​Although it would be niggly to criticise any element of Newbury’s two-day November meeting, it was put in the shade by the action at Fairyhouse on Saturday and Sunday. The poverty of the Long-Distance Hurdle at Newbury was balanced by a very taking first novice chase by The Jukebox Man, the best horse Ben Jones has ridden and in time The Jukebox Man might become the best British-trained horse we have seen since the heady days of Denman and Kauto Star. Here was a horse who skipped around Newbury with the aplomb and exuberance of a seasoned Gold Cup standard horse and at race end gave the impression of being disappointed to be made to stop. He is certainly my horse to follow this season.
In Ireland, there were many a good horse on show, with very few balloons burst even in defeat. Yesterday’s Drinmore, made unusual by the absence of a runner from Closutton, was a corker of a race, with barely a head and a neck separating the first four, with the fifth only a length or so in behind. If ever a race proved that a single digit number of runners is as capable of providing a spectacle to heighten the senses as a maximum field then this was it. 
Croke Park may have been a surprise winner but he was a deserving winner, making the running and then displaying bags of spirit and stamina to hold on from Heart Wood (not a Gold Cup horse, at this stage of the season), Firefox (not to be written-off) and Gorgeous Tom, a horse in dire need of 3-miles and the one to take out of this race.
On the novice chase front, Caldwell Potter did all that could be expected of him at Carlisle, a racecourse fast becoming the go-to track for trainers’ keen for their star novices to have a fair introduction to fences. He attacked the first fence with the enthusiasm of a chocoholic espying an unguarded chocolate gateaux at his best friends birthday party, and for a brief moment it looked like Harry Cobden was not fully in control of the situation. Of course, the champion jockey was soon very much in control of both the horse and the race and though it would be stretching credulity to say Caldwell Potter won with his head-in-his-chest, he did win without need to go full-throttle. Whether he wins back his purchase price is for the future to decide, but up till now he looks the best horse bought that day at the dispersal sale of some of Gordon Elliott’s most promising young horses.
Of course, the star of the weekend, even usurping Sir Gino, was Lossiemouth. Although she disposed of Tiaheapoo (no doubt a misspelling) with the authority of an Olympic archer hitting the bulls-eye, should she have shortened as favourite for the Champion Hurdle for beating a long-distance Champion hurdler? The Hattons Grace was over 2-mile 4, it can be argued that Teaheapoo needs every inch of 3-miles to be at his best and his stamina was hardly used to the maximum due to the slow pace of the race. And who is to say that the champion 3-miler was not at his best for one reason or another? Lossiemouth is good, better than good, and if she turns up at Kempton on Boxing Day against Constitution Hill all will be revealed if she should be better favoured for the Champion Hurdle than either her stable-mate State Man or either of Nicky Henderson’s two contenders.

The Coral Gold Cup on Saturday was a premier race on a premier day’s racing. How was it dissimilar to last year’s Coral Gold Cup or any day in the fixture’s history? None, I would suggest. Which makes ‘Premier racing’ another of the B.H.A.’s white elephants. With so little money in racing’s coffers, perhaps now is the time for the B.H.A. to drown this particular red herring and convene a conference where everyone with an interest in promoting the sport can come together to offer alternative ideas.

​The Coral Gold Cup, or the old Hennessey as it continues to be called, as people of my age will always refer to it, is not the race it used to be through no fault of anyone in particular. Perhaps the days when the prestige handicaps were over-subscribed, with many a trainer sweating to discover whether their lively outsider has made the cut, are gone, never more to be seen. Thirteen, though, was a disappointing turn-out from a British point-of-view when you consider of the thirteen three were from Ireland and one from France.
That said, Kandoo Kid was an impressive winner and if Paul Nicholl’s were not committed to running the horse in the Grand National, we might be thinking of him as a possible for the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Not that I am suggesting he is that class at the moment yet his new rating will put him close to that of a lively Gold Cup outsider and in the past, winners of the Hennessey were often spoken-of in terms of Cheltenham in March.
It is my problem, of course, wanting to be back to the days when the Hennessey was the bright shining light of pre-Christmas, when every 3-mile chaser from Arkle downwards would be entered, with the majority running in the race. They were the golden days of National Hunt and only comparatively recently did it occur to me that I would never experience such days ever again. Those days were consigned to history when Kauto Star, Big Bucks and Denman departed the stage, and even then, I suspect the ‘golden days’ were only hanging on by their boot-straps.
That said, the first three yesterday were all young progressive horses that with the racing gods on their side will win top-class races for seasons to come.

