​On Sunday, at Longchamp, we had the extraordinary state of affairs when Fantastic Moon, the German-trained Arc runner, was to be withdrawn from the race due to ‘unsuitable ground’ and then reinstated soon afterwards when connections discovered it would be cost them a £50,000 fine. I applaud the French stewards for discouraging trainers to withdraw a horse due to a slight variation in ground conditions. ‘A little too much juice in the ground’, often used by a trainer for withdrawing a horse to keep it for a race it might have a better chance of winning later in the week, should be met with a fine as draconian as the one the Longchamp stewards threatened the connections of Fantastic Moon with on Sunday. Not £50,000, obviously, but the value of the race, I would suggest. It is too easy for a trainer to withdraw a horse due to conditions not being absolutely perfect for their runner. Leniency should be kept for extraordinary situations and not dealt out willy-nilly for when the ground has altered a degree or two. A few weeks ago, an owner of Richard Hughes got caught-up in roadworks on his way to the races and realising he would not arrive in time for the race, he instructed the trainer to withdraw his horse. In this instance, I believe, the stewards did not ask enough questions and the horse was withdrawn for what in effect was a dishonest reason, not because the owner was stuck in traffic. No action was taken and no fine of consequence was imposed. Should not have been allowed, though it demonstrates how easy it is for trainers to withdraw a horse. The rules need tightening, that is all I am saying.
 
The sometimes excellent Richard Forristal believes the Arc to be perfect. I would disagree. Perfection is when all the best horses at a particular distance take each other on, geldings included. Everything he said about discouraging connections to geld colts too early in their careers may be correct, though if colts were gelded early perhaps less of them will be exported abroad. He is right, of course, that everything should be done to encourage breeders to breed for stamina and not speed but that is no reason to exclude geldings from a race that in the future might cry out for geldings simply to keep the race competitive as speed, speed, speed is the dominating force in horse racing around the world right now.

I have never liked hurdles and used to express a wish for hurdle racing to be stopped. I saw one too many horses killed due to putting a leg through a hurdle and wanted to see hurdles replaced by French-style mini-fences. I remain of that mind-set, though the new Easyfix hurdles to be introduced in Ireland might help change my mind. Noel Meade and his fellow top trainers approve of them and that is all that needs to be said on the matter. Except this: people praise the way French horses jump, especially when they come over to run in our major chases, so why do we not copy what they do and change their type of hurdle?

On Sunday, in the Czech Republic (Is it still called that?), the next renewal of the Grand Pardubice is to be run. This year, the O’Leary’s grand old warrior Coko Beach is giving it a try, ridden by Keith Donoghue. My fingers are crossed he adapts to this new test as easily as he adapted to the Cross-Country at Cheltenham and Punchestown, and as easy as he makes jumping the Aintree fences; if so, he will near damn win the race. John McConnell also has a go at what is now Europe’s most prestigious steeplechase with Streets of Doyen ridden by Ben Harvey. My hopes are with Coko Beach. Crossed-fingers!

