​“It’s what I.T.V. racing has been doing all these years.” Matt Chapman said yesterday. He is correct. On a Saturday, I.T.V. highlights all that’s best in the day’s racing. In effect I.T.V. has been running a 4-year experiment to understand if highlighting the days’ best racing in a 2-hour golden slot will improve audience or racecourse attendance and though not a failure as sofa-attendance has increased to a degree, racecourse attendance remains in the doldrums and betting turnover, the main vector the B.H.A. wishes to see expand, is only going south due to outside forces.
When Kevin Blake quite rightly suggests it is the race programme that next requires attention, he is pointing the finger at the lower end of the sport. And Matt Chapman is right yet again when he says what is the point of shedding fixtures if racecourses then stage eight, nine or ten races per meeting. Reducing the fixture list and not allowing anymore than seven-races per meeting is the quickest route to improving competitiveness on a daily basis.
What no one seems all that bothered about is the increasing number of Group and listed races that only attract three and four-runner fields. Six were due to take part in the Group 2 at Newmarket yesterday and with two withdrawn due to the ground, only four fairly ordinary horses went to post. Non-competitive Group races should be excised and converted into limited handicaps.
There seems a belief that good quality horse racing is solely limited to Group races. Yet isn’t a blanket finish to a Grade 5 handicap exciting to watch for punters and viewers? Experts may get over-excited by a wide-margin win by a two-year-old at Newmarket, for example, but was it as eye-grabbing for the first-time viewer as a blanket-finish to a Grade 5 handicap? Which is more likely to attract viewers back to Formula 1, Max Verstappen starting on pole, lapping most of his opponents and winning by 30-seconds or a lap after lap tussle between two or three drivers with the final result unpredictable till the chequered flag is reached?
Group races have to be competitive as well as Monday-fare. The European Pattern Committee may have a hissy-fit at the suggestion but the number of Group 2’s and 3’s around the continent must be reduced to increase both competitiveness and prize-money.
I am beginning to believe that the sport could do worse than to invite Matt Chapman to run British horse-racing for a limited amount of time.

City of Troy looked special in the Dewhurst but please do not get carried away with the superlatives until he has won a classic. Remember all the other ‘jet-engined’ superstars from Ballydoyle, and elsewhere, that were given markedly high ratings going into winter and then bombed-out as three-year-olds? Also, do we really know the strength of the opposition in the Dewhurst or if they will improve ten-lengths when raced again on firmer conditions? Frankel was not an expression of greatness until he won the 2,000 Guineas – against poor-quality opposition – and beyond. City of Troy looks exceptional but he also might have reached his peak and that others, perhaps stabled at Ballydoyle, might improve with racing next season. Keep the superlatives bottled until next spring or summer.

On This Day: and to prove the validity of my argument above.
In 1982 Gorytus trailed home last of 4 at 1-2 favourite in the Dewhurst. He, too, was touted to be the next superstar of the sport.
In 1990 Lester Piggott had his first comeback ride since his retirement 5-years earlier, finishing second in a photo-finish. At the same meeting, Walter Swinburn rode 5-winners.

​If reducing the number of runners in the Grand National by six is not ‘significant’, is this a case of change for the sake of change. And anyway, the reduction is not the point here. What Aintree and the B.H.A. has said loud and clear is that the protestors are right, the race in its present form is dangerous and they are obliged to placate them by shearing the race of its unique character, denuding it further to achieve the purpose of having it look like every other race in the calendar. Not one alteration the B.H.A. has authorized since 2012 has the made the Grand National safer for horse or jockey because you cannot make the sport of National Hunt racing any safer than it is because galloping a horse at speed and over any sort of obstacle you wish to mention is an inherently risky occupation. Reducing the field by six is like improving your odds of winning the lottery by buying two tickets rather than one.
This year’s race, I guarantee, will have half the field, perhaps over 50%, comprised of horses trained by Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins or owned by J.P. McManus, with the smaller trainers unrepresented, even if they have genuine 4-mile horses with unimpeachable jumping records. For instance, Chantry House, a notable sketchy jumper, who because of his inflated rating, will get to run if connections decide to run but unless his rating goes up markedly, Kittys Light, one of the best long-distance chasers in the country, could easily not make the cut. And the B.H.A. want to make the race safer!
Tom Scudamore has made the comment ‘the race comes first’. Well, he’s wrong. Placating an ignorant public comes first. Virtual signalling flown from the highest mast is more of a priority than safety. ‘We care about horses’. ‘Horses come first’. Yet no restriction on jockeys using the whip on the long slog from the last fence! Mustn’t upset the jockeys, must we!
What happens next year if there is another equine fatality? Take out fences and replace them with hurdles. Reduce the distance to 3-miles 3-furlongs. Allow only 15-horses to compete. In 20-years the Grand National will not exist; it is has been the line of travel since 2012. The race makes the B.H.A. nervous and there are those in its fold that would rather not have the bother every April. The Grand National is not safe in the hands of the present clerk of the course and the B.H.A. are poor overseers of National Hunt racing.
