​I would not normally post a blog the day after the King George. Also, I have other writing projects I should be attempting to get to grips with. But I feel an overwhelming need to gloat, to boast and generally preen myself like a cat in the sunshine.
Of course, I didn’t walk across town to the local bookmaker and all I have about me this early morn is pride and no monetary gain, no wallet stuffed with ten-pound and twenty-pound notes.
Hewick at 12/1; longer odds, of course, at the time I suggested he was the best value in the race. Was he a worthy winner, though? Was Dame Good Fortune on his side?
Shishkin was unlucky. Make no bones about it. Only Nico de Boinville can know what Shishkin had left in him at the time of his slip-up, though to me he did look the likely winner. It was an extraordinary capsize, reminiscent of Goshen’s tip-up in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham. Remarkably, Shishkin remained on his feet, a feat of survival that hopefully does not result in serious injury as he deserves another chance to prove his ability in top-class 3-mile chases. I cross my fingers that his chance comes in this season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Bravemansgame was impacted by Shishkin’s shemozzle at the third-last fence and, I believe, with Allaho not seeing out his race as expected, he should have gone on to repeat his success of last year. That he didn’t is a problem Paul Nicholls will direct his full attention to solving during the next few weeks. The horse stayed well enough in the Gold Cup last season, simply beaten by a better horse on the day, so he should have been strong at the finish yesterday. Of course, Hewick capitulated at the third-last in last year’s running of the Gold Cup and in outstaying Bravemansgame in the King George makes it extremely likely he would have done the same at Cheltenham last season and pressed Galopin Des Champs closer and harder than the Nicholls horse managed to achieve.
Having not given any hope to Hewick at any stage of the King George, going to the last, a good jump permitting, I couldn’t see any other winner of the race as he was the only horse going forward with any momentum. Make no mistake, this was a brilliant ride from Gavin Sheehan and must be a candidate for ride of the season. To persevere when all hope seemed lost for the majority of the race, to keep the faith that the trainer’s instruction and advice ‘that the horse will be staying on at the finish’ was faith closer to prayer than experience.
And Hewick, too, deserves bouquets. He must be one of the smallest horses ever to win a Grade 1 chase and one of the cheapest ever bought at public auction. I could afford £800, that’s how cheaply bought he was! A truly remarkable horse that the public will take to their hearts. Tiny Hewick and giant-sized Shark Hanlon, fictional characters if they were not so real, so very good for the sport.
Allaho looked as if he didn’t truly stay, though he also didn’t resemble the horse of two-seasons ago, either. At the moment, I wouldn’t have him for the Ryanair, though Willie Mullins is the maker of miracles, so to right him off in December for a race in March would be foolish in the extreme. The Real Wacker must be better than his effort yesterday, as I write, as he remains the only horse to have beaten Gerri Columbe who will be Gold Cup favourite if he wins the Savilles Chase at Leopardstown this week. Frodon, of course, is light of former years and it was rather sad to see Shishkin brush him aside as easily as he did long before entering the straight. Hopefully he will have one last hurrah, though the handicappers will doubtless not be kind enough to allow that to be easily achieved.
My overwhelming thought to come from reviewing this season’s King George is that Shishkin has no injury serious enough to put him on the sidelines as we need a definitive answer to the question as to whether he is a Gold Cup horse or not. But Hewick was a brave and deserving winner and that there is no jockey with more confidence running through his veins at the moment than Gavin Sheehan.

​In my opinion, novice hurdles, or indeed novice chases, for that matter, should never be the feature race, especially on a Saturday. Yes, I know, anoraks can trot out a dozen previous winners of the old Tolworth at Sandown that went on to win at the Cheltenham Festival and I am not suggesting such races have no place in the racing calendar. To trainers, conditions novice events are important. As a supporting race, such races add interest to a card but there is neither pzazz to novice races nor are they a boon to betting turnover.
Moving the Tolworth to Aintree on Boxing Day, renaming it the Formby, a title that will doubtless disappear under the welter of a commercial sponsor, might make the race more competitive as northern trainers could be persuaded to run their better novices in it and the B.H.A.’s intention does have sound motives. But would it not have been sensible to shift the race to Kempton, where better ground will be on offer, to help establish the King George meeting as a ‘Christmas Festival’, an idea several big names in the sport has advocated in the past?
With the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ agenda of Aintree and its clerk of the course, it might be to the Grand National’s long-term benefit to run a Grand National trial at its new Boxing Day fixture, the Valentine Chase over a distance longer than the Becher but shorter than the Grand National itself? I would be pretty confident a race of significance over the National fences would draw a larger crowd than a novice hurdle as the feature race.

