​On this day – 27th of August 2023 – in 1771, racing was held at Hereford for the first time; Isomony won the Ebor Handicap in 1879; racing was held at Leopardstown for the first time in 1888; in 1921 Charlie Smirke had his first ride in public at Gatwick, he was fourteen; in 1990 at Chepstow, an up and coming jockey called Lanfranco Dettori became the youngest jockey since Lester Piggott in 1955 to ride 100-winners in a season. And today is the birthday of Jamie Osborne, once known as a stylish National Hunt jockey and successful flat trainer trainer but now better recognised as the father of the rather wonderful Saffie Osborne. Jamie is 56. More significantly on this day in 1967, Red Rum won a nursery handicap at Warwick.

Frankie Dettori, more than at any other time throughout this season, showed us at York exactly what we will be missing from next season onwards. He was tactically sublime in the Juddmonte International, outwitting, I suspect, the equally sublime Ryan Moore, and then in the Ebor his supreme jockeyship was the difference between winning and losing. Even the genius that is Willie Mullins couldn’t sing Frankie’s praises high enough. And then to emphasise what will be missing from our racing lives in the very near future, he displayed his panache and beautiful and kind riding skills on his ‘cash machine’ Kinross. Ralph Beckett gave a hint that his stable superstar might also be out of our lives next season when suggesting he must name a barn at his stable in honour of a horse ‘the likes of which he will never see again’. Hope not. I’m really warming to Kinross, at last.

Referencing Ralph Beckett. One aspect of the Racing Post I remain critical about is the abbreviated manner in which they report on the previous day’s racing. Doubtless the paper no longer sends reporters to any race-meeting other than the main events, relying on the coverage by the satellite racing channels for their reports. I find this lazy method of journalism wholly inadequate and disrespectful to readers who pay them hundreds of pounds each year for the privilege of reading their newspaper.
Last week Ralph Beckett had three winners – too lazy (hypocrite, yes) to delve into the R.P.’s data-base as substitute for my ever-failing memory – all of which were ridden by Laura Pearson. It is a great achievement for any jockey to ride a hat-trick of winners in a day, especially for a female jockey just out of her claim. I am sure her close family would have liked to have seen in the trade newspaper a glowing report on the achievement of their family star, cutting out or cut and pasting the report for both posterity and to proud display to visitors and friends. The Racing Post needs to be reminded that it exists not for its own self-importance but for the documenting and neutral reportage of the sport as a whole and has a duty to its readers to supply as comprehensive as is possible coverage of racing at all levels on all days of the week. Every racing day matters.
Another example of the R.P. missing a story line was at Chepstow last week when Holly Doyle and Georgia Dobie rode 5 of the winners on a six-race card. Not as jaw-dropping as it might have been a few years, though still worth a paragraph, don’t you think?
That moan over, I have to add that without the Racing Post my life would be poorer by the length of the straight at Newcastle.

The public polls that the Racing Post conduct are doubtless popular, even though their readers don’t always come up with the right result. The poll before the present poll to find Britain’s favourite racehorse, actually came up with Dancing Brave’s Arc win as the greatest race ever run! I shake my head still to this day. Why wasn’t there a stewards’ inquiry?
The problem I have with the present poll is that it asks readers to choose between favourite sons and daughters. It reminds me of Ricky Gervais’s best joke, his answer to what would you risk your life to save if you came home to find your house on fire? ‘The fridge, the t.v. and one of the twins’. 
And that’s what this poll reminds me of. If you came home and found the stables on fire which one of the great horses would you save from the flames? It was agony for me to chose Spanish Steps over Frodon, Sprinter Sacre, Desert Orchid and many others. I never expected Spanish Steps to win or indeed Frodon and as Red Rum, Arkle and Desert Orchid will win the posthumous award, it will not rankle with me as other ‘winners’ of R.P. polls did. I just wish they had divided the poll into eras or decades so the likes of Brown Jack at least received a mention. How can anyone under the age of fifty appreciate the achievements of Arkle or anyone under the age of 100 appreciate the impact Golden Miller had with the racing public? 
It is like me trumpeting Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori as the greatest flat jockeys of all-time when Steve Donoghue, to give but one example, had long gone prior to my birth? 
A bit of fun, yes. Fills a few column inches, yes. Yet unlike other Racing Post polls I just want this one over and done with. The great horses should always be celebrated for the excitement and debate they brought into our lives. We could dissect their achievements and decide which, speculatively, was the best of all-time but how can it be determined which horse was our collective favourite?
Ricky Gervais, by the way, is not father to any children. That is why his 
‘twin gag’ is funny, and appropriate for referencing for this article.