It is one thing to point out that if 34 was the limit in 2021, no female jockey would not have won the world’s ‘greatest race’ but its chastening to think that out there somewhere in one small stable or another there waits another Red Rum, not that with the ratings rise and the new field limit he would get a chance to display his stamina and jumping expertise.
I predict that both during the ‘Morning Show’ and Ed Chamberlain during the racing in the afternoon that the I.T.V. presenters will be unified in their praise for the changes. As it is with all the grandees of the sport to have commented so far, including Ruby Walsh, Barry Geraghty and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. They are all wrong. They see no further than their noses. The future for the Grand National is bleaker for this latest capitulation, this latest round of virtual signalling. The hole that has been dug for the sport is wider and deeper than ever, with the day the sport will fall into it ever closer. We are on the road to Hell in a handcart made of bad decisions and pointless change.
To affect changes in the wake of a race that was compromised by protestors is a knee-jerk reaction that shows the B.H.A. and the present clerk of the course in a very poor light. They are entrusted with the crown jewels of the sport and they have betrayed the race and its heritage. They have not protected the race; they continue to put it in grave danger of extinction.
The problem with the Grand National is not 40-runners, the course is wide enough to accommodate 60-runners (recall what was said when it was first reduced to 40? No one suggested going to 34 then; in fact, the overriding feeling was that the reduction was unnecessary) but the scrimmaging at the first three-fences. The course is wide enough to accommodate 60-horses, yet jockeys all verge toward the inside of the course. The solution is simple if radical: a rough draw on the morning of the race so that 20-horses start on the left-side of the course, a gap and then 20-horses starting on the right, the jockeys instructed to stay straight until after the third-fence. In this year’s race, I will guarantee, 34-horses will be packed between the inner and middle of the course. Horses will still fall, horses will still be brought down or baulked. And in the near future a horse will be fatally injured. I don’t want to see it any more than the B.H.A. but that is the sad nature of our sport.
I am angry about these changes and my love of the race is diminished, a man who has worshipped the race for the best part of sixty-years, a man who has four books close to him dedicated to the Grand National. Reg Green must be turning in his grave!

​I am caught between a feather-bed and the floorboards about my feelings towards the B.H.A.’s much-vaunted plans for the premierisation of weekend racing. I want it to work and provide all the benefits the B.H.A. aspire to, while fearing the consequences of it failing or even if it succeeds. After all, the B.H.A. do not have a good record when it comes the radical changes it promotes.
I am pleased the Sunday has been included in the scheme, though I think more could have been achieved if terrestrial television was included in the Sunday package, with the ‘Sunday Series’ elevated to an afternoon slot, perhaps. The six Sunday evening slots I abhor, even if the Stable Staff boss has given it his blessing, though if he had to get out of bed pre-dawn the following day, he might not be quite so enthusiastic. 
Fixtures during the ‘golden slot’ between 2pm and 4 pm will undoubtedly benefit from larger amounts of prize-money, though I.T.V. do a pretty good job showcasing the best races already and if the idea is to engage with a new audience, long build-ups before off-time will more likely drive people away than engross them with the intrigue of it all. The lure and excitement of racing is the racing, not the chatter of ‘experts’.
Will it improve revenue for the sport? Only time will tell, though it is worrying that computer modelling has been channelled to formulate the B.H.A.’s aspiration and hopeful promises.
Though it might be of help, given the huge prize-money on offer at the countries that regularly gobble-up many of our above-average flat horses, I am sceptical it will reverse to a meaningful extent horses sold to race abroad.
The hope that juggling the times certain race-meetings start and end will ‘transform’ the sport will no doubt will prove correct, though whether that transformation will be to the sport’s benefit or loss is a matter only time will inform us.
Why the B.H.A. went for a 2-year trial when the Levy Board have only guaranteed an increase in funding, £3.2-million, for 2024 is a little baffling? It can be compared to riding on the gallops without a helmet.
There are good ideas announced by the B.H.A., it has to be admitted. The creation of breaks for jockeys riding under both codes is to be applauded, even if moaning Tom Marquard will doubtless object to being forced to take some down-time. For the mental well-being and general health of jockeys there should be more not less days when only one code of the sport is in action. I was also pleased to see geographical breaks are to be included, though how this can be policed is rather vague. Does this mean a jockey or trainer based in the south will not be allowed to travel north or vice-versa? Rider-restricted race-meetings I have advocated for years as this will allow the less-lauded jockeys an opportunity to earn a better standard of living and hence will be a boost to the integrity of the sport.
Computer-generated estimates that premierisation might improve by £90-million should be taken with a grain of salt. Computer-modelling proved worse than useless during the ‘pandemic’ as what you get out of a computer is only a reflection of the figures you insert into it. Might be £90-million, might be more, might be less. Again, only time will tell.
