fixture list, regional, sensible alternative, st. wilfrid.

​I have read that stable staff are required to go racing to such an extent these days that many either refuse or are reluctant to go. We all know that the people who bear the brunt of the bulging race programme are those who work at the cliff-face, the stable staff. Certainly, stable staff are better paid than they were in the past but the reluctance to go racing has nothing to do with pay. Staff get extra money for going racing and on occasion, if they are blessed to win ‘best turned out’, can win a cash reward. At this point in the flat season, staff are tired, in need of days off rather than extra money in their pocket.
An alternative to drastically reducing the race programme would be to have either more 2 and 3-day meetings or to regionalise the fixture list so that in a similar time-period racing is held at racecourses close to one another. For instance, Haydock, Chester and Aintree, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, with Brighton, Goodwood and Lingfield on the same day, thus allowing trainers to take horses for all three meetings down together, saving on fuel and looking all-environmental to those who look in that direction. If this strategy was mixed-in with regional fixtures where only trainers within that region could have runners, a similar saving could be achieved. The problem with the latter, though, is whether there would be enough horses in any one region to fill each race.
One thing that is for certain, the fixture list must be trimmed by at least a quarter. And the easiest way to achieve this goal would be have far less all-weather racing during the summer.

I remain convinced that the idea of restricting 60-races per year to trainers who had less than fifty-winners the previous season is a credible solution to helping the lesser-off achieve a better standard of living. That said, Philip Rothwell who might be the top beneficiary of this proposal, having finished fifth in the trainers’ championship in Ireland last season with 40-odd winners, has suggested a very valid alternative solution, while at the same time aligning himself with the niggardly-nellies, Mullins, Elliott, Cromwell, De Bromhead and Meade, who wish to have all the cream and all the tart kept for themselves, believing those at the top have earned the right to every crumb by tint of having worked themselves up to having 200-horses at their disposal. Rothwell has at least made a positive contribution to the debate. He proposes there should be an increase in races for the poor and moderately rated horse, the sort more likely to be in the stables of those trainers who the restricted races are aimed at.
I think a combination of the H.R.I.’s proposal of restricted races, perhaps the allocation cut by half, and Rothwell’s proposal, say sixty extra races for lower rated horses, might be the answer.
Of course, Philip Rothwell might be expecting to top 50-winners this season, when the restriction will also affect him, and in advocating more lower grade races he will be achieving the similar achievement of facilitating the lowest at the expense of the highest.

St. Wilfrid, or should that be St. Wilfrith, died in 709, aged 75, a good age for the time. He was both bishop of Ripon and York, though only Ripon choose to honour his name. He was the first bishop to appeal to Rome, with the Pope siding with him over Archbishop Theodore – the argument is too complex and wordy to pursue – though King Ecgfrid took umbrage at the Pope’s decision and imprisoned the good St. Wilfred. Strangely he escaped to Sussex of all places, though the new king, Aldfrith, allowed him to return to ‘up north’.
You will not get that on I.T.V. this afternoon. Thank-you Chambers Biographical Dictionary, I knew you would come in useful eventually.
The Great St. Wilfred is run today at Ripon. It is the sort of race I would like to win; a race where the heritage of the horse race encompasses the history of both country, religion and the county of Yorkshire. I hope my favourite jockey Jo Mason wins the race this year.