cometh the cambridgeshire, cometh the jumps season.

I look forward to this time of year; season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and Keats other ode rhyming to autumn. The turf flat narrative draws to its conclusion. We discover the top 2-year-olds, both colt and filly, horses to disregard for the Derby and Oaks when they are three. Who had Adayar and Snowfall on their radar last March? The jockeys championship will be resolved in six-weeks, though why when the season will still have another month or so to run is beyond me. Makes no sense and devalues the prize, to my mind. The champion jockey should be the jockey who rides the most winners during, as it is this year, the 2021 season, not just that part that started on a random date and finishes likewise. The uselessness of the process of determining the jockeys’ championship is clearly demonstrated by the fact that the trainers’ title is not decided until the last day of the season, the battle having started on the first day of the turf season.
If ‘Champions Day’ were to be staged on the last day of the season it would provide a fitting and spectacular conclusion. But no, the B.H.A. has to complicate matters and leave itself open to criticism. The sport, too, is open to ridicule – try explaining to a non-racing man or woman how we decide the jockeys’ championship and why every race before the start-date and every race after the end-date count for absolutely nothing.
And we also have on the horizon, the Cambridgeshire Handicap, this coming Saturday and in a few weeks the Cesarewitch, the two best handicaps of the whole season, or at least my favourite handicaps of the season. The two big Newmarket handicaps resemble horse racing as it has been down through the centuries, even if at the dawn of the sport Newmarket Heath played host to Match races, one owner betting against another to see who had the best or fastest thoroughbred. No malnourished four-stone wet-through apprentices, of course, as was the case during the early decades of the 1900’s, though also very little over-weight. But still a grand and colourful cavalry charge.
Most followers of the sport may need reminding that back in the day, and for good long period of its history, the Cambridgeshire was one of the most prestigious and sought-after races of the season, with classic winners turning out and not always carrying top weight. This year, as a sort of throwback to the grand old days, the favourite is a former ante-post favourite for the Epsom Derby, Uncle Bryn, trained by John Gosden and his lookalike and soundalike son Thady. If only Aidan O’Brien had the foresight to have aimed Mother Earth at the race.

This time of year is the time of the owners open days at the top National Hunt stables. Nicky Henderson kicked things off over the weekend and the front page of today’s Racing Post was adorned by a photograph of the Seven Barrows mighty threesome, Altior, Sprinter Sacre and the poor fellow that must follow in their hoof-prints, Shishkin. I doubt if any trainer has had three better 2-mile chasers in the whole history of the sport, that is as long as Shishkin doesn’t fluff his lines, of course.
Let’s hope fate is kind to both horse and trainer and at some point during the season, hopefully at Cheltenham in March, Shishkin will face-up to the Closutton pairing of Energumene and Chacon Pour Soi, though the latter may prove to be one of those great horses that was never great at Cheltenham.
Now, I have one bit of advice for Nicky Henderson and I hope he listens carefully and acts on my advice as it may prevent a repeat of the ‘Altior’ catastrophe of 2-seasons ago. During this season, please Nicky, run Shishkin over 2-½-miles just to get it over and done with. If he wins, which he should do, it will make plans for future seasons less stressful and if he gets beat, you’ll know to stick to 2-miles for the foreseeable future. If you had run Altior over further than 2-miles the season before his unfortunate clash with Cyrname, you might not have run at Ascot and his final seasons might have been more fruitful. But hindsight is a beautiful and annoying thing, isn’t it?

We are all aware that our sport is deplorably governed and regulated. If anyone thinks otherwise just research average prize-money and the universal criticism on the subject. To compound their inability to see the wood for the trees, the B.H.A. has published a race calendar for next season that has come in for condemnation from all sectors of the industry.
To add to my poor opinion of the B.H.A., I find it baffling that no one from the sport’s governing body recognised the opportunity to survey the many thousands of people to attend the Henry Cecil Open Weekend and to ask their opinions on what they like and dislike about the sport and how they believe the sport can be improved upon to benefit spectators; such a study might have opened eyes and provided data and insights unconsidered by professionals working within the industry.
For instance, does anyone within the B.H.A. read the letters’ column of the Racing Post? They should. Here’s why. In Sunday’s Racing Post letters’ column, a regular racegoer complained about the way he was treated by officials at Newbury. The B.H.A., in my opinion, should contact this man and take note of his complaint and then go to Newbury and carry out an investigation. This man suggested he might take his custom to different sporting venues in the future. This man is important to the sport, we cannot afford to lose his like.
And although Mr. Glyn Linder is so wide of the mark with his comment on only allowing jockeys to ride at one meeting a day – he called it ‘ridiculous’- I thought to dismiss him as so far out of touch with modern-day reality to be not worth bothering with. But he is in fact a racehorse owner and as such his criticism of the racing calendar and prize money merits the attention of the B.H.A. He, too, is important to the sport’s future. He is an owner and the sport needs him in the same way every door needs a lintel.
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