The star yesterday was, of course, Sir Gino, who passed his jumping examination and sauntered his way into Champion Hurdle contention. Why Mystical Power ran so poorly we will no doubt find out over the next few days and the poverty of his performance removed most of the informative interest from the race. Sir Gino won as he should have given the ratings of the horses that separated the two favourites at the finish and he remains ‘a could be anything category of horse’.
It was a nice win for Nicky Henderson to absorb, though if Sir Gino had not won there would be no decision to be made about how to proceed with him. Now, Nicky, Nico and the Donnelleys have a conundrum to untangle, is it plan A and steeplechasing or plan B and the Champion Hurdle. If my advice was sought, and no one seeks my advice on any matter of importance, I would be swayed by Sir Gino’s age. He will be five come January and he has plenty of time to go chasing and if State Man were to get injured, Joe Donnelly might be pleased to have Sir Gino as super-sub for the Champion Hurdle. That decision, though, would hand the dilemma over to Nico who would then have to choose between Constitution Hill and Sir Gino. At least, hopefully come the Christmas Hurdle and then March, Nico will have to untangle the tangle.

Who is the unluckiest man in horse racing both now and perhaps in history. Yes, it is Jack Kennedy, a man, seemingly, in want of getting into the Guiness Book of World Records for breaking bones, specialising on leg bones. To look at him and to go back through his medical records and all the herculean comebacks he has pulled-off at his young age you might think him a man made of iron. Yet despite his rugged outer appearance, Jack Kennedy is seemingly as fragile as a bone China tea-set. Keep everything crossed for him that this period of time on the sidelines is shorter than when recovering from previously broken legs.

A letter in today’s racing Post was written in support of Karen Wiltshire, the first female jockey to win against her male colleagues. That she suffered bias and mockery back in the seventies should not come as a surprise. The past was a different country, as is said in defence of the mores of past ages. The reason why women did not call-out sexual references and discrimination in previous decades was because at the time it is what they expected, with many giving it back tit-for-tat. Anyone was ripe for ridicule; it was a time when people recognised the difference between a joke and racism or discrimination. The stupidity of woke is far more disruptive to good living than a rude joke or sexual overtones.
Karen Wiltshire was trying to forge a career when the expression ‘if you cannot see it, you cannot be it’ was yet to be heard as a rallying cry. Back when Wiltshire held a jockeys’ licence, Holly Doyle and Rachael Blackmore would have also struggled to get a ride, let alone a winner. If society, as collective wokists, keeps harking back to the mores of different ages, history will have to be rewritten from 1066 onwards. What needs to be written about in the racing pages of today is that forty-years on only two female jockeys finished in the top twenty in the jockeys’ championship in 2024. A massive improvement on ten-years ago but minimal in the overall context of the matter. What peeves me is that Holly Doyle, the most successful female jockey of all-time when it comes to Group 1 success, is yet to ride in a classic. Is that sex discrimination, riding for the wrong trainers or simply bias against female jockeys?

David Jennings in his column in the Racing Post on Saturday made the proposal that appeals should be done away with and that the result on the day, irrespective if the local stewards had changed the finishing places, should stand without recourse to the appeals process. As he rightly said, no other sport changes results days or even weeks after the event and in this highly technical age it should be possible to have all the electronic whistles and bells either on tap at the racecourse or back at Portman Square with adjudicating stewards to make the final decision, as with VAR. I hope David’s colleagues will take-up the cudgels and discuss his idea further. There is little hope the B.H.A. will take the issue on board.

