​Tom Marquand, to give him his due, is taking the struggle to achieve decent facilities for jockeys at racecourses in this country straight to those who might be doing more to takeaway Tom’s need to take photographs of the conditions he and his colleagues must endure. Redcar is the latest racecourse to deserve his wrath. It must be galling to arrive back in Britain after a 14-hour flight from Hong Kong, where racecourse facilities are of a standard that would do justice to a five-star hotel, drive straight from London to Redcar and then find unsanitary conditions to warm-up, with a mat squeezed between two rows of benches and the exercise bike in the laundry room.
There is an opportunity here for an enterprising jockey with a need for a second income. While it is the responsibility of the racecourse to provide changing areas, showers, perhaps saunas and ice-baths, and space for the valets to undertake their work, perhaps the warm-up areas could be out-sourced. Warm-up areas could be achieved with pop-up arenas housed in a moderately sized marquee. 
I realise there is considerable expense in setting-up a business supplying exercise bikes, perhaps weights and other gym equipment, as well as the marquee and lorry to transport everything to the racecourse, and there would be a question-mark over how much a racecourse would pay to hire the marquee and equipment per day, with perhaps, just a suggestion, you understand, the jockeys themselves putting a few quid in the kitty to defray cost of transportation. Yet I am surprised no one has thought this might be a ready-made solution to the rumbling problem.
Perhaps Tom might be persuaded to loan someone the money to set-up the business.

French Galop’s 20% reduction in prize-money, though chastening, is an idea that should spread. It is my understanding that Group I’s, classics and the workaday racing would be protected from the cuts, with Group 2’ and 3’s suffering the most.
Although I agree classic races and the more important and historic Group 1’s should be worth high six-figure purses, chucking an added £100,000 at these races never makes them a better race or entices a better quality of horse. If a sponsor decides to, or is persuaded to, increase their donation to the prize-money fund, that money would achieve greater all-round benefit to the sport, if it were diverted to bolster prize-money at the lowest levels of the sport, with the sponsor given in return ‘free publicity at the lesser racecourses to benefit from the ‘enforced’ revenue stream.
In this vein, I suggest 20% be diverted from the lesser Group 1’s and all Group 2 and 3 races, and listed races, to ensure there is one race per card with £10,000 going to the winning owner. Even if only 10% were diverted in this manner it would help where help is most needed.
It makes my blood boil to read that a race with a high six-figure prize pot to the winner is to have its value increased by another £50,000 or some such amount, especially when there is racing on the same day where no race is worth more than £5,000 to the winner. It is no wonder we cannot attract owners from Ireland and France when there is absolutely no hope of them even breaking even on their training fees.

Not so sure I approve of the Racing Post featuring all week the unholy goodness of French racing. There are already too many British-based owners with horses trained in France and Ireland and here is the industry newspaper giving Scott Burton free rein to big-up French racing, French-based English and Irish trainers and the huge prize-pots just waiting to be hoovered-up by any British-based owner pissed-off with the disparity between prize-money won and training fees paid out.

Sad to read the announcement of the retirement of Kyprios, perhaps the best, though not the most popular, stayer of recent times. I was of the opinion that Yeat’s record of 4 Ascot Gold Cups was there for the taking. But it is not to be. The injury he picked-up recently is not severe but as always Coolmore is putting the welfare and future happiness of the horse first, and doubtless there is a covering shed waiting for him in the Coolmore organisation. I dare say Ryan Moore is going to miss him as it could be guessed that he is one of Ryan’s favourites.
Incidentally, my favourites stayers of all-time are: Trelawney, Persian Punch Stradivarious and Trueshan. Let us all pray for a wet Royal Ascot to give the old horse at least one chance of running in the Gold Cup.

