bank holiday monday, tom ellis speaks, global jockeys league & 72-hour derby declaration.

​There is always the call for the sport to better sell itself, yet Bank Holidays are not seen as prime dates in the calendar to do exactly that. The Bank Holiday just gone was a tame affair, though one would hope the smaller courses that comprised the day’s activity attracted good sized attendance. But why was it not considered to move the Guineas meeting into the Bank Holiday slot, even if the two classics remained on the Saturday and Sunday? Why open the meeting on the Friday when they might conclude the first major meeting of the flat season on Bank Holiday Monday?
When a Bank Holiday coincides with wet weather people will be more likely to stay at home and with terrestrial television offering the same old, same old, these days, here is a great opportunity for I.T.V. to promote the sport. By the same token, why must the Swinton Hurdle be on the Saturday following the Bank Holiday rather than on Bank Holiday Monday, which would make both a great double feature with Newmarket but also would show-off the two divisions of the sport to the couch-bound public.

In his Editor’s Choice feature which comes as an e-mail to subscribers, Tom Ellis bemoaned, quite rightly, the real possibility of betting tax rising to the same level as tax yielded on casinos and alike. He suggested that strong and influential leadership is required to stave-off this latest assault on our sport. Some hope there, Tom, given that the sport does not have the benefit of any form active leadership.
I sent a quick e-mail off in response, suggesting that Tom research the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ proposal for reforming and reframing the world and the people in it, of which it only takes a quick glance to realise there will be little room in this new ‘Utopia’ for sporting activities that involve horses as all animals would be looked upon in a similar manner to old age pensioners – uneconomic eaters using up the Earth’s finite resources.

A Global League Challenge has bean announced involving a dozen of the world’s leading jockeys. Unlike other similar ideas, this one does seem to have been well-considered, though the aspiration that the dozen races around the world would not coincide or do damage to the Pattern race programme seems optimistic.
It is hard to imagine this series of races involving horses below classic and Group class can be anything other than valuable handicaps, which seems to be similar to Formula 1 drivers being asked to drive road cars to determine the World Champion. Also, how can they arrange a programme of a dozen races staged on different continents and for one or some of the jockeys not being compromised. Will Buick, for instance, is the retained jockey for Godolphin in Britain – what if he is required by his retained stable to ride in an important classic or Arc trial on the same day as a Global League race is being staged? Given through the summer there are major races, if not every week, on weekends either in Britain, Ireland or France, jockeys like Buick and Moore will have to honour their commitments to their retained stable over races that are, in all truth, all about themselves.
It is an intriguing idea, though I doubt it will succeed easily as ‘commitments’ might prove obstacles that cannot be overcome unless substitutes are worked into the proposal.
Also, though lip-service is paid to including female jockeys sometime in the future in this proposal, why could they not stage a parallel Global League for the top female professional jockeys around the world?

It is good that there is an attempt to draw attention to the Epsom Derby this year, though I suspect a 72-hour declaration stage and a draw for stall position taking place in a cinema will cut the ice and get peoples eyes popping with anticipation. The Epsom Derby may be high on every jockey and trainers wish-list but as a sporting event it has slipped a long way down the ladder as far as the public is concerned. To my way of thinking, the demise was accelerated when the race was moved from the tradition of the first Wednesday in June to a Saturday. So, move it back, give people an excuse to take a Wednesday off work. Also, field sizes are on a gradual descent to single digits and that removes fascination, intrigue and interest, especially if Aidan O’Brien has half the field running for him. Look back to the fifties, sixties and seventies when two-dozen runners were the norm. Yes, many of them were no-hopers but at least it gave the opportunity for office sweepstakes and each-way betting.
The product is not the same as it was in its heyday and that must be admitted before half-baked ideas are put forward as solutions to a race that once was looked-upon as a national institution but is now seen by the majority as an anachronism, a pageant for the top-hat brigade, a parade of unfamiliar and often foreign sounding names.
In the face of wokism and the whims of the ignorant, the sport is slowly but surely destroying its jewels. It has happened to the now less than grand Aintree National, and without malice but with the false belief that the Epsom Derby remains ‘the greatest race in the world’, it too is sliding towards sporting and national irrelevance.