​Soon, sometime either at the end of January or the start of February, the initial entries for the Grand National will close and the day after they will be published in the Racing Post. For the majority of my life, I would scan the names of the entries with excitement at my heart. Many a time, a cold or drab winters’ day would be elevated by the names of a hundred or more horses who might, come early April, line-up for the greatest race in the world. This year, my interest will be no greater than first seeing the entries for the major races for the Cheltenham Festival.
We all know the names to expect in the list of possible runners for the Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle and other Grade 1 races. The entry of Stay Away Fay in the Gold Cup surprised me and A Plus Tard not being amongst the entries surprised me, yet everything else was as I expected to see. It will be the same with the Grand National entries in a few weeks. There might be a case of ‘I’m surprised to see that entered’ but all-in-all it will be a mixture of familiar names and those whose rating you know will not get them into the race. You know, the sound jumper, the dour stayer, the type of horse that in days gone by would be considered ‘National types’.
One of the consequences of raising the minimum rating for the race, aided and abetted by lowering the number of horses allowed to line-up, is to render the majority of the traditional trial races throughout the season rather pointless when it comes to the Grand National narrative. It is rather like turning all the classic trials on the flat into limited handicaps to make them more competitive to boost betting turnover. Even Aintree’s own Becher Chase is now irrelevant as a genuine trial for the Grand National. If the winner is rated lower than the necessary minimum required for entry it will be excluded from the ‘Grand National narrative’ even if it has winged around the course in the manner of a ‘true National prospect’.
Also, one of the consequences of continually upping the minimum rating for entry to the race is to render pointless the majority of races throughout the season traditionally considered to be Grand National trials. The Warwick Classic was building a reputation as one of the top ‘National’ trials of the season, yet on Saturday its name was not part of the ‘Grand National narrative’. The Eider was once upon a time considered a proper trial for Aintree, it is now been allowed to fall into the category of just another long-distance chase, on a par with the regional nationals that are now so populace in the racing calendar.
I fear the ‘Grand National narrative’ is being deliberately censored. I fear the race is being run-down in the manner of a frog that doesn’t know it’s being boiled alive as the temperature of the water is slowly but surely raised. I fear Aintree and the B.H.A. have a cunning plan to eventually do away with the race as it no longer fits the puzzle that is woke politics and societal reform.
At the moment, the Grand National is not so much a great sporting event as a cash-cow for Aintree, Jockey Club Holdings and the B.H.A. and is being overly protected to maintain profit, not to make it safe for posterity. 
For over sixty-years the Grand National has enthused me and given me the greatest pleasure of my life. In my racing library I have at least five books on the subject, with Reg Green’s ‘A Race Apart’ perhaps my most valued book. In my seventieth-year, I actual hope this year’s race is my personal last as I cannot bear to think my last few years will coincide with the eventual death of the race. I nearly cried when the race was lost to Covid and all that nonsense and I was furious when the race was voided due to the sport’s inability to get a horse race started in an orderly manner. Now, I am just saddened beyond words can fully articulate by what is being done to the race by those who should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder to protect its glorious heritage.

​I have little idea how racecourses set about finding sponsors. I dare say when one sponsor announces the end of its support for one the major races, the marketing division of a racecourse frantically sets about to find a replacement sponsor. I doubt, in these financially stringent times, sponsors are queuing up to sponsor horse racing, especially as we are not as woke as the lilywhites would want us to be.
In Britain, we rely heavily on bookmakers to put-up the majority of the prize-money for both the lesser and increasingly our top-flight races, both flat and National Hunt. In Ireland, I notice, local companies are more frequently seen with their names associated with races, with anyone from engineering companies, local hotels and pubs, to local oil companies, stepping-up to the plate, than similar small businesses in this country. Perhaps Irish racecourses remain more closely allied to its local communities than over here.
I suggest the marketing division of racecourses should remind potential backers of the sport of the power of sponsorship. The long-distance handicap chase run at Sandown on the last day of the National Hunt season remains to this day in the memory of racing people as ‘The Whitbread’, even though the brewery withdrew its sponsorship a very long time ago. The handicap chase at Newbury run in November, now run as the Coral Trophy (?) is still referred to many racing people as the ‘old Hennessey’, the instigators of the race back in the late 1950’s.
On this day in 1987, followers of National Hunt racing were disappointed when Schweppes announced they would no longer sponsor the hurdle race at Newbury known as the Schweppes Gold Trophy. Thirty-seven-years later the 2-mile handicap hurdle, now sponsored by Betfair, remains entrenched in racing’s consciousness as ‘the Schweppes’.
The popularity of National Hunt is due to companies like Whitbread, Hennessey and Schweppes seeing horse racing sponsorship as good business-sense and perhaps value for money. Until Bill Whitbread sponsored the race at Sandown, flat racing for hundreds of years far out-sung the winter game and was considered far more popular with the racing public. National Hunt, apart from the Grand National and from the sixties onwards the Cheltenham Festival, only existed to fill the cold and snowy void between November and March.