Premierisation will only attract new customers if a concerted effort is made to make a day at the races value for money, with the removal of all dress-codes and allowing people to wander where they please without the need for the correct badge, with the exception of the racecourse, obviously.
Premierisation will not be a success if Ascot, Newmarket, Cheltenham, etc, thrive, whilst Beverley, Thirsk, Taunton, etc, perish. Premierisation must serve and develop the whole of the sport equally or all of the B.H.A.’s aims and aspirations will go up in smoke. I remain to be convinced by this ‘transformation’ of the sport and will keep my fingers crossed my scepticism will be proved misplaced.
On This Day:
In 1837, jockey Thomas Lye won the first race at Northallerton having won 2-races at Edinburgh the day before.
In 1920, U.S. superstar racehorse, Man O’War won his 21st and final race at Kenilworth Park
In 1982, Chaplin’s Club won the first of his 24 wins at Folkestone, ridden by John Reid.
In 1989, Peter Scudamore rode his 50th winner of the season at Wincanton, the fastest fifty winners at the time.
In 1992, the Princess Royal officially opened J.P. McManus’ Jackdaw’s Castle, the £1.8 million training complex then used by David Nicholson and now home to Jonjo O’Neill.

​Sadly, newsvendors no longer loudly inform potential customers of that day’s Epsom Derby or Grand National winner, and there will not be a report on racing’s biggest races of the year on the front page, either. If the King & Queen were to be so lucky, then that would a horse of a different feather. Holly Doyle, too, might make the front page if she won the Derby. Or Saffie Osborne, of course, as she’s the coming lady of the flat.
In sporting terms, socially the sport of horse racing in waiting in line to become pariah status, with air-headed warriors for animal welfare achieving greater media attention for their wrecking mentality than those of us who actually care for animals of all kind and, as the case with the sport of horse racing, continue to put the needs of horses before all else and when tragedy strikes, as it must in all walks of life, the tears are real and not of the crocodile type.
The death of a racehorse, as with any domestic pet, is a blow to the heart. Just because life goes on after the tragedy of losing a horse to a fatal injury or heart attack or whatever, it does not imply a lack of sympathy or a callous nature. In Afghanistan, in the aftermath of the earthquake a few days ago, life goes on because it must go on. Israel and Gaza are going toe-to-toe again at the moment but people still need to go to the shops, to tune in every evening to whatever soap opera they have become addicted to. But it does not mean people go about without a heavy heart and a deep desire for the world around them to be a better place.
Personally, I only read the Racing Post and for many years I have not watched mainstream news as to my mind they are institutions with scant regard for truth and integrity. Today, sadly, perhaps criminally, Britain has a controlled media, very much in alignment with Russia, China and other nations who we are told are our opposites when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of association. From the wordsmiths of the Racing Post it seems the sport has gained ground in its dispute with animal activists, with the looney left giving our sport a wide berth at the moment. Doubtless they will return, unknowingly doing the work of the foreign bodies that have planned the destruction of societies around the world for decades and are now slowly but surely achieving their aim. We will not survive just because of our elitist image.
This is my greatest fear in life, even though you would get short odds on me not living long enough to witness the eventual destruction of every department of society that I have enjoyed, and taken for granted, all of my near seventy-years. Affordability checks are, in my opinion, an opening salvo in a public debate on the ethics of gambling, a debate that will over the next few decades be opened up to include the moral viability of the sport itself. Love of the racehorse will, in the end, not be enough to save the species when children will be indoctrinated, amongst other social about-turns, that horse racing is the modern-day equivalent of bear-baiting or cock-fighting. It is, I’m afraid, the line of travel, even if the speed of descent is so slow the eventual destination is unknown to all but those in charge. And I do not mean the B.H.A.
Racecourses, as with golf-courses, are, when they are located in cities and towns, green lungs, an oasis of non-development. Yet think of all the racecourses of the past that now lie under the brick and tarmac of housing estates, business parks and shopping centres. We nearly lost Cheltenham and Aintree to the developers, remember. How many present-day racecourses are in the firing-line to go the same way as Folkestone, Stockton, Birmingham and Manchester?
The long-term aim of the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, a proposal for extreme change in the way people live their lives and adopted by nearly all the ‘democratic’ governments around the world, is to rewild the countryside, to ban the farming of animals for human consumption, for people to only eat plant-based foods, to ban the keeping of domestic pets, all, and a whole lot more, in the name of climate change and net zero, both of which are challenged by far more scientists and experts in the field than mainstream media will allow you to know about. Where in the above scenario, which, if you can now find it, is laid out on the W.E.F. website or in any book Klaus Schwab has ever published (he is founder and small king of the W.E,F. – think Bond villain and you will have his image clearly defined) do you think the racehorse can be found?
To provide the food a horse needs to be the complete athlete it is, takes up many thousands upon thousands of acres. Oats, hay, straw, every ingredient that goes into horse nuts, etc. It also needs miles of land to be trained on and a racecourse to be raced on. All of which goes against the policies urged by Klaus Schwab and his unelected cronies and to be adopted by governments worldwide. It’s all about saving the planet, you see!