​The turf flat season begins with the Lincoln Handicap, not the race it once was and, in my opinion, in need of restoration. I have proposed the race become a 40-runner (or perhaps 34), race started from a barrier, as in the old days, to give the public and present-day flat jockeys a glimpse of what horse racing was like in the days of Sir Gordon Richards. It might also pique the interest of mainstream sports media and the public, too. The flat would then have a race of jeopardy similar to the Grand National of old.
That said, the Lincoln is at least an historic name in which to launch the new season. Between the November Handicap and the Lincoln, the all-weather season ensures work for flat jockeys and trainers through the winter months, with several landmarks in the way of unnecessary Group and listed races as well as ‘Finals Day’, which, given this a sport governed by the B.H.A., is not the final all-weather meeting of an all-weather season that seemingly has no beginning and no end.
The National Hunt season is not so well accommodated. If I had my way, the summer jumps programme would be festival orientated as it is in Ireland, with a similar number of hurdle and chases with enhanced prize-money as is the case with the all-weather season.
During the fallow period between May and September, I would like to see less race meetings, with 3 and 4-day fixtures becoming the norm, as is the situation in Ireland, with each festival staging a signature race. Ireland has the rights to summer regional Nationals, so perhaps Britain might look to 2-mile handicap chases and 3-mile handicap hurdles.  I would also have a 3-week break between Sandown when the prizes are awarded and the start of the summer jumping programme and a similar break between the end summer jumping and the start of the National Hunt season proper.
From next season, I believe, the traditional opening meeting of the season proper at Chepstow is to be extended to 3-days. But it will still be masked by Newmarket’s Cesarewitch meeting. I would propose staging the meeting either during the week, Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday or Sunday, Monday & Tuesday, to give Chepstow more prominence. I would also suggest naming the meeting the ‘Here We Go’ meeting or a sponsors’ name followed by something far grander than my suggestion.
Personally, even though it may cause a concertina effect, I would prefer Chepstow to stage this meeting after Ascot’s ‘Champions’ Day, again to allow the start of the season to have limelight. It is wrong in my opinion to allow the turf flat season to linger into November, even if the November Handicap is the final flat race of significance. 
Flat to jumps should be a passing-on of the baton, as it once was in the past, and the same when the jumps gives-way to the flat. I have a preference for ending the jumps season at Aintree with the Grand National, as much as the Jockey Club have allowed it to be raped and pillaged over recent years, as the final race of the season. Sandown’s old Whitbread meeting could then become the start of the summer jumping programme, with all the prizes handed-out to the previous season’s champions.
When all-weather racing was proposed, its purpose was to ensure betting revenue was kept ticking over when frost, snow and deluge caused jumps racing to be abandoned. The bloom of all-weather racing is akin to rhododendrons running riot across moorland. It is all very pretty when in bud but ruinous to the natural landscape. When uncompetitive racing is debated, when the question is asked why fewer horses cross from the flat to hurdles, it is if the Labour Party is in charge and they threaten the removal of the whip if any of its members dare talk about the elephant in the room.
The Racing Calendar is not only overly congested but it is also overgrown to the point where the wood, on occasion, cannot be seen for the trees.
The National Hunt season needs a clear-cut starting point, with, perhaps, Chepstow staging a day of summer jumping finals, similar to the all-weather season, and races designed as trials for the major races in November. Unlike everyone else, apart from wishing Cheltenham’s ‘Trials Day’ could be transformed into a 2-day ‘Festival’, with races transferred from the present March 4-day Festival (I am now in favour of cutting The Festival to 3-days), I believe the winter jumps programme to be fit for purpose. 

​What is meant by the phrase ‘the social licence’? Yes, it refers to opinions held by Joe Public, yet as many people in this country object to having their television viewing dismantled by I.T.V. or B.B.C. in favour of football or rugby coverage, as clap their hands in joy in the change to regular scheduling, why is the ‘social licence’ not used by complainants? 
A poor analogy, you might say. And perhaps you are right. But people will complain on social media to this afront to their personal pleasures and the favouritism given to sports fans. People whose complaints are conducted civilly, without riot and disruption, should have the greater right to be listened to and respected. Yet that is not the case. Unfortunately, and perhaps to our personal cost, we have a government more easily manipulated by the tyranny of the few than silent discourse of the majority.
A growing number of people are dismayed by how our government is performing and the consensus ‘social licence’ the Labour Party gained at the General Election no longer seems to exist. This phrase ‘social licence’ can have its definition stretched in any direction and used to mean whatever is convenient to either side of a disagreement. I believe horse racing owns this particular ‘social licence’, whereas the B.H.A. are of the opinion that it is owned by those outside of both horse racing and the likes of Animal Rising.
It seems to be the ‘social licence’ can be acquired through illegal activity and not by passive debate. Animal Rising broke the law and yet they seem to be the defenders of the ‘social licence’ in the debate on whether horse racing should be allowed to continue, even though they are very much in the minority when it comes to the numbers of people who support the sport or have no opinions either way.
If a horse dies in a high-profile horse race, as happened in the Arc on Sunday, and a poll is conducted on-line or on the streets of London into whether horse racing should be allowed to continue, which results in a high percentage of people siding with the view of Animal Rising, even though the poll was conducted in areas of the country favourable to a negative response, with the questions asked slanted in favour of Animal Rising’s position, is this the manifestation of the ‘social licence’ that might topple our sport?
I believe we, the sport, are holders of the ‘social licence’ as society has supported the sport of horse racing for over 200-years. All classes of society, indeed, have supported the sport and continue to do so. Our sport, perhaps more than any other sport in this country, is of great benefit to the Exchequer and with tax levied on betting the sport benefits the country, too. 
Racecourses are also green spaces in an increasingly urban environment, an oasis of fresh air amongst the sprawl of human occupation of towns and cities. The sport of horse racing is a reminder of days of old, when the horse was the only transport in peacetime and war, when man and horse were evidence of daily life.
All that said, the sport must listen, not to Animal Rising, terrorists hiding behind a shield of ‘caring’ about the plight of the horse, but to those who through being ill-informed believe our sport to be ‘cruel’, who believe ‘we’ only use the horse for our entertainment, to gain financially from that entertainment.
It is why funding a vibrant after-care programme for racehorses should be accepted by the B.H.A. and its stakeholders as the main priority, a matter of greater urgency than prize-money, even. We must not be led by other countries in this, we must set standards that other countries, countries of far greater wealth than our own, will find hard to replicate. Money must be found where there is an abundance of money, and that resource is the sales ring.
Over the coming weeks, yearling sales will generate millions upon millions of guineas as the wealthiest in the world compete with one another to acquire the bluest of blue-blooded horses. I remain wedded to the proposal that 1 or 2% of all sales from every thoroughbred auction in Britain could fund both a rise in prize-money, which would benefit everyone in the sport, including consigners and buyers, and provide the revenue stream to fund an after-care programme which would be the envy of other countries and dent our opponents claim to the ‘social licence’.