​In his contribution to the Racing Post’s ‘The Story of Horse Racing in 20 Races’, Lee Mottershead brings into some sort of context the distant age in which seeded the future of National Hunt racing. In 1836, the year of William Lynne’s great invention, the siege of the Alamo was in its seventh day. I can also add that 1836 was the year of Queen Victoria’s coronation. 1836 was undoubtedly a different age and Britain a totally different country to one we suffer nowadays.
William Lynne’s invention was that before his Grand Liverpool Steeplechase, the few and far between National Hunt meetings were staged in open countryside, where viewers had neither the benefit of a grandstand nor the facility to be able to witness the start and finish of a race, the winning post being anywhere up to 5-miles from where the race started. The enclosed National Hunt racecourse was wholly William Lynne’s idea and I believe Aintree should memorialise his name with a race run annually in his honour.
It is argued, and it is a fact I have never queried, that when the question is asked ‘Which horse won the first Grand National’, Lottery is not necessarily the correct answer. Some would contest The Duke is the right answer as he won the first two runnings of the Grand Liverpool Steeplechase, the race that three-years later morphed into the Grand National. Both races, it appears, were run over the same course and distance and the same fences. So, is the correct answer Lottery or The Duke? I would suggest the former as he won a race named the Grand National. The Duke won two stagings of a race with a completely different name, even if the two races are twins born of the same father.
There are many books on the origin and history of the Grand National, though my favourite, and I wish someone would go to the trouble of writing and publishing a second volume, is Reg Green’s ‘A Race Apart’, which for the years covered by the author – the book covers every renewal of the race up to and including Mauri Venture’s win in 1987, was, no doubt, a labour of love. It is a book I will never part with until death, and I am still considering having it sealed in a plastic wallet and having it consigned to my grave as part of the grave goods I will ask my other half to gather-together on the joyous day of my internment.

The thinking of both the Irish stewards and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board never fails to baffle me. Ted Walsh has had his 3,000 euro fine rescinded after his accusers cleared him of any wrong-doing resulting in the riding of Ta Na La at Wexford last week. Bizarrely, though, the horse remains banned for sixty-days, which means obviously that the mare’s owner also suffer from the riding of the horse even though his name was never on the charge-sheet. The rider, Shane O’Callaghan chose not to appeal and remains suspended for 14-days. So, this is the question I am asking myself, was there foul-play or not. How can Ted Walsh be found on appeal to be innocent of all charges, yet the horse, jockey and owner have black marks against their name?

As I have said before, as far as summer jumping is concerned, Britain should copy, at least in part, the Irish model of festival meetings, though when it comes to the rest of the year Britain should study closely the way the French do jump racing. And it starts with our trainers, owners, breeders, if there is anyone still breeding jumpers in this country, followed by consultations with the B.H.A. 
In France, they start their jumpers earlier than in Britain and Ireland. Horses we would refer to as ‘store horses’ are broken as two-year-olds and by age three they are jumping some form of obstacles. Hence there is great emphasis on three and four-year-old hurdle races. Also, the French hurdle is a smaller version of a normal French steeplechase fence and I just wish we could abandon our traditional hurdle and begin to introduce the French hurdle to our racecourses.
I do not suggest all our racecourses adopt the French system of eight (?) different types of fences on each circuit as I feel the plain and open ditch is enough variety, though one racecourse changing to the Auteuil way of doing things might become beneficial to the sport. French racing has more in common with the origins of National Hunt than the two countries that pioneered racing over obstacles and that in a small measure should be addressed.
The French have overtaken the Irish, and left British breeders’ miles in arrears, when it comes to breeding hardy jumpers, jumpers that in the main jump and stay and have an abundance of class. When will we next have a British-bred winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup or Aintree National? Never, I suggest, unless some radical consideration is given to the race programme in Britain.