​George Ward started it. He is the villain of this piece. He owned Vistaprint, amongst other companies. He also owned racehorses and as with other successful businessmen with an interest in horse racing, he chose to sponsor races in order to keep his photograph-developing company in the public eye. But Mr. Ward wanted to ‘own’ the races he sponsored, with the company name the sole title in racecards. It was okay, at least with me, when Mackeson, Massey-Ferguson, Hennessey and Whitbread started the rush for companies to sponsor horse racing as the races they injected large amounts of money into barely existed before the day of the sponsor was born. But George Ward demanded control of the race title and since then that is the way it has been. And racing has a more poverty-stricken look and is more confusing because of it.
You see, and, yes, this is another hobby-horse of mine, our sport is multi-faceted, with many nuances for the newcomer to learn and accept before the sport can deliver the satisfaction the true enthusiast derives from the daily game of chance we call horse racing.
Take the big race tomorrow, the Coral Gold Cup. Firstly, the Blue Riband of steeplechasing is the ‘Gold Cup’, the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the centre-piece of Royal Ascot is the ‘Gold Cup’, the Ascot Gold Cup. Yet here we have another Gold Cup. To you and everyone else who diligently follows the sport, there is no confusion. This Gold Cup is to be run in November, so it cannot be either of the other two Gold Cups. But to the newbie or a loved-one, when you excitedly announce that it is Coral Gold Cup day tomorrow, the response I would get, someone who lives in a world far removed from racinghot-spots, is ‘oh, it’s not Cheltenham, is it?’ In the outside world, to those with less than a passing knowledge of our sport, the Gold Cup can only mean one race and it is not a race held in Berkshire in November.
Also, it is not really the Coral Gold Cup, is it? It is the Hennessey or the old Hennessey, as the last big handicap of the season will always be the old Whitbread, no matter how many companies have sponsored the race since the sad day when it stopped being its historic title.
I am in way downplaying the importance of sponsorship in our sport. In fact, the sponsoring of races from the ordinary fare to the Blue Riband races is more than important, it is vital due to the antiquated system we have in Britain for funding the sport.
And, yes, I know the big races have ‘registered names’ but how often do they appear in the race-title, and how quickly is someone corrected by journalist or presenter when the sponsors name is omitted from the ‘registered’ name? Super-quick, I would suggest.
So here is my best suggestion for tidying-up a problem only I seem to believe is a problem. Take tomorrow’s big race, the old Hennessey. Why not this: the Newbury Gold Cup Handicap Chase, presented to you by Coral Bookmakers – followed by whatever slogan they would choose to use. 
The race would have a name that would chime down the ages, the sponsor is seen to be gifting the race to racegoers and they get a description of what, not that this applies to Coral, they manufactured or sell. If Alf Bloggs was sponsoring the race it might say ‘Alf Bloggs’, your High Street Rolls Royce dealership.
Because to be fair, I have little idea what either Turners or Boodles manufacture or sell.
To add weight to my point. At the last Cheltenham Festival, the ‘Turners’ was a novice chase, this year it is a novice hurdle. Would it not be neater if whatever race Turners sponsor this time around became the Spa Hurdle, presented to you by Turners, manufacturers (or purveyors) of ….
Cheltenham then would be consistent down the ages, the Gloucester Hurdle, The Spa Hurdle, the Cirencester Hurdle, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, presented to you by …. Insert name of your choice.
To those of a similar age to myself, would it not be nostalgically nice to have returned to the sport the Gainsborough Chase, the Great Yorkshire, as we did last year, for one year only, I suspect, and the Bula Hurdle?

​An example of the different approaches to governing the sport between Ireland and Britain is that in Ireland when a fixture cannot be held, they will postpone, whereas in Britain the fixture is abandoned, as with Bangor this coming Saturday. Cork was beaten by Storm Bert last Sunday, yet with speed aforethought, Cork has been given a substitute meeting on December 13th. Chalk and cheese, wouldn’t you say?
God forbid, but if either Newbury or Newcastle were to be abandoned this Saturday, only, and then perhaps, the headline races would be transferred to the next convenient race-day and at another racecourse. Would it not be wise to make plans for the meetings to go ahead the following day, racecourse conditions permitting? If this was a condition of entry, the sponsors and I.T.V. could likewise make plans for a Sunday fixture.

When the Cheltenham stewards suspended Michael Nolan for 12-days after he ‘took the wrong course’ in the Cross-Country race, I thought, taking into consideration the complexity and novelty of the race, he was hard done by. Reviewing the race, though still believing his punishment to be severe, I thought he was more to blame for the incident than the horse. Therefore, I am pleased he has won his appeal, especially after the dog’s abuse he received from ignorant racegoers. I hope connections of Tommie Beau will return in March to attempt to put matters to right as up to the incident the horse had jumped and galloped with distinction and would have an obvious chance with a similar performance.

Owners are justified to be offended by being left-out of consideration by Flutter when drawing-up plans for the David Power Jockeys Cup. Trainers get a slice of the prize-money, as will stable staff. But not owners. Given the winner of the Jockeys Cup will receive half-a-million-quid, you would have thought someone in the organisation might have piped-up and said ‘would it not be a grand gesture if half that first-prize went to the owner who provided the horses that accumulated the greatest number of points throughout the competition?’
Jockeys would have snapped hands from wrists to win £250,000. Flutter might have thought to add £10,000 to every race televised by I.T.V. to be shared by the owners of horses failing to make the first four. That might not be described as ‘a grand gesture’ but it would have been a gesture. Something could have been thought-up to pacify or please the people who help make our sport both tick and tock. The D.P.J.C. is ill-conceived and the concept is sullied for it. The rich jockeys get richer and the poor sods at the bottom of the pyramid are forgotten about again, as are owners.

Four-runners in the Hattons Grace at Fairyhouse. Four-runners in the Long Distance Hurdle at Newbury. Two-races competing for the same small pool of horses. Something needs to be done and what needs to be done is that the British and Irish race compilers need to get together and coordinate so that races like the Hattons Grace and the Long Distance Hurdle do not compete for the same type of horse. One should be a handicap, perhaps limited, the other a conditions race. At least for the foreseeable future.