It is good, though disappointing at the same time, that Pyledriver is to stand at Coolmore as a National Hunt stallion. Doubtless under their marketing skills, Pyledriver will become a popular stallion for National Hunt breeders, it is just sad that a horse with the Group 1 victories he has achieved cannot be given a chance as a flat stallion. It would be also be sad if William Muir and Christy Grassick never get the chance to train any of Pyledriver’s offspring, given they train exclusively on the flat.
A lack of a blue-blooded pedigree is the negativity around Pyledriver as a flat stallion, born on the wrong side of the street, you might say. Rather like Brigadier Gerard who also had a modest pedigree, genes are everything to breeders, not that a lack of the in-genes stopped the Brigadier becoming one of the greatest flat horses of all-time. Some claim him as the greatest, with only recency allowing Frankel to be considered his superior.

I believe a sounder surface will see Bravemansgame back to his best in the King George and the assured decent gallop set by either Frodon or Allaho, or both, will also be to his benefit. On form, with Geri Colombe now running in a very hot Saville’s Chase at Leopardstown, the King George should be between Bravemansgame and Allaho. But the following of form is not an exact science. Form is up for interpretation. With instinct or a hunch always coming into play when trying to decide upon a winner.
If Shishkin jumps off, which he will if Nico can keep him away from Frodon’s naughty influence – in his excitement for the race Frodon can whip round at the start – he remains a player and take with a pinch of salt Nicky Henderson’s talk of ‘the horse perhaps not being 100% fit – how many times as he got a horse ready to win first time out?
The King George always pulls at the heartstrings. It was always the same with Desert Orchid and Kauto Star and with Thistlecrack, Cue Card and when Frodon was in his pomp, and yes, my heart will still root for Frodon, even though my head tells me he has little chance this time around. Then there is my assertion after his Aintree win last season that Shishkin is a Gold Cup winner in waiting. That’s looking a bit silly now but if he were to succeed on Monday then what little reputation I have will be restored. (I remain of the belief that Galopin Des Champs has a fall in him).
So, I will die happy if Frodon could roll back the years, I have a vested interest in Shishkin winning and I expect Bravemansgame and Allaho to battle out the finish. Yet if I were to venture down to the bookies Boxing Day morning, where would my fiver each-way go? Hewick is the answer to that question and I don’t really now why. Instinct, perhaps. A hunch. Or perhaps he is the best value in the race. Or perhaps Gavin Sheehan can do no wrong at the moment. Or perhaps I am looking for the fairy-tale of Kempton Park once again?

​I remain vexed at the decision to restrict the number of runners in the 2024 Grand National to 34. 34 is an arbitrary number and will not prevent equine fatalities. 24 or 14 would not prevent accidents occurring. 68 have run in the race in the past without a single equine fatality. Fate determines death, not numerology. 
I am not saying measures were not required to make the race a smidgen safer but picking a number to reduce the field by and crossing fingers is not one that gives me any confidence that Suleka Varma and her team are to be trusted with the world’s most famous horse-race. 
In the aftermath of last season’s race, I wrote to Aintree suggesting that over the first three fences jockeys should be instructed to keep in as straight a line as possible in order to reduce crowding in the early stages of the race. To my mind, the first three fences are the most problematic. I suggested a draw to position horses at the start in groups of three, the inside group, the middle and outer. Radical and strange for a jumps race and not without its own problems but as long as jockeys kept in as straight a line as possible to after the third fence it would make no difference which horses were in which group when the tape goes up.
Also, and I am far from alone in advocating this, ‘win and you are in’ races would at least ensure the right type of horse ran in the race. Raising the minimum rating has rendered the Becher Chase, the main, I would argue, trial for the Grand National, rather pointless. The Grand Sefton and the Becher Chase were resurrected in order to give horses more experience of the unique Aintree fences and yet since Suleka Varma has become Clerk of the Course, these two race have no more significance to the Grand National than a 3-mile handicap chase at Worcester, Sedgefield or name your own third example. In winning the Becher a few weeks ago, Chambard proved himself an ‘Aintree horse’ and his connections should not have to be worrying if the horse will be allowed to compete in the big race. Latenightpass also looks a solid Aintree type, yet his connections, too, cannot make a plan as they too must fret over whether the horse will be rated high enough to get in.
Just being rated 150-plus does not automatically make any horse fit to compete in a Grand National. For the race to survive, the Grand National must be competed for by the right horses, not the highest-rated. Suleka Varma should research Grand National history; she will find that Gold Cup winners have perished in the race.
At the moment a novice chaser with limited experience of steeplechase fences, if it had a high-enough rating, can run in the race but a solid, dependable chaser with good form, winning form, perhaps, around the Aintree fences, as with Chambard, might not.