​To return to the Newmarket 2,000 Guineas and the criticism of Kieran Shoemark’s ride on Field of Gold. Having the data provided to him by both the form book and Kieran Shoemark’s own critique of the ride he gave Field of Gold, Colin Keane produced a copybook ride to win the Irish 2,000 Guineas. John Gosden described the ride as ‘brilliant’ yet when a jockey is on by far the best horse in the race and there are no bumps in the road from stalls to winning post, ‘brilliance’ is not required, even if ‘keeping it simple’ is perhaps a possible definition of ‘brilliance’.
Now let us look at the Tattershall Gold Cup on Sunday. To use modern parlance, Colin Keane on White Birch was all dressed-up with nowhere to go in the final furlong, trapped on the rails and last in line to free himself of the queue in front of him. Circumstances played against him, I agree. But why was his ride not judged to be as ‘poor’ as the ride Shoemark supposedly gave Field of Gold at Newmarket? Explain to me what defines a poor ride? Colin Keane had more than one bullet in the barrel and yet due to making a wrong decision during the race his gun went unfired. Whether he would have won with a clear run cannot proved one way or the other, in the same way no one can say with any degree of certainty that Ruling Court would not have pulled out more if Field of Gold had headed him at any stage in the 2,000 Guineas.
Colin Keane is, I have no doubt, one of the best jockeys riding in the world today. My point is this: Kieran Shoemark is not one of the worst and his ride at Newmarket did not deserve the humiliation of being removed from his position as first jockey at Clarehaven.

In his column today, Lee Mottershead makes the argument for returning to the days when jump racing finished in May and started again in August. I have long complained that there was a) too much summer jumping and that b) what summer jumping there is during the hotter months should be structured around ‘local festivals’, as is the case in Ireland. I also believe there should be far less all-weather racing through the summer and autumn months, thereby freeing up horses to run on the turf to bolster field sizes and allowing prize-money saved to bolster prize-money on the turf.
Lee Mottershead makes use of the ‘oceans are boiling and the ice-shelfs are melting’ narrative -neither of which is true by the way (Heartland Institute. Look them up) – and that water preservation will become a huge fact of life going into the future, which is perhaps true, though more due to the number of illegal migrants in the country than a lack of adequate rainfall.
It is all too easy to say ‘I am not interested in jumping through the summer months so let’s just get rid of it’ as too many people earn a living from jump racing in the summer months. The problem is the jumps season (proper) ends too early and begins too early. Let the jumps season go to the end of May, allowing our smaller courses to benefit from the two bank holidays and begin again in late September when, crossed-fingers, there is less likelihood of firm ground. In between June and the August bank holiday, which is where I would end the ‘summer jumping programme’, there should be a limited number of jumps meeting based around, as they do in Ireland, around festivals, with ‘festival meetings’ with a valuable handicap as the major race of the two, three or four-day meeting. It works to great effect in Ireland, why would it not work in Britain?

Hells Bells for someone of my age and experience it is annoying when a craven youth of 23 writes a piece for the ‘Another View’ column in the Racing Post that nails an argument to the wall of which there is no comeback. His name is Oliver Barnard and he pours scorn on Great Britain Racing’s first advertisement in its ‘Going is Good’ campaign. My criticism could be defined as it was largely ‘inoffensive’. I think I used the word ‘fluffy’. Young Oliver, backed-up by the opinion of his non-racing mates, was more decisive and on point. ‘Crap’ or words to that effect was how he chose to underline his feelings on the subject. G.B.R. take notice and get your act together. 
Good on you, Oliver, you young scamp.

​I intended yesterday evening to listen to the Arsenal-Barcelona match on the radio. No, I do not have access to satellite television. Forgetting personal important matters I have yet to become reduced to, though I do occasionally forget matters I have planned to do. Aide memoires are a help, though I have to remember to write the aide memoires and place them where my eyes focus on the most, the kettle, for instance. 
Yes, I enjoy the female version of football, and I am annoyed with myself for watching the second-half of the Scottish Cup Final for no other reason than finding it listed when searching for the day’s racing results on the B.B.C. CeeFax Red Button service. The upside is that my day today has started with the remarkable news that the Arsenal girls achieved what all the commentators considered to be an impossible task. The result last night should put all the England squad members who play for Arsenal in great form for the upcoming Nations League matches and more importantly the defence of their Euro Championship Trophy. I am happy for me and happy for them.
Odd, is it not, that despite all the millions and billions thrown at the English men’s game, it is the female teams that are delivering the trophies.