​I start with news about the Grand National ahead of the Prix De l’Arc De Triomphe as to me it is a far more important race. First, I must get my apology in, if indeed an apology is required, to the present clerk of the course at Aintree, Suleka Varma. If she is pregnant and her leave of absence during the Grand National meeting will be unavoidable, my comments here will be inappropriate. But, knowing very little about such matters, though aware of the nine-month gestation period, it would seem to be only even-money that two-months into the event she can be certain of an April birth. So, if you are pregnant or there is another perfectly acceptable reason for going on leave during the most important three-days of Aintree’s year, I apologise.
That said, it is extraordinary that she would be absent for one of sports most famous events and, sadly, according to the ignorant, one of the world’s most infamous sporting events. Given her hand is on most of the controversial changes to the race in the history of Aintree, with hints from Nevin Truesdale that more alterations are in the pipeline, it might be thought cowardly off her to take her hand off the tiller at a time when the captain is most needed.
Of course, in announcing that the Jockey Club were parashooting John Pullin into the position of race-day clerk of the course at Aintree, no reason was attached to the statement as to why Ms. Varma would be absenting herself. I hope this is not a case of a troubleshooter brought in to do the dastardly deeds the board members of the company were unwilling to be associated with themselves, only for the blueprint provider to then sidle off to commit similarly dastardly deeds elsewhere. To me, an ultra-critic of the latest round of knife attacks on the great race, it leaves a bad taste at the back of the throat as if anything occurs in April that warrants criticism it will have to be directed to John Pullin, a good man in my books, and not the woman whose hand holds the knife that has cut the cord between the Grand National whose last winner was Corach Rambler and the tepid National won in its inaugural year by I Am Maximus.

As Matt Chapman argued, four-year-old mares do not win the Vermeille and go on to win the Arc. He scoffed at the ever-reliable Adele Mulrennan when she put up Bluestocking as a likely winner of the Arc, using his loud voice and statistics to drown the woman with good sense on her side. I would like to think Matt will learn, though there is no evidence or form to suggest it is likely. Adele is simply the best tipster on the I.T.V. team.
What I found enjoyable about yesterday’s Arc was the appreciation and lack of self-importance from a jockey I am increasingly appreciating as a jockey and liking as a person. Rossa Ryan rode the perfect race for his horse and after saluting the crowd, he notably pointing to his mount, ensuring we knew that without her the jockey would not be noticeable. 
It was also pleasing to see Ralph Beckett step onto the world stage as a trainer. I like him because he speaks his mind, the greatest of qualities, I believe. I may not agree with every opinion or idea he has but I hope he carries on being vocal, as in racing too many people clam-up in times of need.
I usually will say that the good horses should always be kept in training as long as possible but in Bluestocking I hope Juddmonte say enough is enough and retire her to their band of broodmares and not be persuaded to take her to the Bleeders Cup.
Staying with the Beckett horses: I cannot understand why Marc Chan would even be considering retiring Kinross. Why would you retire a horse who clearly loves being a racehorse. It is not as if he is still an entire. He is a gelding, no horse runs with more enthusiasm, his trainer only runs him when the opportunity is there to win, he is obviously not regressing and as far as I am aware Kinross has no injury problems. What would they do with him in retirement? Mr. Chan might enjoy looking at him in the paddock and offering a carrot when time allows but is that the life Kinross would want for himself?