Affordability checks is just a distraction. An important battle to win short-term but not by a long chalk the biggest battle the sport will face by the year 2040 or the following decade.
Just glad I won’t be alive to witness the diabolical plan unfold!
I might be labelled a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for my views, a tag that really should be seen as ‘truth-seeker’, which we all should be, not blind followers of political rhetoric or idealism, but fighting for the survival of my sport is a hill I am prepared do die on. Are you?

​As someone who has reached the age where the importance of bannister rails has become all too clear, I believe my opinions on many of the problems blighting the sport should be, if not valued, appreciated. I do not automatically believe the past was glorious and the present dire; I do, though, believe a review of racing in the decades gone by might prove beneficial to the implementation of new ideas or any radical reappraisal of the future. (Incidentally, I will write about the future of British horse racing in the coming week and my conclusions are far from rosy).
The B.H.A.’s 2-year trial of ‘Premierisation’, the golden 2-hours between 2.pm and 4pm every Saturday, when the top racecourses with the most valuable races will be given priority over racecourses the B.H.A. consider of less importance and unworthy of its protective arm, has both the potential to secure the sport’s future and the potential to destroy its core base. I actually suspect there are outside forces that have plans for Premierisation to achieve the latter without supporting the former. But that is a nut to be cracked another day.
That something needed to be done is without debate and it is one thing to criticise Premierisation, as I continue to do, it is another thing to come up with alternative solutions to problems that are either real and dynamic or are illusory and merely parroted due to a lack of study. 
Let me dwell a moment on attendance at racecourses and settee attendance. Pre-television, attendances at an F.A. Cup Final would be 100,000, whereas today it would 25,000 less, though the television audience would be in the millions. Pre-television, attendance at the Epsom Derby might be 250,000, today it is but a fraction of that number, though the television audience will number many millions. I do not believe racecourse attendance is a good vector to judge the appeal or support for horse racing, yet journalists bang-on about the falling numbers without making parallel comparisons with the audience I.T.V. or satellite broadcasters are achieving. Add all the figures together and I would suggest the situation is less dire than reported. 
That should not imply the sport should sit on its hands or that the golden 120-minutes of Saturday viewing is the golden egg. For Premierisation to work for the whole industry, I have come to believe it needs to encompass both Saturday and Sunday, with the smaller racecourses that will be made financially poorer by having to race either through a period of late morning and early afternoon or after 4pm, given the premier slots on the Sunday, along with terrestrial coverage. I do not believe the B.H.A. have given enough consideration for the potential long-term damage to the sport if its grassroot base is eroded by plans for gifting the top-end an easier ride than those racecourses that have s done sterling work improving prize-money, racecourse facilities and keeping the show on the road Monday through Friday.
Competitiveness in actual races is another matter in need of addressing. I am not a fan of every race being restricted to horses of a similar rating as in many instances this in itself will restrict the number of runners. The purists might say that a 3 or 4-runner Group I race is okay if all three runners are of a suitable quality, yet I have seen some very uncompetitive Group races at the top meetings this season, the Eclipse coming easily to mind.
Less Group 2 and 3 races would filter more horses into Group 1’s, though I would advocate a reduction throughout Europe in races at the highest level to reflect the smaller pool of Group class horses in training. Most listed races I would convert into limited handicaps. Flat racing in this country might be nowadays a nursery for countries with greater prize-money, yet I would argue it has always been a nursery for breeders to make fortunes. How much of that 2-million paid for the Frankel colt by Coolmore comes the way of British racing. Why isn’t there a levy or tax on the sale of racehorses at auction to go to bolstering prize-money in the country of the auction house. Don’t tell me the major auction houses are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. 1% might save our sport and yet do minor damage to the breeding industry.
I have long argued that the Lincoln Handicap should be returned to the race it was long ago, when it was considered as appealing as the Grand National, when it was one of the most sought-after races in the calendar. Now, it is reduced to being an ordinary handicap like so many others. It could be a Grand National for the flat, a 40-runner race, started from a barrier, as in its glory days. A reflection of the sport as it once was, as the Grand National is similarly. The Lincoln, these days, is a like a walk around the old Folkestone racecourse. It isn’t what it once was.
Less race meetings, no more than six or seven races per meeting until the future looks brighter, a reduction in Group races, more variation in race conditions, some form of regionalisation of race-meeting so that jockeys and trainers have less travelling, with the added saving on fuel costs, the Premierisation of both Saturday and Sunday, more non-flat and non-jumping days and a sales tax on the public auction of racehorses to go toward increasing prize-money throughout the racing calendar. Premierisation alone might butter the bread at Ascot, Newmarket, York, etc, but what is needed is a plan that will add jam to the butter whilst buttering the bread of all of our British racecourses.