​I am not someone who obsesses about having the facts all in a neat row. This blog is based on my opinions and ideas and I accept I get my opinions and ideas in a tangle on occasion. In ordinary life, we all make mistakes, misspeak and commit errors of judgement. Although by definition of public access this blog goes can be read by someone living on any of the continents, I am pretty sure only the very few ever stumble upon this site.
‘Horseracingmatters’ exists for the sole benefit of my mental health. I have lived for horse racing all my adult life, which is over fifty-years, and as a kid horse racing found favour over football and all other more normal activities for someone growing up on a Bristol housing estate. That said, my mental health wasn’t really mature enough to manage a career in the racing industry, a regret that lingers to this day. If I can write about the sport, I can content myself with a life not well lived. I am seventy next April, so nothing much in my life will change for the better.
Last week, as much because of the lazy streak that I must always fight against, I thought I knew my subject to the point I had no need to check my facts. And though the point I was in want of making was correct, I failed to get all of my facts into a neat row. No one was hurt by my mistake and the planet was not tilted off its axis because of it. Yet I was internally humiliated to make such a gaff, both on this site and in a letter I sent to the Racing Post intended for publication in their letters column. Thankfully, they recognised the falsity of my opinion and figuratively threw the letter in the bin.
(For a period of twelve-months, a few years ago, I wrote a column, as an unpaid contributor, for ‘Racing Ahead’ magazine. For eleven months my efforts were well-received. In what I chose to be my last contribution to the magazine, though, I made a similar gaff, referring to who I believe is the best t.v. commentator the sport has ever had as Andrew Hoiles. It was pointed out by the boss to the editor who also did not pick-up on the error, who then pointed it out to me. I chose to slink away, never to be seen again, my confidence in tatters! I also considered, given how well my pieces were received, apparently, that it was about time the magazine started to pay me. Lost my arguing position after naming Richard, Andrew!)
The point is, though, the gaff did rock my confidence to the point I vowed not to attempt to have a letter published in the Racing Post every again. That vow will wilt over time but it highlighted to me how easily it must be for a sportsman to lose confidence when an open goal is missed, a three-inch putt goes wide or you lose when all the evidence suggests you should have won. It tells its own tale when this is possibly the third-time I have written about this topic in little over a week. Thank the heavens I have no editor to bawl me out over my incompetence. 

To get my facts in a neat row, I have just taken advantage of my ultimate subscription to the Racing Post to access their data-base, which I hope is up-to-date. As of today 22/08/2023, the following are the ten most successful jockeys riding on the flat in 2023.
1. Rossa Ryan 122 wins from 672-rides, success rate of 18%
2. Oisin Murphy 109 from 633-rides, at a rate of 17%
3. William Buick 101 from 501 rides, 20%
4. Hollie Doyle 88 from 543 rides, 16%
5. Daniel Muscott 87 from 563 rides, 15%
6. Billy Loughnane 81 from 472 rides, 17%
7. Tom Marquand 79 from 545, 14%
8. Kevin Stott 78 from 506 rides, 15%
9. Robert Havlin 76 from 383 rides, 20%
Tenth of this list is David Probert 76 from 633 rides, 12%, with only Rossa Ryan obtaining more rides since January 1st.
Percentage-wise, the leading jockeys are, and no surprise here, Ryan Moore with 44 wins from 191 rides at a percentage of 23% and Frankie Dettori with 22 wins from 98 rides at a success rate of 22%.
The above table is fuel for my dislike of the jockeys championship being determined by two arbitrary dates after the start of the flat season and before it officially ends, all because Qipco and the B.H.A. want to give ‘Champions’ Day’ greater significance than a creamy bun-fight for the rich and successful of the sport. Who can ever remember the horse that was Qipco champion sprinter in 2021 or the champion middle-distance horse of 2020? William Buick would always be a rightful champion if the title was determined on skill and personality alone, yet dedication and hard endeavour should also be determining factors in where the title lands. 
In a sport so nuanced that anyone coming to the sport from outside its horsiness that a college degree could be designed around the varied aspects of the industry as a whole, someone thought to confuse the narrative to a greater extent by awarding championship titles to jockeys that invariably have not won the most races during the year in which the record books show them as ‘champion’. If I was Luke Morris, I would be livid!
The two stand-outs in the above table are Rossa Ryan and Robert Havlin, the former for his consistency throughout the year and the latter for achieving a 20% strike rate from only 383 rides. Once upon a time Hollie Doyle would have been a stand-out but she is no longer a female jockey but simply one of our best jockeys.
If I could change one rule of football it would be the foul-throw. In flat racing, in a heartbeat I would change the foul-throw that is the determination of the jockeys’ title back to the days when workaday jockeys like Seb Sanders could lift the trophy through hard work as well as skill in the saddle.

