journalists are not keen yet summer jumping seems to be thriving (and other thoughts).

​At Uttoxeter this week there are 258 entries over seven-races. This is a positive statistic, obviously, and flies in the face of the majority view of racing journalists who rather summer jumping did not exist. I for one support the need for summer jumping, though I wish there were fewer meetings. Although the high number of runners this summer may be a result of the wet winter and spring, I fear there will there be a knock-on effect come late autumn going into the start of the main season. The hue and cry last season was in complaint of the general lack of competitiveness, especially at the major meetings, with low numbers of runners and too many odds-on favourites. It may just be that those racecourses who choose to race during the summer may be made more profitable by doing so, the cost to the sport in general may prove to be too high. Also, there are now too many, in my opinion, valuable prizes to be won between May and August, and this too might well be having a detrimental effect on field-sizes in the winter months. If there were no summer jumping, the horses presently racing would be available for October onwards. 

Full Gallop: Part 2. More of the same; a reprise of the jumping season just gone. Glossy, if still watchable, more like a televised version of an equine Hello magazine pull-out, with too much emphasis on prize money on offer as if the jockeys themselves are in line for the six-figure pay-outs. The overall impression this cynically-minded soul receives from the program is too much emphasis on the winning mentality of jockeys and far too little emotional attachment to the horse.

The dumbest idea I have seen in print must be David Carr’s desire to see horse racing in the Olympics. Too many reasons why it is unnecessary, not feasible, with no chance of even being suggested to the Olympic Committee, to waste any more time over it. End of.

Trainers giving ‘bollackings’ to jockeys, and no doubt their staff, seems to both acceptable and at times a source of amusement. Wrong, it is uncivilised and no substitute for balanced debate. Trainers must make mistakes all the time – one trainer stated he regularly makes a dozen mistakes by breakfast – yet who bawls them out? We all make mistakes, those who deserve ‘bollackings’ are those who deliberately chose to do wrong. Honest mistakes, freely admitted, are a way of life and trainers who shout before they think should learn to rein it in as harmony will always beat discord. And anyway, horses do better in a harmonious atmosphere.

There are many aspects of this sport that its participants can be proud to be associated with. The rehabilitation centres that mend and repair our jockeys; the aspiration for care of horses from birth to death, even if it needs to be better funded; but most of all the British Racing School and the Northern Horseracing College, the former at Newmarket, the latter at Doncaster. You only realise how fortunate and blessed we are when you discover that Australia does not have the equivalent of either a racing school for young riders to hone their skills before entering a racing stable, nor does it have a thriving pony racing circuit. Prize-money may be an embarrassment in this country, yet we do a whole lot more than even the richest of racing countries can achieve, even when they benefit from a more forward-thinking governance.