Also, there is a call for a ‘consolation race’ over the Aintree fences for horses with a rating below that needed for a start in the main event. It is a good idea, though it might be difficult to organise within a 3-day meeting. It needs to be discussed, though, as again it would ensure the right type of horse running in the race. Possible solutions might be to increase the distance of the Becher Chase and frame the race to attract as many runners as possible and with increased prize-money. Resurrect the Valentine Chase to be run the same day as the Grand Sefton. Or stage the Foxhunters and Topham on the Thursday of the meeting and have the Grand National consolation race on the Friday. The main benefit of the consolation race idea is that there would be no need for a minimum rating and as such the race would attract more entries and thus generate more prize-money.
The Grand National must return to 40-runners, with no more lowering of fences as such a move will only be met by a faster pace as jockeys come to stop fearing the fences and ride the race as just another long-distance chase.
Aintree’s policy of ‘death by a thousand-cuts’ is the greatest threat to the race since Bill Davies bought the course with the intention of building houses on the site. We, as enthusiasts of the race, need to rise-up and stand firm against the plans of Suleka Varma and her gang of crowd-pleasers and bombard her in-box with our complaints and fears. It’s the peoples’ race, Miss Varma, not your race. You are merely its custodian; you are in charge of our race, the peoples’ race. Start speaking to us; stop telling us what is in the best interests of our race.

​What I meant to include in my last ‘blog’ was that it would be unfair to restrict top National Hunt trainers from having more than 4-runners in any of the major handicaps, yet not restrict flat trainers to no more than 4-runners in races like the Epsom Derby or the Royal Hunt Cup. Admittedly, my brain took me on a journey to display my ignorance of the subject, allowing me to suggest that the rule of 4 restriction was all-embracing and included all races, which obviously is not the intention of the B.H.A. I get things wrong; I’m ageing, and not well, and sometimes I pick the bad apples along with the juicy.
There is good intention behind the rule of 4 proposal and I do not concur with the opinion that it is wrong to punish successful trainers simply for being successful. Did you know that 86% of the products you buy in shops or on-line, including the major banks, are either owned 100% or are governed by sway of majority shareholders, by 3 global companies, Vanguard and Blackrock being two, the third has slipped my mind?
Is that a good thing or bad? In horse racing, trainers on the flat and National Hunt, as it is becoming with owners, the 86% and 14% figures are similarly representative. Perhaps not exactly but it is a fair reflection of the dominance of the few over the majority. Something needs to be done to persuade owners to support a more diverse number of trainers, either by restriction of runners, restriction of the number of horses trained by one person or by having a large number or races restricted to trainers with less than fifty-horses under their care. To my mind, the B.H.A. are travelling towards the right destination, even if at the moment they are taking the wrong road.

I am a big fan and admirer of Bryony Frost. She is a uniquely talented rider and on the P.R. front she a wonderful ambassador for the sport. At least she was until Robbie Dunne allowed his jealousy of her success to cross the line into bullying and conduct unbecoming of the sport, believing he had the right to take the law into his own hands. Since the inquiry, Bryony is more guarded with the press, even though the public remain solidly in favour of her. Remember Francesca Cumani’s tears after Bryony won the Ryanair at the Cheltenham Festival, the first Grade 1 at the Festival for a female jockey? The ‘Frodon took my hand’ speech? As far as I am concerned, Robbie Dunne, a nobody in the sport as far as the public are concerned, has denied our sport one of National Hunt’s greatest assets in promoting the sport to a younger audience. 
Bryony deserves more opportunities in the top races. Paul Nicholls continues to support her and as someone not known for being a charitable cause when it comes to those who ride his horses, it should be enough of a positive for other trainers to use her innate ability to get a horse into a rhythm and jumping fluently, as was on display yesterday on Il Ridoto. She didn’t win but she did everything in her power to do so, being chinned on the line by a horse, I believe, becoming a top-notch performer, whose future lies outside of handicaps.
As Protektorat is unlikely to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, would the Skeltons be thinking along the lines of entering him for the Grand National? He is a bold jumper of a fence when on-song and the way he knuckled down and stuck out his neck up the Cheltenham hill, after being given a quite conservative ride by Harry, suggested to me that he would get the trip at Aintree. Given that it is unlikely that Harry will get on Latenightpass in the Grand National, as that horse is his sister-in-law’s ride, perhaps it is not such a crazy notion.
The King George on Boxing Day is looking a seriously tight affair. I have still not lost all faith in Shishkin but there are two factors, so far undiscussed, one of which might undo his chances and the other help. Connecting the two alternatives is the name of Frodon, who possibly might be having his swan-song at Kempton.
As admirable as he is, Frodon is known for messing around at the start, not because he doesn’t want to race but because he wants to get on with things. He can whip round, the reason, I believe, Bryony likes to line-up on the outside at the start. Not that I am qualified to give Nico de Boinville advice, yet he would do well keep well away from Frodon at the start otherwise the two of them night synchronise their whipping round antics. 
