galway, gambling and the bloody whip (AGAIN).

​Everything that is good about Irish racing can be found at the Galway Festival. Amateur jump jockeys mix with flat race apprentices; Grand National winning jockeys mix with Epsom Derby winning jockeys; the champion flat jockey shares a weighing room with the champion National Hunt jockey. Aidan O’Brien will have runners there this week, as will, of course, Willie Mullins.
Today, the main race of the day is a 2-mile 1-furlong handicap on the flat for amateur riders. Where else in the world would you find such a race as the feature and with a six-figure prize fund? Only in Ireland. Only at Galway. And no one questions the merit of the race. And the quality of the Galway Plate this week would do justice to the Cheltenham Festival. The Galway Festival is a 7-day craic extravaganza and demonstrates how horse racing and the inhabitants of its homeland can come together for the benefit of all.
In Great Britain we are too stuffy to have a Galway-like racing festival. For some reason, though it was accepted not so many years ago, the B.H.A. do not approve of flat racing and National Hunt mixed cards. There is a mixed card at Haydock in late April/early May but it sits alone in the calendar since the old Whitbread meeting at Sandown was split into two distinct days, one for the flat and one for National Hunt. Though I think that decision was for the betterment of the jumps season, I do not see why mixed cards cannot be reintroduced, especially with the number of National Hunt races to be reduced in 2024. 
What is there to prevent Wetherby staging a mixed card, now that Wetherby stage a few flat meetings in early summer. Or Worcester, a course that used to stage flat racing. Or Chester, a course that has suggested having hurdle races in the past.
Although I would not expect to see a Galway-style meeting in this country, it might be an idea to have a week of mixed racing at a time in the flat season when everything is low-key, perhaps between two of the big festivals, with the racing as varied as it is at Galway.

Having watched a spectacular King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday it is galling to read in today’s Racing Post that both Jim Crowley and Rob Hornby violated the whip rules, with Crowley expected to get a long ban due to the totting-up process. It was also hinted that the possibility of Hukum being disqualified also remains a possibility.
Look, I am a proponent of limiting use of the whip to one-strike and it disappoints me that jockeys continue to go over the present limit of six-strokes. Yet I saw nothing in Saturday’s race that I thought was harmful to the image of the sport. I witnessed two courageous horses and two exceptional jockeys in a duel for supremacy. Neither combination deserved to lose and neither jockey deserve sanction for the ride they gave their mounts. The B.H.A. believe the perception of the public is a matter of greater import than the perception offered to the public when they suspend our top jockeys for long periods for breaking the whip rules. They are wrong.
I remain convinced we must follow the line of travel and prepare ourselves for a sport where use of the whip will become as illegal by law in society as child-beating. It is why I believe there should be whip-restricted races throughout the season, perhaps four or five a week, for professional riders. It is why I believe one-strike is the right number and that over the next four or five seasons the number of strikes should be reduced by one each season to reach that single number.
In this matter the B.H.A. have proved itself totally incompetent.

The Gambling Commission is proving itself equally incompetent. I would urge anyone visiting this website to read today’s copy of the Racing Post (July 31st 2023) and both Lee Mottershead’s column and the letters’ column. Lee writes on the intricacies and rank stupidness of the proposed legislation and in the letters column a personal insight into the cruel consequences of the proposed legislation. In fact, after reading Lee Mottershead, I think the Racing Post should apply for a charity handout as the journalists working for the paper are in a far better position to help those afflicted with gambling addiction than many of the organisations currently receiving bookmaker-funded charity funds that amount to six-figures or more. Indeed, there is more than a whiff of possible corruption, perhaps only laziness, involved between the Gambling Commission and those that come out of left field claiming to be experts in the field of gambling addiction. As was the case when the government issued P.P.E. contracts worth millions-of-pounds to any Johnney-come-lately from sweet wrapping manufacturers to brand new business start-ups owned by relatives or friends of ministers.