What perhaps holds me back as both a punter and a commentator on horse racing is that bias and prejudice affect my judgement. Take Field of Gold, for example. Because I believe Kieran Shoemark to be unfairly treated by the Gosdens, though, I suspect, John Gosden’s actions, contrary to the narrative that they had Shoemark’s back, was perhaps orchestrated by what some of Clarehaven’s more influential clients were saying privately, I did not want Field of Gold to win yesterday’s Irish 2,000 Guineas at the Curragh. I accept that Colin Keane is one of the best jockeys in Europe and his experience of the Curragh was to his distinct advantage when the Gosdens’ were weighing up who should succeed Shoemark, a large part of me still wanted something to go wrong, for Keane to ease down and be nabbed on the line or for the horse to simply not perform. 
I also accept that Field of Gold is a rattling good horse, though whether he is, or will become, the top 3-year-old miler in Europe is of little interest to me. As I have said on many other occasions, only time will tell how potent the of any race will turn out to be. The beaten horses all finished in a bit of a heap, which suggests they may well be much of a muchness. Time will tell, you see. Remember, Frankel looked to be the most impressive classic winner of all-time when he won the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket, yet it turned out he beat a field of donkeys, comparatively speaking.
I really dislike to read about horses that are bigged-up at this time of the year. I just wish the racing media would live in the now and not propel their prophecies long into the future. Only if Field of Gold suffers a training mishap and cannot run again this season will it be likely he will stay in training as a 4-year-old, the age when we can really begin to determine the very good from the 3-year-old shooting stars. It is the single-most aspect of racing that chills my heart against the flat – the speed at which colts are retired to the stallion sheds as that is where the big money is to made. How can comparisons be calculated between the generations when the leading 3-year-olds are whizzed-off to stud?
If I could rule the sport, I would not allow any horse to stand as a stallion until it is 5-years-old as encouragement to owners to keep their horses in training as 4-year-olds. The sport is called horse racing and because of that undeniable truth the racing of horses should have priority over the breeding side of the industry. Whereas National Hunt exists as a pure sporting endeavour, it seems to me that the flat only exists to boost the income of breeders. To me, a cynic, the flat puts the cart before the horse and it is a poorer spectacle because of it.

​Caring about an issue is not the same as knowledge of the issue. I am indebted to a letter by Mr. Mark Albon in the Racing Post today on the subject of the R.o.R. charity, owners’ contributions and how the charity dispenses its grant money.
Since 2023, the year Mr. Albon chooses to use as the centrepiece of his letter, three of the big auction houses now contribute £12 per horse sold by them to R.o.R. Not that this new source of funding diminishes Mr. Albon’s point.
I was not aware that until recently owners contributed £1. 25 per race to R.o.R. and this has now been increased to £3 per race. Mr. Albon might have mentioned that owners were being ‘forced’, his word not mine, to pay an increase to R.o.R. at the same time as the charity will be receiving a huge boost to their funds.
To return to the year 2023. In that year, R.o.R. accounts stated the charity had a little over £4-million, of which £1.3-million came from owners’ contributions. The balance came from the Levy Board. Mr. Albon is not happy by the way R.o.R. funds is dispensed. According to Mr. Albon fifteen charities shared the majority of the grants, with one charity receiving £250,000. Leaving, again according to Mr. Albon, only £50,000 to be shared by other equine charities, many of whom are in desperate need of funding and yet received nothing.
Mr. Albon obviously has an axe to grind, though I do believe this issue should be investigated, if not by the B.H.A., then the Racing Post, as the industry newspaper, should take an interest in the matter. Mr. Albon has his own proposal to remedy the conflict and I will leave readers to go on the Racing Post website to read his letter to form an opinion on whether his ideas for reform are better than the present set-up.
My stance is that equine charities can never have enough funds and this sport should enable that by any way possible. I do not know whether jockeys mandatorily contribute to R.o.R. but I believe they should, if only a small percentage of either their riding fee or prize percentage is taken from them. I just hope there is no malpractice at play here and that going forward R.o.R. will consider helping all the smaller equine charities in this country. If the sport has a social licence for its continued existence, that licence must be doubly important when it comes to the aftercare of racehorses when they are removed from the racing environment.