​In both Ireland and Britain, the use of saunas has become a hot topic of debate. Jockeys want saunas restored to Irish and British racecourses, the medical advisors to the racing authorities both sides of the Irish Sea are adamant in their belief they are bad for health and must not be reinstated. Finding a resolution to the disagreement will be difficult as both sides, in my opinion, have a slice of right on their side.
The overall health, as much as they can legislate for it, is the primary concern of racing authorities and the medial staff they employ. On the other hand, jockeys are obligated to draw the correct weight for each and every ride they have on any given day. At the moment, jockeys with weight issues are trying to take off the last pound by running around the racecourse before or during racing, sweating in very hot bathes before driving to the races, some wearing sweat-suits, with the car heater turned-up to full-blast, or spending an hour in a sauna close to the racecourse. Unregulated and unmonitored; more dangerous to health than saunas?
Both parties agree it is injurious to health to ride when dehydrated. Jockeys do, on occasion, faint after a ride due to dehydration. Personally, I believe the devil you know provides better resolution to any problem than the devil you don’t know. That is why I believe the return of saunas to racecourses is the way forward, with observed rules followed by all jockeys making use of them. Limited time use, drinking a stated amount of water after use and monitoring by a health official. As an olive branch, the wealthier jockeys could put their hands in their pockets to either pay for the saunas or at least pay a sizeable contribution to their return. Perhaps a small charge should also be imposed on sauna use.
I have also suggested, though this is not a bridge between both divides of the debate, that ‘heavy-weight’ and ‘light-weight’ races could be introduced to help both the very light jockeys who are disadvantaged by the rising of weights to accommodate the heavier jockeys and the same jockeys struggling to do the weights carried by horses at the top of the handicap.
It is a disagreement that must be resolved with speed afoot. 

Yesterday I posted a blog in which I got my facts wrong. I deleted the post within five-minutes of reading my on-line copy of the Racing Post. The previous day I had also e-mailed a letter to the Post’s letters column opining the same lack of knowledge. I trust they will not publish my gaffe. My excuse I present for my ignorance is wrapped-up in ageing, ailing memory, laziness in checking facts and the blindingly obvious conclusion of anyone who reads my musings, that I am not a journalist, trained or otherwise, and publish without the aid of an editor.
The basic premise of the blog was correct, that premierisation of racing will eventually lead to Saturdays without any racing for I.T.V. to televise as the weather in this country has an annoying habit of intervening on our entertainment. My error was in believing only two meetings would be scheduled on a Saturday in the time-slot given to the two premier meetings, when a third non-premier meeting will also be permitted. This small but relevant fact torpedoed my argument. 
In winter, though, you can bet your boots, there will be Saturdays when both premier meetings will fall victim to the weather, with any meeting scheduled for morning or evening being unavailable to fill the void. It is a basic failing of premierisation, even if 99% of the time the weather gods will play nicely.

On another, even more controversial subject, does anyone think there is a connection between the Gambling Commission’s war on betting and the Irish government’s apparent determination to destroy its profitable thoroughbred industry by banning betting adverts throughout the day on both terrestrial and satellite television, thereby denying horse racing in their country of millions of pound’s worth of advertising revenue? And would Singapore closing its only racecourse also be part of a similar connection? Or the manner in which horse racing in the U.S. is slowly beginning to implode upon itself?
I will leave you to conduct your own research. But in the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, a plan for the resetting of the world which all the leading nations and organisations have signed-up to, there is no place for animals other than those in the wild, and no place for racehorses that require so much of the Earth’s resources. And wild fires? Quite recently a conference took place on Maui, in Hawaii, on the possibility of turning the island into the first super-city, of 15-minute city of infamy. Join the dots and you might discover that ‘they’ have cleared the land of people, vegetation and buildings. Cars incinerated, yet wooden telegraph poles left unsinged!
The truth is, we are unwanted by the future developers and ‘guardians’ of our planet. Only that which A.1. can command will be allowed to remain! 