I do think it is giving in to ignorance by stopping assistant starters from carrying a hunting crop or long-tom as it is not for hitting a horse but for the cracking sound it makes when used. Such an item would, I believe, have focused Shishkin’s mind at Ascot, with far better results for the betting public.
What will be in Shishkin’s favour, if he consents to put his best foot forward, is that Frodon will ensure a keen, honest pace and might light-up Allaho, also usually a front-runner. I have heard many top jockeys insist that it takes a true stayer to win over 3-miles at Kempton as races like the King George are run at a relentless gallop, with little leeway for jumping errors. Allaho won at Punchestown over 3-miles, yet he is not considered a Gold Cup horse and though it would be fanciful to suggest Frodon will take a hand in the finish, he will doubtless lead them into the straight and for Allaho to win he’ll have to prove himself a true stayer, which, I believe, Shishkin will prove he is, if he consents to race.

​The B.H.A.’s proposal to limit trainers to a maximum of four-runners per race is sound. I don’t like it as it is a form of discrimination, though I am forced to concede that in the present circumstance where the gap between the super-trainers and the hard-grafting smaller trainers grows by the season, it is a brake in need of administering.
Why the B.H.A. are going down this road and not the Irish racing authority is the real debate here as this subject is far more of a problem in the Emerald Isle than this side of the pond. Perhaps the B.H.A. had visions of Gordon Elliott having fourteen-runners in a single race at the Cheltenham Festival or, more likely, they have to come realise that by limiting the number of runners in the Grand National to 34 there was a favourite’s chance of having over half the field trained by Elliott and Willie Mullins between them. Perhaps, in private, Aintree and the B.H.A. have conceded that in forever tinkering with the Grand National they are slowly killing the golden goose by a thousand cuts and cannot risk having the race won year by year by one of the super-powers of the sport and further diminishing the public’s affection for the race?
Limiting the number of runners any one trainer can have in prestige races is worth trying, though I cannot see the Coolmore ‘lads’ being pleased about it, given they like to have as many runners as possible in the Epsom Derby, for example. This cap on runners could, conceivably, have a detrimental effect on betting turnover if Aidan O’Brien is limited to four-runners when if he were allowed six, each-way betting would be available to punters. I believe Coolmore having five or six runners in a classic is a different problem to Elliott or Mullins dominating a race at the Cheltenham Festival.
Also, during periods when the weather intervenes and, as of now, there have been wholesale abandonments, especially towards the end of the season, trainers might have a dozen well-bred youngsters in need of a run before going out-to-grass for the summer. To have to choose which horses to run would be an added dilemma, having to tell an owner that it is his or her preference to run other owners’ horses.
This ‘rule of four’ must come with a caveat that in periods after drought, flood or frost, some races should be except to allow trainers the opportunity to run horses desperately in need of racecourse experience. Or indeed to get horses ready for the prestige races to come.
The B.H.A. are in consultation with all relevant stakeholders about the proposal. Quite why they are consulting, though, is beyond me. We already have a fair idea who will be against and who will be for the proposal: the super-power owners and trainers will want to pour cold water on the proposal; the smaller syndicates, owners and trainers will be wholeheartedly behind for the proposal. I would imagine jockeys associated with the super-power trainers and owners will have misgivings as potentially the 4-runner rule will further limit their chance to getting on a lively outsider and potential winner of the Grand National, for instance.
One of my main moans about the B.H.A. is that it prefers ‘talk’ to ‘data’. They implement whip guidelines with regularity without the support of data from trialling each and every possible variation from no whip to a free-for-all. Data moves science. Data proves and disproves theories. The four-runner rule is worth trialling, especially with the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National, amazingly, already on the horizon. Just bring in the rule for a trial period and let it fly its course. 
One benefit of the four-runner rule will be that owners of horses trained by the super-powers with, say, the Grand National in mind, will be forced to send them to other trainers in order to, perhaps, achieve a life’s ambition of having a runner in the big race. That, if only for a short period, can only be of benefit to the trainer lucky enough to get a new horse in the yard, perhaps a lively outsider for the world’s greatest horse race.

​The Becher Chase was won in fine style yesterday by Chambard, a first winning ride in the race for a female jockey, Lucy Turner. 
The Becher is an old established race that during Aintree’s troubled times was lost to the calendar, to be reinstated in the 1990’s, mainly to give Grand National type horses a try over the big fences prior to running in the big race in April. Yet, year in, year on, it fails to be a significant Grand National trial and has become just a race over the National fences, albeit an important and valuable race. But what is the point of the Becher Chase if it is not a true trial for the Grand National, a reflection of what is to come in April?
