​There is a cost-of-living crisis in Great Britain, as there is in most countries around the world. Coincidence; almost certainly not. Explanation for which is for another place, another time. The consensus amongst analysts and those with expertise in global finance predict recession in world economies to become far worse before they stabilise and begin the slow road to normalisation. So, attendances on racecourse could decline even further before the green shoots of recovery show themselves.
My advice to racecourse executives is to accept the situation, show some initiative to entice larger crowds, if not greater revenue, and to plan for a future that might be entitled ‘when less is more’.
The sport cannot expect even the most ardent horse racing devotee to pay premier prices to attend what I would term ‘workaday’ race-meetings, those which take place on Mondays or evening meetings on the all-weather on a cold Friday night (or any cold night). A man or woman with a mortgage, a family of young children and a myriad of household bills to pay, simply cannot afford to fill the car with fuel (or charge it with electricity) for a day at the races.
The rich and mega-rich quite possibly still do not blink an eye at the cost of petrol or the quarterly heating bills for their homes. But for the majority of racing enthusiasts, it is, I suspect, the number 1 factor in why they have not attended race-meetings, even at racecourses local to where they live, during the past twelve-months. If the analysts are correct, the numbers will dip even further during 2023.
Yes, I know the Racing Post on January 5th quoted a Bank of England forecast that ‘price inflation’ will reduce sharply in the middle of this year but from what I’ve heard from sources with their finger on the pulse of world economies, I would be reluctant to believe green shoots of recovery will follow quickly once the bluebells have left the hedgerows and woodlands.
What is required at the present is not doom and gloom and hand-ringing but initiative, flexibility on the part of racing’s leadership and a proactive plan to help guide the sport through troubled times ahead.
If necessary, the program book must be amended to take into account falling attendance at race-meetings. Southwell and Wolverhampton, for instance, should not race on the same day, even if one meeting is in the afternoon and the other in the evening. In fact, apart from the height of summer, I would propose curtailing floodlit racing altogether for the immediate time-frame to reduce the cost of using floodlights and the necessity of harrowing the all-weather surface to stop it freezing during the depths of winter.
A face-fan living equidistant between two racecourses within easy reach should not be given the choice of which to attend. Hereford, Stratford or Worcester, to give one example, should never race on the same day as each other or Cheltenham. Race-meetings should be organised so no two racecourses within fifty or perhaps slightly further apart should race on the same day. Racecourses should be given every chance to achieve the maximum possible attendance.
And I say again, racecourse should entice local people to their racecourses with reduced ticket pricing, including, if only once a year, free entry for those living in local postcode areas. Also, if under-sixteens can have free entry, why can’t the same offer be made to the over sixty-fives living in a fifty-mile radius of any racecourse.
And local racecourses should reflect the local trades, local festivals and local traditions; with racecourses being synonymous with a local market, horse-racing themed events, including raffles with prizes linked to the sport – membership of the racecourse, visits to local training yards, meet and greet sessions with jockeys, etc. And for those people attending a racecourse for the first time a guided tour, with advice on the do’s and do nots of racecourse protocol. Make racecourses more friendly and inviting to newcomers and less like a visit to a dark and strange land.
Oh, and a free bus or coach service from the town or city. It all costs money, yes, though greater attendances should pay the extra expense involved. Racecourses will soon become housing estates if more bums on seats cannot be achieved. Use it or lose it as the add once stated.
And less racing. To not think that less race-meetings would achieve more for the sport than a continual swelling of the race-program is to believe in fairies, to believe more chocolate you eat and more beer you drink the slimmer your waistline will become.
If there were less meetings, jockeys, the constituent part of the human element of the sport that the public, especially the young, can relate to, would be more freely available to promote the sport. Even in his final year as a jockey, Frankie Dettori might have the spare time to meet and greet the public through the media but the schedule for jockeys, especially flat jockey through the summer months, is too non-stop to expect the likes of Holly Doyle and Tom Marquand to find the time to do the same. Perhaps the day before all the major race-meetings should be left blank so that jockeys riding in the Derby or Grand National might have the opportunity to be interviewed by media outlets in order make the public more aware that a world sporting event is upcoming.
Back in the 1950’s 60’s and 70’s, the time period when Queen Elisabeth’s fascination and love of the sport gave us for free the best marketing available, the time of Arkle and the bloom of sponsorship, there was no all-weather racing, no Sunday racing, and far fewer evening meetings. Under the leadership of the B.H.A., and the Jockey Club before it, to an extent, the product has been allowed to be stretched beyond its capacity to endure. Now is the time to rein-in, to be inventive, to package the sport so that it is at its fittest to survive the turbulent times undoubtedly ahead.
It is now, more than any time in the past, when the sport of horse racing needs its own Sir Winston Churchill (himself an owner of good horses through the fifties, sixties and seventies) to rally the troops and to lead with the wisdom of someone who knows all that is needed to be known about the matter at hand.
If only!

​Of course, the answer to the above question is no, the B.H.A. is not fit for the purpose.