Even with Willie Mullins taking out all eight of his entries from the King George at Kempton at the last forfeit stage, it could yet be a competitive and enthralling race come Boxing Day. The one horse Mullins did not enter for the King George, Fact To File, might yet be supplemented, as it seems Willie does not fancy running him again against Galopin Des Champ, at least not until March. Also, if ground conditions are in his favour, Fastorslow might yet be supplemented. And, contrary to his first thoughts after the Betfair, Grey Dawning might also turn-out for the King George as he has come out of Haydock in high spirits and is not as knackered as his trainer had predicted. Pic D’Orhy, though, is not to be supplemented, which is a shame as before Fact To File and Fastorslow were thrown into the mix I had started to fancy Paul Nicholl’s horse as a lively outsider.

​Andrew Balding is a lucky man. Not only is he born into a family of great repute but he is also blessed to be married to Anna Lisa. Whenever she represents her husband at the races – usually she gets the gig furthest from home I have noticed – it has reinforced my belief that Andrew is one lucky fellow. Today in the Racing Post she was the guest columnist and my regard for her increased a notch or two.
She wrote about the work of Racing Welfare, the industry charity that is there to pick-up, listen to and help those with either mental health issues or who are just lost in a sea of humanity. As someone whose character can only be described as ‘shaky’ or perhaps ‘flaky’, I sympathise with people who without knowing why or how have crept towards the abyss of failing to cope with the outside world and themselves.
As someone who cannot, even at my advanced age, talk even to myself about the holes I mentally stumble into, let alone anyone else or those few people who I regard as being close to, I am not in a position to give advice on coping with the pitfalls of life. It is too late for me now, of course. I am who I am, but the younger you are the more important it is to untangle the mixed-up thoughts that only serve to make life ever more difficult, with wrong personal choices the threads that slowly strangle common-sense and the well-intentioned advice of others.
Talk, at heart you know it makes sense.

J.P. McManus in his guest column last week in the Racing Post has certainly started a conversation, if only with Racing Post journalists. I think it was Lewis Porteous, not Lee Mottershead as I wrote the other day – I am old, I get the names of people mixed-up all the time, at least when I can remember or half-remember names – who took the subject a little further down the line and in today’s paper Matt Butler made the excellent suggestion that the handicaps at the Festival, bar one or two, should have qualifiers throughout the season. The only downside to his proposal would be finance and whether the sponsors of the handicaps at the Festival would be prepared to throw money at a dozen or so races during the lead-up to March. Perhaps the proposal does not need a sponsor like Pertemps to have qualifiers for their own race, perhaps any 2-mile 4 race handicap hurdle would serve as a qualifier for the Coral Cup or 3-mile handicap chase for the Kim Muir or National Hunt Handicap. Again, a good proposal that should be considered, even if Cheltenham’s response to good ideas is along the lines of ‘it is our ball and we will play with it any way we choose.’

It was only a matter of time before Connell split with O’Sullivan and that time has come to pass. It seems the lure of Marine Nationale was not enough for the jockey to give-up his rides at Cork last Sunday, a meeting that was eventually abandoned, to school for the trainer after racing at Punchestown. Sean Flanaghan is now in the hot seat for the rest of the season.

A James Emm, in the letters’ column today, made a point that is worth consideration. He thinks, given the Irish dominance and that racing our top chasers over 3-miles so early in the season, that British-trained horses might fare better in the latter half of the season, and at the Cheltenham Festival, of course, if some of the top chases before Christmas were reduced in distance. There really is only one race to be discussed here and that is the Betfair Chase, a race I believe we could do without. But if it is to survive, perhaps shortening the distance to 2-miles 4 is a good suggestion. After all, the John Durkan over the same distance is thriving, while the Betfair is below par by comparison. 

Karen Wiltshire is a significant figure in the history of flat racing. She was the first female jockey to win a race against professionals. She has a book out, the title of which I have forgotten, though I intend to buy a copy between now and Christmas. I suspect there will be a lot of justifiable whinging, as well as justifiable disappointment that there remains in this country only three female professional riders who can be expected to ride in more than one race at Royal Ascot. Given Karen’s breakthrough came in 1978, that is slow progress.