​The great privilege of my life is having been alive during the decades when National Hunt racing was at its peak of popularity. I am sure it has been spoken about in private for decades but the doom and gloom of what lies ahead of us in the future is now creeping into the columns of our racing journalists. Is there a future for National Hunt racing?
The problem has nothing to do, I believe, with the sport or its participants as governments of either hue receive billions into taxes off our endeavour, but the media’s insatiable appetite for controversy. Quite how the woke brigade emerged from the loopy side of life to mainstream acceptance is baffling, a topic that will excite sociologists for decades to come, no doubt. We live in times when one person objecting to any one thing can, through social media, raise an army in support of her or his sensitivities. 
If horse racing had not come to popularity through t.v. exposure back in the 1960’s, the sport would not have fizzled into the perception of the anti-everything-I-either-dislike or envy goblins of destruction. We have, in some ways, ridden the normal distribution wave; we were a quaint countryside sport, we rose to national prominence and are now falling towards the depths of the other side. During the days of Arkle, Desert Orchid, Kauto Star and others, we were looked upon as refreshment and, perhaps, with admiration. We walked amongst giants; the most graceful animal on the planet.
But then someone noticed that occasionally horses might die in pursuit of our entertainment. The one became an anti and built a campaign to ‘save the poor horses’, whilst having no answer as to what to do with the many thousands of horses who with no racing would no longer have a function in life. Even the non-committed to either side of the argument could see that simply turning them loose on national parks would be worse for their welfare than being cared-for by the humans who adore and worship them.
Yet the threat remains, and for reasons that might have little to do with issues over whether we should, in the less enlightened times we live in, make profit and sport from one of God’s creatures. Oh, read the Bible, God had little care for the creatures ‘He’ created, especially the fatted calves.  Net-zero is a threat that Racing Post journalists have yet to consider. Racehorses are transported the length and breadth of the country, not to mention by air to all parts of the world. Diesel is used to power horseboxes and in the next ten-years fossil fuels are to be phased-out. As things stand, electric lorries are not proving a suitable alternative to diesel. They take a devil of a long time to charge, there are not enough charging stations on the road network to accommodate them, and if electric trucks do become the only means of transporting horses from stables to racecourses and back again, how many trainers will want to keep horses standing in lorries while they are charging? And, of course, electric vehicles are prone to catching on fire, emitting toxic gases, especially when being charged, and it is advised no vehicle is charged to capacity or allowed to drop below 20%. And electric trucks are prone to topple over.
Although racehorses are fed on cubes or nuts, these comprise mainly oats or barley and environmentalists believe crops should only be grown for human consumption. Grazing animals are thought to be one of the major contributors to global warming and as such should be allowed to become extinct. 
Fifteen-minute cities will also prove problematic for activities like equestrian sport to flourish long into the future. It is proposed that everyone live in a fifteen-minute city and people will require a permit to journey anywhere outside of their home city. The long-term future of the countryside is to return it to nature, with no one, except elites, I would surmise, allowed to live outside of the cities.
It all sounds futuristic and a bit mad but it is all in the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, which, without publicity or referendum, all the major countries of the world have signed-up to. Boris Johnson signed us up for it in 2019.
What is happening at the moment, and for the past few years, is that the ‘blub-blubs’, Animal Rising, Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matters’, have all been facilitated and encouraged by government agencies to protest, riot and disrupt, in order for more and more people to be seduced by their nonsensical approach to life. They are being allowed to seed society with misinformation in preparation for what is to come.
There will be no place for equestrian sport by 2050, as there will be no place for pets or any kind of farming of animals, with only chemical-free growing of crops allowed. There will not be enough food grown this way, of course, as was the case before pesticides were used to bulk-up yields, which is why the eating of insects and artificial meat is being given prominence in the media.
You will not like it but the truth is slowing coming out; covid was intended to shrink the world population, net-zero is about getting people out of cars and into driverless Ubers, fifteen-minute cities is about controlling people. And you know what, there is not a darn thing we can do about it except civil disobedience, which is the real reason more prisons are planned to be built. Them versus us, and already a whole lot of us are on their side. So, yes, our sport is doomed and we need to enjoy what is left to us before the grace of the racehorse is lost forever.