If you are of the opinion that I am wrong and that not only is the B.H.A. fit for purpose but also do a good job in running British horse-racing, please provide your evidence.
Horse racing is a specialised sport; it is a sport that requires people at the top of the pyramid that have an abundance of that specialised knowledge to make the informed decisions required to maintain the health, efficient day-to-day running and future prospects of the sport. I would contend that the B.H.A. is little more than an organisation of pen-pushers, with a leadership resembling Nero fiddling with his bow while Rome burned around him.
Every problem that virtually every sector of British racing must face on a daily basis, with perhaps the exception of those at the very top echelon of the thoroughbred breeding industry, should have been tackled decades ago by the B.H.A. Prize-money, to take but one example, has spiralled downwards now for many decades, ever since the Jockey Club were removed in favour of the B.H.B., through to the new governance recently awarded to the B.H.A. under the leadership Julie Harrington. An Epsom Derby worth over 1-million to the winner is not a sign of new growth but an indicator that the B.H.A. and its cohorts see the future of horse racing as an entertainment for the elite, when it should, as a policy statement/starting point or aspiration, be aiming, at the very least of its ambitions, to have one race at every meeting worth five-figures to the winner.
But what has reignited my ire towards the B.H.A. is their u-turn on use of the whip and their total disregard for the thoughts of those people who bothered to take part in their on-line survey on the subject. ‘We listened to what the jockeys had to say and altered our view accordingly,’ is spin for ‘we cocked-up, please don’t think badly of us, we done our best’.
This is not top-end leadership but sackcloth and ashes-speak of people promoted beyond their competence. 
When the B.H.A. sought to find a colour for take-off boards and the bars of hurdles that was compatible to the eye-sight of horses, it commissioned a university to conduct research. Yet, as far as I am aware, it failed to uphold the same thinking when it came to a subject that also impacts on the well-being of horses and, perhaps as importantly, the public’s perception of how we, racing people, perceive the welfare of the horse.
The whip issue within racing is very much like the public’s perception of the supernatural. You either believe or disbelieve, with science offering no real guidance either way. Horse racing is also similar to the supernatural in that if you believe a house to be haunted or if you believe the whip causes neither physical or psychological harm to a horse, no ‘circumstantial evidence’ to the contrary will change your point of view. Yet, horse racing in this country has been haunted by this issue for many decades, and will continue to be haunted, I fear, for decades to come.
When I learned that jockeys were to be represented on the whip steering group, I laughed; to me, it was akin to allowing the convict to have a say on his or her sentence. I was wrong, as it turned out. The B.H.A. might just as well negotiated only with the jockeys on the matter; it would, after-all, have saved time and expense. 
I am not accusing jockeys of either acting in their own interests or being wrong about the difficulties the new (or formally new) rules would present for them. What I am saying is that the discussion should have taken place at the outset, not at the eleventh-hour and that both the B.H.A. and the Professional Jockeys Association were at fault.
Again, as with the supernatural, a definitive answer to the age-old problem is held in abeyance not by those with point-of-views at either end of the spectrum of debate but by those who either do not understand what the fuss is about or who simply do not care.
The whip and its use, I truly believe, is fundamental to the long-term future of the sport.
The issue of the whip has been tinkered with the B.H.A. and its predecessors for over forty-years and when racing’s (now) governing body gave itself the opportunity to find a longstanding solution it cocked-it-up big-time. At the outset science should have been commissioned to settle once and for all (hopefully) whether horses suffer any physical or psychological harm from being struck by a whip, cushioned or uncushioned. Then, and they might have chosen this road irrespective of whether science was brought in to arbitrate, a series of racecourse trials should have been instigated to explore all or many of the possible solutions to the debate – eight-strokes, no backhand or no forehand, no-strokes, one-stroke, jockeys banned from taking their hands off the reins and so on. Or not so on as perhaps more than three options might have taken another decade to compete and I will not have lived long enough to learn what the eventual answer might be and would have to walk for eternity the corridors of power dragging my chains of ire and howling in agony at having to bear the sound of the death-knell of my beloved sport.
As an appendage to the above: wouldn’t it be a lovely way to live in the afterlife to wander the equine heavenly fields where the racehorses of the past graze at their ease; to ask them ‘how did you feel about being smacked relentlessly or restrictedly with a whip’? Of course, the answers may vary according to the racing era in which they lived.
I wonder if Drumlargan, for one, grazes contentedly, forgiveness in his heart?

​Yes, I got the King George ever-so-slightly wrong. It is what unites all of us who avidly follow horse racing. No one, not even Tom Segal or Paul Kealy or any of the superstar tipsters and analysts, are right more than 50% of the time. Of course, when one of them is on a good run of winners or tip a long-priced winner, it is trumpeted loud and clear. Yet winning streaks are in fact rarities and long-priced winners even rarer, so the bold type is perhaps a natural reaction by editors and t.v. presenters; akin to when detectorists dig up a large haul of Roman coins or Saxon gold. The general public never get to hear of the Victorian broach or the Cavalier’s broken spur that represents a ‘good story for the finds table’, though does nothing to extend our knowledge of British history.