​I do not subscribe to any social media platforms; I do, though, use the comment sections of various YouTube channels to express my views. Therefore, I only have confirmation of others as to what is posted on these platforms and have no doubt what is expressed is wide in its spectrum, from the sensible to the offensive.
In today’s Racing Post, Peter Scargill, a man of great racing knowledge, erred, I believe, from the subject matter of his employment, by suggesting only mainstream media can be trusted when it comes to the news. I have e-mailed him to point out his mistake in siding with the enemy of the people – mainstream news outlets. There are always two-sides to every story, unfortunately, and unbelievably, a situation that for the majority of my life I could never imagine coming to fruition in the land of parliamentary democracy, the B.B.C., I.T.V., Channel 4 and Sky News, are nothing more than spokespersons of government and worst of all, no friends of our sport, as I.T.V. and Channel 4 example far too often.
I just hope that the jockeys who have signed-up to promoting the sport through the David Power Jockeys Cup receive positive feedback when they are promoting the sport on social media and not the filth and ignorance the social platforms are notorious for.

I have complained about the handicapping system for many years, believing a system that prevents good horses from winning due to hefty penalties for winning a single race is a welfare issue. Handicappers in their wisdom will raise a horse by fifteen or sixteen pounds for winning one of the big handicaps in which few finish the race, yet are slow to drop these horses when it is apparent they cannot be competitive of their inflated mark. I have suggested median handicaps, where horses are handicapped on their last 3, 4 or 5-runs, so as to give badly handicapped horses a fair chance of winning again. Obviously, if this proposal was to come into being handicappers could not rely on their computers to draw-up a handicap but would have to do the calculations themselves.
It is my opinion major handicaps, as with this Saturday’s Coral Gold Cup (the old Hennessey) stopped being targets for top-class horses when handicappers stopped using their knowledge and initiative and relied solely on their computers when framing handicaps. Look at the winners of the Hennessey in its first twenty-years or the old Whitbread, and you will see the names of the very best horses ever to grace a racecourse. In that regard, Denman is an outlier, winning two Hennessey Gold Cups off top-weight.
The handicap system in this country is broke and it needs fixing.
Also, the racing calendar is broke and needs fixing. Or do we want Ireland to dominate us for evermore?

No one has ever agreed with me when I make the point that every modern-day racing commentator is superior to Peter O’Sullevan. I recognise that every commentator today will refer to Sir Peter as the doyen of commentators and individually their inspiration. I just say, listen to his commentaries with an open-mind and compare him to Richard Hoiles or Simon Halt and you will grasp the inconvenient truth that he made numerous mistakes, called a horse ‘running on’ when clearly it was fading and stumbled over his words in a way our present-day commentators do not.
That said: he was, and perhaps remains, the voice of racing and if I had a list of the ten most influential men or women of my lifetime he would be in the top five. He was and remains a great man whose reputation lives on in his Sir Peter O’Sullevan Awards which raises funds for animal charities, like the Brook Hospital, all around the world.
Sir Peter will never be forgotten as long as our sport exists and this year his special award is to be awarded to the ‘greatest jockey’, John Francome, who is also one of our sport’s greatest personalities and is well-deserving the honour to be bestowed on him. His acceptance speech will be, I am certain, as humble as it will be hilarious. A great champion; an even greater human-being, I suggest.

​I suppose the weather played its part, as did the flexibility of Punchestown in bringing the race forward in the calendar by a few weeks, yet it proved the point that if trainers are kettled into running their good horses in one race, the sport benefits.
The John Durkan, I would hazard to guess, was the best steeplechase run pre-Christmas in many a long year. Undoubtedly, we witnessed this season’s Gold Cup winner, though which of the four it was we will not know until the middle of next March.
Racehorses, you know, are like people, they all different. As are trainers and their training methods. I suspect of the first four Spillane’s Tower will benefit most for the run, and the third and fourth, Galopin Des Champs and Fastorslow will benefit most by 3-miles +. The winner, though, Fact or File, is a big horse and must surely come on for the run and at Cheltenham last year he gave the impression that the extra distance of the Gold Cup would hold no fears for him. At least, as long as Mark Walsh is fit and healthy come the Festival, Paul Townend will have no torturous decision to make, unlike on the Tuesday if Lossiemouth proves as good as the right people assume her to be.
At the moment, in my estimation, the best ante-post bet for the Gold Cup would be Galopin Des Champs at 4/1. As for who I think will actually win the Blue Riband this season, I have no firm fancy and am still using the prayer mat each weekend in hope the racing gods allow at least one British trainer to emerge with an obvious hope of being involved in the finish. 

