​As someone who came to horse-racing at a very young age through the B.B.C.’s coverage of the Grand National it is unsurprising that of all sporting occasions the race remains closest to my heart. I love the race as a parent must love their only child and during the 9-minutes or so of its duration I inwardly pray, as a parent might do watching their son ride their first bike or take part in their first ‘dangerous’ sporting activity, that no harm befalls it, which, of course, refers to no horse losing its life. Equally, the pray extends to B.H.A. appointed officials not cocking-up, leaving the sport and the Grand National in particular with embarrassing egg on its face.
This year, fulfilling a wish/ambition of mine, the race will be run on my birthday for the first time. For most of its life the Grand National was dominant in the calendar, with virtually every top chaser entered, and was given precedence in the racing year. The middle of March is now given as a matter of course to the Cheltenham Festival, when once that time of year was the traditional time for the annual running of the Grand National.
Personally, I think it is wrong of the B.H.A. to squeeze in the great race wherever it might fit. The Grand National is, or at least was, the most famous race in the world and shouldn’t, in my eyes, play second fiddle to any other race-meeting in Britain or Ireland. But there you are, it is what it is. At least this year I get my wish to have the race run on my birthday, if I get to live a few more months, something not to be taken for granted at my age!
In 1954 (you can work out my age, if you wish) the race was run on 27th of March and was won by Royal Tan, trained by Vincent O’Brien and ridden by Bryan Marshall, the middle of Vincent’s staggering three Grand Nationals in a row, a fete unlikely to be seen again, I would bet. The first televised Grand National was 1960, won by Merryman, trained by Neville Crump and ridden by Gerry Scott. I believe the first Grand National I watched was the following year when Nicholas Silver won, beating Merryman by five-lengths, ridden by my boyhood hero Bobby Beasley and trained by Fred Rimell.
My favourite Grand National, a race that never becomes less agonising every time I re-watch the race, was 1973, the year Crisp so very nearly achieved the impossible task of achieving the impossible, narrowly losing out to Red Rum after treating the fiercesome fences with contempt. No horse would ever be capable of giving Red Rum 23Ibs around Aintree and beat him, not even Arkle. Yet he nearly did so. I will never consider 1973 as the start of Red Rum’s hat-trick; to me it will always be Crisp’s Grand National.
The entries for this year’s renewal is rather disappointing, with only 85 possible runners, 54 of which are trained in Ireland. Perversely, though there are only 31 British-trained horses entered, they represent, I believe, our best chance of wrestling the trophy back from the Irish for many a year. Ashtown Lad, Corach Rambler, Fiddleronthehoof, Ga Law, Happygolucky, Iwilldoit, Le Milos, Mister Coffey, Our Power, Remastered, Royale Pagaille, Secret Reprieve, Sporting John, The Big Breakaway and Threeunderthrufive, all have perfectly reasonable chances of winning. Of course, as you would expect, the Irish have the ante-post favourite in Noble Yeats and the second favourite in Longhouse Poet and third favourite in Any Second Now. Yet Remastered is joint second favourite, with Ashtown Lad, Corach Rambler Iwilldoit and Le Milos quoted at odds no longer than 20/1.
I was surprised to see Envoi Allen amongst the entries, and his stable companion the mare Gin on Lime, other than that the entry, apart from the small number, was as you might expect. You would have thought a prize fund of a million-quid would have tempted a few more, even if speculative, high-profile entries. Which allows for the impression that prize-money at the top-end cannot be as paltry as trainers make it out to be.
I always like to pick six to keep an eye on, a number that might be shortened or lengthened once the weights are announced. Lifetime Ambition and Remastered have been on my Grand National radar all season and top my early fancies. I have long said Royale Pagaille was more a Grand National than a Gold Cup horse and The Big Breakaway has taken my eye of late. Capodanno has class, though I worry he might be overburdened by the handicapper for such a young horse and Gaillard Du Mesnil seems to posses both stamina and a good way of jumping.
Remastered, Lifetime Ambition, Royale Pagaille, The Big Breakaway, Capodanno, Gaillard Du Mesnil.
Noble Yeats could easily end up with top-weight and as impressive as he was last year, and how deserving it would be for the talented Sean Bowen, I can’t see it happening. Any Second Now is 11 and age will possibly catch him out, an argument that could be said of any number of the entries. Conflated has class but they didn’t run him last year and probably won’t run him this year. Franco de Port looks, at least to me, to be a Grand National sort but Willie Mullins has it in his head that he is more a French National horse and with so many entries to chose from, it is likely France is what he will be kept for.
I always like to pick out complete no-hopers that might out-run their odds and the two that stand-out at present are Hill Sixteen, if its very soft on the day, and Happygolucky.
I would, though, like Tom Scudamore to go one better than his dad and win on Remastered. I just hope Brocade Racing stop being so squeamish and allow their trainer to give their horse the opportunity to join Native River as a legend of the sport.

​Matt Chapman, perhaps to your surprise, is a brilliant interviewer. If you do not believe me, seek out his interview with Aidan Coleman on At The Races. As a pundit, though, he can take a bit of sticking with, even when you agree, if only partially, about what he is saying. If only, instead of letting himself go on a rant, he controlled his rhetoric as he achieves so skilfully when playing the part of interviewer.