The Schweppes Gold Trophy began in 1963, at Aintree. It’s history was shorter than either the Whitbread and the Hennessey, ending in 1987, though I suspect its impact was just as significant as hurdle racing was at the time only a stepping stone to horses jumping fences and carried far less esteem with the public. The Schweppes changed all that and attracted some of the best hurdlers of the age, including its best winner, Persian War.
Well-handicapped horses could take the prize, too and in all its guises it has remained one of the most competitive races in the calendar. In 1982, and for all younger enthusiasts who think Ruby Walsh has no peers, or Richard Dunwoody or A.P. McCoy, this is a race that should be not only watched but studied. John Francome put up 4Ibs overweight (wouldn’t be countenanced today by modern trainers) on the free-going Donegal Prince. Anyone who list their top-three National Jockeys and does not include John Francome needs to have their brains washed. The horse fought for his head, was taken on and passed several times, never looked like the winner after the last as David Goulding brought Ekbalco with a perfectly-timed run and yet Francome, defying Peter O’Sullevan’s race-call, got back up on the line to win. A tour-de-force of a ride, deserving of a great race.
Has Newbury asked whoever now owns the Schweppes brand to return as sponsors? Has it been mentioned to them of the power of sponsorship; that 40-years since they ended their commercial sponsorship of the race, the name Schweppes remains associated with the race? Schweppes not only had their name in the race title, they also produced calendars that hung in pubs, betting shops and elsewhere for twelve-months of the year but also owned a couple of racehorses bearing their name. It would be too much to ask for a similar commitment to the sport but they might be arm-twisted by flattery and marketing persuasion to return as sponsors when Betfair decide to put their money elsewhere. Perhaps.
Of course, last year would have been 60th anniversary of the race. That would have been the year for the return of Schweppes. But, still, I would love to have Schweppes return as sponsors of the iconic handicap hurdle, the race that made handicap hurdles cool.
One final point on this subject. This does not apply to Whitbread, Hennessey or the Schweppes sponsorship as their races did not exist until they were inaugurated under their company names. But as soon as a sponsor announces it will no longer sponsor a race that has always bore its name and until a new sponsor is found, the race no longer exists as it has no name. Since originally voicing my ire on this subject, races are now given registered names, though that ‘official’ name is never referenced in the race title. In the U.S. a race might be the ‘Highlight Stakes’ (made it up as U.S. racing does not float my boat) brought to you by ….. add in sponsor’s name. So why not the Grand National brought to you by Randox Health? The Newbury Handicap Hurdle brought to you by Betfair. Or the XXX handicap hurdle brought to you by Local Engineering, for all your (listing what is the core product of the company)?

​I dislike the word ‘premierisation’ and have taken the unilateral decision to replace it with the term ‘premier racing’. ‘Premierisation’ suggests separation crossed with improvement and as my fear of the smaller racecourses being classed as ‘lesser beings’ is yet to prove founded in fact and horse racing in its entirety is still as far from being turned into a winning machine as it was on December 31st, I shall decline to use ‘premierisation’ as if it is the small m messiah the sport in this country has cried out for, for as long as my fading memory allows.
Since Peter Saville came into the open with his plan to save racing’s future, and certainly on the day the B.H.A. announced the 2-year trial of the concept, my thoughts have swung between hating the idea and thinking it might be the first steps along the right road. As with all B.H.A. directives, it hasn’t started very well, with few runners at the inaugural ‘Premier racing day at Cheltenham and the abandonment of due to the vagaries of the British winter weather. 
To my mind, the concept of premier racing would have been given a more coherent start if it had been delayed to March and applied only to race-meetings where genuine premier races are held. With all due respect to salt of the earth Plumpton, the meeting yesterday, albeit with greater prize-money than in years previously, did not attract a single horse of premier standard. In truth, it was standard Plumpton fare semi-pumped-up to be something it wasn’t, premier. With the possible exception of Cheltenham’s trials day and Newbury’s big meeting in February (Denman, Game Spirit, the handicap hurdle), there is no meeting between now and the Festival which might termed premier fare. There will plenty of good, honest racing on practically every Saturday that winter allows to be staged, of course, but I would argue that the word ‘premier’ should not be attached to meetings and races that fail to attract the very best in the sport.
I am now of the opinion that all the B.H.A. are doing with premier racing is plumping pillows to make the drawing room look smarter to the eye than it actually is in reality. Premier racing will not, even though benefits might come from it, mask ordinariness or the need for that ordinariness to be funded so that the bottom of the pyramid is maintained to allow it to prop-up the higher echelons of the sport. Healthy plants have a healthy root system, never forget.