Even someone with only a modest record of finding winners find winners occasionally. I, though, will not trumpet tipping Thyme Hill at Kempton when all the celebrity tipsters wrote him off and I certainly will make no claim that this rare occasion when I got something right makes me the equal of greater men. I simply stood by the best horse in the race even though he was proving slow at learning the craft of jumping a steeplechase fence. Class will out, as they say.
Of course, I was overly bold in my prediction that L’Homme Presse would win the King George and will not insult your intelligence by claiming he might or should have won. Bravemansgame ran out an impressive winner and even if L’Homme Presse had jumped straight it would be stretching credulity to think the result would have been different. No one could have predicted that as bold and efficient jumper as L’Homme Presse undoubtedly has shown us in every previous race would lose ground at nearly every fence running right-handed. But he did, didn’t he? And did anyone give any consideration for such an occurrence happening? I thought not.
Before Kempton, I had L’Homme Presse down as the most likely British-trained horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup this season. My belief is battered, though my conviction remains unbowed and the next run of Galopin de Champ may batter it some more. Cheltenham will, fingers crossed, play to the main strength of L’Homme Presse, his stamina. My fear at this moment is that something physical was amiss at Kempton and that once it materialises Venetia Williams will have no other option than to pull sticks for the season.
In my defence, what wrong-footed me when assessing the King George was the Clerk of the Course confidently predicting soft-to-heavy ground, when in fact the ground raced on was genuinely good-to-soft. I doubted if Paul Nicholls would have run Bravemansgame if the word ‘heavy’ had appeared in the going description, given he pulled the horse out of Cheltenham last season due to ‘soft’ appearing in the going description. And, and here I am grasping at the last vestige of my credibility, if he had not shimmied Charley Deutch out of the saddle at the last fence, L’Homme Presse would have finished a quite close second to a very good chaser better suited to Kempton than Cheltenham. Belief must be bolstered by evidence and since Boxing Day the evidence case-file has become a little light. L’Homme Presse believers will be praying for a wet Mid-March.
At least Frodon, the horse that never lets you down, ran into a place, as I equally boldly predicted.
The question I would like answered by ‘the experts’ is this: in lengths, how superior is Honeysuckle to Epatante? I am going to put forward 6-lengths, though as Honeysuckle only seemingly does all that is required of her, who can be certain that it doesn’t extend to 10 or 12-lengths. I doubt if anyone would tip J.P. McManus’s fine mare to ever beat Honeysuckle. So, here is the thing; if Honeysuckle is 6-lengths better than Epatante (oh, and was she ridden at Kempton to beat Constitution Hill or simply to beat everything else?) and Honeysuckle (unfairly, in my eyes) will be in receipt of 7lbs at Cheltenham, that puts the mare on the tail of Constitution Hill, at the very least, at the last hurdle. As brilliant as Constitution Hill is, and he might be even better as a chaser, I do not believe, at this stage with all the present evidence to hand, he is the shoo-in the betting suggests. In fact, in terms of value, Honeysuckle is the bet of the decade at 10/1.
And yes, none of us know, not even Nico de Boinville, the true extent of Constitution Hill’s ability. Both State Man and Vauban look genuine Champion Hurdle horses, better horses than anything Honeysuckle has yet beaten at Cheltenham, and Willie Mullins could run one or two pace-makers in hope of getting Constitution Hill into a scrap at a time of the race when so far he is hardly out of second gear.
To my mind, Constitution Hill is not Sprinter Sacre. Not yet. He might be Sprinter’s equal. He might become his superior. He might be the Arkle of our time. But he isn’t there yet and shouldn’t be spoken-of, or backed, as if he is. The 2023 Champion Hurdle is no one-horse race. Not by a long chalk.
I, though, cannot even boast of a 50% record of having my thoughts born out as correct on the racecourse.
I am even beginning to believe that Gary Moore’s Desert Orchid Chase winner, Editeur de Gite (have I spelt that right – I have no amplitude or liking for the French language) is a decent bet for the Champion Chase if the ground comes up soft. I’m not even sure Edwardstown would have beaten him at Kempton if he had not unshipped Tom Cannon.

​L’Homme Presse. Next question.
Occcasionally, very occasionally, difficult to win major races have an obvious looking winner in waiting. In my opinion, this year’s renewal of the King George VI Chase is such a race. Originally, as I did not think L’Homme Presse would run, I was convinced Frodon, especially at 16/1 and bigger, was the bet of the race, which he might still be, as an each-way chance. And as much as I would love Frodon to win his second King George, and again he is dismissed as an unlikely winner by the ‘experts’, logic tells me he will be unable to run the legs off the only horse in the race that might conceivably go on to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup. This is very much a case of my head over-ruling my heart.