I find his adherence to the pseudo-science of ratings tiresome and I wish he would not fall back on them when presenting his argument. ‘Ratings are Bollocks’, as I have stated many times. Honeysuckle is not the worst Champion Hurdler of all-time, as he must have said on two-dozen occasions last Sunday. She has beaten Epatante twice in succession in the Champion Hurdle at level weights, which, according to my calculations, makes her at the very least the better Champion of the two.
The essence of his point, though, I agree with wholeheartedly. I will substitute the word ‘pathetic’ for an exercise in pot-hunting if Honeysuckle runs at the Festival in the mares hurdle. I would rather have the mare retired than have her downgraded to the status of Mares Hurdle contender. She has won that race and progressed to the zenith of the sport. A dual with Epatante might add interest to the race but at the race’s creation was it the intention for the race to become the destination for previous Champion Hurdle winners? It is ridiculous for the winners of the last three Champion Hurdles to sidestep the main feature to strut their stuff in a far lesser race. Perhaps Epatante and Honeysuckle are unlikely to win another Champion Hurdle but that doesn’t mean they should not be afforded the opportunity to give context to whichever horse does rule supreme come March 14th. Champions should only turn up at the Cheltenham Festival to parade or to compete in championship races and the Cheltenham executive are doing the sport no favours allowing connections of great horses to sidestep the glory races for the selfish pleasure of pot-hunting.
I would like to add one thought to the debate that went unsaid either on I.T.V. on Sunday or in today’s Racing Post. Henry de Bromhead’s horses are hardly pulling up trees at the moment. Indeed at no point in the season so far could you, with hand on heart, claim that Henry’s horses have been on-form. Yet history, or the form-book, at least, tells us that come the spring Henry makes hay. Come Cheltenham, Aintree, Fairyhouse and Punchestown, Henry can go toe-to-toe with Mullins and Elliott. Honeysuckle is at her best in the Spring, when sun shines on her back.
So I implore Henry, Kenny Alexander, Peter Molony and Rachael, to make no decision on whether the great mare is retired or whether she goes to Cheltenham for either the Champion or Mares Hurdle, until the last possible minute. As Matt Chapman quite righty pointed out, it is entirely possible that one or the other of State Man or Constitution Hill could yet be ruled out of Cheltenham due to something as insignificant as a stone bruise. There is nothing to be gained by throwing in the towel now when there remains the possibility of great good fortune to come.
My difficulty in proclaiming Galopin Des Champ a Gold Cup winner in waiting is Fury Road being upside him at the last at Leopardstown, landing awkwardly, veering to the far rail and then giving the clear impression of not staying the 3-miles. Also, even though Paul Townend, as is normal after a race, had trouble pulling Galopin des Champ to a walk after the finishing line, Stattler was closing on him after the last. It concerns me that in a fast run Gold Cup, like so many before him, Galopin will not get up the hill. Whereas A Plus Tard, as long as he back to his best and Henry’s horses are firing again, will be strong up that hill. As will Ahoy Senor. Do not discount Ahoy Senor. I have this feeling in my water that Scotland may be celebrating come the afternoon of March 17th.
The two horses that most impressed me on Sunday were Gaelic Warrior – I have yet to see a recording of his race but the bare facts will point you in the direction of backing him for whichever race he runs in at Cheltenham – and at a lower level Dancila, a winner at Musselburgh. The horse was still fighting Paddy Brennan going to the last hurdle and there were a couple of winning hurdlers trailing in his wake.
Finally, to return to the Mares Hurdle at Cheltenham. Again, Matt Chapman is right. This race has no place at the Festival as it takes good horses from championship races. Why must all championship races be at Cheltenham. What about a 2-mile Champion Mares Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival? Some years it will not be so good and in others, this year might be a case in point, it would make for a very interesting, high-class race. Food for thought.

​As the more observant of readers will already be aware, in 2013 I self-published a collection of horse-racing themed short stories, ‘Going To The Last’. I can’t lie, not a successful venture, even if I am reasonable proud of several of the stories in the book. I did it. I persevered. I overcame the tedious road to publication.
I am no businessman. I wrote the stories over many years, believing, naively, that individually, because the theme was rare for the marketplace, a home might be found within the pages of a literary magazine for them. Didn’t happen. Here’s my first insight into the world of fiction. Editors of such magazines, whether they be mainstream or cult, are young, university educated and hip; they have no understanding of any subject matter not covered in any English Lit course they attended. Also, even if one of my short-stories was a romance, editors of such magazines viewed the story as, at best, sporting and decidedly unromantic. It would be the same if the story had a ghost theme or science-fiction. 
So, with no other road to pursue, I gathered the stories together and self-published and the book can be bought either in electronic form or as a soft-back. If I had to offer advice on which media to recommend, I would plump for soft-back as at least you have something solid to offer your local bookshop or to offer to your friends and relatives for their critical acclaim.
It matters little if your book is fiction or non-fiction, be it horse-racing themed or any theme you care to mention, you would find it easier to convince a leopard to go vegan than to find either a literary agent to take you seriously or a book publisher willing to gamble on your sales-pitch. It is tough, verging on impossible, for a first-time author without a public persona to be published mainstream. Honestly, the autobiography of a double axe-murderer or a bronze-medal winning lacrosse player has a far better chance of publication than the expert musings of an unknown, back-bedroom scribbler. Better writers, J.K.Rowling to name but one, than you or I have suffered repeated rejection by both literary agents and publishers. On the reverse, there are writers, still unknown and unheralded who have bucked the system and found themselves on the bookshelves of Waterstones etc and yet have earned barely a penny for their efforts. No one in the big bad world of literature has ever said life was fair.