Associating horse racing with other sports and trying to define a golden highway to a similar funding stream and status is sheer folly. The Premier League has only 20 participants, with a wide gulf between the top half-dozen and the rest. Football is also a sport played and watched in practically every country around the world. While flat racing takes place on every non-frozen continent to one extent or another, National Hunt racing only has three strongholds, Britain, Ireland and France.
I have come to the conclusion that while the concept of premier racing has potential, the scope it has been given is too broad, with too much wishful thinking attached. The genuine premier races and meeting should be given a boost in prize-money to keep them on a par with similar races and meetings in countries funded far more sensibly than in Britain or Ireland and with budgets that will allow for promotion and marketing to get the word out to not only the sporting public but the world at large. Horse racing should be seen by the public as a good day out for all the family. We will only get youngsters through the gate in hand with their parents.
Instead of throwing the kitchen sink at the problem of getting bums on seats, a more directed approach, at least in the first year, would prove more effective, I believe. Big-up the big meetings, the premier days of the sport. Have the vision to attract 100,000 to Epsom on Derby Day and promote it as the ‘peoples’ day out’, with no or less emphasis on it being a ‘toffs benefit do’.
Let me give the example of Newcastle’s Northumberland Plate. I hope Newcastle on the day is to be given premier status. Yet in truth the only race of the entire meeting worthy of the badge of honour is the Plate. On the day, instead of this nonsense ‘golden exclusion zone’, with only two Premier race-meetings and one other allowed, with all other meetings starting either mid-morning or early evening, why not a race-meeting wide hiatus for an hour so the racing and sporting public can focus solely on the Plate? Have the ambition to grow the Plate into a British version of the Melbourne Cup.
To my mind, money will be wasted over the next two-years in an attempt to persuade the public that races and meetings are premier quality when in fact they are second or third division fare. This Saturday we have the Warwick Classic, a long-distance chase of dubious quality, with little hope of a single runner that might fight a good fight in a genuine premier race. In itself, the Warwick Classic is fine race and deserves its place as the main race of the day. But it is not a premier race and no amount of money spent in prize-money or marketing will make it so and I cannot see punters lumping greater amounts of money on the race than they normally might do simply on the basis the B.H.A. have tagged the day a premier day.
There are genuine premier days in British racing, we all know the names of the races and the racecourses where they are traditionally held, and that is where the focus should be during the two-years of this cross-your-fingers trial. Luton versus Burnley is not a premier game in the Premiership, whereas Manchester City versus Liverpool is a premier day.

​I believe, with one notable exception, that the problems presently besetting horse racing in Britain at present can be traced back to the day a High Court judge came to the conclusion that the owners of racecourses were disadvantaged by not being able to race when it suited them and from that moment the B.H.A. lost control of the sport. In the past, the sport’s governing body, ruled the roost, telling racecourses when they could race and which type of races they should provide.
Sensible racing people advocate for less racing, whereas the owners of racecourses want to saturate the racing calendar with more and more fixtures. At least that was the case; they have been reined in over the last few years, although Chelmsford is proposing litigation against the B.H.A. if they are not given more race-meetings. In the next year or so the new turf course at Chelmsford comes into action and quite rightly they want additional fixtures rather than having to use fixtures presently allocated to them for all-weather racing.
If we didn’t have all-weather racing or summer jumping, of course, the problem of too many fixtures for too few racehorses would not be the stranglehold that it is. All-weather racing, to my mind, is an evil necessity and I would like to separate all-weather racing, and summer jumping, from turf fixtures.
To first deal with summer jumping as that is far less of an obstacle to be overcome than all-weather racing. I have come to the conclusion that summer jumping should have a designated start and stop date, with a gap of a few weeks either side of the end of the ‘proper’ season and the beginning of the next, with winners in the designated period not included in title races for champion jockey, trainer, owner, etc,. Instead, we should have a summer champion jockey, trainer, owner, etc. I would also like to see fixtures given an environmental slant, with race-meetings in the north and Scotland one week, with two and three-day fixtures to create ‘festivals’ as is done so successfully in Ireland, with the same happening in the south, midlands and the west of the country. Wouldn’t it save on travelling expenses if jockeys and trainers did not have to drive to three or four different racecourses a week but located themselves in one part of the country for the duration of the race-meetings in that part of the country?
I suggest summer all-weather racing should also be excluded from the title race for champion jockey, trainer, etc. The greatest gain from such a radical change would be less incentive for the top jockeys to ride every day of the week, allowing those jockeys further down the food chain to have greater opportunities. Again, once the flat turf season is under way, all-weather racing would have its own summer championships; spreading the glory, as it were.
