letters to racing post. (Part 3)

​I do not always send my thoughts and ideas to the Racing Post expecting publication. I will often a pen a letter simply for a Post journalist to read the letter in the hope he or she will either make his colleagues aware of my ‘latest’ thought or idea or perhaps pen a piece himself (or herself), as even the most junior member of the Racing Post team would do greater justice to a topic than I will ever be able to achieve.
I moved to North Devon in 2001 and happily continued to read the Racing Post as I have done since its very first edition. I am pleased to say that I mooted the idea of jockeys only being allowed to ride at one meeting a day during the early years of the new century. My concern was that jockeys were at risk of burning themselves out rushing from one racecourse to another on top of their riding-out duties early in the morning. I also believed it would allow more jockeys to earn a better standard of living if the top jockeys were restricted to one meeting per day. Of course this did come about, albeit only because the B.H.A. were mad keen to demonstrate to our oppressors that they were fully in-line with restrictions that the more informed of us knew to be pointless as far as controlling a virus was concerned and more about the control of people.
As today, I did not like the idea of Champions Day and proposed if it had to exist it should become the last day of the season – I proposed then, as I would now, an all-year championship – with the new season starting a day or two after the Ascot beanfeast for the wealthy.
I am delighted to be reminded by this trip down cuttings avenue that back then that there should be an all-female team at the Shergar Cup meeting. I also wrote in praise of Hayley Turner and that to encourage trainers to give females a greater opportunity of expressing their skills in the saddle that Britain should play host to the most valuable race in the world restricted to female jockeys and also, flying in the face of pattern rules, no doubt, that females should receive an allowance of 3 or 5lbs in listed races in order that occasionally they might get on horses of greater ability than is normally the case. You may say the success of Holly Doyle has driven a bulldozer through my argument for greater opportunities for females but no, not enough females are breaking through the ceiling Holly and Hayley smashed and more needs to be done in the 2025-season to open-up this one-way street.
I admonished the great Alistair Downs for using the term ‘rubbish horses’ and proposed a lower grade of racing should be established for the lowest grade of horse, a sort of point-to-point for the flat.
Back then I was in favour of a 5-day Cheltenham Festival.
In 2012, I wrote an impassioned letter supporting the Grand National, pointing out that neither According to Pete nor Synchronised had a jockey on their backs when they met their deaths in the race won by Neptune Collonge.
I was surprised when the Racing Post published a letter criticising covid restrictions at open-air spaces like racecourses and suggest the B.H.B. should partner with the F.A. and take the government to court over the matter.
It was around this time that John Francome won me over to his view that no smacks was the way forward when it came to the whip and wrote supporting his opinion.
Unsurprisingly, as the Racing Post published the book, my letter praising David Ashforth’s book ‘Fifty Shades of Hay’ gained a place in the letters’ column.
On a similar theme, I continued to criticise the naming of racehorses, especially the duplicating of names of famous racehorses. Coolmore naming a horse Spanish Steps mortified me and I gained a lot of support on the matter, though it still happens to this day.
I also wrote suggesting people should find a copy of Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker;s 1968 book ‘Spoilsports’: What’s Wrong With British Racing’. I quoted the first paragraph which, chilling, was a mirror image of all the sport’s problems today, except for the government meddling with the betting industry and draconian measures to ensure punters are not addicts.
I suggested methods of recruiting a different cohort of staff to racing stables, suggesting that many of the tasks in a modern stable, excluding riding, could easily be taught to anyone of any age.
In one of many letters on the whip issue, I suggested that when a jockey transgressed the whip rules, instead of the jockey receiving a ban and the horse disqualified, both the jockey and the owner should forfeit any prize-money won.
I suggested Britain needed the equal of the Dublin Racing Festival and suggested Cheltenham’s ‘Trials Day’ could evolve into a 2-day mini-festival with races taken from the March meeting, reducing the main fare to 3-days, there by satisfying those who believe the Festival should not have been extended in the first place.
As someone who used to love the St.Leger, it pained me to suggest that British racing should move with the times and restrict the Eclipse to 3-year-olds and upgrade it to the final classic of the season. It makes perfect sense to me, anyway. I used to think the St.Leger could gain new life by becoming the most valuable race over 14-furlongs in Europe but now I think it could remain as the sixth classic. Who said there can be only five-classics?
I continued to propose a 40-runner Lincoln Handicap run at Newmarket started from a barrier.
I argued that English-style hurdles were unsafe and proposed adopting French-style mini-fences. Thankfully, the English-style hurdles are now being discarded with a far-safer padded hurdle now becoming more used.
I continued to argue that no horse retired to stud at the end of its 3-year-old career should be regarded as ‘all-time great’ as truly great horses proved their ability to defeat the following season’s generation of 3-year-olds. Sea The Stars and Dancing Brave fall into the category, in my opinion, of gilded lilies.
I argued that in winter, Friday/Saturday meetings should be Saturday/Sunday as in opening-up the ground on the Friday allowed frost or rain to get into the ground and put the Saturday, and the major races scheduled for that day, in jeopardy. It would also improve the standard of Sunday racing.
I bemoaned the retirement of Hayley Turner. I made plain that though I opposed blood-sports, I reminded people how important hunting was for the education of both young riders and young horses. I wanted people to realise that racing is not a sport for high society and the mega-wealthy but a working-class sport that extends through all ranks of society. Henry de Bromhead proved me wrong about his decision not to run Honeysuckle against Constitution Hill. I pointed out that the B.H.B. resorted to science in changing the colour of the trim around fences and hurdles, yet omitted the input of science and relied on ‘opinions’ when instigating yet more new whip rules. I wanted Shadwell to give racing the gift of keeping Baaeed in training as a 5-year-old. And returning to Honeysuckle, I suggested once a mare won a championship race, the sex allowance should be reduced to 5lbs, to 3lbs if she should win a second championship race, then no allowance at all. It is wrong that a top-class mare should receive 7lb from a gelding with a much lower official rating.