​The Jockey Club’s Nevin Truesdale has asked the racing public to protect the Grand National from adverse criticism while at the same time the custodians of the race are repeatedly stabbing it in the back in order to protect the cash-cow that is first and foremost in the minds of the Jockey Club.
In time, I AM MAXIMUS will come to be known as the first winner of the race that replaced the Grand National. He won the National run at Aintree but certainly not the historic race known as the GRAND National.
If Truesdale is asking me to support the new race, then I am willing to abide by his wish. In some ways it was as exciting a race staged last season. But that is not the point. That it resembled a Coral Handicap Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival doth not make it the pinnacle of the sport. It is a new race and it will take time to be accepted by people like myself. It will never, though, be THE GRAND NATIONAL ever again.
What concerned me with what Truesdale had to say on the matter is that they seem to have plans to alter even what we witnessed last April. Perhaps only 28-runners, scrapping the Canal Turn and introducing an upturned dandy-brush, shortening the distance to 3-mile 2-furlongs, establishing speed limits on sections of the course and hell knows what else the damned clerk of the course has in mind.
The Grand National is dead, may it rest in peace.

It is the Arc de Triomphe on Sunday and, sadly, as with the Grand National, it is on the decline. The best horse in Europe, City of Troy, is heading west instead of heading to Paris. There are only two British-trained horses in the race and only one Japanese and German runner. On the bright side, it is as competitive as the Cambridgeshire Handicap, with very little in ratings between the favourite and the outsiders. Personally, I think Shin Emperor is the likeliest winner, with his run in the Irish Champion Stakes looking the best of the entire field. If either Economics or Auguste Rodin were in the race, the latter is but is an unlikely starter, bookmakers would have them vying for favouritism. 

One of my many hobby-horses is why a small percentage of the sale of racehorses at auction cannot be syphoned off to fund after-life care for the horses the breeders’ breed. The top ten lots at Goffs yesterday fetched £7,320,000. 1% of that is £73,000. I would suggest if 1% of all sales above £10,000 were to go to racing, the sport could not only easily fund after-care for racehorses but also bump-up prize-money that might persuade more owners to have their horses in training in this country. Breeders bring these horses into the world; they have as much a responsibility to the horses they sell as everyone else in the chain of a racehorse’s life. At the moment, they are getting off scot-free. 

Everyday, the Racing Post list the birthdays of prominent people in the sport. I would prefer they record the deaths of prominent people but at least in going with birthdays it shines a mirror on how bloody old most of those people are. Today there were only seven-people older than I am. 70-plus, if you must know. And many of that number, as far as I am aware, are no longer active in the sport. It is a demographic laced with foreboding for the sport.

​The French Derby winner, Look De Vega, will be ridden in this Sunday’s Arc de Triomphe by the oldest flat jockey currently riding at the top level in France. I have noticed his name for a long while and wondered how someone with the Christian name Ronan and the surname Thomas could be based in France. And apart from knowing he was born in Rennes, I have no idea. I suspect his father could be of Irish descent, why else would he be called Ronan, with Welsh antecedents somewhere within his family tree to answer why the surname Thomas.
If he were to win on Sunday, and he seems pretty confident of the horse being in the mix to go close, we might learn more about him. I looked him up but learned little other than he started his riding career over here and rode a few winners. To be honest, if I could understand the French language I would have learned a lot more about him. I did learn a bit of French at school but that was nearly sixty-years ago and I do remember feeling much better about myself when the little French I learned faded from my memory. At least I can still spell Arc de Triomphe, even if I struggle to pronounce Chantilly the same as the French do.