All-weather flat racing is less of an evil necessity to my mind as it regularly saves the day when winter weather claims National Hunt fixtures. Already it has its own title races, though the victors rarely receive the same acclaim for their hard endeavours throughout the worst of the British weather as, for example, the champion jockey on the turf.
Sidenote: Rossa Ryan rode over 200-winners in 2023, more than any other jockey, including William Buick, yet received no award, no acclaim. 
There is, at this moment in our history when the number of racehorses in training is in sharp decline, too many fixtures. It is unarguable, even when an increase in prize-money is linked to racecourse payments for media rights. It is a no-brainer, as proved when the weather takes it toll on the fixture-list, that too many race-meetings equates to small field sizes and less betting turnover.
‘Premierizing’ the sport may achieve champagne fountains of success. Yet it flies in the face of common-sense when the B.H.A. allow other race-meetings on the major days of the sport – the Derby, Grand National, Royal Ascot, Cheltenham Gold Cup, to name but a few – when their aim is to emphasise and herald to the sporting public the jewels of racing’s crown.
Separate the flat and National Hunt turf seasons from the lesser all-weather and summer jumping divisions and grow the sport from the bottom up, not from the exclusivity of the elite down. Sadly, I doubt if the sport has the luxury of time to get its house in order. In two-years, I fear, the length of the ‘premierisation trial’, we might all come to realise the fate of horse racing in this country.

​I have on my desk, in need of being replaced by an up-to-date edition, is a copy of 2018 ‘Horses In Training’. So many good, bad and ugly things have happened to horse racing in this country since 2018 but a constant source of pride and joy has been Frodon. There he is listed as a 6-year-old in Paul Nicholl’s squad for the 2018 season and also on the list is Pacha Du Polder, by then an 11-year-old, the horse that first brought Miss Bryony Frost, as she was then, to prominence when winning the Foxhunters at the Cheltenham Festival. 
I stand to be corrected but of the 156 horses listed under Paul Nicholl’s name in 2018, Frodon, Dolos, Enrilo and Greanateen are the only ones to still be stabled at Ditcheat in 2024, though a good many are still racing for other trainers.
It is to be doubted when Frodon first arrived from France that Paul Nicholls’ had great expectations of him and I would put a tenner on Nicholl’s not believing he would still be living at Ditcheat all these years later. He arrived not as a six-year-old but two-years earlier, so he has lived and earned his keep at Ditcheat for going-on 9-years.
He cannot, as much as I have grown to love him – I nearly voted for him in the Racing Post’s dubious ‘Greatest Racehorses Poll, deciding in the end to go with my first love, Spanish Steps – to be regarded in the same breath as Kauto Star, Denman, Big Bucks or several other true greats of National Hunt racing who raced under the Paul Nicholls’ banner. He ploughed his own furrow, though, shining bright during a slow period in the career of his maestro trainer. Kauto and Denman in particular were always destined for top honours and though they won handicaps, they were always a grade or two above the rank and file. Frodon came from a lesser parish. He toiled in handicaps from the start, working his way through the grades until he was winning December Gold Cups and other top-level middle-distance handicaps. That, I am sure, is where Paul Nicholls’ thought his rise through the ranks would end. Of course, Frodon never doubted his own ability.
He retires with 19-victories, which for the modern era is remarkable. His win in the Ryanair remains my favourite of his big race successes, though in the record books it will be eclipsed by his King George success when he had his better-rated stable-mates Clan Des Obeaux and Cyrname toiling in his wake. His third Grade 1 was achieved at Down Royal when his exuberant jumping didn’t win the day and he had to rely on courage and determination not to be headed.
John Francome named him the best jumper of a fence he had ever seen and I can’t remember, at least with Bryony, him ever making a mistake of any kind. I have said that anyone of the belief that racing people make horses race against their will should be placed in front of a film of Frodon running in any of the 50-odd races he competed in and point to evidence for their belief. He loved racing and most of all he loved jumping fences, hence when they took out half the fences in the Old Roan Chase at Aintree, as Bryony said, he became confused and disinterested.
It will not be lost on Bryony that Frodon is the last of horses in the yard that we all considered were her mounts, horses that Harry Cobden had no rights to. Present Man was her ride, so was Secret Investor and Yala Enki, and it must be remembered she won a Tingle Creek on Greanateen. I hope she keeps the ride on Il Ridoto after her performance at Cheltenham recently on him and for the benefit of the sport I hope other horses emerge to help keep her name in the spotlight.
My hope for 2024, and will be on-going for the years ahead, is that Frodon out-lives me and enjoys a happy and useful life, continuing to bring joy to Bryony’s life and to the lives of her family. 