L’Homme Presse might be inconvenienced by the tight track and soft/heavy is very different ground at Kempton than it would be at Newbury or Cheltenham, for instance. Since it became an ‘all-weather’ track, with all the additional drainage involved, the ground may not be compatible to the day I walked the track (the year Desert Orchid won his first King George, if you need to know) when there was not so much divots as hock-deep holes down the back stretch. But all that aside, L’Homme Presse is far and away the most likely of the field to go on the ground and possess the stamina and class required to win the second most prodigious steeplechase in the British racing calendar.
Although Bravemansgame has won on soft ground at Kempton, the Kauto Star last season was far from a competitive affair, with Ahoy Senor looking ill-at-ease on such a tight circuit. And remember, Paul Nicholls withdraw Bravemansgame from his intended Cheltenham Festival race last season citing the soft ground as being unsuitable. There remains the possibility that he may take the same decision on Boxing Day.
Ahoy Senor is destined to win a big race, though his only win on soft ground was a maiden hurdle at Ayr. He will come good but it will be on a more galloping track like Cheltenham or Newbury. I wouldn’t rule him out as a Gold Cup horse, I do though rule him out as a King George winner. I would rather have seen him in the Welsh National. Remember Carvill’s Hill?
In the King George you should never rule out a horse trained by a Tizzard. Eldorado Allen could easily run into a place but it’s a stretch to think he has the class of his mighty predecessors, the late lamented Cue Card and Thistlecrack.
It has to be admitted that Envoi Allen has an impressive number of 1’s to his name, 15 if I still possess the ability to count passed 14. He has won on all types of ground and over every distance between 2-miles and 3. Although at times he does not look a natural jumper of steeplechase fences, he has only fallen once, the day his aura of invisibility hit the deck at Cheltenham. He is as equally easy to dismiss as it is to envisage him becoming a Gold Cup contender by winning a King George. Rachel Blackmore could not possibly add a King George to her amazingly impressive C.V., could she?
Let’s get one thing clear about Frodon. Contrary to what his trainer says about him, Frodon has won three times on heavy ground and has prevailed a further six-time when the word ‘soft’ has appeared in the ground description. Good ground is not the most important ingredient for him. He has also won 3-times around Kempton. And he is a much better stayer than he was once considered. He is not out of the reckoning this year, though at 10 his best days surely must be behind him. He remains though the best value in the race and predict he will follow L’Homme Presse home.
Hitman is the joker in the pack. He has never run over 3-miles, so nobody can say with certainty he will not stay. He has, though, won 3 of his 4 races on soft ground and won readily over 2-miles 5 at Haydock. I suspect Harry Cobden may have chosen poorly once more.
Millers Bank. Never say never, though I choose to on this occasion.
Royale Pagaille is trained by Venetia Williams, so anything is possible especially when the ground is anywhere close to boggy. Of the entire field, Royale Pagaille is the only one at his very best on soft-to-heavy ground and his trainer is adept at getting a horse fit to win first time out at the highest level and has winning form at Kempton, albeit a handicap where he was thrown in at the weights. He is not the class of his stable companion, though, is he?
L'Homme Presse will win, with Frodon and Eldorado Allen to follow him home.
Goshen will win the Long Walk. That’s my heart talking again, though no one could argue that the ground combined with the track will suit him better than any of his rivals.
I’m prepared to give Thyme Hill another chance in the Kauto Star and though I cannot see her winning, I do think Epatante will finish closer to Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle than she did in the Fighting Fifth.
And a long shot for a later race – Arizona Cardinal in the 3. 05.

​I am not, I admit, the most charitable of people. I should donate more to the rehabilitation of racehorses charities and to the Injured Jockeys Fund. As is said, every little helps, and perhaps giving more should become my New Year’s Resolution. In fact, yes, I will donate more and more often to the animal charities of my choice. Yes, definitely. My Christmas resolution for the coming year.
What I would really like to do, and this, because of the long-odds against it ever becoming a reality, is more of a dream than an aspiration or ambition, would be to donate the largest proportion of any mega winnings from a Euro Lottery Draw to horse racing. I’m talking about the winning numbers that amount to one-hundred-million and upwards. You know, amounts that are obscene when others win them but might be not quite enough if you win yourself.
I would have horses in training, of course. Mainly jumpers but a few for the flat as well, though because of my age and my concern for how they would be looked-after after my death, I would limit my excess and put in place a trust fund for their after-racing lives. My main contribution to the sport, if the B.H.A. and racecourses allowed my indulgence and did not put obstacles and objections in my path, would be to raise the lowest levels of prize money on a day-to-day level.
I do have two pet projects I would insist on adding to the race calendar and would guarantee funding for three-years, hoping that during this period the races would prove their attraction to the public and trainers so that further sponsorship might be easily found in later years. The first of the omissions from the race calendar, as I believe, is a Ladies Race with a value of a £200,000 to the winner, making it the most valuable race of its kind in the world, run over a mile-and-a-quarter, restricted to professional female jockeys.
Of course, such a race is not as necessary as it was when I first thought of the idea but still worth pursuing as it will become the race all professional female jockeys around the world will want to win as, even now, the odds are stacked against the female jockeys winning or even featuring in, any of the classic races in any of the recognised racing jurisdictions.  A ‘Ladies Race’ worth six-figures to the winner, will allow female jockeys the opportunity to get on a far higher class of horse than, outside of Holly Doyle, is ever likely to come their way.
