chester, shock/disappointment & return to what is becoming a pet proposal.

​I like quirky. For instance, I use a chamber pot as a fruit bowl and I keep what at some point down the years were important documents in an ammunition case I found on the shore-line of our local river. Which is why Chester is my favourite non-National Hunt racecourse. A few years ago, an enterprising clerk-of-the-course staged trails to see if Chester was suitable for holding hurdle races, which, as that has not yet transpired, suggests the overwhelming answer from the jockeys’ taking part was a unanimous ‘hell no!’
Chester is, as we all know, Britain’s oldest racecourse, with the Romans having held racing back in the days when the sons of Jesus could have attended. Or his grandchildren. The fog of long ago is so dense that no one can know who attended, who backed all the winners and whether racing was as poorly governed as the B.H.A. of today. As a devotee of Time Time, I can report that the Romans did not so much govern the people as govern local people who governed on behalf of Rome. So, the set-up back then for racing thriving or surviving was as unlikely to succeed as racing’s modern-day governance set-up.
To return to topic. Chester is considered a good testing ground for Derby and Oaks types and many an Epsom classic winner has begun their rise to stardom in the Dee Stakes, Vase or Cheshire Oaks. The main race of the 3-days is, of course, the Chester Cup, which for all the world can look like a sprint for stayers, with position, position, position, a mantra equally as persuasive as location, location, location. Usually, the ground is on the soft side for Chester week, though this year it is likely to be on the fast side of good. Strangely, returning to the classic trials, if Chester is such a good place to judge whether a horse is a likely Derby or Oaks type, would anyone be in favour of running the two classics at Chester if Epsom were to be unfit for racing for any reason? I would say no, with Sandown perhaps favourite to step in.
But that is what I like about Chester, along with its history and Roman walls, hand-in-hand quirkiness and hospitality.

Shocked to read that Evan Williams, one of my favourite trainers, was in court yesterday to plead not guilty on a ‘grievous bodily harm’ charge. If he were not of the ‘Christian faith’, if you get my meaning, I would have no cause to worry on his behalf as all he would get is a slap on the wrist and advice by the judge to stop being a naughty boy. My hope for Evan and his loved-ones is that he is found innocent and can continue to head-up his family-run business.
And, of course, this latest shock follows on from the news that a jockey was involved in a serious car accident a week or so ago in which his passenger suffered a ‘life altering injury’ and he (I am supposing it is a male jockey) was subsequently arrested and released on bail. If I was on-the-ball, with a fully functioning brain and with a liking for detective work, through a process of elimination, I might come up with the name of a likely suspect. But I cannot, as they say down here in Devon, ‘be arsed to bother myself’. So, as with anyone who was ‘arsed’ to read this, I will have to wait until the Racing Post next covers this story.

I remain wedded to the proposal that female jockeys, especially female N.H. jockeys, should continue to receive a 3Ib allowance in all handicaps until fifty-winners after they have lost their conditional riders’ claim. I also now believe that they should receive an extra 2Ib added to their usual claim until they have ridden 50-winners. Discriminatory, yes. Unfair on male claimers, yes. But somehow the male/female divide in the jockey ranks must be bridged.
I will give two woolly examples of why I think the sport needs to take a similar path to the French racing authorities that already gives female professionals an allowance, though not in major races. Elizabeth Gale rode a 66/1 winner at Ffos Las yesterday, The Wire Flyer and at Fakenham Tabitha Worsley won on a well-backed favourite. Both these women rarely ride a horse with an obvious winning opportunity, which, at the moment is something, with the exception of Lilly Pinchin, applies to all female National Hunt jockeys. As a collective, females are not getting the rub of the green and all the budding young female riders now and in the future will see the situation and receive the impression that the tide, no matter how hard they try, will always be against them. Rachael Blackmore is an outlier and should not be taken as proof positive that the game is fair to both sexes. She remains the only Irish female professional National Hunt jockey apart from a handful of girls who struggle between them to get more than an occasional single ride per week. When Blackmore is gone from the scene there is no one in either Britain and Ireland likely to replace her. Her success actually muddies the picture for other female riders. Her spectacular success does not inspire owners and trainers to give other females more than fleeting opportunities.
Females must prove their worth the same as their male counterparts, yet it is obvious that owners and some trainers have a bias in favour of the male gender and they must be given an incentive to give female riders the opportunity to prove themselves on better quality horses and at a higher level than the lowest-rated horses in minor races which is their collective lot at the present time.