​One of the saddest and most alarming spectacles on a racecourse is ‘the tired fall’. When all is to play for at the sharp end of a race, the tired fall is somehow allowable, as the sport is, as we know, for connections and punters, at least, all about being first past the post. The sight, though, that is both disagreeable to the eye of the enthusiast and grist to the mill of those who believe horse racing to be an unsavoury experience, is the fall of a horse ‘out on its feet’ and with no chance of winning or being placed, with the subsequent holding of breath until the horse rises to his feet. The jockey, of course, we care less about it, even when he remains underneath half a ton of unmoving horse!
Back in the day, the Chair Fence at Aintree was manned by a racecourse official who was known as the Distance Judge and assisted the Racecourse Judge. He would sit on a chair mounted on a plinth and direct jockeys, who were still racing when the previous finisher had passed the finishing post, to pull-up as their mounts as they would be deemed non-finishers and recorded as being beaten by a ‘distance’.
Of course, jockeys do not set-out to get their horse on the ground during a race, sometimes, though, misjudgements occur and horses do fall, sometimes fatally, while on other occasions they remain on the ground winded, with the green canvas screens erected so vets can administer to the horse in private whilst shielding the public from the sight of a stricken horse. As was proved during the Welsh National at Chepstow over the Christmas period, jockeys tend to err on the side of caution when all hope of prize-winning is gone these days and will pull up their mounts earlier in a race than perhaps their forebears might have done in the past. It is always better to pull-up one fence too early than one fence too late.
How it might be achieved without jockeys wearing some form of communication device is difficult to suggest from someone with no race-riding experience, but the return of the ‘distance judge’ in some form might be worth discussion at B.H.A. headquarters.
If a horse is a distant third as the winner passes the winning post, and another a distant fourth, for example, would it not be expedient, to take away the possibility of a crashing fall, for the jockey to be instructed to pull-up and the owner awarded third or fourth prize-money, with bookmakers paying out as if the horse had jumped the final obstacle (or final two fences) as if it is a finisher?
Horse racing is only similar to athletics in that there is a start and a finish. In athletics, for the athletes, it is a sport about ‘personal bests’, with an athlete often stepping off the track having finished 12th smiling as broadly as the winner due to having broken his or her personal best time for the event. Horse racing is not about personal bests or track records. There is no shame in not finishing the race, though there may be disappointment and sometimes tears.
The sport must do all in its powers to eliminate, as far as fate will allow, the unnecessary and preventable falls. Some form of ‘distance judge’ might go some way to achieving fewer green screens utilized on the racecourse.

As others have stated, Galopin Des Champs was spectacular in the Savills Chase and looks to have a second Gold Cup in his grasp. Of course, Cheltenham in March is a different ball-game to Leopardstown at Christmas. For the sake of a competitive race come March, it is to be hoped Gordon Elliott finds something amiss with Gerri Colombe and that A Plus Tard comes on leaps and bounds for his first run of the season and only his third in two-seasons. Shishkin, thankfully, has survived his unfortunate trip-up in the King George and he might yet surprise and shock the connections of Galopin Des Champs come March.
What is worrying for the opposition, must be that while Galopin looked vulnerable when held-up in his races, at least to my eyes he looked to have a fall in him, reverting back to allowing him to bowl along, he looks imperious and immaculate over his fences. To beat him, others must lay up with him as he will not be going backwards in the closing stages. Can Hewick stay with him? Has Shishkin the stamina to lay a glove on him up the stamina-sapping hill to the finishing line? Will Fastorslow prove too too fast for Galopin or too slow?
What the Christmas period has proved is that if the racing schedule is amended and tweaked positive outcomes can be achieved. God-willing, this season Galopin might be seen on a racecourse three-times before Cheltenham rather than twice as it was last season and Nicky Henderson is persuaded that it is possible for Constitution Hill to have three-races in the run-up to the Champion Hurdle, though due to a combination of frost and heavy ground, this season he’ll have to win a second Champion Hurdle off a preparation of only two runs, as it was last season. Further tweaks are needed and it might aid the B.H.A. if they consulted trainers as to how those tweaks might provide the greatest amount of benefit.

​I would not normally post a blog the day after the King George. Also, I have other writing projects I should be attempting to get to grips with. But I feel an overwhelming need to gloat, to boast and generally preen myself like a cat in the sunshine.
Of course, I didn’t walk across town to the local bookmaker and all I have about me this early morn is pride and no monetary gain, no wallet stuffed with ten-pound and twenty-pound notes.
Hewick at 12/1; longer odds, of course, at the time I suggested he was the best value in the race. Was he a worthy winner, though? Was Dame Good Fortune on his side?
Shishkin was unlucky. Make no bones about it. Only Nico de Boinville can know what Shishkin had left in him at the time of his slip-up, though to me he did look the likely winner. It was an extraordinary capsize, reminiscent of Goshen’s tip-up in the Triumph Hurdle at Cheltenham. Remarkably, Shishkin remained on his feet, a feat of survival that hopefully does not result in serious injury as he deserves another chance to prove his ability in top-class 3-mile chases. I cross my fingers that his chance comes in this season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup.