When Kingman was defeated in the 2,000 Guineas, was his jockey sacked because of it? I believe James Doyle was the jockey that day and every day after the horse won the Irish 2,000 Guineas. Here is my point: Shoemark may, and it is only may as no one can say for sure what might have happened if the horse had been ridden differently, well regret the ride he gave Field of Gold that day, yet the man who will benefit from his mistake, if mistake it was, will be Colin Keane. He will not give Field of Gold a similar ride to the one Shoemark gave him, as indeed Shoemark would not do today at the Curragh, if he had been given a second chance. James Doyle became a great rider after winning the Irish 2,000 Guineas, sadly Shoemark is denied that opportunity.

Hayley Turner is correct. In not having an all-girls team in the Shergar Cup this season a whole lot of the fun of the competition will be squeezed out of it. I am sure I am not the only fan of the Shergar Cup who supported the girls’ team due to them being the ‘underdogs’ and the not so small consideration that some of them were on a better quality of horse than was normal for them. I wonder if Ascot would have taken the same decision if Hayley were still riding?

​In a recent edition of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’, a heavily pregnant Aisling Bea, an Irish female comedian, for the uninitiated, said one of her close relatives, I think it may have been one of her grandmothers, was the first Irish professional female jockey. My ears lit-up at this revelation, as doubtless you would expect. Unfortunately, the topic did not prove part of the programme, so I was left unenlightened. Intrigued, I googled in search of an answer and, of course, was not helped one little bit. ‘Who was Ireland’s first female professional jockey’ was met with I.T. silliness, beginning with Charlotte Brew, then Holly Doyle and then Nina Carberry.
I have now contacted the Horse Racing Ireland and they will be getting back to me soon. In case anyone cares about this wee fact, I will relay the information as soon as possible, not that I can relay it any quicker than that. If you already know the answer to Aisling Bea’s famous ancestor, please keep it to yourself now, please. 

There will be changes to the Epsom Derby meeting but not for two seasons. Why the wait? Because the two people formerly employed by the Jockey Club who were most vocal about the Derby meeting requiring change, have departed for more tranquil waters and no one else in the organisation has yet picked-up the baton. Present thinking on the matter, which stopped when Nevin Truesdale want on his way, is that the Derby and Oaks will be run on consecutive Saturdays, with the Coronation Cup staged on the intervening Wednesday. This will, obviously, be a mistake. The Epsom Derby began its nose-dive to ordinariness amongst the British public when the race was moved from its traditional spot in the calendar, the first Wednesday in June. It may well never again re-establish itself no matter what changes are wrung. But the Epsom Derby should return to its traditional date, if only for the point of experimentation. If it works as a stimulus to the media and the public, then that is a positive. If it fails, then we shall know that more drastic measures are required to save the race from becoming just another race as far as the public is concerned. If the Cheltenham Gold Cup can attract both betting revenue and the gaze of the sporting public on a Friday, then can’t the Epsom Derby be as equally successful with the public and the media when run on a Wednesday?

In today’s Racing Post, Tom George makes a very good point about the race programme for National Hunt in this country being unfit for purpose and that we should be looking to Ireland and France for inspiration. Horse racing, especially over jumps, is first and foremost an equine discipline in the way Three-Day-Evening and Show Jumping is. Betting should only be considered of secondary importance, as important as it is to the financial welfare of the sport. If there is not a programme of races befitting the education and potential of the young horse, we are guilty of putting revenue before welfare and that is a sin for a sport which claims ‘welfare to be of vital importance’. Someone from the B.H.A. should contact Tom George and ask him to put meat on the bones of his complaint and then act on his advice.