I dare say there are rules and regulations that will make bringing such a race to reality an uphill task, after-all, I am not suggesting a ‘Ladies Race’ should be either listed or Group class and definitely not a handicap but a weight-for-age conditions race on one of the less high-profile Saturdays during the summer months. I am though a stubborn man and will make it a non-negotiable condition of my largess that such a race comes speedily to fruition in the form I have outlined.
My second pet-project, and also its implementation will be conditional upon my grand gesture being honoured, is a 4-mile Champion Chase. I have long-argued that it is perverse, that a sport that has as its core steeplechases over what we term marathon distances, yet does not have a championship race over a similar distance. The National Hunt season has at the top of its sporting pyramid the Grand National, with the Welsh, Scottish and Irish versions centrepieces of the calendar in those countries, added to which both the British and Irish race programme has in its jewelled crown county and regional ‘Nationals’. It is absurd the 4-mile chaser does not have a championship race to align it with the 2-mile chaser, the 2-mile and 3-mile hurdler and the slightly less prestigious 2-and-a-half-mile chaser.
If the B.H.A. were to defer to my bounteous stipulations, I would then hand over a cheque for one-million-quid to improve levels of prize-money at the very bottom end of the racing pyramid. You cannot, as seems to be the thinking at the B.H.A., grow the sport organically from the top downwards. For good, sustained growth, the plant must have solid foundations, a healthy root structure. The one-horse owner, the small family partnership, the small breeder, are being left for dead, considered inconsequential to the survival of the sport, at least in Britain. There is an elitist leaning towards a ‘Premiership’ of racing, with little or no concern for the country racecourse, the small trainer/owner/breeder, historically the bedrock of the sport. I dream of righting the terrible wrong.
I am no mathematician; I have little idea how far a hundred-million will stretch and for how many years. Yet my dream should be the mirrored aspiration of racing’s movers and shakers, not the invention of more and more valuable races that only stretches to breaking point the quality of horses eligible for such races, rendering such races as uncompetitive and merely trials for races in the future . At the very least, the B.H.A. should have the aspiration for every meeting to have a highlighted race. It need only be worth ten or twelve grand but every card should have a main race of the day.
My dream is to raise the poorest level of prize money by four to five-thousand pounds. That’s all. If I ever won one-hundred-and-sixty-million pound that is what I would do with the money. I would try to save my sport. Oh, a more obtuse condition I would impose on the B.H.A. – I would insist on hand and heels racecourse trials to be implemented for professional jockeys, as some apprentice races are presently restricted. Just for the data and input it would provide as that too might help our sport to survive for another fifty-years.

​There is no getting away from it, with no amount of ‘no one man is bigger than the sport’ chanted against the tide of praise that can put the enormity of his decision to retire into any sort of context – flat racing, after one final season, is to lose its one and only superstar. The 2023 British flat season will be defined in racing history as the year of Frankie Dettori, and for that to be the case he will not even have to ride a classic winner or any of the major Group 1 races. Frankie Dettori is all set to leave the building. His shadow, though, will linger at all the racecourses he lit up throughout his stellar career.
Whether he is the greatest of the great flat jockeys is a matter of conjecture and personal choice. For many years I have dithered between Frankie being the best and Ryan Moore. In pure jockeyship skills there is not an atom between them, though if a gun were to be put to my head I would have to side with Moore as he is undoubtedly the more consistent of the two. Ryan Moore is bombproof, while Frankie can be rattled on occasions. Royal Ascot 2022 being a prime example.
In popularity amongst the public and, I would hazard a guess, his weighing room colleagues, Frankie wins hands down. The two are two sides of the same coin, one flamboyant and charismatic, the other dour and retrospective. Though, from what we are told, in private their roles as happy-go-lucky and straight-faced can be reversed. Ryan, it is said, has a great sense of humour. I wish he would go public with it, if only to confuse his interviewers. 
When submitting my thoughts to the B.H.A.’s whip steering group, I gave as evidence for my belief that ‘one hit and that’s it’ should be the way forward, the ride Frankie gave Enable when she out-battled Crystal Ocean in the King George & Queen Elisabeth at Ascot. As beautiful a ride as can be imagined, a prime example for all apprentices to try to emulate. One tap with the stick and then balanced harmony with his mount all the way to the finishing post.
There will never be another Frankie Dettori. We will only truly appreciate his contribution to the sport in 2024.

And now, more quietly than the extrovert Frankie, Davy Russell has hung up his saddle, winning on his final ride at Thurles, choosing a country course to announce his retirement, again in contrast to Frankie who intends to have his last British ride on Champions Day at Ascot in October 2023.
As with Frankie, Davy Russell lost none of his guile, skill or courage as he aged. At 43, at least to these tired eyes, he was as good in the saddle as he was twenty-years earlier in his career. In fact, given experience is never wasted on the older man, I suspect he may have been a better, more rounded jockey, as, perhaps, he was as a human being.