The Listowel Harvest Festival meeting is a cracking example of what the British summer jumping programme should look like. In the main, with the exception of a high-class Kerry National, the fare on offer was quite ordinary, and if you take the races individually, there would be little to spike the interest of people like you or me. Yet as a whole, it makes for a great week of racing.
Why can’t the British jumping summer programme be designed along similar lines? Ffos Las, Worcester, Newton Abbot, Perth, Market Rasen and Uttoxeter, would be prime venues for late spring, early summer, high summer and autumn festival meetings. In Ireland, festivals tend to be a mixture of flat and jumping and though only Ffos Las currently stages flat fixtures, it does not mean the other racecourses cannot do as they do for bumpers and pull-up the hurdles and stage a few flat races on the hurdle course.
I am not suggesting six and seven-day fixtures as with Galway and Listowel, though three and four-day fixtures must be doable. If Galway and Listowel can keep their courses fit for racing for an entire week, I cannot see why the courses listed cannot achieve the same.
There must be a highlight on the track, of course, plus a Ladies Day, a family fun day and so on, with, I suggest, a nod to the local area and perhaps local celebrations and history. I would suggest Ffos Las could stage a Welsh Classic of some sort on the flat, plus a Welsh Champion Hurdle. Worcester once staged flat racing and a summer festival would be a good time to reintroduce a few flat races.
Newton Abbot, a racecourse cursed by bad weather luck, have the advantage of many seaside resorts close to hand, which gives them a great marketing opportunity to fill the grandstands. Perth already stage two and three-day summer meetings and with a new management structure in place eager to build on Perth’s already fine reputation, I am sure they would engage in a more radical approach to summer jumping. 
As they are already home to the two major jump races in the summer period, the pinnacle of the programme should be at Market Rasen and Uttoxeter. The Plate at Market Rasen reflects the greater prize of the Galway Plate and should be seen as a British trial for Ireland’s most iconic steeplechase.
From late May through to the end of September, the focus for National Hunt should be on ‘Summer Festivals’, 3 and 4-day fixtures, perhaps with a smattering of flat races, with a central race to highlight the meeting, and with more than a passing nod at localness, local business, local trade and the tourist industry. In Ireland, the racing festivals are part and parcel of the local community and the B.H.A. should look to Ireland and organise our racecourses to try the same blueprint. It works wonderfully well in Ireland, why should it not work, at least if given time to put down roots, over here?

​Please, no tears for the amateurs’ loss of the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, as with the exception of the Martin Pipe, they can ride in every other race, including the National Hunt Chase, and have two races restricted solely for their pleasure. The sport has evolved: once upon a time an amateur had to be someone who did not derive income from being employed in a racing stable; once upon a time the National Hunt Chase was restricted to maidens. And one final point, on welfare grounds, the qualification imposed on the National Hunt Chase back in 2019 (?) to ensure only the top amateurs were allowed to ride in the race, do not apply to the other races at the Festival. Although I did not get my dream of a Champion 4-mile Chase, I applaud Cheltenham’s decision to remove the rider restriction for the National Hunt Chase to allow professionals to ride in the race.

At Nakayama racecourse in Japan today there is a six-furlong race worth nigh on one-million-quid. The fifth horse past the post will win £94,000 smackaroos for its owner. Racing jurisdictions around the world seem to be scrambling to stage the world’s richest horse race, so much so, hand-on-heart, that I admit I am no longer sure which race presently holds the distinction.
Given how inept the structure for providing prize-money is in Britain, it would be a hopeless task to try to emulate the levels of prize money other countries can provide. Indeed, with the problems we are experiencing here with rising costs, a corrupt government, a diminishing pool of racehorses at the top level and so many of our good horses sold overseas, I would like to see a debate as to whether, in the short term, we should raise prize-money at the lower end of the scale and lower it at the top end, though with exceptions.
If it costs between £20,000 and £30,000 to keep a horse in training for 12-months, would there be benefit in spreading the total pool of prize-money so that races at the lowest and middle levels receive a boost so that one win, plus place-money, would pay to keep a horse in training. There was a time, you see, when the most an owner expected from a horse in training was for the horse to win in prize-money the same amount as he or she paid to keep it in training. Break even, it was said. Now, and ever-increasing, it seems to me, horses are seen as investments, with the sport as a secondary consideration. If we could climb to the point where every race was worth more than £10,000 at the lowest end, £15,000 at racing’s middle and £20,000 at the top tracks, with, obviously, Group races worth more, with £100,000 maximum, would this make the sport more cost-effective for owners at all levels of the sport?
As I said, there would be a few exceptions, the classics, Eclipse, Royal Ascot and so on, but no exorbitant prize-money, with far less Group races, corralling the better horses into the prestige races. A naïve idea, I suspect, with the wealthiest of owners frowning with dismay. Less racing but with each race worth more prize-money, less pointless Group and listed races, but more prize-money for ‘shoulder and mainstay’ races.