​I visited the ‘Find a Racecourse Near Me’ portion of the Great British Racing website yesterday and unsurprisingly my nearest racecourse is Exeter, which is 38-miles from where I live, with the next meeting being held on Thursday October 9th and the lowest ticket price is £15. I can get into Wincanton on the other hand for £11, it is though 78-miles from where I live and the next meeting is on Sunday October 26th. If it were not for my growing aversion for being more than 10-miles from home if in a car or an hour when cycling, I would put the dates in my social calendar. And yes, I do not possess a social calendar, those afflicted with a liking for ante-socialism have no need of one.
As someone who was born cynical, it is easy to criticise the efforts of G.B.R. to promote the sport, especially in age of multiple competing sports and other entertainments all of which are doing all they can to expand their reach, but I thought the first ad was o.k. and the website easy to negotiate. We are not alone in the uphill struggle to remain relevant, French racing is also having steer a way through the doldrums and France Galop has had to sheer 20-millions euros off their prize-money budget.

As expected, the She’s Perfect team were unsuccessful in their appeal against her disqualification in the French 1,000 Guineas.  Personally, I think it was the wrong decision, though I am not surprised the stewards could not bring themselves to take a race off a leading French owner and give it to a loud and lovely syndicate from England. Hopefully Charlie Fellows can return to France with his filly and put the record straight in the French Oaks. If only life would be like that.

With B.H.A. approval there will be a charity race at Newmarket on Saturday September 20th, in aid of Newmarket Housing Trust and Racing Welfare, restricted to trainers located in Newmarket. But no jockeys will be involved. They can stand, watch, criticise and laugh, as the people who they usually ride for, trainers, become jockeys for the day. Such fun!

I remembered a horse Peter Harris used own – he who now has horses trained by Jane Chapple-Hyam – called Bee Sting. He won a couple of bumpers back in the day, trained by Peter Cundall, and was considered the likely next best thing, with Cheltenham options a’plenty. He did not, though, progress as they say and no doubt ended his day as a brilliant hunter. Anyway, the reason his name came to the forefront of my mind was the day before I was stung on the leg, just above where I broke it many moons ago, and as I type that left leg looks like it has been subjected to a pharmaceutical trial of a drug that has been rushed through its laboratory tests. I saw the bee responsible, and it was one of those small, quite cute varieties that give the appearance that honey would not melt in their mouths. And to think I try to have a majority of plants in the garden that are bee-friendly. The bargain is not being kept by the bee side, I suggest, and adds further evidence to my theory that nature dedicated to annoying everyone of us.

​The horse racing industry is worth £4-billion to the British economy. The treasury receives £300-million directly from British Racing, and the industry employs 100,000 people. So why is the British Government doing all it can to drive the racing industry into extinction. As with the blatantly flawed Net Zero zealotry, it is all to do with ideology. The problem they are trying to solve is worthy, I admit, yet horse racing has very little to do with the problem. On-line gambling is where the problem lies, casinos and poker games. Anyone who would like to be better informed on this issue I direct to today’s Racing Post and a piece written by serving M.P. Dan Carden. I have not looked-up which side of the house he sits as I do not want to prejudice myself against him.

Came across what may well have been the first outing of Great British Racing’s ‘The Going Is Good’ campaign yesterday and I was not appalled by the content. Light and fluffy, perhaps, and it made no great claims other than anyone attending a race-meeting is sure to have a memorable time.  That said, Newbury’s Shaun Hinds has proved that the best way to boost attendance is to address the people living in the local post-codes, a marketing campaign that must have cost a fraction of the G.B.R.’s £3.2-million. 

Our repulsive, lying, dictatorial, traitorous and smug Prime Minister, announced in Parliament yesterday, though he did not actually mention it to M.P.’s as I doubt it matters a jot to him, that the upshot of his belly-licking negotiations with the repulsive, lying, corrupt and dictatorial E.U., is that life will soon be easier and less costly to transport horses across the Channel to France. This new freedom of movement for livestock is also very helpful to French trainers as they get caught up in the red tape when returning from a journey to a British racecourse.
And do not applaud either our Prime Minister or the E.U for sorting out this mess as politicians were responsible for it in the first place.