Following on from J.P. McManus’s excellent proposals for improving both the competitiveness of the handicaps at the Cheltenham Festival and the season’s narrative, Lee Mottershead added his own thoughts and, as you would expect from such a free-thinking and astute racing columnist, he came up with an equally excellent proposal. I will not steal from his column, so go to the Racing Post and read his proposal yourself.
John Pullin, head honcho at Cheltenham, disappointed me with his response to J.P.’s thoughts, dismissing them out-of-hand with comments that suggested he knew better than J.P.. This is an example of why the sport is on a nosedive towards extinction. It is true that sometimes good ideas are not practical due to financial restraints. That is true of many of my ‘good ideas’ at improving aspects of the sport. Yet finance does not impinge on implementing either J.P.’s proposals or Lee Mottershead’s and, if John Pullin were not so vain, a conversation between both men, or in J.P.’s case, perhaps one of his team, might have found a consensus to benefit the Festival.
J.P.’s proposal was given with the good of the sport in mind, a proposal that if adopted, might actually work against his own interests. Lee Mottershead’s proposal had, in one direction, the welfare of the horse in mind, while at the same time attempting to have the handicaps at Cheltenham more like proper handicaps rather than conditions races with only a 6Ib spread between the top and bottom weight.
It makes one shake one’s head until a headache takes all your attention when good, well-meaning ideas are dismissed as easily as an empty milk carton at breakfast. 

Without Constitution Hill, surprisingly, the Fighting Fifth does not disappear into inconsequence but might actually be a better race for his absence. Sir Gino comes in as substitute for his more famous stable-mate and Mystical Power comes from Ireland to represent Willie Mullins. Crossed fingers there might be half-a-dozen other runners to make it a more appealing race for bettors. With Constitution Hill on parade, the overriding thought throughout the race would have been ‘is he alright? And looking for signs that all is not alright’. I did think, given the late withdrawal of Lossiemouth at Punchestown coinciding with the news that the Henderson star was lame and unlikely to make the trip to Newcastle, that Closutton’s strategic command had saw an easier opportunity foray and persuaded the Grand Master to redirect the mare to the North-East of England. It seems I wrong as the Hattons Grace is now on the agenda for the mare. We will see tomorrow when the entries are published in the Racing Post. I just thought that if Willie was prepared to run the mare against State Man, he might be prepared to run her against Mystical Power.

​Yesterday the National Hunt season finally kicked-off in earnest. As it always threatened to be, we waited for months for the weather gods to deliver rain and when it arrived, we all as one wished it would stop. Although every horse in the Betfair wanted softish going, apparently, the underfoot conditions did ruin the spectacle – the spectacle of tired horses being unable to gallop past the winning post is always hard on the eye. 
Haydock maybe Richi Rich’s favourite racecourse but it is not mine, either over jumps or on the flat. Maybe I have never forgiven the course’s masters for taking away the drop fences that made it ideal as a tester for Aintree aspirants, but ground conditions seem to play a greater part in proceedings at Haydock than at any other racecourse. Not their fault, of course.
That said, Royale Pagaille was a noble and deserving winner of the BetFred Chase, outbattling Grey Dawning after seemingly booked for second. Pundits mentioned how Royale Pagaille slowed into several of the fences, no doubt giving away ground, but to me it looked as if he was learning from past mistakes and was perfectly acceptable if you remember he cracked a bone in his shoulder when falling at Cheltenham last season. Venetia is a whizz at winning with horses that have not seen a racecourse in years or nine-months as it was Royale Pagaille yesterday.
It does not need proving as she has proved her training capabilities a hundred-times or more during her career, but give Venetia Williams a good horse and she will take it to the top echelon as would the likes of Mullins, Henderson and Nicholls and her record should be rewarded by owners sending her the type of horses the aforementioned receive on a seasonal basis.
That said, I would hope Venetia avoids the Gold Cup with Royale Pagaille this time around and gives thought to Aintree and the Little National. Where once Royale Pagaille would have had scant chance of jumping round in the long-distance handicap, now it would be a breeze for him. But who am I to offer the divine Venetia advice. She has done pretty darn well using her own noggin, hasn’t she?
The other horse who should be heading for Aintree and the long-distance handicap is Bravemansgame. Some seem to think him badly named, suggesting he is not brave enough to reach the heights when he won a King George. To me, he is now a dour stayer and no one could criticise the manner in which he finished Saturday’s race.
Without wishing to knock Grey Dawning as he is splendid individual, unless Dan Skelton can find a small race for him, I cannot imagine him winning a race this season. With all the will in the world I cannot see him winning the Gold Cup and he might just lack the class to bring down one of Mullin’s battalions at Aintree. I hope to be proved wrong but I think Ireland will dominate all the Grade 1, 3-mile chases this season.
Ballyburn was good at Punchestown. And that is all that needs to be said.
Betterdaysahead was also good in defeating the Champion Hurdler State Man. More needs to be said, though. She was receiving the mares’ allowance and had the benefit of a previous run this season, which State Man did not. What was immediately disappointing, though, especially by someone who hates ducking a challenge, is that Gordon Elliott did not add to the anticipation for what lies ahead by indicating the Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival ‘is made for her’. Well, it should not be. Cheltenham need to put the Champion Hurdle on a pedestal and do everything in their power to get the best 2-hurdlers in Britain and Ireland to line-up in it and the way to do that is to limit the rating for mares to run in the Mares race.
Another thing, will someone go to Closutton with a rake, shovel and a bucket to collect up all these stones that Willie’s best horses have a proclivity for stepping on.
Also, I notice that Polly Gundry has a horse entered-up next week called Lossiemouth and it has a fair few 1’s next to its name. Should not be, should not be!