Selling books is all about marketing and advertising. I am useless at both. Hence the poverty of my existence. It can cost between £350/£600 to have a modest soft-back self-published. To stand any chance or even breaking even, and by that, I mean your original outlay, you will need 10-times that amount to advertise to the world the existence of your book and still you will have to network your way around local book stores, local radio stations, local newspapers, spreading the tentacles of your marketing as far afield as your finances will allow. No paid appearance and free advertising on the ‘One Show’ for you. 
If I haven’t drained you of all enthusiasm for your project, here is my advice to help you along the way to either the top of the bestseller lists or the oblivion of the unpublished.
Unlike all writing advice magazines, I do not propose you only write about what you know but if you do chose a subject not close to your heart you must research, research, research. Always be on top of the facts. Do not lure yourself, through tiredness, into thinking your readers ‘won’t know the difference’, they will, or mix a little fiction into your non-fiction book to give spice to your narrative. You will always be found out by someone. Never take your reader for granted.
Because, yes, you are writing for your potential readers. Not yourself.
Give your book a title that represents what will be found inside the cover. I made the mistake of titling my book after the title of the first story. Any number of the stories would have provided a more alluring title, ‘Yesterday’s Magic’, for instance. In fact, ‘These Stories Are About Horse Racing’ would have been a better title as anyone Googling ‘books on horse racing’ would eventually find the title staring them in the face. Whereas ‘Going To The Last’ means nothing to anyone outside of the sport. If people know about your book you have achieved the first rung on the ladder to selling the damned said book to your first buyer.
Get your work professionally edited. Adds extra cost to the exercise, money you certainly will never see again, but you will have a book that the reader can have no criticism of your syntax, punctuation or spelling. An extra, non-tired, pair of eyes can also spot glaring factual errors and repetition. Remember, you must convince your potential buyers that you are a competent and professional author.
Do not fall into the trap of asking or allowing family or friends to proof-read the manuscript. Never ask them what they think? They love or admire you, they might want a favour in return, and they will not want to hurt your feelings by giving an honest verdict. ‘It’s good’. ‘Didn’t know you had it in you’. Good for the ego, perhaps, but no long term good comes from false praise. Straight down the line cruel but constructive criticism is kinder in the long run, believe me.
Pricing your book is a minefield. Do you price it with a view of a return on your investment as quickly as possible? Do you price it modestly so that you get instant sales? I priced the electronic version of my book modestly and the soft-back at around £10, mainly because it cost far more to get it to market. The e-book I have abandoned, left it to drift into the oblivion of the electronic ether. The softback I half-heartedly marketed; the local bookshop sold the three copies I gave them, as much to their surprise as my own, and I sent copies to local libraries in towns associated with horse-racing, Epsom, Newmarket, etc. And it is listed on this website. Useless, I know. So, make sure you do a whole lot better.
And that is the best advice I can give you: market and publicise your book. Be prepared to work harder at making your book known to as many people as possible than you ever did writing the damn thing. You might even enjoy the process of being an entrepreneur. In which case, it will be all the encouragement you need to start the follow-up book.
I have vowed never to write another book ever again.
(For those in want of where to go to achieve self-publication, I will offer you the people who held my hand along the way. eBook Versions, 27 Old Gloucester Road London WC1N 3 AX    www.ebookversions.com)
Good Luck.
Because you will need it!

​The two major problems afflicting horse racing at this present time, as everyone is aware, are inadequate prize-money and a lack of competitiveness, especially at the upper echelons of chasing and hurdling, though I would contend it is also problematic in Group 1’s on the flat.
Anyone who speaks on the topic of prize-money always alludes to the purses to be won abroad, Australia, France, the U.S., Hong Kong, for example. What connects all these major overseas racing nations is that prize-money, in one manner or another, comes directly from profits from the Tote. Of course, according to the clever people, that boat long left the shores of Great Britain. It is not worth even giving any thought to copying a method of achieving acceptable levels of prize-money to save our sport here, as that boat has sailed. No, what must be proposed is convoluted schemes involving bits of money coming from here, from there, from somewhere close to the horizon. No, it is better to leave the sport to wither than even to consider a racecourse without its jungle and the atmosphere it colours the sport with.
It would be so much easier and less traumatic, I would imagine, for punters if affordability checks were dealt with in-house, by the sport itself. As we all know and fear, affordability checks are draining the sport of its life-blood, yet between them and us, the no-nothing gambling commission and the sport of horse racing, there is a third-party, a commercial enterprise that for some reason seems intent on killing itself off by siding with the no-nothing government quango that is the gambling commission.
The way to fund horse racing in this country is to choose one of the methods of funding used by racing nations, once our inferior but now are superior. Chuck the bookies and save racing, I say.
Here is another obvious answer to one of racing’s frustrating problems. Field sizes always go up after racing has been stopped for a week or so by frost, snow, flood or monsoon. Even the top-end of the sport sees growth in field numbers. So here it is, empirical evidence that less racing gives us bigger field sizes and more competitive racing.
But that is too easy, isn’t it? Racecourses want as many meetings as they can get. Never mind the ever-reducing number of horses in training. Less can’t ever be more, not if you own a racecourse.
What people never seem to mention when bringing into play racecourse attendance and field sizes from the fifties, sixties and seventies, is that there were no all-weather tracks back then, very little evening or summer racing and though there were more racecourses, there were actually fewer meetings.