​‘Nicky Henderson, My Life in 12-Horses’, with Kate Johnson, is, without any shade of doubt, as beautiful and concise as any book on the subject of horses or horse-racing ever published. It is a delight from Happy Warrior to Constitution Hill, though as the latter is only at the outset of his domination of the sport, he is only allowed an afterword. He is not yet one of the twelve. But that sums up the great man, doesn’t it? Always cautious, just in case it all goes horribly wrong.
The word ‘genius’ is over-used, these days. Einstein was a genius in the scientific world, I am sure no one would object to his classification as ‘extraordinary’. ‘Genius’ is a definition of intellectual power, high intelligence or out-of-the-ordinary creativity. I don’t believe the word can be applied to someone who is ’merely’ highly successful in terms of their chosen field of work, otherwise it might be applied to villains who escape justice or, God forbid! politicians. Nicky Henderson is, I believe, highly exceptional at training racehorses, perhaps the very best Britain has thus far produced. At least, the statistics suggest he sits top of the list.
One aspect of Nicky Henderson is beyond debate; he is a very nice person, with an innate understanding of the horses placed in his charge and the loyalty of his clients to him through thick, thick and the occasional thin, speaks untold volumes about the man. His compassion for his horses is borne out by being unable to forgive himself for running Altior on that very wet day at Ascot when his winning streak came to an end when defeated by Cyrname and the mud. Altior was not the same horse thereafter, while the same can be said for the victor. Nicky has not ‘moved-on’ from that public-spirited but wrong decision to allow Altior to participate and it is at the forefront of his decision-making when placed in similar dilemmas to this day.
Another thing; Nicky Henderson does not do crocodile tears. He is too genuine a man for any kind of false presentation.
He should have received a medal or some sort of industry award for his training of Sprinter Sacre. Not that the great horse received more individual attention than any other horse in his care but during the period of 2013 and 2016 his patience must have been stretched to breaking point. He never succumbed to the negativity of ‘experts’ and ‘fans’ who advised retirement for the horse, that he would never come back to anywhere close to the days of his imperious pomp, when, perhaps alone, I believe he was the best horse since Arkle. Yet Nicky was proved right. His belief never, at least publicly, wavered. Sprinter still had it in him to return to the top of 2-mile tree and on that glorious day at the 2016 Cheltenham Festival, Nicky achieved his crowning accolade. It was, I believe, the greatest individual example of training excellence of my lifetime. As I said, he should have received an award.
When hacked-off by world events or depressed, I return time and again to the 2016, 2-Mile Champion Chase to lift my spirits and I thank Nicky from the bottom of heart to be able to do so. I wonder how many other people are similarly like-minded?
Kate Johnson has done a wonderful job in bringing to the page not only great insight into the trainer’s character and beliefs but also the character and idiosyncrasies of the horses he trained to such rich success. In fact, the ‘my life through 12-horses’ might become a standard format for books featuring other top racehorse trainers. Though if Willie Mullins could whittle the great horses’ he has trained over the years down to 12, the word ‘genius’ might just be unarguably applied to him.
This book can be categorised as ‘unput-downable’ and would make an intriguing gift for someone only slightly interested in the sport as it clearly demonstrates that humans prize their time working and caring for horses as ‘beyond rubies’. A gift that keeps on giving. A good description of this book.

​Firstly, I have shingles. I make this announcement with some pride as it is the first time in my 69 and one-half-years I am suffering, though such a description might be over-egging the pudding a mite, with a ‘branded’ medical condition. When asked, ‘how you doing these days’, I can now reply ‘oh, I’m fine, apart from the shingles, that is.’ People will sympathise with me, offer anecdotes on the elderly members of their family who were also shingles sufferers and briefly I will become interesting and noteworthy. God bless the shingles!
In extreme cases, shingles can kill, did you know that? Like when you don’t get medical intervention and allow the shingles to colonize and take charge of your body. I’m usually very slow at seeking medical help, having all my faith in doctors eviscerated by their appalling allegiance to government dictates while all the while turning their back on the science that earned them their licence to practice their skills. Anyway, my death is avoidable if I pull my finger out and go seek medical advice. I shall speak to a pharmacist today.

Back on track.
We live in straighten times affecting all sectors of society. It is a covert, military style destruction of normal society, imposed by governments around the world to enable the undemocratic imposition of the evils of the World Economic Forum’s, guided and assisted by the Club of Rome, the Bilderberg Group, etc, ‘Great Reset’. Nevertheless, the impact of this societal readjustment is real and affects us all. It certainly is affecting racehorse trainers with a gathering storm of retirements from their ranks. I’m saddened to see any business forced to close because of outside forces, with no fault of their own to blame for the demise. I particularly find it sad to have trainers forced out of business for whatever reason.
I cannot provide any useful advice on the matter, other than to speculate as to why so many trainers stick to being just flat trainers or jumps trainers. Why the reluctance to avoid the diversity of having a go at the other code during their slow and less financially rewarding periods of the year?