​Apparently, according to whoever wrote-up the feature on the Japan Cup in this morning’s Racing Post, if Auguste Rodin were to win this weekend, he would join the elite status as ‘one of the immortals’. This debatable attribution got me thinking if anyone has applied definition to the various adjectives given to denote the place in the pantheon of excellence a racehorse achieves during its career.
Some horses are declared top-class; others great; some are legendary. Auguste Rodin teeters on the brink of being celebrated as ‘one of the immortals’. If this is a correct attribution, which I doubt anyone outside of Coolmore or Ballymore would concur with, a new term must be used to rank those racehorses of history who achieved far more in their careers than Auguste Rodin.
Before I attempt to develop my point of view, I must intercede with my belief that no three-year-old colt that is whisked off to stud can be regarded as an all-time great, only the best of his generation. City of Troy, as good as he was occasionally, will, in my eyes, only be ever considered the best of his generation, though he achieved that honour as both a two-year-old and as a three-year-old. Even so, in my estimation he ranks lower than Sea The Stars and Dancing Brave who were only the best of their three-year-old generation. To me, truly great flat horses must have c.v.’s similar to that achieved by Frankel and Brigadier Gerard.
Using a fairly old copy of The Penguin English Dictionary the definitions for ‘good’, ‘top-class’, ‘great’ and ‘legendary’, are : Good – of a favourable or desirable character or tendency – deserving of respect – adequate, satisfactory.
As you can see the term ‘good’ as applied to a sporting endeavour is rather vague, so perhaps we should drop the phrase ‘a good horse on his day’.
Great – extreme in effectiveness – eminent in a particular field.
Legendary – celebrated as if in legend, very famous.
Immortal – living for ever, enduring, of lasting fame.
Professionals, I realise, will define the true ability of a horse by the highest rating attributed either by the B.H.A. handicapper or the Racing Post. Yet I would argue that I once came top in a geography exam, which would suggest something that is unwise to believe. As I am presently belittling Auguste Rodin let me use him as an example of my thinking. He won a Derby and various other Group 1 races. On his day, he was obviously a top-class racehorse. But he also bombed-out occasionally. To my way of thinking his true mark would a median of his best and worse runs, not the rating he will retire with. A new term must be found to describe the merit of similar horses – those that are exceptional one-day and less than reliable on other days. So, using the five categories I have gone with, Auguste Rodin will not retire an ‘immortal’ but a good horse ‘who might have done better’.
I will stray from the flat to give examples of horses who I believe deserve to be described as top-class, great or legendary.
As of now, Galopin Des Champs, State Man and Constitution Hill are top-class, with the former the more likely of the three to be elevated to ‘one of the greats’. Spanish Steps and horses of his ilk can be described as ‘one of the greats’ due to his place as a cherished memory to so many people. Bula, Persian War and Altior are also examples as being ‘one of the greats’.
In the top-class and ‘one of the greats’ categories the list is pretty endless, with bias playing a part in peoples’ selection, as with my nomination of Spanish Steps. When it comes to legendary the list will be shorter and somewhat obvious. Firstly, though, some horses go beyond legendary – Arkle, Red Rum and Desert Orchid, for instance. Though the former is undoubtedly the greatest racehorse of all-time, flat or jumps, the other two removed themselves from merely living in the horse-racing world and on to the front pages of the daily newspapers and to this day if the man on the street were to be asked to name a racehorse the answer would most likely be Red Rum or Desert Orchid.
The flat has only one legend, I believe, and that is Frankel, though the likes of Ribot, Galileo (mainly as a stallion) and Brigadier Gerard are worth far more than merely being described as ‘one of the greats’. If only flat horses were allowed to race beyond four and were disqualified from taking up stud duties as four-year-olds.
Over jumps the legends come at you thick and fast – Sea Pigeon, Night Nurse, Monksfield, Sprinter Sacre, Moscow Flyer, Kauto Star, Big Bucks, Denman. On the flat I would suggest Brown Jack, with Kyprios as a legend in waiting.
When it comes to defining the true ability of a racehorse hyperbole is a tool for masking shortcomings. We need, I believe, a more strategic method of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the good from the better, the top-class from the great. The legends require no input from man to hoist their names high above the names of those who rode them in their victories, their trainers or owners.