Through the winter, all-weather tracks can be a life-saver for the industry. On most occasions Chelmsford, Newcastle, Lingfield and others can race even when inclement weather has scuppered National Hunt. I think it is rank stupid when Southwell and Wolverhampton race on the same day or Kempton and Lingfield. But through the winter months all-weather tracks are a god-send.
But why have so many all-weather meetings through the summer? It makes no sense. Reduce the number by half through May to September. Save money, save electricity, spare the roads, give jockeys a break. Cutting the number of all-weather racing through the summer months is the best way to reduce the number of fixtures. Obvious. It’s not as if evening all-weather racings attracts big crowds. Yet too easy a solution for the B.H.A. Cut the number of summer jumping meetings but not the all-weather! Bonkers!
And, as the Racing Post is proving this week with its excellent ‘When Horses Raced’ series, reduce the number of graded jump races and trainers will be forced, no doubt gnashing their teeth and violently objecting, to run their top horses in handicaps, allowing us to discover which horses really are in the ‘great’ category, rather than called ‘great’ simply by winning races that are as close to an open goal as the racing gods will allow. By way of example, I will put forward the names of Altior and Shishkin. There are others.
If you want to know what truly great horses can achieve go look for John Randall’s article in the ‘When Horses Races’ series and be astounded by the weight both Arkle and Flyingbolt could concede and still be victorious. I hope Nicky Henderson’s wife hid the paper from him this morning because if he reads the weight those two legends humped around Cheltenham, Leopardstown and Newbury, he would faint at the thought people might expect him to campaign his horses in a similar gung-ho manner.
Has jumping improved since the introduction of the pattern? Thoughts on a post-card and addressed to the B.H.A.
Oh for the days of the National Hunt Committee. 

​This piece will be all over the place and a little disjointed – what’s new, I can hear you say – as I am attempting to link two pressing topics of conversation that between them possess the capacity to take the sport down the road of destruction.
This week in the Racing Post it has been wall-to-wall articles on the imposition of affordability checks on punters. Let me be clear; this subject is the greatest threat to the survival of horse racing since the dawn of the sport and I am in no way criticising the Racing Post for giving it almost blanket coverage on its front pages. I just happen to believe that hereby lies the opportunity to think outside of the box, to start a conversation amongst administrators and racing enthusiasts to locate alternative ways to fund the sport. Let’s not make arrangements for our destruction before we have considered every option available to us to circumvent the Gambling Commission or the Government’s dastardly plan to kill off our sport.
Affordability checks are an assault on our God-given liberty to think and act as we please, within the law of the land, obviously. Gambling addiction is not, though, to be taken lightly. It is vice that can destroy not only the life of the addict but his or her nearest and dearest. But so can addiction to alcohol and no affordability checks are imposed on drinkers when they purchase booze in pubs, supermarkets or off-licences, if the latter establishments still exist. Drink is drink, whether its vodka, scotch or lager. Taken to excess, alcohol changes personalities and inhibitions and can lead to anger, mood-swings and anti-social behaviour and worse. Betting and gambling, though, are two completely different species and the B.H.A. should inform the Gambling Commission of this, apparently, little known fact.
Look-up the definition of betting in a dictionary and the word gambling does not appear. Bet/betting: to stake an amount of money as a bet. To make a bet with someone. Gambling: to venture or hazard something. To play a game of chance for money or property. Now, I am playing, to an extent, fast and loose with definitions as a bet is a risk in the same way as a gamble might be. But to me, a gamble is more associated with the risk of losing big or losing something as great as a marriage, reputation or a business. ‘He knew he was gambling away his marriage’. Not, he was betting away his marriage’. 
Though affordability checks are not in my domain as I have not had a betting account and would never risk gambling away the contents of a bank account, I will enter a betting shop to bet a few quid on occasion. I consider myself a bettor, not a gambler. If I placed a £1,000 on a horse I would be gambling. If a multi-millionaire placed a £1,000 on a horse he or she is betting a sum of money he or she can afford to lose. If J.P. McManus, for example, walked into a betting shop would he be asked to prove he could afford a four-figure bet? 
Affordability checks are morally wrong and its about time someone challenged their legitimacy in a court of law. Affordability checks are a gross infringement on our civil liberties. The origin for them can be traced to the introduction of slot machines in betting shops. Instead of arguing the acceptable stake for a machine, the betting industry should simply get rid of them, even if all they will be doing in transferring the problem elsewhere.
And here is a controversial point-of-view: this humungous problem is racing’s fault through its reliance on funding the sport through the revenue from the levy, betting shops and its total reluctance to even consider investing in its own tote, a system that has allowed countries long-thought our racing inferiors to overtake us to the point where we are but a dot in the distance. Let the sport die rather than do away with the betting jungle on racecourses!
We may have to accept that our sport is too top heavy, with too many commercial fingers in the pie, that the elastic has reached breaking point. Yes, the race-program, for now, must be reduced so that it reflects the reduced number of horses in training, as well as owners, trainers and staff. But this is the time, perhaps as the sport teeters at the precipice, for some old-fashioned blue-sky thinking, to reconsider the impossible and drag that ship back into harbour. Of course, the sport needs and deserves vibrant governance rather than the insipid leadership that is the hallmark of the B.H.A. 
The profits from betting on horse racing should go 100% to the sport. That is the golden solution. In the mean-time, the problem of gambling addiction should be dealt with in-house, with, somehow, a register of addicts, somewhat akin to a sex register, so that the sport can fund addiction therapy for those who have succumbed. But the sport cannot even think of such a scheme at the moment as it does not have the funds to extend a caring hand.