The owners of Chambard spoke in the aftermath of their success of their ambition to have a runner in the Grand National, yet, even though he looked every inch a National-horse, there is no certainty, with the field now reduced to 34, that Chambard will have a high enough rating to make the cut. He might, of course, get in, especially as the type of horse Aintree aspires to running in the race rarely get to line-up, but it is easily envisaged, as Chambard was nowhere near top-weight on Saturday, that come the five-day declaration date, he’ll be No. 40 in wait of seven-withdrawals for the chance to compete.
For the Becher to remain relevant as a Grand National trial, it must become a win and you are in race. It’s a no-brainer, even if the B.H.A. and Aintree are against the idea as it might allow a horse to run in the race with an official rating well below their arbitrary cut-off point of 144, is it? Venetia Williams should be allowed to train Chambard specifically for the Grand National, certain in the knowledge that if the horse is fit and well, he’ll get a run. It’s time Suleka Varma and her bosses at Aintree woke-up to the fact that for the survival of the Grand National the race needs to attract the right horses, not those with high ratings but out-of-form or out of love with the game.

At the I.H.A. awards ceremony last week something extraordinary happened that did not raise much of an eyebrow this side of the pond. The Ride of the Year award was given to a 7lb female apprentice with very few wins on the board. The name Amy-Jo Hayes would not strike a loud chord with people outside of Irish racing. She rides infrequently when compared to Siobhan Routledge, the only female flat rider in Ireland even close to losing her claim. Routledge is down to claiming 3lbs, with no other female apprentice anywhere close to her achievement.
I cannot comment on Amy-Jo Hayes’ ability in the saddle or whether her weight is an obstacle to achieving a greater number of rides. What I do know about her is that in a country with many top-class jockeys and with Ryan Moore a regular figure in Irish weigh-rooms, she won the ‘ride of the year award’. So why aren’t trainers in Ireland giving her the opportunities she needs to be able demonstrate her skills? 
As we know, the Irish racing calendar makes it a competitive environment for jockeys, all jockeys, not only female riders and the female shouldn’t be given opportunities unobtainable for their male colleagues. Yet given that through the jumps season in Ireland there are quite a number of female only races, isn’t it time a few female-restricted flat races were added to the race programme? It’s tough for young male riders trying to come up through the ranks; it seems as an outsider that it is a hundred-times more difficult for females. And one final thing; it is unfair on the young female apprentice, in the small number of ‘ladies’ races, to have to take on the experienced, older, female amateur riders, many of whom will have experience of riding at the big festival meetings, including Cheltenham and Aintree and who long connections to the larger stables.

The M.P. George Eustice, no doubt in search of making a point that was not exactly in support of horse racing, made the reasonable assumption in a parliamentary debate the other day that the racing industry should be responsible for the support and care of racehorses retired from the sport. His ideas to support his speech were off-beam, of course, believing owners should race their horses for trophies but no prize-money and that sponsorship alone should be enough to keep horse-racing afloat. Idiotic ideas from a man with an agenda, I suspect.
But his point is valid and here is my suggestion for fulfilling his aim. A tax-cum-levy on the sale of all horses sold at public auction. Half-a-percent should do it, I would think. Yearlings and broodmares can fetch 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5-million +, and half-a-percent going towards the care and support of retired racehorses would be insignificant to both the vendor or purchaser and yet would snap in two a stick that Animal Aid and others constantly beat us with. It seems to me highly appropriate that the sale of foals, yearlings and broodmares, especially, should provide the finance to ensure retired racehorses are cared-for in their lives outside of the racing industry. This is a racing industry problem, not a racing alone problem. Breeders make money from the sale of the product; they make a good living and achieve fame from their success; they should be involved in the solution to a problem they kick-start.

​I fancy Midnight River for the Coral Gold Cup.
I doubt if he will win give the Skeltons victory for a second consecutive year, though, as the odds on the meeting going ahead are as long as me finishing a marathon in daylight. I have argued the case for years, with no one else, seemingly, wishing to engage in the debate. So, it was good to hear Ed Chamberlain try to start a chat at Newbury yesterday on the rank stupidity of racing on the Friday and putting in jeopardy the running of the most important staying handicap chase outside of the Grand National in this country the following day.
Friday, you see, is ‘corporate day’ and racecourse executives believe it is more important than the prestige races they are blessed to host. Why Sunday cannot become ‘corporate day’ is beyond me, though I dare say Newbury and others have good reason to play stick in the mud on this issue.
Yes, I know, with the unaltering arbitrary nature of the British weather, it is as likely for inclement weather to cause the abandonment of a race-meeting on any day of the week. My counter to this sensible statement is this: if, for example, the Newbury fixture slated this year and every year for a Friday and Saturday were rearranged to a Saturday and Sunday fixture, with the Coral Gold Cup the feature on the first day, it would give Newbury wriggle-room if frost, snow or the wrath of God stopped the meeting going ahead on the Saturday, with Sunday free for the race to be instantly rearranged. It is called a safety-net, something that a Friday/Saturday fixture cannot have. This issue, in wintertime, at least, has the potential to run a horse and carriage through the B.H.A.’s golden plan for the survival of the sport that is called ‘premierisation’. The ‘safety-net’ to betting turn-over that is all-weather flat racing is nothing more than a bedsheet pulled tight in comparison to the betting revenue that comes from a competitive handicap like the Coral Gold Trophy or a day’s racing from Cheltenham.