​The Racing League fails to deliver on its projections for the very basic reason its promoters chose to ignore – horse racing may be a team sport but at the heart of that team is not a product that can be bought in a showroom or store. The founding fathers of the Racing League foolishly beheld a dream that their invention could save the sport, that it held the potential to bring the racing audience back in droves to the racecourse. Bewitched by Formula 1, they preached a grandiose scheme that had Godolphin, Coolmore, Juddmonte and the leading flat trainers priming teams of horses for the challenge of winning the Racing League trophy. Except Godolphin, Coolmore, et al, recognised the flaw in the concept and have given it a wide berth.
Team Godolphin, Team Coolmore, Team Gosden, etc, have had to be replaced by Team Scotland, with few actual Scottish team members, Team this and Team that. Putting together teams for the series has been like the method kids use to make-up teams in the school playground. 
In Formula 1, Ferrari, Maclaren, Red Bull, etc, exist in real life. If you have the wealth required the man in the street can buy a Ferrari or Maclaren, they can drink Red Bull. The Racing League peddles the myth that somehow the racing fan can similarly be part of one of the spurious teams simply by wearing a scarf bearing the motif of one of the ‘teams’.
The Racing League cannot change the direction of horse racing for the simple reason that the two are not compatible. It is like suggesting a five-a-side football tournament can alter perceptions of the Champions League or even National League South. Can anyone remember who won the Racing League in its first year? Or the season after? Yes, Saffie won it last year. Beauty is always memorable. 
Owners and trainers support the Racing League for the enhanced, though not by much, prize money that can be won by horses of modest ability. Though why if ‘enhanced prize-money’ can be raised to support a poorly conceived concept, why can’t that same money be distributed to races throughout the summer? Let’s get real, owners and trainers do not support the Racing League because they believe the concept is a wonderful thing in itself, they are merely taking advantage of an opportunity. In fact, taken as a whole, I believe the Racing League is doing harm to the sport by shrinking competitiveness at other racecourses.
The Shergar Cup, though, makes no pretence that it exists for any other reason than to entertain. The teams are actually real, even if no enthusiast can buy a product the team represents. The concept of a ‘girls’ team’ is stamped in reality and allows for annual support. Wherever Hayley Turner, Holly Doyle and Saffie Osborne are riding today or during the coming week, if so inspired, you can go along to cheer them on, to ask for a selfie or autograph.
Look, I would change the format of the Shergar Cup so that along with the girls team, there would be a British male team, an Irish team and a World team. I realise there would be financial constraints on developing the format further but I think the concept is popular enough amongst the racing public to either include a fifth team or to expand the existing teams to four-members.
Also, what the Shergar Cup demonstrates year after year is that no matter how successful foreign jockeys are in their own countries, the home-grown jockeys, although it must be admitted they have home advantage, hold their own and usually go home with the trophies, as occurred again with the latest renewal. Personally, I would be happy to see other ‘team’ races staged throughout the season. Perhaps a series involving teams comprising British-born professional male riders, their female equivalent, apprentice equivalents and foreign British-based riders. Five teams, perhaps twelve races staged through the season, with teams of six-riders, with three of the six riding in each of the races, with a ‘final’ at the end of the season, with the intention of raising funds for the Injured Jockeys Fund.
Yesterday (12th August 2023) Holly Doyle won the trophy for leading rider at the Shergar Cup and between herself and Saffie Osborne (shouldn’t Ed Walker appoint her stable jockey before someone else nabs her services) won four of the six-races and yet again, although contributing not a single point to her team’s score, Hayley Turner was presented with the winning trophy and everyone present went home happy, no doubt looking forward to next year’s Shergar Cup.

​If I recall correctly, the sport of show jumping went down the ‘innovation’ route and look where it found itself – not on mainstream t.v. They built an indoor ‘Hickstead style bank’ in an attempt to duplicate the jeopardy of the real outdoor ‘uphill and down-dell’ obstacle synonymous with the Hickstead Derby. They also tried betting on show-jumping classes.
The rather elemental and beautiful sport of athletics is not to spared innovation, with razzle-dazzle lighting effects and mixed-sex relay races amongst innovations to tempt more people to the sport. All needless and gimmicky; the work of go-getting entrepreneurs with no appreciation of workaday gold-dust or history.
Has innovation improved any sport? Cricket now has so many formats it has become a circus of hit, run and pyjama-costumes. W.G. Grace, Don Bradman and the other founding fathers of the game must toss and turn in their graves as ‘the Hundred’, the rough-coated terrier of all-sports’, denigrates the history and tradition of a once leisurely pastime. 
A small annoyance at the proposed innovation of micing up jockeys so they can talk to interviewers or trainers as they mosey down to the start or indeed during a race is the word ‘micing’ itself. Sounds too much like mice-ing-up or even mincing-up. The last thing horse racing needs is to have the piss taken out of it.
Here's a scenario that will be repeated time and time again: a jockey will be cantering down to the start on a favourite and he or she will be asked if their mount feels as if it will cope with ground that might be firm or heavy. The jockey will truthfully return a negative response and the horse will ‘drift like a barge in the betting’, only for it to scoot in at twice the odds it was in the morning papers. ‘Foul’ many will scream. ‘The jockey was prompted to give a negative response by an owner wanting better odds and a bigger killing’. Jockeys will be put in ‘a damned if I do and damned if I don’t’ situation which will be unfair on them.
Jockeys also swear and curse. Racehorses behaving badly can make a vicar blaspheme, I assure you. As nice a bloke as Tom Marquand is, when that horse kicked him down at the start at Newmarket this season, lacerating his arm and putting him off-games for a week, I doubt he said ‘damn and blast’ as he slipped painfully out of the saddle. And what sweet oaths will fall from jockeys’ lips during a race when they get cut-up going for a run up the rails or when they their mount rears-up or goes down on their knees in the stalls.
What really sticks in my throat though is the constant comparison between horse and motor racing as if a Formula 1 car is a sentient being or jockeys have the safety protection as a driver. They use so much coded messages in Formula 1 that for the viewer it becomes more a game of ‘Only Connect’ than insightful involvement into a sport that is 90% high-tech and 10% perspiration. 
Our sport is both simple to understand and as complicated as you want it to be. Would it help the punter if it was known that a trainer had changed the feeding regime at his stables? Or that a jockey had gone without breakfast to do the weight on a horse whose form suggests it has no chance of winning? I would suggest the only innovation in horse racing that would wholescale benefit horse racing is around the science of finding-out cheats and the welfare of the horse. Micing-up (or mice-ing up or mincing-up) jockeys would bring little sunshiny benefit and a myriad of unnecessary grey undertones.
If we are so desperate to engage with a new audience, the young and affluent, we have to make the sport palatable for their dainty senses and that will require less whip and a higher degree of ‘My Little Pony’.
This sport has evolved from match races across open farm land and heath to the competitiveness of today; from when it was a sport for the aristocracy and the gentry to a sport for all classes; the domain of men only to a sport where both genders compete on equal terms. From starting flat race from barriers and delays lasting twenty-minutes to stalls and races starting bang on time. Horse racing continues to evolve; it has no need of youthful intervention that mimic other sports. The Racing League was innovation designed to engage with a ‘new audience’ and yet it fails on an annual basis because its concept is based on a fallacy; that the public can acquire an allegiance to a team that in reality does not exist.
The beauty of horse racing is its history, its diversity and the human interaction with the thoroughbred racehorse. The sport is called horse racing. We race horses, don’t we?