With Russell now gone from the Irish weighing room, the last of the brilliant cavaliers has ridden into history. Carberry, Walsh, Geraghty, Power, McCoy. The young lads following on have a gaping canvas to fill.
Russell’s greatest ride? Lord Windermere in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The horse had no right to win jumping’s Blue Riband, yet somehow Russell conjured a stone of improvement in him, a horse that never before or after had the light of greatness upon him.
Finally, I will indulge myself with a poke at the trainer I hold in the highest of regards. Gordon Elliott recently claimed that Irish horses were better because their trainers did not ‘duck and dive’ like English trainers were in the habit of doing, with good horses, often from the same yard, taking each other on throughout the season. Paul Nicholl’s for one was not amused. Yet Gordon, with more than one Gold Cup horse in his stable, chooses not to send a horse over for the King George on Boxing Day. As it is with Willie Mullins, a man with twice the number of potential Gold Cup horses. And there is Paul Nicholl’s running all three of his potential Gold Cup horses.

​Henry de Bromhead’s statement that he might target Honeysuckle at the Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival is a body blow for the sport. He has not positively said that the mare will not run in the Champion Hurdle but the implication is that he is seriously considering ducking the mouth-watering dual with Constitution Hill we were so keenly anticipating.
What is most frustrating about this bombshell is that the trainer, though disappointed the mare lost her unbeaten record, was encouraged by her performance, believing, as I do, that she may have run better in defeat in this season’s Hattons Grace than in any of her previous three victories in the race. If that is the case, and there is nothing deep-seatedly amiss with the mare, the indication must be that Honeysuckle is at the very least as good as ever, and will make a great leap-forward in fitness come the Irish Champion Hurdle in early February, or perhaps even a smidgen better than seasons past.
As I have said dozens of times, the owners and trainers of the top horses, flat and N.H., have a responsibility to the sport that feeds them and pouring cold water on all our expectations represents a disregard for the racing public and the sport.
The problem here, of course, is that damned Mares Hurdle. When the debate of the five-day Festival raged, the chief reason put forward by its detractors was the dumbing down on the spectacle of the best horses running against each other as owners and trainers sought to find easier opportunities of having a winner at the Festival. And, of course, the Cheltenham executive encourage the behaviour by allowing the best horses to run in lesser races. The conditions of the Mares Hurdle should exclude horses of Honeysuckle’s rating from running in the race, so to take away the temptation of pot-hunting by trainers and owners.
All we can hope is that Honeysuckle routs the opposition in the Irish Champion Hurdle and thereby forcing her connections to stick with plan A. She is the only horse capable of beating Constitution Hill or at the very least making a race of it with him. Without her, Constitution Hill will start a 1 to 4 on chance, making the race one of the most uncompetitive in its history.

Racing politics is very similar, it seems, to what comes out of Whitehall. The case for Friday/Saturday meetings in winter to change to Saturday/Sunday is logical and, to my thinking, unarguable. Those in the racing media who slanted the story by saying a) that a meeting set for the Friday should not be sacrificed for the sake of the Saturday or b) that the Saturday card might have needed to be abandoned even if the Friday had been sacrificed, were guilty of sleight-of-hand journalism. The point Richard Hoiles made, and one that I fully endorse, is that Saturday is by far the more important day’s racing to the sport than either a Friday or Sunday and that corporate business should not come before what is best for the sport itself. For the long-term good of the sport, we need young people attending race-meetings and that is more likely on the Sunday than a school day like a Friday. There is so much backward thinking holding the sport to ransom, so much holding tight to the strings of what’s gone before and ignoring what works in the sport’s favour in other countries, that it is almost as if certain people would rather go down with the ship than change course and set sail for new horizons.
And nothing exemplifies leadership-by-chance leadership than the fiasco that is going to be the new whip guide-lines. Why the jockeys have left it so late to air their grievances on the matter is a question only they can answer. And why the P.J.A., of course, were so in favour of the new guidelines when they were first announced is another question in need of an answer. Why the B.H.A. thought it sensible to have the bedding-in period so close to the Cheltenham Festival is an example of the sort of ignorant decision-making that holds the sport to ridicule. Of course, now the jockeys have shown their hand, the guide-lines will be put on the back-burner until the summer, of that I am certain.
I never expected my suggestion of ‘one hit and that’s it’ to be adopted, though in time it will become an option, but I did hope that whatever the options were they would all be trialled for set periods, as would happen in any scientific trial. Then, everyone would know which set of guide-lines worked best for the majority.
Another question in need of an answer is how much weight did Tom Scudamore and P.J. McDonald’s opinions carry on the Steering Committee. Not much, I would guess.

​There was, at least for me, a great sadness to the defeat of Honeysuckle in the Hatton’s Grace at Fairyhouse on Sunday as she not only lost a race she had won in the three previous seasons but she lost her chance to become the holder of the longest sequence of victories and taken the records of Big Bucks and Altior.
