it is not that i am xenophobic but ...

​In this pathetically woke world created for us by who knows whom or for what devilish purpose, I might be guilty of hate speech for what I am about to point out. One short aside, the word ‘hate’ has now been redefined to mean anything your enemies want it to mean. Soon ‘I hate sugar in my tea’ will be considered ‘hate speech’ against those who prefer to take their tea sugared. Rant over.
I promise you, I am not xenophobic in any way and I am not envious of those who have greater wealth than I have. I pity those who have less but have no beef with those who have made a better stab at life than I have achieved. Yet a quick look at the leading owners on the flat in the Racing Post yesterday told a stark narrative of the sport in this country. What success British racing achieves both here and overseas is due in no small part to foreign owners and their blue-blooded studs.
Godolphin, Shadwell, Amo, Juddmonte, Coolmore, Sheikh Mohammed Obaid, Coolmore, King Power, Coolmore, Coolmore, Wathnam, Marc Chan, Yeguada Centurion, KHK Racing, Qatar Racing, Sheikh Juma Dalnook and the HRH the Aga Khan all appear in the owners table top twenty. The only owners left out of that table are Cheveley Park, Fitri Hay and the Hughes/Rawlings/Shaunessey partnership that own Shaquille.
Coolmore, the real largest earners in Britian this season, appear in the list three-times as their horses are registered in different combinations of Tabor, Smith, Magnier, Westerburg and Brant. All the above, of course, employ British people, with many of their studs located in this country and they should be both thanked and congratulated for racing their bloodstock in this country and for the success they achieve. Without them, British flat racing would be in far more perilous state than it finds itself at the present moment.
I cannot claim that it was never like this in the past. Flat racing in Great Britain has always relied on overseas investment in the sport. At present, and for a good few years, that investment is coming form the Arab States, in times gone by it was U.S. patrons and before that members of the Indian royal families and its aristocracy. British racing still holds great prestige and influence around the world, its history, perhaps, envied by the countries who can provide greater prize-money but who cannot trace their history back beyond the 1900’s at best.
We no longer have the likes of Lord Derby or Lord Roseberry playing pivotal roles in the sport now occupied by the ruling dynasties of the Desert kingdoms. That is neither bad nor wonderful but it is a trend that seemingly will not be reversed in my lifetime. Is there anyone born and bred in this country planting the seeds that in time may fruit and establish a British owner at the top of the owners’ tree or least competing with owners born and bred overseas?
I am not xenophobic. It would just be nice to witness a British-bred, Brirish-owned Epsom Derby winner once in a while. The days of Morston and Blakeney seem so long ago their Derbies might have been filmed in Black and White.

On this day, October 25th:
In 1881 the U.S. bred Foxhall completed the Autumn double, the Cambridgeshire and Cesarewitch, ridden on each occasion by Jack Watts.
In 1949, the man who invented the Totalisator, died in a plane crash in Maryland.
In 1967 the last race-meeting look place at Le Tremblay. It is now an airport.
In 1992, a celebration of the life of Prince Monolulu took place at the pub bearing his name in Maple Street, London. He was Abysssinian by birth and was best known for his cry ‘I gotta horse’ at the Epsom Derby.