​I’ve never used a sauna, either for pleasure (?) or for weight loss, and I imagine only jockeys know the full extent of the benefit and downfall of using one on a regular basis. The first thought on whether racecourses should reintroduce their use is that surely it is the thin edge of an unhealthy wedge to encourage stick-thin people to sweat, dehydrate and then engage in physical exercise in front of thousands of people. But as jockeys will inform you, it is not a straight up and down issue.
In the past, sweating was a communal event for jockeys, with Turkish baths doing a roaring trade when the jockeys came to town. The late, great, Terry Biddlecombe and his pals were infamous for sweating and drinking together, with champagne their favourite hydrating drink.
A jockey with a sauna at home is free to spend an hour shedding a few pounds, get in the car, perhaps with the heater on whether it be mid-summer or dark winter, and arrive at the racecourse dehydrated and perhaps remain in that bodily condition for ten-hours or more. Whereas, if a sauna was available at the racecourse, the period of dehydration would not only be a lot shorter but the health and well-being of he or she could be monitored by the attending racecourse doctor. The use of saunas is not banned on health grounds, the B.H.A. has only banned their use at racecourses.
The obvious compromise is for saunas to be allowed to return to the racecourse but for individual jockeys to be given only limited access to them and that they must be seen to have consumed a small amount of water before leaving the weighing room to go to the parade ring. After all, racehorses are offered a small drink on arrival at the racecourse as they too cannot perform to their best ability if dehydrated.
Also, there is another way the heavier jockey can be accommodated or allowed a better standard of living – high-weight flat races, where no horse carries less than 9st 5Ibs, for example, with top-weight a stone more. I believe the sport should give all jockeys an opportunity to earn a living and high-weight races, as well as low-weight races for the lighter jockeys, are a way of spreading the love.
Tom Marquand seemingly has no need of a sauna. He, I believe, is more an advocate of ice-baths every morning. Whereas I am more an advocate of hot salt bathes, though that has more to do with medication of haemorrhoids than anything uplifting. He is, if anyone else has noticed, slowly but surely closing the gap on William Buick in the struggle to become champion jockey this season. As I am writing, though I haven’t checked yesterday’s results, he is only 9-winners in deficit and it would make a good narrative for the rest of the season if he could get upsides Buick and give us a good tussle for honours up to the premature and perfectly stupid conclusion to the title race in October on ‘Champions Day’. Either of them would be deserving champions, though for public acclaim and mention in the media, it would be better if Marquand’s other half stole the title from them.
I’m not going to agree with the public vote organised by the Racing Post to establish our favourite horse as too many people will vote for the same horses they voted for in the best horse of all-time, won appropriately by Arkle. The aspect of this vote that skews it from favourite horse to best horse is that we all loved Arkle, Desert Orchid, Red Rum, Frankel, etc. These horses, and others, are equine gods that will never be forgotten.
I voted for Spanish Steps because he was the horse that first took up residence in my heart. Others have followed but none have removed him from the throne of majesty, though Frodon, recently, has given him a nudge or two. If this poll had been undertaken in the 1930’s or late 20’s there would have only been one winner as Brown Jack was head and shoulders the best loved racehorse in the country. He had trains and public houses named in his honour. Different times, of course.
I just hope Spanish Steps earns a mention in dispatches.