Yet, and this says a whole load about the competitiveness of racing in Ireland compared to Great Britain, this year’s renewal of the Hatton’s Grace was almost certainly stronger than the previous three and Honeysuckle might, just, have a run a better race first time out than in any of her victories in the race.
She is getting older and as any trainer will tell you, as racehorses age the more work it can take to get them to peak fitness. I doubt if she has ever been 100% straight for her first race of the season, with Henry de Bromhead’s horses always better for a run under their belts. And, apparently, the de Bromhead string are operating to only a 7% strike rate at present, which suggests he is yet to strike form. History tells us that when his horses start winning, they are a formidable force.
Unlike his main rivals in Ireland, Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins, de Bromhead is more akin to the trainers of another age who used the racecourse to put an edge on their horses, with a promising run thought more important than a first-time-out success. Where Henry de Bromhead is similar to Willie Mullins is that he tends to allow himself to be hostage to repetition, what worked last season and season before always being the preferred option. If this remains the policy for Honeysuckle, we will not see her again until the Dublin Racing Festival in February and her connections, and us, will have this season’s Hatton’s Grace hanging over our thoughts for the next two-months. Henry de Bromhead knows Honeysuckle far better than any of us, of course, but I would be inclined to get her out over the Christmas period, if only to confirm she remains capable of winning a third Champion Hurdle in March, and in case she now needs an extra race to ensure 100% fitness come her dust-up with Constitution Hill.

The best winner over the weekend, excepting Facile Vega (why do Irish jockeys allow the Mullins hotpots uncontested leads?) was Edwardstone in the Tingle Creek. There was something imperious in his victory, looking to be going the easiest as far out as the Railway fences and brushing aside the opposition with the verve of a potential champion. I thought, in winning the Arkle last season, he was the best of a poorish bunch of 2-mile novice chasers; I was wrong. On his Tingle Creek showing, there is no way I can see Energumene beating him in March at Cheltenham.
As for Shishkin? Although all last season I was of the opinion he wanted further than 2-miles, after all he outstayed Energumene to win at Ascot, I cannot believe his, for him, poor effort in the Tingle Creek was due to having lost all his speed and become a 3-mile chaser since last March. Though having no knowledge of the ‘bone condition’ that struck him down last season, I am swayed to think the repercussions of the condition was the main cause of his laboured performance and that, sadly, we may have seen the best of him and that it is the downward curve to retirement for him. But then we all said the same of Sprinter Sacre and we will never forget the miracle Nicky Henderson pulled off with him.

I will finish with an old chestnut of mine. A few years ago, I wrote to the clerk of the course at Sandown and suggested that a long distance staying (Championship) race was missing from the National Hunt programme and that such a race would make startling contrast to the Tingle Creek. I added that I thought a run-of-the-mill regional ‘National’ was no attraction for a Grade 1 racecourse, when a conditions chase for staying chasers would be. In reply, I was told Sandown had ‘plans’ for the London National.
National Hunt is founded on staying chases, with the season still highlighted by such races. What there isn’t though is a championship race for such horses.

​Samcro last ran under rules in the 2022 Grand National. Not what people a few years earlier were predicting for him. Winning one or numerous Champion Hurdles was to be his destiny, at least according to that equine expert known as Matt Chapman. Or several Cheltenham Gold Cups. The racing world was Samcro’s oyster, it seemed. Samcro is now to run in point-to-points. Not a case of how the mighty have fallen as Samcro never reached the heights of the mighty.
I mention Samcro in the same breath as Constitution Hill as evidence for him being acclaimed ‘the second coming’, because as things stand his form closely resembles that of Samcro at a similar stage of his career. Now, don’t think for one moment I am the one dissenter when it comes to Constitution Hill. Potentially, he could easily be the great horse great men are predicting. But let’s not get carried away. He has run in five races, winning them all with ease, of course, but can anyone say, hand on heart, that beating Epatante 12-lengths, with Not So Sleepy only a few lengths behind her, is worthy of a Racing Post rating of 176?
According to the Racing Post, Constitution Hill is the third best 2-mile hurdler of modern times, with only Istabraq and Faugheen above him, with the likes of Alderbrook and Hurricane Fly (really) trailing in his wake. Utter nonsense, of course.
Ratings really are bollocks when a horse that has only run 5-times and is without a Champion Hurdle crown to his name, is rated higher than a horse that twice won the Champion Hurdle, with, is it, eighteen Grade 1’s to his name and is rated by Ruby Walsh as the best hurdler he ever rode. Incidentally, just to emphasise my antipathy towards ratings, Collier Bay achieved the same rating according to the Racing Post as Hurricane Fly! Really! Hands up anyone who is of the opinion that Collier Bay could even get within ten-lengths of Hurricane Fly?
And just to finish with ratings. Though the mares allowance is a brilliant innovation, when it comes to ratings it works mercilessly against mares. Referring again to Racing Post ratings, Dato Star, Collier Bay, Rooster Booster, Binocular and Kribensis, are all rated clear of Honeysuckle, twice the winner of the Champion Hurdler and unbeaten in 16 starts. Again, hands up anyone who believes any of the above could beat Honeysuckle, with or without the mares allowance?