Bravemansgame was impacted by Shishkin’s shemozzle at the third-last fence and, I believe, with Allaho not seeing out his race as expected, he should have gone on to repeat his success of last year. That he didn’t is a problem Paul Nicholls will direct his full attention to solving during the next few weeks. The horse stayed well enough in the Gold Cup last season, simply beaten by a better horse on the day, so he should have been strong at the finish yesterday. Of course, Hewick capitulated at the third-last in last year’s running of the Gold Cup and in outstaying Bravemansgame in the King George makes it extremely likely he would have done the same at Cheltenham last season and pressed Galopin Des Champs closer and harder than the Nicholls horse managed to achieve.
Having not given any hope to Hewick at any stage of the King George, going to the last, a good jump permitting, I couldn’t see any other winner of the race as he was the only horse going forward with any momentum. Make no mistake, this was a brilliant ride from Gavin Sheehan and must be a candidate for ride of the season. To persevere when all hope seemed lost for the majority of the race, to keep the faith that the trainer’s instruction and advice ‘that the horse will be staying on at the finish’ was faith closer to prayer than experience.
And Hewick, too, deserves bouquets. He must be one of the smallest horses ever to win a Grade 1 chase and one of the cheapest ever bought at public auction. I could afford £800, that’s how cheaply bought he was! A truly remarkable horse that the public will take to their hearts. Tiny Hewick and giant-sized Shark Hanlon, fictional characters if they were not so real, so very good for the sport.
Allaho looked as if he didn’t truly stay, though he also didn’t resemble the horse of two-seasons ago, either. At the moment, I wouldn’t have him for the Ryanair, though Willie Mullins is the maker of miracles, so to right him off in December for a race in March would be foolish in the extreme. The Real Wacker must be better than his effort yesterday, as I write, as he remains the only horse to have beaten Gerri Columbe who will be Gold Cup favourite if he wins the Savilles Chase at Leopardstown this week. Frodon, of course, is light of former years and it was rather sad to see Shishkin brush him aside as easily as he did long before entering the straight. Hopefully he will have one last hurrah, though the handicappers will doubtless not be kind enough to allow that to be easily achieved.
My overwhelming thought to come from reviewing this season’s King George is that Shishkin has no injury serious enough to put him on the sidelines as we need a definitive answer to the question as to whether he is a Gold Cup horse or not. But Hewick was a brave and deserving winner and that there is no jockey with more confidence running through his veins at the moment than Gavin Sheehan.

​In my opinion, novice hurdles, or indeed novice chases, for that matter, should never be the feature race, especially on a Saturday. Yes, I know, anoraks can trot out a dozen previous winners of the old Tolworth at Sandown that went on to win at the Cheltenham Festival and I am not suggesting such races have no place in the racing calendar. To trainers, conditions novice events are important. As a supporting race, such races add interest to a card but there is neither pzazz to novice races nor are they a boon to betting turnover.
Moving the Tolworth to Aintree on Boxing Day, renaming it the Formby, a title that will doubtless disappear under the welter of a commercial sponsor, might make the race more competitive as northern trainers could be persuaded to run their better novices in it and the B.H.A.’s intention does have sound motives. But would it not have been sensible to shift the race to Kempton, where better ground will be on offer, to help establish the King George meeting as a ‘Christmas Festival’, an idea several big names in the sport has advocated in the past?
With the ‘death by a thousand cuts’ agenda of Aintree and its clerk of the course, it might be to the Grand National’s long-term benefit to run a Grand National trial at its new Boxing Day fixture, the Valentine Chase over a distance longer than the Becher but shorter than the Grand National itself? I would be pretty confident a race of significance over the National fences would draw a larger crowd than a novice hurdle as the feature race.

It is good, though disappointing at the same time, that Pyledriver is to stand at Coolmore as a National Hunt stallion. Doubtless under their marketing skills, Pyledriver will become a popular stallion for National Hunt breeders, it is just sad that a horse with the Group 1 victories he has achieved cannot be given a chance as a flat stallion. It would be also be sad if William Muir and Christy Grassick never get the chance to train any of Pyledriver’s offspring, given they train exclusively on the flat.
A lack of a blue-blooded pedigree is the negativity around Pyledriver as a flat stallion, born on the wrong side of the street, you might say. Rather like Brigadier Gerard who also had a modest pedigree, genes are everything to breeders, not that a lack of the in-genes stopped the Brigadier becoming one of the greatest flat horses of all-time. Some claim him as the greatest, with only recency allowing Frankel to be considered his superior.