Reform of the Irish novice chase programme, especially the withering of the Beginners’ Chases, is to be applauded. You can have 20 runners in a Beginners’ Chase, though with only a handful in anyway competitive. Get within ten-lengths of a Willie Mullins ‘Cheltenham type’ and you are handicapped out-of-all-proportion to the horse’s true ability. Though as Willie Mullins will also be diverted to novice handicaps, I suspect the problem is being more moved sideways than solved. The Willie Mullins problem is a hard problem to solve, to be sure. If every other trainer in the whole of Ireland cannot solve the Willie problem, what hope does Horse Racing Ireland have?

Outside of equine charities, which I still believe horse racing could do more to help, the racing industry has a great record of helping human charities raise funds. Jane Buick has become the driving force behind the charity ‘Autism in Racing’ and is heading up ‘The Great Big Ride’ event next month to raise awareness and funds. It is a call for people in the sport to get mobile on horse, bike or shank’s pony and, if possible, to send a video of the day to the charity. There is also to be a mini open day in Newmarket for families of an autistic child to tour the stables taking part. I believe the day is to be limited to ten families.
One should never brag about what you do for others, though I do believe the racing industry should make the public more aware of how it looks beyond its own borders when it comes helping human charities.

​I heard one pundit suggest that if Mikhail Barzelona had not dropped his whip in the French 1,000 Guineas he would have certainly won and negated the hoo-ha about the disqualification of She’s Perfect. This is pure supposition as we cannot know whether the filly would have gone forward for use of the whip or twirled her tail in resentment. 
Julian Muscat, writing in the Tuesday column of the Racing Post, whilst giving his thoughts on The Lion In Winter and whether Ryan Moore will choose him over Delacroix, makes reference to Wayne Lorden dropping his whip on Japan in the closing stages of the 2019 Epsom Derby.
There seems to be a given amongst racing commentators, in line with most punters, that the whip, or Pro-Cush as there is a push for us all to call a whip (some of us like to call a spade a spade and a whip a whip) is some sort of go-faster turbo charger. It is an encourager tool, to give it a more accurate definition, whilst also being a safety device when used correctly to keep a horse galloping in a straight line.
During a race, a use of the whip should be akin to the referee of a football match, seen but never heard. The less a jockey uses the whip, the less likely anything will go wrong, to my way of thinking. The whip can so easily get both a jockey and the sport into headline bad news. Too many horses go ‘sour’ due to over reliance of the whip. Frankie Dettori and Ryan Moore use the whip sparingly, as a last resort, and every apprentice should be taught to use the whip in a similar manner.
Some horses resent the whip and curled up when it is used, even sparingly. Honest horses do not need the encouragement of the whip. Horses winning easily do not need the whip to be used. Horses out-of-contention should never have the whip used on them. The whip gets the sport into trouble, as when a jockey pulls the whip from one hand to the other and the horse, especially a 2-year-old or ‘green horse’ rolls away from the whip. Even Ryan Moore cannot be sure how a horse will react when he changes whip hands, as happened with Exactly in the French 1,000 Guineas.
The whip is not a magic wand and it is not an instrument of punishment. Stewards should take into account – and I am referencing the Wexford stewards here – that some horses, especially mares, can be made sour by any use of the whip as encouragement and they should decide on caution when a jockey or trainer of experience and respectable character informs them that the horse in question has an aversion to the whip. I am sure some pundits and most punters would like to see a jockey suspended if they should drop their whip as it prevents them from riding to achieve the best possible placing.

Betfred will give a bonus of £2-million to the owner of any horse that wins the Triple Crown. Obviously, the only owner who stands to win their largess is Godolphin with Ruling Court. When the bonus was announced it was assumed, certainly be me, that only a colt can win this bonus for its owner. But why shouldn’t a filly be allowed to win the Triple Crown. I contest the last winner of the Triple Crown was not Nijinsky but Oh So Sharp when she added the St. Leger to her Oaks and 1,000 Guineas victories. I have heard her achievement referred to as the fillies Triple Crown but why should it be less of an achievement for a filly to win three classics than for a colt to win three classics?
Of course, this year, given Godolphin won both Guineas at Newmarket, with both heading for Epsom, Godolphin should have two bullets to shoot for the Triple Crown bonus, with Desert Flower and Ruling Court.
So, I ask again, why shouldn’t a filly win the Triple Crown and the £2-million bonus?