With finances in racing as they are at the moment, with attendance at racecourses suffering due to the manufactured cost-of-living crisis, it would make sense, at least to me or anyone having to cope with rising household bills etc, to have fewer two-day major meetings through the winter months and to think about Saturday mega-days. Yes, this one-day would be subject to whims of nature, but I would contend, if the meeting was called-off on the Saturday, that, if the racecourse was raceable on the Sunday, that the meeting could be transferred to the following day, with or without t.v. coverage.
With the money saved from staging a two-day meeting, the Coral Gold Cup could become the centre-piece of a mega-Saturday, especially as the Fighting Fifth and Rehearsal Chase at Newcastle are annually run on the same day.
Losing the former Hennessey, with its historic place in National Hunt history, would be a major loss to trainers, owners and jockeys. And to punters, bookmakers and to racing’s finances. Everything should be in place to give important and historic races every chance possible to be staged on their slated day in the calendar and at the moment this stupid ‘actually we can’t race on the Saturday and the Sunday as Friday is our corporate day’ attitude is helping to beleaguer further our already over-burdened sport. Ireland would simply rearrange the whole meeting for the following week, just to ensure the races get run. The whole meeting, mind you, with no cherry-picking of the better-quality races.
This issue gets my blood-up as it seems that neither Newbury nor the B.H.A. think Coral Gold Cup Day is worth every effort to stage.
One more thing that boils my blood: The Gerry Feilden Hurdle is this year named ‘the Now Bet In Race with Coral Intermediate Handicap Hurdle’. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it? Not! I get it, Coral sponsor the meeting. The Coral name will decorate the racecourse at every spot where a t.v. camera will show them to the television audience. But why can’t this notable race simply be titled the ‘Coral Gerry Fielden Hurdle’? Doesn’t everyone in racing already know that it is possible to bet in race by now? Perhaps Coral need to add ‘on your mobile device’ to the title so that even complete idiots like me fully understand the meaning behind the title.
A beautiful sport, with the most magnificent animal species on the planet, made as desperate-looking and ugly as Edvard Munch’s ‘ The Scream’ by men in dull-coloured suits in want of netting custom. Wouldn’t the ‘Gerry Fielden Hurdle’ HOSTED BY CORALS be less distracting, more sensitive?
‘CORPORATE’ – imagine an old man shaking his head, a look of sadness purveyed throughout his face and body – and you will know how this piece of diatribe ends.

​The risk to the survival of horse racing in this country cannot be over-stated. To save a soul, the Gambling Commission sees fit to sacrifice the heart.
100,000 people have now signed the petition against affordability checks and 11 Westminster bank benchers will shortly convene to consider whether the petition will be debated by parliament. Only 19 petitions have thus far been rejected for debate, making the odds on acceptance very much in racing’s favour. Yet 19 petitions have failed, even though the perception is that 100,000 signatures would make a debate a legal requirement. It would be of interest to know the topics of the petitions that failed to make it past the scrutiny of the good men and women of the selected eleven. 
Let me quote the late author Lawrence Gardner writing on a different subject altogether. ‘Above all such considerations there is the requirement to toe the party-line while paying homage to the demigods of power. This prerequisite has nothing to do with obeying the law or with behaving properly – it relies totally on not rocking the boat, and on withholding opinions that do not conform. Those who break ranks are declared heretics, meddlers and troublemakers, and as such are deemed socially unfit by their governing establishment.’
I suspect the eleven back-benchers do not convene with free-hands. I suspect they are ‘briefed’ as to the wants and desires of ministers and as such, not withstanding the encouragement of the Prime Minister’s statements on the matter, petitions only go before members of parliament if it is desired by ‘demigods of power’ who are unknown and not elected by the electorate of the country.
Is it a coincidence that Ireland, a country that embraces the horse racing and breeding industry with greater affection than the parliament of Britain, is also on a path to pull the carpet from under the sport by denying bookmakers the freedom to market their wares on National and satellite television before nine o’clock at night?
Can we trust a political system that over the past few years has removed centuries-old freedoms and human rights from the people who elected them and have many more restrictions on our liberty awaiting us further down the pipe-line? The minister may keep chanting ‘we want proportionate, frictionless checks’ before we proceed, yet there is no talk of reimbursing the sport for funds already lost by bookmakers implementing checks that are far from proportionate or frictionless’ under duress from the Gambling Commission.