I believe a sounder surface will see Bravemansgame back to his best in the King George and the assured decent gallop set by either Frodon or Allaho, or both, will also be to his benefit. On form, with Geri Colombe now running in a very hot Saville’s Chase at Leopardstown, the King George should be between Bravemansgame and Allaho. But the following of form is not an exact science. Form is up for interpretation. With instinct or a hunch always coming into play when trying to decide upon a winner.
If Shishkin jumps off, which he will if Nico can keep him away from Frodon’s naughty influence – in his excitement for the race Frodon can whip round at the start – he remains a player and take with a pinch of salt Nicky Henderson’s talk of ‘the horse perhaps not being 100% fit – how many times as he got a horse ready to win first time out?
The King George always pulls at the heartstrings. It was always the same with Desert Orchid and Kauto Star and with Thistlecrack, Cue Card and when Frodon was in his pomp, and yes, my heart will still root for Frodon, even though my head tells me he has little chance this time around. Then there is my assertion after his Aintree win last season that Shishkin is a Gold Cup winner in waiting. That’s looking a bit silly now but if he were to succeed on Monday then what little reputation I have will be restored. (I remain of the belief that Galopin Des Champs has a fall in him).
So, I will die happy if Frodon could roll back the years, I have a vested interest in Shishkin winning and I expect Bravemansgame and Allaho to battle out the finish. Yet if I were to venture down to the bookies Boxing Day morning, where would my fiver each-way go? Hewick is the answer to that question and I don’t really now why. Instinct, perhaps. A hunch. Or perhaps he is the best value in the race. Or perhaps Gavin Sheehan can do no wrong at the moment. Or perhaps I am looking for the fairy-tale of Kempton Park once again?

​I remain vexed at the decision to restrict the number of runners in the 2024 Grand National to 34. 34 is an arbitrary number and will not prevent equine fatalities. 24 or 14 would not prevent accidents occurring. 68 have run in the race in the past without a single equine fatality. Fate determines death, not numerology. 
I am not saying measures were not required to make the race a smidgen safer but picking a number to reduce the field by and crossing fingers is not one that gives me any confidence that Suleka Varma and her team are to be trusted with the world’s most famous horse-race. 
In the aftermath of last season’s race, I wrote to Aintree suggesting that over the first three fences jockeys should be instructed to keep in as straight a line as possible in order to reduce crowding in the early stages of the race. To my mind, the first three fences are the most problematic. I suggested a draw to position horses at the start in groups of three, the inside group, the middle and outer. Radical and strange for a jumps race and not without its own problems but as long as jockeys kept in as straight a line as possible to after the third fence it would make no difference which horses were in which group when the tape goes up.
Also, and I am far from alone in advocating this, ‘win and you are in’ races would at least ensure the right type of horse ran in the race. Raising the minimum rating has rendered the Becher Chase, the main, I would argue, trial for the Grand National, rather pointless. The Grand Sefton and the Becher Chase were resurrected in order to give horses more experience of the unique Aintree fences and yet since Suleka Varma has become Clerk of the Course, these two race have no more significance to the Grand National than a 3-mile handicap chase at Worcester, Sedgefield or name your own third example. In winning the Becher a few weeks ago, Chambard proved himself an ‘Aintree horse’ and his connections should not have to be worrying if the horse will be allowed to compete in the big race. Latenightpass also looks a solid Aintree type, yet his connections, too, cannot make a plan as they too must fret over whether the horse will be rated high enough to get in.
Just being rated 150-plus does not automatically make any horse fit to compete in a Grand National. For the race to survive, the Grand National must be competed for by the right horses, not the highest-rated. Suleka Varma should research Grand National history; she will find that Gold Cup winners have perished in the race.
At the moment a novice chaser with limited experience of steeplechase fences, if it had a high-enough rating, can run in the race but a solid, dependable chaser with good form, winning form, perhaps, around the Aintree fences, as with Chambard, might not.
Also, there is a call for a ‘consolation race’ over the Aintree fences for horses with a rating below that needed for a start in the main event. It is a good idea, though it might be difficult to organise within a 3-day meeting. It needs to be discussed, though, as again it would ensure the right type of horse running in the race. Possible solutions might be to increase the distance of the Becher Chase and frame the race to attract as many runners as possible and with increased prize-money. Resurrect the Valentine Chase to be run the same day as the Grand Sefton. Or stage the Foxhunters and Topham on the Thursday of the meeting and have the Grand National consolation race on the Friday. The main benefit of the consolation race idea is that there would be no need for a minimum rating and as such the race would attract more entries and thus generate more prize-money.
The Grand National must return to 40-runners, with no more lowering of fences as such a move will only be met by a faster pace as jockeys come to stop fearing the fences and ride the race as just another long-distance chase.
