adjudicating stewards to make the final decision, as with VAR. I hope David’s colleagues will take-up the cudgels and discuss his idea further. There is little hope the B.H.A. will take the issue on board.