Cannot understand why trainers are allowed to take horses out of the big handicaps on the day of the race due to the change in ground conditions. Newmarket may have had good ground on declaration day for the Cambridgeshire but the weather forecast was clearly for a large volume of rain. Trainers cannot be certain what the ground might be by mid-afternoon, yet overnight several horses have been declared non-runners, with more, I fear, during the day. Surely it is a trainer’s responsibility to take weather forecasts into consideration when leaving a horse in a race at the 5-day declaration stage? To me, fines need to be larger in an effort to make trainers think twice or three-times before withdrawing due to ground conditions.

Bindaree died yesterday. He won the Grand National 22-years ago. Great respect must go to Nigel Twiston-Davies and his family for giving the horse a far longer retirement than he had as a racehorse. From age 5 to age 30 he lived at Grange Hill Farm. Nigel Twiston-Davies is a wonderful advertisement for this sport at a time when it is finally being recognised that racehorses must be cared-for from birth to the grave. Indeed, Nigel Twiston-Davies and his family should be awarded a blue plaque or a gold kitemark or something grander for their commitment to the welfare of horses that come into their care.

​It is not yet October, the Cambridgeshire is tomorrow, the Arc de Triomphe is just over the horizon, but we must focus on the Cheltenham Festival in March 2025. Pray, I live to see the drama unfold.
What must be taken into consideration is that the reason we are talking so feverously about the Cheltenham Festival long before the National Hunt season has got into fill swing is because we care about it; it is the home of our memories and to owners, trainers and jockeys it is home to their dreams. Cheltenham in March matters because horse racing matters. It is our hearts they tread on when it is criticised and used for self-interest, as the O’Leary brothers have chosen to do this week.
Cheltenham could not be allowed to remain as it was last March, and because everyone of us holds opinions as to how to breathe new life into the championship meeting, there was always going to be criticism and plaudits flying around the racing media. On September 27th 2024 we are all correct in our opinions; March 2025 will tell us how many of us were wrong, and that is the truth of it.
I did not get what I wanted from the change to the National Hunt Chase, though I got half of what I wanted. It is to become a handicap, which I do not favour, though it is better than leaving it as it was, though the restriction on amateur riders has been lifted and from this season it will be open to professionals. To my mind, the race should have been upgraded to a 4-mile Champion Chase and perhaps in time that might happen, especially if Cheltenham want the Festival to be seen as the home of quality.
People forget that for most of its history the National Hunt Chase was for maidens. It never was a race to attract quality even in the days when it was the marque race of the meeting. When the National Hunt Festival was inaugurated, the top jockeys were, in the main, still from the amateur ranks. Today, although there are many high-class amateurs, there are just not enough of them these days to have the experience to fulfil the qualification to ride in the race. Surely, if we want the best horses running at the Festival, we also want the best jockeys riding them. Amateurs still have two-races to display their skills and they should be happy with that quota, especially as, except for the Martin Pipe, in theory amateurs can ride in every other race that comprises the Festival.
I would have transferred the Turners to Trials Day, though I applaud the decision to make the race a handicap at the Festival. I think the other changes, as with no penalties for the mares novice hurdle, merely tinker round the edges. I would have restricted the top-rated mares from running in either the Mares Champion Hurdle (the title it should have) to encourage connections of the next Honeysuckle to run in the Champion Hurdle or the Mares Chase. To my mind, every effort should be made to ring-fence the 2-Mile Champion Chase, the Champion Hurdle and the Cheltenham Gold Cup, by making it a hard choice for trainers to bypass these races in favour of easier options at the Festival. Again, I think it would be a good idea to start a discussion as to whether the mares only races should be transferred to ‘Trials Day’ and turning that meeting into a 2-day affair, and reverting the Festival to three-days, at least until there is both an increase in horse numbers in training and people attending race-meetings. 
When a five-day Festival was mooted, I was fully in favour of giving it a go. But that was then. Now I think for many reasons it should revert to a 3-day meeting. In fact, I would suggest, as ‘Trails Day’ is often a damp squib, at least in comparison to the Dublin Racing Festival, that there might be two Festivals, a two-day affair in late January/early February, and then the main Festival in March. And do not bat down this idea because Nicky Henderson and others would not want to run their top horses twice in six-weeks! If Galopin des Champ and State Man can win at both meetings, then so can Constitution Hill and Sir Gino.
When the ship is sinking, tinkering around the edges of the drama is rarely likely to succeed in righting the ship. Radical, quick-minded decisions are needed to save the day, and that is my main criticism of the changes announced this week. Do they go far enough?