Many do, of course. Tim Easterby, though primarily a flat trainer these days, still operates with a smaller string of jumpers. Brian Ellison, too, is successful under both codes. And, of course, Alan King, perhaps the most eminent dual-purpose trainer in the country.
Burke, Cox, Dascombe, Osborne, to name but four, made their name as jump jockeys, yet they are exclusively flat trainers, with hardly a runner in a hurdle race to their collective name. I realise the innovation of all-weather racing and summer jumping has lessened the need ‘for something to do in the off-season’ but there is good money to be won in the ‘other codes’. I dare say the aforementioned ‘four’ are all quite wealthy due to their achievements as flat trainers and have no need to dabble with jumpers, yet Willie Mullins outstrips them all in achievement and frequently plunders big-money races on the flat. Why isn’t the Closutton maestro a flagbearer for diversity in the training ranks?
It is on record that James Fanshawe actually took charge of the day-to-day training of Kribebsis, but when he won the Champion Hurdle, he was owned by Sheikh Mohammad and trained by Sir Michael Stoute and their involvement shone a fresh light on the National Hunt narrative. Perhaps a more adventurous way of thinking by flat trainers might keep a few of those high-rated horses in their stables and not sold abroad.
Archie Watson sees himself as a dual-purpose trainer and in a quiet way he is successful at both, as is Ian Williams and Micky Hammond. It must be a perk to stable staff who work primarily with flat horses to have runners over jumps through the winter and vice-versa National Hunt staff having pool-money coming in through the flat season.
When trainers of the stature of William Jarvis, the last, seemingly, of a heritage line of Jarvises to train in Newmarket, announce their retirement is due, in part, to the financial situation, I tend to ask why they didn’t think out of the box and suggested to their owners running horses over hurdles and then on to chasing. Or a jumps trainer and flat trainer combining to operate under both codes.
Anyway, it’s just a thought. Anything to turn the tide of so many racehorse trainers giving the game up and taking from the sport all their knowledge and expertise.

On this day in 1770: Eclipse ran his final race, a walkover as so many of his ‘races’ were. He went on to sire the winners of 862 races.
In 1970, Nijinsky suffered his first defeat, finishing a strong second to Sassafras in the Arc de Triomphe.
In 1989, Secretariat died aged 19 at Claiborne Farm, Kentucky.
Eclipse, Nijinsky, Secretariat, true legends of flat racing.

​Do you challenge yourself to tip as many winners as the I.T.V. team of experts on any single day? Tom Segal, they are not. Have you ever challenged yourself to better Tom Segal on any given day? My point is this, apart from studying form and weeding out horses with a preference for ground which on the day is the opposite and preferences for flat or hilly courses or going left or right, every other factor in lumping on to a horse is pretty much guesswork. It is why your grandmother or a friend who wouldn’t know Redcar from Cheltenham can find a 33/1 winner while you languish all day backing loser after odds/on loser. It is why horse racing is such an addictive and fascinating pursuit.
Astro King was hardly mentioned by the panel assembled at Newmarket by I.T.V. to point the viewer in the direction of the most likely winner of the Cambridgeshire Handicap, one of our best races of the year. I’m not saying I would have put him up as a likely winner as I thought he had too much weight in a race with so many horses holding perfectly good chance of winning. I went for Crack Shot at the other end of the handicap which ran okay as did a dozen others.
What Astro King did prove yesterday is when a good trainer gets a talented horse to train, the job can be done equally as well as, say, Sir Michael Stoute, the previous trainer of Astro King. The top owners would do well to think on this when deciding the fate of the lesser horses they have in training with the top end of the trainer’s list trainers. A move to someone like the Kublers’ might prove more profitable than simply shipping a disappointing yet well-bred horse to the sales or selling abroad.
I continue to be dismayed and annoyed by ‘t.v, experts’ and trainers pour cold water with immediate effect on any suggestion that a horse, and I make the example of Vandeek to make my case, shouldn’t be thought of as a Guineas horse as ‘he has so much speed that he would be better off going for the Commonwealth Cup’, a race spoken of these days as if it is a classic in itself. Frankel has ‘so much speed’, didn’t he? I rest my case.
In dismissing the Guineas, in September of a 2-year-olds life, for pities sake, as ‘not in our thoughts’ and then talking in glowing terms of the Commonwealth Cup as if it is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, people are kicking our classics down the road as if they no longer held the glitter of years gone by. The connections of Vandeek should be disappointed if the horse does not prove to be a classic winner, not exulted by the possibility of winning a non-classic race at Royal Ascot. In time, if not already, Royal Ascot is beginning to loom over flat racing as a ‘winning there is the be all and end of all of the sport’ as the Cheltenham Festival sucks in the glory from the rest of the season in National Hunt. If mega-rich owners can dismiss the opportunity of winning a classic with the nonchalance of a waving hand, preferring the lesser glory of lesser races, then it is no wonder the sport currently is travelling a long uphill road pushing a hand-cart.