Would you Adam and Eve it, Constitution Hill is lame again. Do you know who I blame – the trainer. He damned fate only last week by vehemently reminding naysayers that there has never been anything physically wrong with Constitution Hill. I think he even said the horse had never been lame in his life. For whatever reason, the racing gods have it in for Nicky Henderson and Michael Buckley and when Nicky said what he said, the gods saw a golden opportunity to mock him one more time.
The wheels are falling off, yet they fell off Sprinter Sacre for the best part of two-years and yet Nicky Henderson got him back to within a fetlock of his brilliant best. Let us hope for another fete of training of a similar level. The great man should have been knighted for Sprinter Sacre. If Constitution Hill wins the Champion Hurdle come March, nothing short of a Lordship will befit the achievement.

​Jack Leach, of ‘Sods I Have Cut on The Turf’ fame, is often quoted as saying ‘how can anyone die through the winter when they don’t know how last seasons two-year-olds have trained on.’ I am a bit like that at this time of year, though my inspiration to continue to dodge the Grim Reaper is wanting to know how last season’s novice hurdlers progress when tried over fences. Can you imagine the spirit of someone who leaves this mortal realm not knowing how Ballyburn did on his chase debut at Punchestown tomorrow or Sir Gino on Monday at Kempton? Mortified, I expect.
The fate of this season’s two-year-olds will not cross my mind till next spring and late spring at that.
I wonder if Paul Townend will sleep well tonight? And which horse will exercise his imagination as he tries to drop-off to sleep? Ballyburn? State Man? Galopin Des Champs? Has he chosen correctly; how will he feel if Lossiemouth beats State Man? Mortified? Or comforted by the knowledge that he can get back on Lossiemouth whenever he wants to? Surprisingly, Patrick Mullins gets the nod for Lossiemouth and not in-form cousin Danny Mullins.
Ballyburn is no shoo-in for a debut success as the race has plenty of likely outsiders. An outsider is any horse other than Ballyburn who will start long odds-on. State Man is also no certainly as he could easily be rolled-over by his stable-mate and current Champion Hurdle favourite, Lossiemouth and Galopin Des Champs will not face a stiffer test until March and the Gold Cup. All three might triumph; all three might be defeated by a stable-mate, such is the battalion of strength that lives at Closutton.
Incidentally, is it not ridiculous that the race following Ballyburn’s next step towards equine immortality, is a Beginners Chase over 3-miles and has attracted only three-runners, all trained by Gordon Elliott. Let us hope Jack Kennedy puts his leg across the right one.
The one wish we all will be in accordance with is that all these wonderful equine superstars come home safe and sound.

As is always the case when there is a ‘debacle’ in one of Cheltenham’s Cross-country Chases there is a call for more rails to guide the jockeys and prevent one of them from making an ass of themselves as befell Michael Nolan last week. The point people miss is that though this race takes place on a racecourse, the purpose of cross-country races is to mimic a ride across country where the rider is guided by fences not railings. Cross-Country races should not be considered a novel steeplechase and punters should realise that a jockey ‘going wrong’ is all part and parcel of the jollity.
On this subject, I feel it is unfair on Michael Nolan or any jockey who falls foul of the circumnavigations of the Cross-Country course to be fined or suspended when what can be considered ‘as the inevitable’ happens. The Glenfarglas may be run under the rules of racing but that should not mean leniency cannot be applied by the stewards. Nolan was embarrassed by his mistake and though it was clearly his misjudgement, his horse did not help his cause by ignoring Nolan’s supplications to turn his head. Controversial, perhaps, but could racecourses could reintroduce stocks on the lawn and when a jockey makes an ass of himself, the public could be called-upon to throw tomatoes and other rotten fruit on the miscreant for ten-minutes to prolong the jollity.

As expected, the two horses who died during and at the end of the handicap chase at Cheltenham last Sunday died of ‘exercise-associated sudden death’ or cardiovascular collapse. Napper Tandy broke his neck and I suspect died instantly. The fact that autopsies were carried out on the two heart attack victims should be publicised on all social media platforms so the veterinary truth is there for all to see and for people to realise the deaths of horses on racecourses is not a ‘sweeping it under the carpet’ exercise.

A letter in today’s Racing Post heaped praise on Taylor Fisher who though regarded as a useful flat apprentice is also plying his trade as a jumps jockey, having already won two handicap chases on School for Scandal and is perhaps the only jockey currently riding on the flat, over hurdles and fences and is successful in all three codes. The sort of young man who deserves all the success that comes his way.