Constitutional Hill is a wonderful horse with the racing world at his feet. It is obvious that Nicky Henderson believes he is the best he has ever trained, or at least potentially better than Sprinter Sacre in his pomp, and who better to recognise a great horse than the master of Seven Barrows. But until he beats Honeysuckle, and that’s no given as the mare only ever does enough to win and might be saving for herself more than enough to frighten the livings out of Constitution Hill come March, I refuse to join in with the hyperbole, as I refused to join in the hype over Samcro.
That said, God he does look mighty.

Although the racing was top-draw last Saturday, with L’Homme Presse particularly impressive, and to a lesser degree First Street, the day was overshadowed by the death of Porticello at Newbury. The Moore family are all brave, successful and a credit to the sport but for all that fate likes nothing more than piercing their lives with razor-cuts to the heart. Porticello had chaser written all over him and like Constitution Hill had the potential to make the equine world his playground. When fatalities occur the public never get to see a playback of the race so my thoughts are guesswork framed by a bias I have against British hurdles.
It is profoundly unfair bordering on accidents waiting to happen to ask a horse, especially a horse tiring at the end of a race, to jump a moving object. I do not know if Porticello was brought down by a swinging hurdle but it does happen and many horses have either lost their lives or been injured by a horse in front knocking the hurdle over, resulting in the horse directly behind having little chance other than to blunder into the hurdle as it swings back to its original position. In no equine sport are horses expected to jump moving obstacles and I wish British racing could replace the tradition hurdle with the small chase fence obstacles used on the continent and occasionally in this country, though Haydock for whatever reason seems to have abandoned them.
The brush obstacles/hurdles have the advantage that horses would only need to learn one method of jumping and surely would make the transition from hurdle to fence so much easier to accomplish. I rest my case.

​The new whip rules come into force in this country on February 6th, with a ‘bedding in period’ starting on January 9th and lasting until, I guess, February 5th. On its own there is little to quibble about, after-all, the B.H.A. had to eventually decide upon a starting point for the ban on the forehand use of the whip and the potential for disqualification if jockeys exceed the limit of eight strokes by a count of four. If the offence occurs in a major race all suspensions for jockeys will be doubled. ‘Harsh’, as the female jockey says in the t.v. commercial. 
Now, whether you are in favour of the whip being used so publicly in this woke world is another debate entirely. Though, I suspect, in time use of the whip, whether in the forehand or backhand position, will form the last skirmish in the war to save our sport extinction.
Surely someone at the B.H.A. should have had the foresight or common-sense, or the balls to speak-up, to realise that bringing in these changes five-weeks before the Cheltenham Festival, with most of the Irish jockeys having no first-hand experience of riding to the new rules, is a potential recipe for a whole load of bad publicity? In National Hunt (the new rules for the flat begin on Lincoln Handicap day on March 27th, with a similar bedding in period as for National Hunt) shouldn’t someone at the B.H.A. have displayed a greater grasp of the bigger picture and fought for a bedding in period from the first day of the new season, with the new rules kicking in five-weeks later? After the Lord Mayor’s shows at Cheltenham and Aintree.
Yet, as poor is the decision to implement the rules on the date they have chosen, neither the new rules nor the firing of the starters’ pistol is not my main concern/criticism. 
When it was decided to find a new colour for the woodwork of fences and hurdles an university was brought-in to conduct a series of trials, with the horses, seemingly, favouring white over all the others colours trialled. I am no jockey but to my eyes I believe the majority of horses are jumping more cleanly. Certainly, I have heard no complaints from jockeys.
So, why did no one put forward the suggestion that some of the better ideas put forward in the B.H.A.’s survey be trialled in races? If, for example, for two-weeks there were a dozen races restricted to no strikes of the whip, a similar trial for ‘one strike and that’s it’, a similar length of trial for the rules now to be implemented, with another trial for the Scandinavian approach. The B.H.A. would then have gathered enough data and opinions to make a judgement based on real-world racing, rather than having another shot in the dark at what might be best for horse racing in the long-term.
I am not saying that the new rules will not work. What I am saying is that no one knows if they will bring about any improvement for jockeys, horses or quieten the baying mob at our gates. When that bloody awful idea of City Street Racing was proposed, an idea dead and buried it is to be hoped, at least its proponents had the guile to conduct trials, a common-sense approach that didn’t, it seems, impress the B.H.A.
The new rules, which may or may not allow the long-running debate to be put on the backburner for a while, could easily have been drawn-up by the jockeys themselves. Little has changed for them, the strikes remain the same, they can still crack a horse on its rump eight-times, they just must not use the whip in the forehand position; they even have a four-strike leeway before disqualification comes into play.
As Racing Post journalists continue to say: the sport has a dreadful addictive habit of shooting itself in the foot. My fear is that it might just have gone and done it again. And with a little more thought it could so easily have been avoided.