The Arc? Lester and Nijinsky losing in 1970 to Yves Saint-Martin and Sassafras remains one of my biggest disappointments in life as well as horse racing. The ‘experts’, desperate to find an explanation for a defeat that on all-known form was as likely as The Maldives sinking beneath the waves, fell to criticising the jockey for leaving Nijinsky with too much to do, few of them complimenting Saint-Martin for his opportunistic riding that presented Lester with a mountain to climb. For those too young to remember Nijinsky, just think of how you would have felt if Frankel had suffered defeat.
Incidentally, anyone wishing to know all there is to know about the history of the race, the only source you will need is Malcolm Pannett’s book ‘A Century of the Prix de I’Arc de Triomphe’.
I think everyone would agree that this year’s renewal is not one of the most intriguing in the history of the Arc. Ace Impact may prove a great winner and go on to be the Nijinsky of the modern era and only a stunning victory for the French horse will elevate the race today to be on a par with the great races of the past. The ground has come in his favour, which should negate any negatives about his ability to stay 12-furlongs. Do I think, as if matters, as I am as poor a tipster as I am a surgeon, he’ll win? Perhaps. Instinct nods me in his direction. But!
If I were to totter across the bridge over the Torridge to one of our betting shops, which, undoubtedly, I will not be doing, I would go each-way on Bay Bridge as I suspect the horse, without any announcement along the way, has been trained specifically for the race and there is no one better at training a horse for one day in the calendar than Sir Michael Stoute. And what a weekend that would make for Richard Kingscote, having already won the Cambridgeshire and the Royal Lodge at Newmarket.

​The future is a concern to me, especially as I have so little of it left before me. I would like the future of British horse racing to be at least sustainable after I have taken my final breath, though it would be a comfort in my transition from here to there if British racing were to be on-the-up or preferably thriving once more.
I have little faith in premierisation and whether it succeeds or fails, I fear the consequences for the racecourses outside of the ‘premier league’ will be on the short road to dire. I do believe there is a grain of a good idea in the premierization (the dictionary dislikes the word in any form it is spelt) concept but at its core there is an ‘only the strong will survive’ attitude that sticks in my craw. Unless the whole of the racing industry is part of the plan, I can foresee the sport losing more followers than gaining. When Cartmel, for instance, regularly draws a larger attendance than Newbury or Newmarket, when should it be considered outside the ‘premier league’? I doubt if Cartmel will suffer to any significant degree but why should excellently run racecourses that provide elevated amounts of prize-money be deemed second-class? If, God Forbid! we were to lose Cartmel, or Hamilton, Thirsk, Beverley and so on, will the people who regularly attend their local racecourses turn their favours to any other racecourse? After long deliberation, I have formed the conclusion that there is the prospect of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in a desperate attempt to raise finance from greater betting turnover and access to the World Pool.
Outside of its fan-base, horse racing is little understood by either the public or by the media. It is thought to be elitist at best and an abuse of an animal at worst, throwing a huge amount of money into races, which will fall into the coffers of multi-millionaires the majority of times, will not change one iota the perception people have of the sport. A pleasant day at Cartmel or Brighton is more likely to encourage new patronage, I would suggest.
Changes to the structure of British racecourses should exceed a racing programme based on the finger-crossing of premier league Saturdays. Journalists, jockeys, trainers, owners, racecourse executives, the racing man in the street and grandstand, must have ideas to improve the sport. Why not organise brainstorming sessions with all of the above? But not the B.H.A.. They can be involved in a later stage of the process. Like Government, the B.H.A. should become servant to the sport, not the master of the sport.
It is oft cited that the frequency of good-class flat horses being sold abroad to countries with prize-money levels that to Britain and Ireland, racing nations that cling to the out-dated concept of bookmaking companies like sailors to an upturned rowboat, that is the equal to treasure at the end of a rainbow, is because of poor returns for owners from prize-money.
I would argue otherwise. Yearlings are sold for inflated prices that give the majority of purchasers only a slim chance of breaking even, let alone coming out in front. It is a sad reflection on the state of racing in this country when trainers are openly admitting to buying yearlings with an eye to selling them on at a later date to Hong Kong, Bahrain or Australia. If there cannot be a cap on the price a horse can be sold for at auction, at least bring in a scheme where a percentage of the price paid at auction is recycled back to the sport to boost prize-money. I would argue that stallion fees should be capped, which might bring down the eye-watering, at times, amounts horses are bought for. 
I believe horse racing’s biggest problem is a breeding side of the industry that over-produces and that allows breeders to become rich and influential without giving any additional financial assistance to the sport it feeds on.