Bookmakers are not blameless in all this. If they had taken gambling addiction more seriously a decade ago and implemented their own checks and balances, would we be so open to this assault on our liberty to bet to limits of our own choice? And if the sport’s governing bodies had made the bold move decades ago to finance the sport through similar funding avenues as all of our main competitors around the world and not stick with stupid loyalty to the ‘betting jungle’ of funding through commercial companies that always put their shareholders first, we would be in far stronger and independent position to stave off this threat to the future existence of our sport.
The racing and breeding industry employ many thousands of people and swells the exchequer by many millions of pounds annually. The sport is an asset to the country, so ask yourself this: why then should the government seek to put the sport in peril?
This government is, as are governments around the world, bound hand and foot to an agreement signed by Boris Johnson to take forward the concepts within the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’. Within the plans of Klaus Schwab and his cronies, there is no future for any sport that involves animals. Racecourses take-up land resources that would better serve the purposes of the ‘Great Reset’. Even having a cat or dog as a pet is seen by the planners of the ‘Great Reset’ as a waste of the Earth’s resources.
I have seen debates in parliament on topics that the government wish to drop a straight bat on. The debates are politely insipid and circuitous. ‘Jaw Jaw’ as Sir Winston said more favourably, a Prime Minister who would have fought tooth and claw for not only horse racing but for the independence of parliament to make its own decisions, rather than be lent on by outside influences like the W.H.O., the W.E.F. and the United Nations.
Quite recently several Just Stop Oil protestors were jailed from between 6-months and 2-years. The United Nations contacted the British government and criticised such sentences as ‘they would dissuade others from protesting’.
The petition must be kept open, with everyone in the industry urged to give their support. The aim must be to get 200,000 signatures. Not that I hold any more hope if 1-million signatures went before parliament. There is an agenda. It is not necessarily the agenda of the Prime Minister, and that is what is so concerning.

​If there is one aspect of horse racing in this country that maddens the mind, it is the way controversies and debates are never speedily put to bed. Yes, in the past, with so many sectors of the sport having a veto, it was hard job to achieve agreement on any one subject, and with the B.H.A. now having a casting vote dispute and debate should be brought to a conclusion with more alacrity than in the past.
Yet, after many, many decades, the whip remains a talking point. Although I would be happier if the number of permitted strikes were to be lowered to match the French standard, which would be fairer on jockeys from Europe riding here and vice-versa, the majority in this country seem to think the number is now about right. I would still like to see a number of races each season restricted to no strikes at all, if only for the data such races would provide. But if the majority are happy, let sleeping dogs lie, yes?
Now, of course, the debate is to disqualify or not to disqualify when a jockey breaks the permitted number of strikes in winning a race. In France, they disqualify if a jockeys goes over the permitted number by four, I believe. In Britain and Ireland jockeys receive a suspension but the horse is not disqualified. The problem the B.H.A. have given themselves is that if they unify with the French rules, a horse would not be disqualified on the day but up to a week later, if the race was run on a Tuesday as racecourse stewards must forward their findings to a disciplinary panel that sits on Tuesdays.
As someone who is an advocate of ‘one strike and that’s it’, I believe instead of a jockey being suspended for a long period, he or she should have their right to use a whip in earnest in a race removed for the same length of suspension they would receive at the moment. So, if a jockey at present would receive a ban of fourteen-days, for example, under my system they would be allowed to ride and receive an income during that period but would have to ride under a licence that does not permit them to strike a horse with their whip. I would also impose a fine of 10% of the value of the race in which the whip rules were infringed. I would also disqualify the horse and place it second, third or fourth, depending on how many horses were involved in the finish.
The whip debate, though, continues to be part of the conversation and it is time every effort was made to bring it to a conclusion that is acceptable to the public and helps to ring-fence the future of the sport.
The debate on small field sizes and lack of competitiveness has the potential to be as long-running a topic as the whip. The whip is by comparison a monster of a debate to resolve, with small field sizes a minnow that could be caught in tea strainer. While the sport languishes at the bottom of a curve, the number of race-meetings should be reduced. The strength of this strategy might well be proved over the coming days with frost forecast for much of the country, the result of which will be abandoned race-meetings and larger field sizes when winter eventually relents its grip on the sport. It’s a no brainer, isn’t it? So why is the B.H.A. meddling with the race program when the solution is so obvious. Yes, racecourse finances will be hit, yet is it not possible they could recoup short-term losses by better marketing of the meetings that remain?
Good ideas and good marketing are needed. Here’s one ‘good idea’. Carlisle’s most popular meeting, lost last season due to the weather, is the all-female jockeys meeting in the summer
. The Shergar Cup is also one of Ascot’s most popular days racing outside the Royal meeting and Champions Day. Though the ‘team’ idea shouldn’t be stretched to breaking point, with teams that people can associate with and support, not mythical and pointless as is tried every summer, a combined flat and jump jockey competition between British, Irish and perhaps European riders, with the flat races taking place at one track and the jump racing at another, might be popular with spectators.