Affordability checks are an attack on our freedom. Ask a politician to tell us how much he or she earns outside of their parliamentary salary and we will be told that it is a private matter. Yet those same politicians are imposing bettors be asked the same question and for the liberty of placing a bet the shop manager must know what his life savings accrue to and what his or her monthly salary is. It is scandalous; and perhaps more concerning, is that it might just be the start of something far worse. The World Economic Forum do not like independent businesses. Nor do they like free-thought. They like control; track and trace, new normal, ‘own nothing and be happy’. That’s the future; how can betting shops and sport fit snugly within that agenda?

​Last Monday evening, at Wolverhampton, Hollie Doyle, 6-times Group 1 winning jockey, suffered what was described as a ‘freak fall’, resulting in, as was later diagnosed, a fracture of her elbow and ruptured ligaments in her arm. I may be wrong, though husband Tom was riding elsewhere that night, it seems she drove herself home, stopping off at Swindon Hospital to have her arm x-rayed. The x-rays were sent to be assessed by B.H.A.-appointed chief medical officer Jerry Hill. The following day (Tuesday) she was assessed by a B.H.A. appointed specialist and on the Wednesday, she was at Oaksey House in Lambourn for physiotherapy. 
Within 2-days Hollie was able to access a hospital, a chief medical officer, a specialist and a rehabilitation centre. In what other sport would this be possible? Horse racing may be in a bad place at the moment but there are elements within it that are a shining example of care and professionalism the rest of sport, and the general public, should be made aware of.

There is some disquiet amongst trainers that from last Saturday’s abandonments only a 3-horse race, as it would have been, is to be saved, to be run this weekend at an already jam-packed Cheltenham. Personally, and I may be alone in my view, but if a race only attracts 3-runners it does not deserve to be rescheduled. Yes, because it is re-opened to original entries, it will likely have 4, 5 or 6-runners, two of which will be no-hopers, at Cheltenham. Yet the Fleur-de-Lys Chase, due to have been run at Lingfield on Sunday, and worth the same amount of money as the Clarence House, is not be saved, even though it had attracted twice the number of runners.
Now, I don’t approve of Lingfield’s Winter Millions meeting as it can only have the effect of watering down competition between now and the Spring Festival meetings, but it was approved by the authorities and in his first manifestation served up plenty of competitive racing. But Lingfield is Lingfield and in winter it is the most relied upon racecourse to produce heavy ground and the freezing weather that scuppered the second instalment of the Winter Millions was evidence that this meeting will always be susceptible to abandonment even when the ground is raceable. That said, I believe the Fleur-de-Lys was a better candidate to be rescheduled than a race that most trainers totally ignored from first entry to last.
In my humble opinion, given its importance to West Country racing, the meeting that should have been salvaged from last weekend was Taunton. Insurance may come into play here, hence Taunton’s reluctance to ask the B.H.A. for a new date for the meeting, but of all the big races last weekend the Portman Cup was by far the most original. It is the only conditions chase outside of the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival run over a distance in excess of 3¼ -miles. And it was a competitive race, even if Frodon was by miles the best horse entered, though there was no certainty he would stay the distance. In Ireland, where, yes, they have spaces available in the race programme to accommodate the rescheduling of entire meetings, the Taunton fixture would have been postponed not abandoned.
Also, while I am having another dig at the B.H.A.. Why does the sport always have to shoot itself in the foot? As Paul Nicholls quite rightly said, if the Clarence House was re-opened, given the race was to be run at Cheltenham, a completely different configuration than Ascot, he would have entered Greanateen, with other trainers, as Gary Moore has proved by allowing Editeur du Gite to run on Saturday, also having a rethink about the race. Of course, this could not happen because the rules do not allow it. The rule should be changed, shouldn’t it, for the benefit of the sport. It is the same with later entry dates for the major races, especially the Cheltenham Festival. If it will improve competitiveness, help reduce costs for owners and make life easier for trainers, races closing months before the day of racing should be eliminated. Simple measures that would cost the sport nothing and can only provide benefits to everyone involved.
Oh, on the subject of affordability checks, the death-knell of racing, no doubt, and ways around the dire consequence it heralds, as trainer Stuart Williams is quoted in today’s (January 24th) Racing Post, ‘ ….We need a turnover model for a start and, eventually, we need to move to a system like in Australia, where a lot of funding is coming from the Tote.’
Yet, as everyone keeps saying, the Tote boat has sailed. (Must keep the atmosphere of the racecourse jungle, mustn’t we?) The same people who doubtless would prefer to either come up with a complications of ideas that will require the favourable wind of good fortune to succeed in saving the sport or to simply allow the sport to slip away, rather than embrace a system that in various Tote forms has made racing in those countries a roar-away success.

​John McCririck, apparently, said of David Ashforth. ‘The outstanding racing journalist of our generation’. Arguable, I think even Mr.Ashforth will agree. Jilly Cooper placed her praise of Mr.Ashforth in the heavenly realm. ‘David Ashforth writes like an angel’. This is definitely debatable as not one of us, even the divine Jilly, can be certain if angels possess any grasp of punctuation, spelling or syntax. It is possible angels are actually experts on the preservation of feathers whilst being completely illiterate. Robin Oakley, I think, defined Mr.Ashforth with greater accuracy. He also names a racehorse in his praise of his colleague and, no doubt, friend, which Mr.Ashworth would admire. ‘An indefatigable researcher as well as the wittiest man writing about racing.’
