it may be old age, good news & my favourite owner.

​I get facts mixed-up these days. Doubtless it is age-generated laxity of thought but whatever the reason, when I fervently believe this sport to be my specialist subject, it is annoying and a little bit soul-destroying to be wrong, if only occasionally.
If you had asked me about Martin Molony before I read Richard Forristal’s article on him in today’s Racing Post, I would have answered that he had tragically died as the result of a race-fall. I believed that as fact and when Forristal suggested otherwise, I had the affrontery to think him to be wrong. Molony did suffer a bad fall at Thurles when aged only 26, which left him in a coma but it only brought about his retirement from the sport and he lived to be 91, dying eight-years-ago.
Forristal’s article was to assert, no doubt quite rightly, that Martin Molony remains the greatest dual-purpose jockey of all-time, with his record on the flat equalling his brilliance over jumps. If you want a record of his big-race wins, classics both on the flat and over jumps, you should buy a copy of today’s Racing Post. You will be as surprised as I was by the achievements of Molony.

The good news is that Classic Chianti has recovered from the hind leg injury he sustained at Ascot last season and is presently at Enda Bolger’s where he is doing light road-work. This does not necessarily mean he will return to full work, it does though allow me to boast that when it was being said that his career as a racehorse was over, I suggested that not need be the outcome as horses have returned to the racecourse after suffering the same injury. I doubt if Chianti Classico does return to full training with Kim Bailey that he will fulfil the promise of his youth and Bailey is not the sort of trainer who will labour the journey if the horse shows him nothing of the horse he used to be. But he is being ridden and if he can stand limited exercise at least he might make someone a hack or even a hunter.

My favourite owner, the equal to J.P. McManus, is the divine Philippa Cooper, her of Sweet William fame and her parade ring banter with Matt Chapman. If Cooper could lead our sport, if she were to step-in if Baron Allen should walk-away from the B.H.A. chairperson’s position, the sport would have the perfect anti-dote to combat the diatribe of our opponents. Philippa Cooper is the living embodiment of goodness of heart and puts the kibosh on the idea that the rich cannot be the nicest people on the planet.
Whether the idea she proposes in today’s feature in the Racing Post was her own or she cottoned-on to the proposal that 1% of all sales from the sales ring should go to the retirement and rehabilitation of racehorses, as I proposed in a letter to the Racing Post a few months ago, is immaterial. At the moment 3 of the biggest sales houses are donating £12 to the R.o.R. charity for each horse they sell at auction, comprising £6 from the seller and £6 from the auction house, and that is a good start. It may not be enough to ensure all horses live out their lives in reasonable comfort and if that proves to be the case Philippa will doubtless lead a campaign for 1% of all sales.
Philippa Cooper is a template for how all owners should be. When she sells a horse she has bred, as she did with Gregory and French Master, it is a part of the deal that the horses be returned to her when their racing careers are over. It is why she has more retired horses on her pay-roll than horses in training.
Horse racing needs to cherish Philippa Cooper and anyone who has a problem with her stance on horse welfare needs to either be shown the error of their ways or be drummed out of the sport.