'ideas for boring run-up', ask a m.p. to lunch & Mcnamara woes.

​To David Jennings, great bloke that you are. Jockey Club Estates took little notice of J.P. McManus when he made recommendations to help improve the competitiveness of Cheltenham Handicaps, so why do you think they will take any notice of your equally well-intentioned and worthy of debate proposals to take the boring out of the run-up to Aintree? Jockey Club Estates know best, do you not know that? And the rest of us should remember our place in the hierarchy of life.
In his column in the Racing Post today, David Jennings proposed that horses should have to finish in the top 3 in designated big-race staying handicaps or in the first three in a Grade 1 chase to be eligible to be entered in the Aintree National. If only to improve the narrative of the season, I think D.J.’s proposal is worthy of discussion. He examples Intense Ruffles, my main hope for the race this season, who has only seen the racecourse twice since winning the Irish National, running down the field in two handicap hurdles to protect his steeplechase rating. A horse being trained for one race and one race only.
If I were a betting man, how can I know in what sort of fettle the horse is in to trust having a fistful of money on him ante-post when he has so far run in two races he could not be expected to be competitive in?
The Aintree National is not the race of history, yet it remains the only horse race in this country that comes anywhere close to ‘stopping the nation’. In fact, following the Cheltenham Festival, it can have an air of ‘after the Lord’s Mayor’s show about it’. Aintree have done their utmost to ruin the appeal and status of the race, as well as ignoring its history; they need help to reduce the risk of the race going down the swanee altogether. 
I prefer the idea, or as an addition to D.J.’s proposal, of ‘win and you are in races’, winners of races like the Scottish, Irish, Welsh and Midlands Nationals, the old Hennessey, Becher, Eider and Great Yorkshire Chases, with previous winners of the National allowed to run for 2-years after their National success no matter their mark. What the National needs is the right horses running in the race, horses, in general, in form the season of the race, not horses at the top of the handicap that have not won a race for twelve-months or more and with more letters before their name than numbers.

The madness of the gambling commission might be better alleviated if instead of bemoaning the ignorance of those who believe gambling is the work of the devil, Racing Post journalists invited the opposition to lunch to discuss the matter, to fill-in the gaps in the bemoaners ignorance of the subject. It would also make a good story for the paper.

Eric McNamara has been fined 6,000 of those funny Euros, his son Conor banned for 40-days, by the Clonmel stewards over the running and riding of Mount Ferns in a novice handicap chase. Son Conor, the jockey, said in his defence the horse was hanging badly and he could not take his hands off the reins fearing the horse might run off the course. I have not seen the race and have no view of the legitimacy of the punishments. The McNamaras intend to appeal, which they should do if they believe themselves innocent. What is unfair, in my opinion, in every such incident as this, is why the horse gets banned from racing for 90-days. Was Mount Ferns integral in the dastardly deed; did he call the trainer to his stable one evening to whisper in his ear that ‘an easy race might prove beneficial to himself and his connections?’ Yes, the concept of the long ban is to prevent connections from profiting by ‘pulling the horse’ and thereby getting a better price next time it runs. Yet the jockey only received a 20-day ban. So why does the horse get excluded for 90-days?
If Mount Ferns is a soft-ground horse, a 90-day ban beginning in February could easily be a 6-month rest-period or longer. A period of time that might also exclude the owner or owners of the horse from the racecourse.
A 90-day ban, I suggest, makes sure the stewards cannot be proved wrong in their assessment of the ride given to the horse by the jockey. If Mount Ferns were to run three times in say, for arguments sake, the next 90-days. and proves no better than his placing at Clonmel, then they will be proved wrong and the McNamaras would have been subjected to defamation of their characters. They might sue and the Clonmel stewards would not have a leg to hang their defence.