When the reader buys a David Ashforth book, he or she can never be quite certain what is about to be discovered within its pages. His latest tome, ‘Ashforth’s Curiosities of Horseracing’, is curious in itself as all the acquired photographs in the book were sponsored (paid for?) by the Tote 0r the +o+e as they prefer their name to be now wrongly constructed. Prince, he of ‘Purple Rain’, has a lot of wrong-doing to answer for.
I would describe David Ashforth’s writing style as a cross between academic and impish. ‘Curiosities’, to shorten the title, is just a lovely book to handle, let alone read. The front cover has a photograph of Joe ‘Mincemeat’ Griffin leading in his 1953 Grand National winner Early Mist, flanked by two mounted policemen, with some over-sized leprechaun over-excitedly, causing a curious expression to flit across the face of the winning horse, jumps up and down, waving his hat aloft. 
Personally, I like chapter headings that provoke interest yet gives little away and Mr.Ashforth is a master of the craft. Three such examples to whet the appetite are: ‘Prince Khalid Chooses His Curtains’. ‘Frank Goes Legless’. ‘Eclipse Has Seven Feet’. It all makes perfect sense once read.
Unlike the indefatigable Mr.Ashforth, I am not a diligent researcher and with there being no ‘also by’ David Ashforth featured in his latest creation, an oversight, surely, I should as a favour to him list further examples of his work, yet in the half-light of 5.56am on a Sunday morning, I don’t feel energised enough to search them out from the dusty shelves of my small yet significant racing library. But they are out there, though as only a fool would part with one of his book, you will not likely find one in a charity shop. If out-of-print, I would suggest contacting ‘Ways of Newmarket’, antiquarian booksellers, the supplier of most of my racing library.
The reader will always learn something new, fascinating or downright unnecessary by reading a David Ashforth book. ‘Curiosities’ is no different. I suspect, and this is where the great man is so devilishly clever, this book may become Volume 1, with further volumes coming out in time for each succeeding Christmas.
His books, each and every one, is an achievement. Though his greatest achievement has been to repel the Great Reaper for so long, his battle with cancer (pancreatic, was it?) documented with his usual impish sense of humour during his time with the Racing Post, something he combined with attempting, and usually failing, to ‘win a grand’ for charity during the week before Christmas. Live long, live happy, Mr.Ashforth. I salute you.
And, dear reader, buy his book, any or all of his books, the royalties may be funding his life-or-death struggle with the repugnant Reaper of Death.
(I hope he is a nice man. Pleasant, you know. Not a drinker. So many writers are. Look at Alastair Down. You never know, do you, when praising someone you only know through their writing. The photograph, used by the publisher to persuade the uninitiated that he possesses the required knowledge to be considered an expert on the subject, does him no favour. He looks haggard. Would curmudgeonly, be unfair? I hope he is a nice man. I really do. I wouldn’t want my love of his work to be blemished at this late stage of our reader/writer relationship). I have not yet recovered from learning that Raymond Chandler, my favourite American writer, was lost to drink.

​It is easy, and perhaps lazy, to mark Jack Kennedy as a man who if he wasn’t on the receiving end of bad luck, he would have no luck at all in his life. Of course, he was born with an envied talent for riding racehorses and he has honed that talent with dedicated hard work over his short yet successful career.
As David Jennings (or was it Richie Forristal or Patrick Mullins? One of them, anyways) said of Kennedy, ‘he’s so laid back when interviewed, you think you should feel his pulse to make sure he was still breathing’. I’m paraphrasing but the beauty of the description of Kennedy’s character is clearly evidenced from Jennings, Forristal or Mullins’ superior writing skill. At the tender age of 23, he is already as good a rider as any of his peers, both in Ireland and Britain.
Talent and dedication is not a golden ticket, of course, for the level of success Kennedy has already achieved but it should broker some form of guarantee that a modicum of luck, at least with injuries, would come his way. At 23 Kennedy has already endured 5 broken legs. That is 2½ to either leg. And that is only half the number of serious injuries to come he has already endured. If I had suffered even a quarter of the injuries that have blighted his career I would be on medication for depression and going around uttering ‘woe is me’ to passing strangers. One can only admire Kennedy’s fortitude; the sang-froid manner in which he looks mocking destiny in the eye and in reply shrugs his shoulders and gets on with the important procedure of healing.
Apparently, instead of moping around, as I would do the day after once more having plaster applied to a lower limb, moaning ‘woe is me’, Kennedy was seen alongside Gordon Elliott watching horses schooling at Cullentra. Unbelievable! A lesson to us all, no matter how stupid his doctors may think it.
As soon as I read of Kennedy’s latest misfortune, the thought crossed my mind that Gordon Elliott would ask Davy Russell to reconsider his retirement. I wasn’t confident Russell would backtrack as it is known how much of a family man he is and I couldn’t see his wife exactly jumping for joy at the idea of her getting-older-by day (0nly 43. If only I could be 43 once more) husband reapplying for his licence to ride.
Jockeys are strange (mad?) creatures, though. When an accountant retires, you will not find him hanging around accountancy offices. When a boxer retires, will you find him the next day in the gym hitting a punchbag? Yet Russell continued to ride out, and doubtless schooling, at Cullentra. Is he, though, now looking forward to further Cheltenham Festival glory? No. He has said he will only fill Kennedy’s role as Number 1 at Cullentra until Kennedy is back riding, be that the day before the Cheltenham Festival (did I mention Kennedy has set mid-March as his goal to return?) or the day after. He will step away as soon as Kennedy is fit to ride again.