​It just never goes away, does it? The truth is this: the B.H.A.’s history in dealing with the whip issue is so poor that it is time the matter was taken out of their hands. How that is achievable I have no idea? Yet surely, we have reached the stage when enough is more than enough. The whip debate needs to be silenced.
The problem that besets finding a solution is the divide between those who cannot see what the fuss is about and those who believe the whip and its place in horse racing may become the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I am in the latter category.
In days of yore, it is perceived that it was a free-for-all, with jockeys barging and boring without censure and any amount of whipping tolerated by stewards as ‘horses were only a beast of burden’. Yet Fred Archer in conversation with a friend easily admitted ‘that I have lost more races through the use of the whip than the whip ever helped me win.’
And the B.H.A. is right to be concerned about public perception of the whip. Yet it is unconcerned that banning jockeys for many weeks when found guilty of going beyond the set number of strikes might be reinforcing public perception that the sport is inherently cruel. To ban Jim Crowley, for instance, for 20-days will have him vilified by the ignorant critic of the sport as a ‘carpet beater’, when in fact he is the absolute opposite. If Jim Crowley had used his whip ten-times in the King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, instead of nine-times, three above the limit, Hukum would have been disqualified, not on the day but three-days later. Would that be satisfactory?
The ignorant critic of our sport will doubtless go on social media and claim Jim Crowley was suspended for 20-days for whipping Hukum senseless in his selfish need to win at all costs, when in fact the 20-days was a combination of his ride on the day and a totting-up process that includes other, perhaps trivial, whip offences accrued over many months. When it comes to punishing jockeys, the B.H.A. would do better to look at the problem in a more rounded way. Jim Crowley’s ban looks bad for racing. Paula Muir’s 35-day ban was even worse. As is Kielan Wood’s off-the-wall suspension.
I remain fixed to my assertion that ‘1-strike and that’s it’ should be the rule. But if the racing industry as a whole is okay with 6-strikes, then I’ll go along with the consensus. The warning, though, is this: if the Labour Party were to win the General Election in 18-months, as the polls suggest, and they carry out their threat to legislate against the use of the whip in horse racing, the current debate becomes irrelevant. To this end I would suggest this: it would be a more proportionate penalty for jockeys found guilty of exceeding 6-strikes to be restricted to riding in races without the aid of using a whip in earnest. In effect, riding a finish using hands and heels only. If this was the rule on Saturday, Jim Crowley would still receive a £10,000 fine but would still be able to ride, though without the use of the whip for 20-days. I see this as a ‘happy’ compromise.
Also, in order to have real time data to hand for the day the B.H.A. might need to defend the use of the whip should a Labour Government legislate against use of the whip, a small number of races per week should be run on the flat restricting professional jockeys to riding ‘hands and heels’ as there are a number of such races for apprentices. The world line of travel on this issue is less use of the whip not more and the sport needs to ready itself for when the imposition is imposed on us.
Jockeys should not be allowed to drive the debate. They must be consulted and their views taken into consideration. The truth is though, that jockeys reliance on the whip, their belief that to be a good jockey they must be free to use the aid as they see fit, must be allied to scientific data that determines the whip is not the difference between losing and winning and might, if Fred Archer was correct, be the reason for defeat in a close finish. Flat jockeys like Dettori, Moore, Buick and Marquand prove day after day that winning is achievable without excess use of the whip.

​Everything that is good about Irish racing can be found at the Galway Festival. Amateur jump jockeys mix with flat race apprentices; Grand National winning jockeys mix with Epsom Derby winning jockeys; the champion flat jockey shares a weighing room with the champion National Hunt jockey. Aidan O’Brien will have runners there this week, as will, of course, Willie Mullins.
Today, the main race of the day is a 2-mile 1-furlong handicap on the flat for amateur riders. Where else in the world would you find such a race as the feature and with a six-figure prize fund? Only in Ireland. Only at Galway. And no one questions the merit of the race. And the quality of the Galway Plate this week would do justice to the Cheltenham Festival. The Galway Festival is a 7-day craic extravaganza and demonstrates how horse racing and the inhabitants of its homeland can come together for the benefit of all.
In Great Britain we are too stuffy to have a Galway-like racing festival. For some reason, though it was accepted not so many years ago, the B.H.A. do not approve of flat racing and National Hunt mixed cards. There is a mixed card at Haydock in late April/early May but it sits alone in the calendar since the old Whitbread meeting at Sandown was split into two distinct days, one for the flat and one for National Hunt. Though I think that decision was for the betterment of the jumps season, I do not see why mixed cards cannot be reintroduced, especially with the number of National Hunt races to be reduced in 2024. 
What is there to prevent Wetherby staging a mixed card, now that Wetherby stage a few flat meetings in early summer. Or Worcester, a course that used to stage flat racing. Or Chester, a course that has suggested having hurdle races in the past.
Although I would not expect to see a Galway-style meeting in this country, it might be an idea to have a week of mixed racing at a time in the flat season when everything is low-key, perhaps between two of the big festivals, with the racing as varied as it is at Galway.

