DISAPPOINTMENTS AND HAPPY SURPRISES.

​The racing news over the past few days has proved a mixed bag for yours truly. I was both pleased and disappointed by Hayley Turner’s announcement of yet another return to race-riding. I am pleased she will be back earning a living as a jockey. She gave up the unequal struggle too young as she has so much to offer the racing world, it is just disappointing, though understandable, that it is the French racing world in which she will be offering all the attributes she possesses as both a jockey and a personality. I will also miss her contribution to I.T.V. Racing. She was always a rose between thorns on the programme, and she also talked good sense.
Tis a shame she will not be plying her trade in this country as alongside Josephine Gordon, Holly Doyle and the other emerging female jockeys she would have provided a persuading argument for the debate on female jockeys.
My other great disappointment of the week was the Tizzard’s decision to run Cue Card in the Ryanair rather than the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Better authorities than I’ll ever be seem to think it a wise decision, I do not. By going for the lesser race over the shorter distance they are suggesting it was wrong to have run the horse for the previous two seasons in the Gold Cup. If they believed he stayed the Gold Cup distance last year and the year before, on what evidence do they base the decision that he is a better horse over a shorter distance now? He is 12; horses do not get faster as they get older, they get slower. He was magnificent in defeat at Ascot and certainly showed no decline in his enthusiasm or stamina. To my mind Un De Sceaux is the best horse in training at present (Altior, perhaps, being the exception) and will be a greater foe than Waiting Patiently, even if that horse looks a potential star in waiting. And of course the Tizzards have Native River for the Gold Cup, so spreading the talent does makes some sort of sense. Though to my way of thinking not a lot of sense. That said, I hope Cue Card proves me wrong and wins the Ryanair. If he does prevail, I hope the Tizzards retire him there and then. No horse deserves to bow out with Cheltenham cheers ringing in his ears more than Cue Card.
The other disappointment is the weather forecast: snow, ice and freezing rain. No good for humans or horses. And with Cheltenham just around the corner!