Of course, with Jack Kennedy’s track record, Russell might make as many swansongs as Frank Sinatra. For the sake of Jack and Russell’s loved-ones, let’s hope not.
THE SLOW SLIDE OF THE DUBLIN RACING FESTIVAL.
You would think, wouldn’t you, that with the Dublin Racing Festival being so lauded, it is a rip-roaring success. Yet, despite British fans attending the meeting in greater numbers, seemingly, every year, it continues to be ignored by British trainers, with only 2 entries from these shores in the Grade 1’s for this season’s renewal, with neither of them looking likely winners, and with many of the top Irish horses not being targeted at all that lovely Euro cash.
If it were not for the Irish Champion Hurdle, a corker of a race as long as Willie Mullins runs both State Man and Vauban against Honeysuckle, I’m not sure mouth-watering would be the right adjective to describe the meeting. Galopin Des Champs might only face stable-companions in the Irish Gold Cup, with A Plus Tard going straight to Cheltenham. Blue Lord will also perhaps only face opposition from his own team-mates, though if the ground is proper good then Sceau Royal still retains the ability to keep him honest. Mullins dominates the 2-mile novice Goffs Arkle, though if Sir Gerhard runs his presence will give the race greater interest. Facile Vega v High Definition in the 2-mile novice hurdle will be both informative and intriguing.
But let’s be honest, was this what the Dublin Racing Festival was created for – races that would have attracted the same number of runners, with the same level of competitiveness, as when the same races were strung-out over different racecourses over a period of 3-weeks.
Is it any wonder Willie Mullins targets festival meetings, be they summer, autumn, spring or winter, in Britain, Ireland or increasingly France, why he plots long-term strategies to run as many horses as possible to win for his clients and staff as much prize-money, 1st, 2nd, 3rd of 4th  as can be imagined? Definitions of the word vary. ‘A person endowed with extraordinary intellectual powers’. Or, ‘A single strongly marked capacity or aptitude’. To quote Conan Doyle. ‘Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognises genius’.
If only such a definition could be as easily applied to one of those people who are paid large salaries to govern our sport, on either side of the Irish Sea, as they can be to Willie Mullins, the master of Closutton.

​There is little or no doubt that the star of the female professional flat jockey is on the rise. It could be argued that the position held by female jockeys in the sport is about right if you take into account the year from which they started out from. After all, the first race on the flat for female riders was only in 1972, May 6th, to be accurate, at Kempton Park and won by Meriel Tufnell on Scorched Earth. May 6th, 1972, whether misogynists like it or not will forever be an historic date in British horse racing. More easily remembered than December 29th 1975 when the Sex Discrimination Act came into force in this country, the day that had the Jockey Club in a tizzy until they capitulated, realised politicians had them over a barrel, swallowed their united chauvinistic tendencies and fears of a marketing disaster and allowed the ‘weaker sex’ to ride under National Hunt rules. Bizarrely, though perfectly in keeping with the nonsensical thinking that could come from the Jockey Club at the time, they refused to allow stable girls working in flat yards to ride in races, though less fit, arguably, less experienced, female riders could ride over fences and hurdles.
Though providing good publicity for horse racing, it was a slow burn for female jockeys. Linda Goodwill won the first mixed-gender amateur race on the flat in 1974. Lorna Vincent became the first professional jump jockey to win against professionals in 1978 at Devon & Exeter (now just Exeter, though still many miles, a lot of them uphill, from Exeter city centre), and in the same year, 14th September, Karen Wiltshire made flat racing history when winning on The Goldstone. The date should be commemorated, in my opinion, as it was the day when everything changed for female professional flat jockeys. It was no more, no less, than a Moon Landings moment for the sport. On the 14th September, on a racecourse somewhere in Britain, there should be a race to commemorate Karen Wiltshire’s dogged determination to prove the doubters, the cynics, the misogynists, wrong. The female could ride winners on the flat!
Of course, Karen Wiltshire’s achievement should have provided boundless opportunity for the sport to promote itself. She had many offers to do interviews, especially with female magazine, but had to turn them down as she was advised ‘that the Jockey Club would not like it’. How times change; now the B.H.A. might argue that Holly Doyle doesn’t do enough interviews with the non-sporting media.
But is the female jockey at its appropriate position within the sport. After-all, the breakthrough moment for professional female jockeys was 45-years ago and though Hayley Turner made her mark in the sport twenty-years ago and remains one of the sport’s most popular jockeys, only Holly Doyle is being given the opportunities, and not so many if you tot the numbers up, to compete and win Group 1’s and classic races.
Approximately (I am using data published in the Racing Post which does not go down below 3-winners) female jockeys rode 484 winners between them in 2022. Holly Doyle rode, to be second in the list behind William Buick, 151-winners, with Saffie Osborne (the next female star of the weighing room) and Joanna Mason (as good as any professional, in my humble opinion) tying for second on a creditable 46-winners. Hayley Turner was next on 37-winners.
It is disappointing to learn that the next most-winning female jockey on the list, Grace McEntee, on 24-winners, has lost faith her career will progress in this country, even with her father being a trainer, and has relocated to the U.S.
Nicola Currie, one of the most under-used, male or female, jockeys rode only 17-winners from 225 rides, all her winners coming during the ridiculous short period in which the championship is determined.