Having watched a spectacular King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot on Saturday it is galling to read in today’s Racing Post that both Jim Crowley and Rob Hornby violated the whip rules, with Crowley expected to get a long ban due to the totting-up process. It was also hinted that the possibility of Hukum being disqualified also remains a possibility.
Look, I am a proponent of limiting use of the whip to one-strike and it disappoints me that jockeys continue to go over the present limit of six-strokes. Yet I saw nothing in Saturday’s race that I thought was harmful to the image of the sport. I witnessed two courageous horses and two exceptional jockeys in a duel for supremacy. Neither combination deserved to lose and neither jockey deserve sanction for the ride they gave their mounts. The B.H.A. believe the perception of the public is a matter of greater import than the perception offered to the public when they suspend our top jockeys for long periods for breaking the whip rules. They are wrong.
I remain convinced we must follow the line of travel and prepare ourselves for a sport where use of the whip will become as illegal by law in society as child-beating. It is why I believe there should be whip-restricted races throughout the season, perhaps four or five a week, for professional riders. It is why I believe one-strike is the right number and that over the next four or five seasons the number of strikes should be reduced by one each season to reach that single number.
In this matter the B.H.A. have proved itself totally incompetent.

The Gambling Commission is proving itself equally incompetent. I would urge anyone visiting this website to read today’s copy of the Racing Post (July 31st 2023) and both Lee Mottershead’s column and the letters’ column. Lee writes on the intricacies and rank stupidness of the proposed legislation and in the letters column a personal insight into the cruel consequences of the proposed legislation. In fact, after reading Lee Mottershead, I think the Racing Post should apply for a charity handout as the journalists working for the paper are in a far better position to help those afflicted with gambling addiction than many of the organisations currently receiving bookmaker-funded charity funds that amount to six-figures or more. Indeed, there is more than a whiff of possible corruption, perhaps only laziness, involved between the Gambling Commission and those that come out of left field claiming to be experts in the field of gambling addiction. As was the case when the government issued P.P.E. contracts worth millions-of-pounds to any Johnney-come-lately from sweet wrapping manufacturers to brand new business start-ups owned by relatives or friends of ministers.

​I’ll be honest; I only bought ‘Paddock Personalities’ by John Fairfax-Blakeborough as someone contacted me to ask if I could provide any information on Patrick Cowley, National Hunt champion jockey in 1908 and I was aware he was mentioned in the book. Not that I regret the expense as I have far too few racing books of this vintage in my small library and elderly appearing tomes give a library gravitas.
For ease of brain and for brevity I will refer to the author as J.F.B. 
‘Paddock Personalities’ was published in 1935 and is a book that would find no favour with publishers nowadays as it has no clear narrative and wanders through the life and recollections of a man who rode as an amateur, owned racehorses, trained in a small way, published many books on racing, including a biography a Matthew Dobson Peacock, the legendary Middleham trainer, and was a steward at many northern racecourses.
Remarkably, he wrote of personal reminiscences of Fred Archer, Steve Donoghue and Gordon Richards, including a quote by Archer where he admitted that the use of whip lost him more races than it won him. The book is laced together by surnames that have lingered in the sport’s history throughout the proceeding decades: Armstrong, Bartholomew, Beasley, Bewicke, Cazalet, Easterby, Elsey, Hanmer, Harrington, Hastings, Joel, Loder, McCalmont, Nightingall, (Not Nightingale, as I pronounced and spelt his name almost all my life until corrected by someone with a greater eye for detail than I possess) Peacock, Renwick, Rickaby, Rimell, Rogerson, Roseberry, Smyth, Straker, Watts, Wragg, Zetland, and many more.
Being a northerner himself, J.C.B. knew the trainers that inhabited Middleham, Malton and Hambleton as personal friends and wrote of the destruction of the famous Hambleton gallops by Sir Matthew Dodsworth, a man who in later life became anti-racing and planted trees and built walls across a moorland gallop that ran straight for 3-miles. There used to be an ancient racecourse on Hambleton Moor, Black Hambleton, and until 1776 the King’s Plate was held there, a very prestigious race at the time.
Many of the great racing stables of the present era such as Heath House and Stanley House are referred to through their incumbents of the time, as well as the great northern powerhouses at the time as with Spigot Lodge and Whitewall, a training yard that went under the developers shovel in J.F.B.’s time.
There are many a casual reference that perhaps meant so much more at the time of publication than they do now, though I personally appreciated the information that Eremon and Jenkinstown, the 1907 and 1910 Grand National winners ‘sleep’ peaceably at the Danebury training grounds, as does Bay Middleton. In fact, though a good deal of what J.F.B. communicated to his readers in 1935 is pure foggy history to his readers of 2023, I suspect much of it was gossipy gold dust to readers living in an age when even the wireless was still relatively new technology. He even allowed others to tell their stories in their own words such as Harry Taylor and Tom Jennings. Indeed, you can open this book at any random page to find something of interest.
J.F.B. wrote about racecourses long gone, some that even escaped mention in ‘A Long Time Gone’. Chris Pitts wonderful memorial to Britain’s racecourse history. Newcastle is referred to as Gosforth Park and he quotes locals who in J.F.B.’s time still longed for the first Carlisle racecourses that was known as Swifts.
Though I suggested a book similar to ‘Paddock Personalities’ would not find favour with modern-day publishers, it is the sort of narrative that would suit a raconteur and history-buff such as Sir Mark Prescott, a great man of racing who stubbornly refuses every opportunity to write his autobiography. 
If I recall correctly, a pristine copy of this book purchased from ‘Ways of Newmarket’ might set you back hundreds of pounds. My slightly foxed copy, with no wrapper, cost only £30. It is reference book I will no doubt turn to repeatedly during my time left on this Earth. Long-ago authors such as J.F.B. are owed a great debt for committing to record the contemporary history of the sport. Perhaps a northern racecourse might consider naming a race in memory and thanks to J.C.B. A northern turf stalwart if ever there was one.