​Shaun Hinds, chief executive of Newbury racecourse, has proved that if you treat your customers with the reverence and respect that each and every of one of them deserve, great results can be achieved. Attendances have increased both over jumps and on the flat for nearly every meeting since Hinds took control. Once upon a time, when I was but a callow youth, I admit, going racing at Newbury was more akin to a parade inspection at an army barracks. Fun was not acceptable; ‘do as you are told’, the unspoken motto.
As a racecourse, the green bit the horses perform on, I mean, I believe there is not one better in the whole of the country and it deserves the number Group 1’s befitting such a fair and galloping racecourse.

How Journalism kept the Preakness is beyond me. And why no intervention by the stewards? In Britain we outlawed nudge and jostling more than a century ago and yet in the U.S. it seems if jostling and nudging is outlawed, barging and boring is permitted. The Kentucky Derby was run on a track brother to a slurry pit and the Preakness was more a brawl governed by the Queensbury rules and less a fair contest. I am not suggesting that the best horse did not win the race, I am though suggesting his rider was fortunate he did not put another jockey on the ground and in hospital. The more I witness U.S. racing, the less I like it.
Oh, Heart of Honor sort of disgraced himself in the stalls and then ran on to good effect to finish 5th and doubtless paid for his trip there and back.

The Derby trials are more or less done and dusted and I have yet to see a colt to take away my faith in Ruling Court.

The Summer Jumps programme, which started weeks ago, is to have a summer jumps championship starting next weekend at Cartmel. Smells slightly of an idea only recently cobbled together, not that it should be dismissed as bad, even if it is tardy.
I will also say ‘only £30,000’ up for grabs, though any help will be do, as most trainers and owners will counter. The championship is for jockeys, trainers, owners and ‘small trainers’, those who trained less than 30-winners in the 2024/25 season. The best aspect is there are more points up for grabs in bigger field races than with fewer. In 5-runner races, the winner gets 5-points. 6 and 7-runner races the points are 5-pts to the winners and 3-pts to the runners-up. 8 runners or more and it is 10-pts to the winners, 5-pts to the runners-up and 2-pts to the connections of those in third place.
So, good idea, pity it could not be announced for the first meetings of the summer season and the prize-money really should be double or more than is on offer. Cannot think it will do much to aid competitiveness this time around but as a concept it is a step in the right direction.

The Irish stewards are a bunch of half-wits. Let us not bandy about with half-truths. Some of the decisions both racecourse stewards and the H.R.I. are simply ridiculous and threaten to bring the sport in Ireland into disrepute. At Wexford over the weekend Ted Walsh was fined £3,000 after a running and riding enquiry. Ta Na la had finished second to the favourite Aspire Tower, a horse with far better form than the runner-up and subsequently was banned from racing for sixty-days and jockey Shaun O’Callaghan given a 14-day suspension.
Jockey instructions were ‘to settle the mare as she can be very free, get her jumping and to come home the best he can, and not to use his whip’. Given the mare ran as well, if not better, than the form-book suggested would be the case, I can only assume O’Callaghan offence, as instructed by the trainer, was not to use his whip.
Again, kindness is being considered a crime. Again, common-sense in Ireland is blown to the winds. Again, the welfare of the horse is placed second to the expectations of punters. Ted Walsh is guilty of looking after the mare and her owner, nothing else. All he set out to achieve was to make a racehorse out of a mare who seems to be her own worst enemy and in achieving that, he was doing what he is paid to do by the mare’s owner.
The Wexford stewards are right up there now for being the least competent stewards in the whole of Ireland. I can gratulate them and wish them luck in the final.