In Ireland, the wheel of fortune continues to turn in favour of the female professional jockey, though in comparison to Rachel Blackmore’s rise to super-stardom over jumps the change of direction can only be described as slow motion. Siobhan Rutledge did though finish in joint 25th position in the Irish championship table, higher than Osborne and Mason achieved in Great Britain, to be fair, riding 13-winners. And though a good and improving number of female apprentices rode winners in Ireland last season only Amy Jo Hayes, with 7-winners, achieved enough to be mentioned in despatches (she was 31st in the table of winning jockeys).
More than at any time in the history of racing in Britain and Ireland, female participation is desperately needed. More people of either gender are needed to work in the sport. It’s a great life for anyone unafraid of hard grafting, with rewards that can come both financially and spiritually. Ireland must work harder to uncover their own Holly Doyle, to get the Irish glass ceiling smashed and forgotten about, to demonstrate that racing is truly a mixed gender culture and that the female has the same opportunities to reached the top as her male counterparts.
Holly Doyle, as good and hard-working as she is, makes the picture in Britain rosier than it actually is. She rode a quarter of all the winners ridden by her female colleagues last season. If you add the totals of Saffie Osborne and Joanna Mason to Holly’s total it comprises half of all the winners ridden by female jockeys.
I return to my old and favourite chestnut of suggesting the sport could only benefit from a race, with a six-figure prize-fund (if possible, in its first year) restricted to professional female jockeys (excluding those who claim more than 3Ibs). Female jockeys all around the world need a ‘Derby’ of their own, a race the top females are allowed the chance to ride a better class of horse than they usually get to ride. If provided with a date in the calendar between festivals, on one of those quiet Saturdays or even to brighten a dull Sunday, such a race would shine a spotlight on the sport and an opportunity for publicity in media outlets that normally would not feature horse racing. I rest my case. For now.

​The Racing Post recently ran a series of articles detailing the decline of British Racing against the success stories of horse racing countries around the world. Rather dramatically, though perhaps appropriately, they labelled the series ‘1-Year To Save British Horse Racing’. If anyone at the B.H.A. read the 3 reports, it should have served as a kick-up-the-pants. What the series lacked was a follow-up interview with Julie Harrington to seek out her response to what qualified as an in-your-face criticism of her, her predecessors and the B.H.A. as overseer to the welfare of horse racing in this country.
As an aside, I sometimes wonder if it is stipulated in the contracts of those who head-up the British Horse-Racing Authority that they learn to play the violin Nero-style, not with the gusto of a barn dance.
Beyond the three well-executed articles, what really hit home on the crisis in British racing was the article by Lewis Porteous on Tom George’s business plan for surviving the present crisis – the decline is at least 40-years in the making – by training in this country and having a satellite yard in France with his son Noel as the licence-holder. It would not surprise me if Tom George is not joined in such a venture by other British and Irish trainers in order to take advantage of the lucrative prize-money on offer across the channel.
Tom George summed up the chasm of mindset between the two countries when he said about French racing. ‘It’s all geared toward the horse rather than the betting.’
To quote facts from the article, in France they have races, for example, for horses that have not won £5,000 in prize-money in the previous year. In Britain, I suggest, with so many low-grade horses in training, there could be races for horses that have not won £5.000 in their careers. Obviously, such races as I suggest would be low-grade but the system would allow owners of such horses a fighting chance to either make money from the sport or at least break-even. In France, horses can keep competing in such races until they have won £5,000, then they progress into races for horses that have not won prize-money to the value of £10,000. 
This simple, no-nonsense, approach to race-planning has the advantage of allowing opportunities for horses on the slide or that are in the grip of the handicapper. 
To adopt a similar style of race conditions in Britain will require a wholesale   root and branch change in thinking by racecourses and the B.H.A. and I would put forward the proposal that this summer – there is no point delaying matters, the situation in this country is too dire – a month is set aside, both for National Hunt and the smaller flat meetings, to trial races conditioned by prize-money won in both the career of a horse and in the previous twelve-months.
Where we cannot follow the French example on how to fund and support horse racing is the annual travel allowance given to each horse in training. It is a splendid incentive, though with racing’s and national finances as they are at present, it can only be an aspiration for further down the line. In saying that, I do not advocate tinkering and delaying. Big steps must be taken in the immediate future; the big dreams, though, must wait until someone comes up with a solid, long-lasting, solution to the festering sores of British racing represented by diabolically low prize-money and lack of investment generally.
Six and seven-figure prize funds for major races at festival race-meetings, especially in regards of the flat, support the breeding industry to a far greater extent than the racing industry. Races worth £5,000 and conditioned to only allow horses that have not won the same figure, either in life or the previous year, would support those who earn their wages in racing stables and through racing stables. You cannot build from the top-down, as seems to be the policy of racing’s administrators. The taller, the heavier, the building, the better and sounder the foundations must be. Horse racing in Britain is shuddering, in the main, because its foundations have been allowed to crumble while the top-stories of the sport have been gifted the weight of heavier prize-money.
The time for tinkering is long gone. Now is the time for dynamism. Not surveys and steering groups and talking to stakeholders in the style of making a plan for a wedding reception. In France, and this cannot be repeated enough times, the sport is run not for betting but for horses, and if it is run for horses it is run for people, those who earn their wages from horses and the sport. To be succinct, it is run on solid foundations. Whereas, sadly, the sport in Britain is run on the shifting sands of the whims of its ‘stakeholders’!