​Affordability checks for punters is part and parcel of the aim of government, and governments around the world, to control every aspect of citizens’ lives. Banks not allowing certain people personal and business accounts, as with Nigel Farage and the bookmakers featured in todays Racing Post, is another example of state oversight. Remember, the long-term financial policy is for a cashless society and a universal credit system that allows government to know the amounts people are spending, where it is being spent and is a system where ‘they’ have greater control of our finances than we will have. If you exceed the speed limit in your car, the fine will automatically be taken from your bank account; if you make a comment on social media that ‘they’ ascribe to misinformation – a comment that goes against the official narrative – a fine can be imposed without your immediate knowledge and the money taken from your bank account or credit score. Think China and you have a fair idea of what is round the corner for us all. Affordability checks will eventually be rolled-out to many other sectors of society. If British racing engaged with the wider public on this matter, taking into account my comments, comments backed by many financial and social commentators, greater support for fighting the line of travel might be garnered. Make no mistake, government lies to us. What they say is only half the truth of the matter.
To get back on track. The King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot this Saturday looks a real cracker; possibly the highest quality flat race in this country for many years. It is like the good old days when because of a lack of viable opportunities elsewhere, the best horses took each other on in the best races. I want Pyledriver to win. I expect King of Steel to win. I wouldn’t be surprised by any result other than Hamish winning.
The Racing League is back. Still failing to achieve its goal of increasing attendance numbers, something that will not be helped by I.T.V. televising each and every race as that is just another disincentive for people to get in their cars to be in attendance for any of the six Racing League fixtures. It’s a dud concept and the organisers should fall on their sword and admit defeat. It cannot succeed as it does not reflect the true nature of horse-racing. If someone new to the sport attends Yarmouth tonight and enjoys the team spirit and attends the next Yarmouth fixture, he or she will be surprised and disappointed to discover that horse racing is in fact not based on fictional teams that have nothing much in common with the regions the jockeys, trainers and owners are supposed to represent. For the Racing League to have a future, horse racing would have to become Team Gosden, Team Balding, Team Henderson, Team Nicholls, with assigned riders that only the team they are attached to able to ride for Team Gosden, Team Balding, etc, etc. The prize-money is good, though, though if they can assemble that sort of money for a dud like the Racing League, why can’t it just be put into six proper fixtures?
The competitiveness of British racing will only be achieved by less race meetings, especially in an era when the number of horses in training is decreasing, as are the number of licenced trainers. It’s not rocket science, is it? Also, with the eternal problem of attracting young people into the sport, it would also make sense to limit the number of horses any one trainer can have in a stable at any one time. If the limit were to be 150 or 125, those trainers with over 200 horses in their care would need less staff, with those people dispersed around all those trainers who are currently understaffed. Such a policy, if only brought-in for a limited number of years, would benefit the industry as a whole.
The issue of the decrease in licenced trainers – down 17% in Britain and 13% in Ireland – is caused by economics and the horrendous increase in every product used and consumed in a racing stable. Largely, it is an issue that is out of British racing’s hands. The above solution – limiting the number of horses any one trainer can have – would improve competitiveness and allow more trainers to, if not make a profit, at least break even and allow an incentive to struggle on rather than throw in the towel.
There may not be a credible climate crisis but there is crisis British racing must survive and the B.H.A. and others should be debating possible policies to help trainers keep in business, otherwise in the future the sport will be kept alive by Team Gosden taking on Team Balding and Team Henderson taking on Team Nicholls, with no other competition in town!