​The doom and gloom about racing these days just becomes ever doomier and gloomier. Apart from Flooring Porter’s exhilarating display of front running at Listowel yesterday, today’s edition of the Racing Post hardly raises a smile, let alone offer hope for the future. It is not the fault of those with columns in the newspaper; it is as it is, unfortunately. Just as our politicians in power seem intent on making life more difficult for all sectors of society except the sector, of course, they themselves operate in, horse racing is made hidebound by those paid large salaries to provide insight and leadership to a sport that has never needed those qualities more than at any time in the sport’s history.
Let us begin with the still swollen race-program in Britain, the failure of Premier Racing to either boost attendance or to attract interest from mainstream media, the lack of an overall strategy for the future and so on and so on. Wrestling control of the sport away from the Jockey Club was supposed, if my memory serves me adequately, to be in the greater interests of the sport and yet here we are decades later still trapped in a maelstrom of inactivity, feet dragging and battles tainted with self-interest.
There is a consensus amongst the majority that there are too many Group and Grade 1 races in both Britian and Ireland. Easily changed, one would have thought. There are not enough horses in training in both Britain and Ireland for the programme of races, especially in the former. Some, misguidedly, are of the opinion that the B.H.A. should legislate against horses of limited ability, as if pruning from the bottom will be of benefit to those at the top echelon of the sport. To legislate against the lowest banded horses would ensure more trainers go the wall and the sport would lose ever more owners. The pruning must be the same as pruning a hedge, from the top.
When this topic comes up for debate, the elephant in the room is not even in the room. The purpose of all-weather racing was to ensure betting turnover during the winter months, yet here we are with all-weather racing all the year round. Unless the plan is for all-weather tracks to supersede turf tracks, then we have too many all-weather racecourses, and certainly too many races run on an artificial surface. Rather like electric cars, which apart from the ease upon which they catch fire and that they are fundamentally environmentally unfriendly, they do have a place in modern motoring, fifteen-minute cities and all that, and all-weather has its place in the sport, but only as a back-up, a safety-net, with the occasional glory-day. It has grown too large and needs reining in.
If Britain is to have a successful summer jumping program, the B.H.A. must look to Ireland, to its racing festivals, of which Listowel’s Harvest Festival meeting seems a good template. The program in Ireland through the summer caters for all-types of horses, from dual Cheltenham Festival winners like Flooring Porter, to top-flight handicappers and novices of all types.
At least the morally bankrupt Labour Party were voted into office, even if less than one third of the population voted for the bastards. The B.H.A. and its stakeholders are invited into power. I believe this is plain wrong and we should push for a system when those who apply for such positions, from C.E.O. to any position of influence within the governance structure, should stand for election and not interviewed and approved by other non-elected officials. Owners of racehorses, racecourses, leading betting industry officials, should be asked to vote for their favoured candidate, as should trainers, their staff, jockeys, agents, valets, Racing Post readers and racegoers. Employees of the B.H.A. should not be eligible to vote. If there are those involved in B.H.A. committees and sub-committees in favour of revolution rather than evolution then my suggestion is just what the doctor ordered as we must have the right people with long experience of horses and racing in the right positions. Influential positions within the sport should not be earned on the basis of ‘jobs for the boys’ or a high salary and 3-day week for services elsewhere in the political spectrum. 
The stagnation has gone on too long and threatens the very existence of the sport. It is time for those responsible for the feet-dragging to stand before an electorate and take the flak head-on. Hiding behind non-disclosure and closed doors should not be an option. Lives and jobs depend on stakeholders standing shoulder-to-shoulder with dedicated, honourable front-line workers.