dineen is correct, jennings the ratings man, former party-piece & the oakes.

​In todays ‘Johnny and D.J.’ column in the Racing Post, Johnny Dineen admits his annoyance of the week was seeing a horse called Meetingofthewaters running at Bangor last week who was not the Meetingofthewaters trained by Willie Mullins that finished fifth in this year’s Aintree National. He is correct to raise this issue, an issue I have pushed and banged-on about for the best part of twenty-years. As Dineen pointed out, the English language is huge. And I would add that there are over 200 other languages that could be utilised to name a racehorse. Meetingofthewaters could be translated into French, Gaelic, Hungarian or Dutch and as long as it does not breach the 18-character rule it would be deemed acceptable by the B.H.A.. Sea The Stars could be translated into Spanish, Brown Jack into Norwegian. Spanish Steps into Italian. 
As I have said many times, it is lazy, ignorant and ‘name two horses of the same name that have won races at the top level on either the flat or National Hunt? To Johnny Dineen this issue is annoying; to me it is exasperating, as vexing as political corruption and the 4-billion quid it is costing the British tax-payer to house and feed illegal immigrants. Yes, it is that exasperating to me!

Johnny Dineen’s foil in his piece in the Racing Post and the ‘Upping the Ante’ podcast, David Jennings, is one of my Racing Post favourites. Occasionally, though, his opinion is at odds with my own. Actually, most of my opinions are at odds with those who earn their living as racing correspondents. But then they are professional and trained, some with a whip and chair, I suspect, and I am unprofessional and untrained since the days of the potty. 
I would prefer it if people of the calibre of David Jennings did not resort to ratings, the opinion of others, when summing-up a race. Even the form-book should be set aside when trying to find winners. I believe, on the day, ground dependency, weight carried and whether the racecourse is left or right-handed, flat or undulating, can be more influential when deciding which horse is more likely to win. It is about feel, instinct, what the heart demands. Going commando, almost.
If ratings are all they are cracked-up to be, the highest rated would win most of the time. Ratings are no more than bollards in the road to either penury or joy. Ratings are a faith that limits freedom of thought, freedom from instinct. Minnie Hauk proved how the faith of ratings can lead the punter down blind alleyways.
For a season, David, Sea The Stars was an unbeatable wonder. He was a nine-month shooting star. Yet people who should know better, who should be doing all in their power to boost our sport, choose to remember a nine-month wonder horse – and I could use Flightline as another example – as one of the greats. Sea The Stars has proved himself a great stallion; if he had been kept in training as a four-year-old he might have proven himself superior to any horse that ever graced a racecourse. He was not kept in training and we will never know where he stands in the pantheon of the greats. What I do know is a nine-month shooting star should not even be nominated for the pantheon.
To me, hard, cold facts, are unpalatable, yet to ‘experts’ they are the ambrosia of their profession.

As a kid, my party piece was to name the last fifty-winners of both the Epsom Derby and the Grand National. It was impressive feat of memory until someone asked me to name the 1958 Derby winner or any single race out of the hundred. I could not do it then and I certainly cannot do it now. Individual years do not register in my memory. I can tell you here and now that Red Rum won the Grand National in 1973 but would have to resort to a book to name the winner of the Epsom Derby of the same year.
I needed my memory jogged to recall that City of Troy won the Derby last year and I had completely forgotten that Continuous won the St.Leger the year before last. Explanation, I suspect, why though bodily I live in the modern age of 2025, my heart, soul and memory live in the days of my youth when life was so much simpler to navigate.

I did not like the Epsom Oaks yesterday. I wanted, nay expected, Desert Flower to win and win like a champion, and whether she did not quite stay the distance, as William Buick seems to believe or whether, as Charlie Appleby suggested, that she did act on either the track or the ground, makes no difference to me. I never have fond memories of races where the horse I wanted to win does not win.