I also believe a ‘no whip’ flat meeting would intrigue the public, even if it infuriated jockeys. We already have ‘hands and heels’ races for apprentices, so its not too much of a bridge too far.
The Racing Post these days is smattered with bad news stories. I realise it is not the thought or desire of the Racing Post to be doom-mongers and it is no doubt a long-term strategy of politicians and their overlords to wither the sport to the point of being unable to sustain itself, to use the land racecourses hold for purposes encased in the mantra within the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’. Now, more than ever in its history, it is imperative the sport provides for itself good news stories, a mantra for survival, to solve its nagging internal problems and allow the sun to shine brighter over our sport, to protect its heritage and to provide a future history.
 

At mid-day on Saturday November 25th, the chances of a British-trained winner of the 2024 Cheltenham Gold Cup were pretty limited. By 4 pm, hope of home glory was all but gone.
The I.T.V. pundits, all of whom thought Shishkin a good thing to beat Pic d’orly, if that’s the correct spelling of his name, were of the joint opinion after the race that Shishkin’s refusal to race was ‘always on the cards’. I admit, I did not anticipate that particular card being dealt, though it would not have disappointed me greatly if he had finished second to the Paul Nicholls’ horse as I believe Shishkin to be an out and out stayer and his successes over 2-miles were only proof of his classiness. 
Nicky Henderson was shell-shocked, as evidenced by the ambush interview performed by an arm-twisted (by his producer, I suspect) Luke Harvey. He didn’t want to comment on what he had just witnessed and when pushed couldn’t form a coherent sentence either in support of his horse or how he intended to proceed. Henderson is a man who wears his heart on his sleeve and he was deeply embarrassed by Shishkin’s appalling behaviour. 
I must admit, I didn’t see why Shishkin needed sheepskins. He may think he has performed to the letter of his contract once he has got his head in front but at Aintree at the end of last season, though he may not have inspired praise for his class, he out-battled a good horse in Ahoy Senor and proved beyond all doubt that he needed every yard of 3-miles. Nicky Henderson does not need any advice from me or anyone other than Nico de Boinville, though I would whisper in his ear, if the unlikely opportunity were to arise, that a trip up to Newcastle along with Constitution Hill next Saturday would be a better idea than supplementing him for the Tingle Creek. The Rehearsal Chase is over 3-miles, Nico will be there, it will be new territory for him and I would suspect the opposition will not be of the highest class. Shishkin may not be in need of a confidence booster but Nicky Henderson sure is.
I thought Shiskin our best chance of bringing down G. D. C. come March. I thought the Cheltenham hill would bring his stamina to the fore. Sadly, I cannot see that happening now due to the egg all over my face.
In some ways, Bravemansgame was an even bigger disappointment than naughty boy Shishkin. He ran his race, displaying an immaculate jumping technique, perhaps one disagreement with Daryl Jacobs, and for the majority of the race looked the only likely winner. On form, Royale Pigaille should not have finished within ten-lengths of Bravemansgame, yet he was beaten fair and square, with the winner forging clear after the last fence. If the Betfair were run at Cheltenham, it would be easy imagine even Corach Rambler running past Bravemansgame up the hill.
Horses can improve for no discernible reason, as they can also go backwards in form. Training racehorses is not a science, neither is study of form. Paul Nicholls makes few mistakes, as proven by his decision to keep Harry Cobden at Ascot where he rode 4-winners, greatly improving his chances of reeling in Sean Bowen. Remember, people wrote-off Kauto Star several times and yet he came back to win a second Gold Cup and more remarkably a fourth Betfair. Bravemansgame will be back, though it would take a brave man at the top of his game to back him for the Cheltenham Gold Cup and it may take a prayer to He upon high to back him to beat Allaho in the King George.
Personally, I would give Bravemansgame a rest and go to Leopardstown and take on G.D.C. on his home turf at the Dublin Spring Festival before deciding whether to have another crack at the Gold Cup. It might be, and for all our sakes I hope it is not so, but the Ryanair might be the race for him, as Matt Chapman continues to suggest.
Though he was only third, the horse that impressed me on Saturday was Crambo. It looked to me that Haydock is the wrong type of course for a horse who seemed to need every yard of 3-miles, staying on stoutly to suggest that in another furlong he would gone past Slate Lane, the winner of the race. Crambo has Cheltenham written all over him and the Stayers Hurdle would not be a case of tilting at windmills by his connections.
Now it is the turn of G.D.C. to tighten the screw on British hopes of claiming back the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Let’s hope he doesn’t mess things up as both Bravemansgame and Shiskin achieved yesterday.
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