For a couple of years, with exception given to the major meetings, racecourses should only stage six-races per meeting. This single measure would increase prize-money per meeting and increase competitiveness throughout the season. At the lowest level, if the seventh race at a present-day fixture were to be dropped, at least £4,000 would become available to increase one of the other races to a value close to £10,000, plus if the dropped races averaged close to 10-runners, nearly 70-horses per week would be available to increase competitiveness throughout the week. If competitiveness truly boosts betting turnover, surely this suggestion is worth trialling. 
Race conditions need to be more imaginative, with emphasis, as in Ireland, of giving horses every opportunity of winning a race on behalf of their owners. So, I propose more maiden races and maiden handicaps, greater opportunity for horses to run-up a sequence, a boost in prize-money for races above 12-furlongs to incentivise breeders to support stallions with a staying pedigree, more maiden sprints but less sprint handicaps. The race programme given a slant to giving opportunity for the single-horse owner, the small syndicates and racing clubs to taste victory as winning is the best incentive for people to keep having horses in training.
I am sure there are brighter and better ideas to be found if only the B.H.A. would open-up the debate to all-comers. The future, sadly, is not golden but the colour of brass handles.

​My other half – yes, there is one (just) – does not understand, as far as she understands the nuances of the sport, handicap races. It is, to her mind, unfair that one horse gets more weight to carry than all the rest. I’ve tried to explain that a handicap, in theory, gives every horse an equal chance of winning. She isn’t convinced. 
She doesn’t often watch horse racing, though I have moved her opinion from ‘against’ to ‘pro’, though she leaves the room if it looks like a horse has suffered a life-threatening injury. The day last season when Trueshan won the Northumberland Plate under a weight burden that even I thought was an unnecessary undertaking, I think she actually realised the significance of the achievement and why horses are allotted different weights to carry according to their proven ability.
The Ayr Gold Cup yesterday (24/09/23) alerted me to the idea that come the blue skies of premierisation of racing next season, a major or extremely valuable handicap should be staged each Saturday. Outside of the classics, punters, I believe, are more drawn to big handicaps than they are to Group, listed or condition races through the flat season. From a betting turnover perspective, handicaps should be given greater priority than invention or continuance of races staged for the benefit of those yards that house Group-type horses. In fact, I would applaud the B.H.A., where trainers would boo, if many of the listed and Group 3 races I in the calendar were to become limited handicaps, if only to supply the sport with races that might encourage owners to keep horses rather than sell them abroad. Just a thought. Though it would be strangled at birth by the European Pattern Committee that exists to assist the elite of the sport to furnish their houses with gold.
On a similar note, if my idea of ‘Triple Crowns’ for all the major distances were to be taken forward and staged, when possible, on a Saturday, a strong narrative, with some coming to a conclusion on ‘Champions’ Day’, would be established. Triple Crown sprints, Mile, 10 and 12-furlong and long-distance Triple Crowns, with perhaps Triple Crown races for 2-year-old colts and fillies. Let’s face it, we are never going to witness the classic Triple Crown achieved for many a long year, are we? Oh, while we are the subject: Nijinsky was not the last Triple Crown winner; that accolade belongs to Oh So Sharp, 1,000 Guines, Oaks and St. Leger. It is remarkable how often she is overlooked come Doncaster in September.
On a sad note. The most over-rated chaser of my lifetime, Cyrname, has died in retirement of a heart attack, I believe. He was still not yet a teenager and deserved a long and happy retirement. Perhaps the reason for his loss of form was an undiagnosed, and undiagnosable, heart problem. 
On a happier note, at least for me, Frodon, who I nearly voted for in the Racing Post’s poll for the racing public’s all-time favourite horse, remains in training, no doubt still causing mayhem when the mood takes him, and is to be aimed at a second Badgers Beer Chase at Wincanton. Not long to wait now! Paul Nicholls may be a brilliant trainer of racehorses but he is, I believe, as canny as he is brilliant and I suspect he ran Frodon in races last season that he couldn’t win to allow his mark to slip to where he would be eligible for the Wincanton race again. If he should win, it might be the perfect time to retire him, not that Frodon will thank his connections as from what I understand of the horse he enjoys being an active racehorse, something some people outside of the sport could never understand. 
One final point which is unnecessary to make, no doubt, but what a force of nature Holly Doyle has become. Her two winners at Ayr were prime examples of her strength in a finish and her race-craft but was proven nearly to the enth degree by her ride in the Ayr Gold Cup. Last at the furlong pole, yet fourth, beaten a whisker, at the line. Yes, she didn’t win and it might be said that if she had moved ten-yards earlier, though, I suspect, the horse wasn’t having it until that stage, she might have prevailed. We will never know either way other than Holly telling us. Anyway, she is a diamond and she should be booked to ride in every major race.
On this day: in 1837 George Fordham was born. He rode 16-classic winners during his career. He weighed, remarkably, only 3st 10oz when he won the 1852 Cambridgeshire on Little David and which he was awarded a Bible and a gold-mounted whip.
In 1951, on this day, the luckiest of men, Richard Burridge was born. To part-own Desert Orchid must be the most wonderful gift anyone was ever given.