FINALE OR SOMETHING SIMILAR.

​The definition of the word ‘finale’ is thus: the last part, piece or scene in any performance or exhibition; the last piece in a performance; the last movement, the close, end, the final catastrophe.
In this electronic age of #hashtags#, emojis, and a general slide toward the days before Johnson’s first dictionary when any word could be spelt any old how, I suppose complaining about the misuse of the word ‘finale’ is going to come across as an old guy having a moan about nothing. I disagree.
‘Champions Day’ on Saturday was actually the day of the Champion Stakes. The only champion competing on Saturday was Stradivarius as Oisin Murphy and Cieran Fallon were actually not champions until after the final race of the day, even if they received their trophies during racing. It was also not, as it was claimed time without number by the I.T.V. presenters, the finale of the flat season, as today we have three flat meetings, with further meetings to take place up to November 9th.
Now, I will admit that it was the finale of the Qipco series but did anyone see or hear any reference to the winners of these awards? I am sure the original concept of Qipco Champions Day would be that the top sprinter, miler, filly or mare, stayer, etc, would honour the day by competing in the appropriate race on the day. Of course, with one exception, this did not happen. It is actually a rare event when one of the Qipco champions does race on Qipco Champions Day.
I am not cribbing the actual racing. As usual Saturday’s fare was action-packed and provided a good number of talking points, one of which was that Ascot got away with the weather once again. As I may have said before, if you are going to have a ‘season’s finale’, a Champions Day to close the season with a bang, it should be on  the final day of the turf season at Doncaster where the ground would no doubt be just as soft as it usually is at Ascot, though where it dries out a good bit quicker, and as the Qipco series requires a sixth race to ensure a full programme the November Handicap would be available to add heritage to the day’s racing.
Although both the Qipco series and Champions Day are considered a success by seemingly everyone but me, I doubt if it will succeed long into the future. It exists by virtue of its sponsor. If Qipco were to pull the plug, and sponsors always pull the plug sooner or later, there would be a very limited number of potential benefactors queuing to take over.
I personally believe, given the lack of money swilling around in racing’s vaults at the moment, that the money required to stage Champions Day would be better spent at the other end of racing’s hierarchy, where prize money is in dire need of a boost. Flat racing does not need a one-day high-profile blow-out that may appeal to spectators but in effect only swells the coffers of the big battalions of the sport.
Oisin Murphy is a deserving champion jockey and I dare say if the title were to be decided on every race between Doncaster in March and Doncaster in November, he would still have won the title. It is just bizarre to choose two arbitrary dates in the racing calendar to decide the title and completely ignore the rest of the season. You try explaining to someone with little knowledge of the sport that the champion jockey is not necessarily the jockey who has ridden the most winners during the turf season, which will happen, if it hasn’t already, in the near future. If I live to be a hundred, I will never accept the present method of attributing the jockeys’ title to be anything other than flawed.
One final moan (for now) though maybe it is a thought worth developing: if a race over 2-miles is described as ‘long-distance’, what is a race over 2-miles- 4 or further called? Is the Ascot Gold Cup run over a marathon trip? 2-miles is not in anyone’s book a ‘long-distance’. It is a very reasonable distance of ground. Some horses stay 2-miles, yet find 2-miles- 4-furlongs a trip too far. Perhaps 2-mile races should be differentiated from races run over what we might describe as the marathon distance. The same as mile-horses are differentiated from the mile-and-a-half horses.
Anyway, in summary: I dislike ‘Champions Day’ described as the ‘finale’ of the flat season because it is not the finale of the flat season; I dislike Champion Stakes Day (I also would prefer the Champion Stakes returned to its spiritual home of Newmarket) marketed as ‘Champions Day’ due to the wholesale lack of equine champions. I dislike how the champion jockey is determined; especially as champion trainer is determined in a whole calendar year. No harmony, no joined-up logic.
I remain out-of-love with the whole darn concept.