Aintree’s policy of ‘death by a thousand-cuts’ is the greatest threat to the race since Bill Davies bought the course with the intention of building houses on the site. We, as enthusiasts of the race, need to rise-up and stand firm against the plans of Suleka Varma and her gang of crowd-pleasers and bombard her in-box with our complaints and fears. It’s the peoples’ race, Miss Varma, not your race. You are merely its custodian; you are in charge of our race, the peoples’ race. Start speaking to us; stop telling us what is in the best interests of our race.

​What I meant to include in my last ‘blog’ was that it would be unfair to restrict top National Hunt trainers from having more than 4-runners in any of the major handicaps, yet not restrict flat trainers to no more than 4-runners in races like the Epsom Derby or the Royal Hunt Cup. Admittedly, my brain took me on a journey to display my ignorance of the subject, allowing me to suggest that the rule of 4 restriction was all-embracing and included all races, which obviously is not the intention of the B.H.A. I get things wrong; I’m ageing, and not well, and sometimes I pick the bad apples along with the juicy.
There is good intention behind the rule of 4 proposal and I do not concur with the opinion that it is wrong to punish successful trainers simply for being successful. Did you know that 86% of the products you buy in shops or on-line, including the major banks, are either owned 100% or are governed by sway of majority shareholders, by 3 global companies, Vanguard and Blackrock being two, the third has slipped my mind?
Is that a good thing or bad? In horse racing, trainers on the flat and National Hunt, as it is becoming with owners, the 86% and 14% figures are similarly representative. Perhaps not exactly but it is a fair reflection of the dominance of the few over the majority. Something needs to be done to persuade owners to support a more diverse number of trainers, either by restriction of runners, restriction of the number of horses trained by one person or by having a large number or races restricted to trainers with less than fifty-horses under their care. To my mind, the B.H.A. are travelling towards the right destination, even if at the moment they are taking the wrong road.

I am a big fan and admirer of Bryony Frost. She is a uniquely talented rider and on the P.R. front she a wonderful ambassador for the sport. At least she was until Robbie Dunne allowed his jealousy of her success to cross the line into bullying and conduct unbecoming of the sport, believing he had the right to take the law into his own hands. Since the inquiry, Bryony is more guarded with the press, even though the public remain solidly in favour of her. Remember Francesca Cumani’s tears after Bryony won the Ryanair at the Cheltenham Festival, the first Grade 1 at the Festival for a female jockey? The ‘Frodon took my hand’ speech? As far as I am concerned, Robbie Dunne, a nobody in the sport as far as the public are concerned, has denied our sport one of National Hunt’s greatest assets in promoting the sport to a younger audience. 
Bryony deserves more opportunities in the top races. Paul Nicholls continues to support her and as someone not known for being a charitable cause when it comes to those who ride his horses, it should be enough of a positive for other trainers to use her innate ability to get a horse into a rhythm and jumping fluently, as was on display yesterday on Il Ridoto. She didn’t win but she did everything in her power to do so, being chinned on the line by a horse, I believe, becoming a top-notch performer, whose future lies outside of handicaps.
As Protektorat is unlikely to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup, would the Skeltons be thinking along the lines of entering him for the Grand National? He is a bold jumper of a fence when on-song and the way he knuckled down and stuck out his neck up the Cheltenham hill, after being given a quite conservative ride by Harry, suggested to me that he would get the trip at Aintree. Given that it is unlikely that Harry will get on Latenightpass in the Grand National, as that horse is his sister-in-law’s ride, perhaps it is not such a crazy notion.
The King George on Boxing Day is looking a seriously tight affair. I have still not lost all faith in Shishkin but there are two factors, so far undiscussed, one of which might undo his chances and the other help. Connecting the two alternatives is the name of Frodon, who possibly might be having his swan-song at Kempton.
As admirable as he is, Frodon is known for messing around at the start, not because he doesn’t want to race but because he wants to get on with things. He can whip round, the reason, I believe, Bryony likes to line-up on the outside at the start. Not that I am qualified to give Nico de Boinville advice, yet he would do well keep well away from Frodon at the start otherwise the two of them night synchronise their whipping round antics. 
I do think it is giving in to ignorance by stopping assistant starters from carrying a hunting crop or long-tom as it is not for hitting a horse but for the cracking sound it makes when used. Such an item would, I believe, have focused Shishkin’s mind at Ascot, with far better results for the betting public.
What will be in Shishkin’s favour, if he consents to put his best foot forward, is that Frodon will ensure a keen, honest pace and might light-up Allaho, also usually a front-runner. I have heard many top jockeys insist that it takes a true stayer to win over 3-miles at Kempton as races like the King George are run at a relentless gallop, with little leeway for jumping errors. Allaho won at Punchestown over 3-miles, yet he is not considered a Gold Cup horse and though it would be fanciful to suggest Frodon will take a hand in the finish, he will doubtless lead them into the straight and for Allaho to win he’ll have to prove himself a true stayer, which, I believe, Shishkin will prove he is, if he consents to race.