​I have heard racing commentators give the opinion that the flat season is now off and running. To me, far more a jumps enthusiast than a flat lover, this opinion is both confusing and wrong. The reality is told by the racing calendar; the 2023 turf flat season started back in March with the Lincoln Handicap meeting at Doncaster. Jockeys rode winners; trainers trained winners, and stable percentages started to accrue. The flat season between the Lincoln and the Guineas should be renamed the warm-up season and have its own private jockey and trainer championship. A sort of sprint Grand Prix as Formula 1 are now playing around with. It would give purpose to the countdown to the first classics of the season and might provide surprise winners, though you couldn’t include all-weather winners as then you couldn’t dub it the Turf Flat Sprint Championship. Nor could the word ‘sprint’ be used as not all the races would be sprints. The Turf Flat Interlude Championship. That’ll do. Only whimsy, anyway.
To say the flat season is off and running simply because the first two classics are run is wrong, in my opinion, as the classics have trials, and it is my opinion the season does not begin in earnest until both the trials and the classic races are safe and snug in the form book. (Don’t talk to me about the St.Leger as it is almost the forgotten classic, the dead as a dodo classic. A classic in name only classic.) To my way of thinking, the flat season is not truly in full swing until after the Epsom Derby meeting. After Epsom, all the hows, whys, wherefores and tribulations have been fought over, speculated upon and we know, as far as any one of us can truly know, the 3-year-old pecking order. It is only then can we settle down, take a breath and look forward to the multitude of summer racing festivals that kick off with Royal Ascot and all those fancy hats and uncomfortable-looking morning suits. Aren’t we British mad? Insisting on wedding garb to be worn to a sporting event that will be staged either under grey-to-black clouds or under a peerless blue sky with temperatures exceeding 70 degrees.
Anyway, a whole lot of mental energy expended to put into words the unnecessary and downright-confusing-to-explain to non-racing people first 4-months of the British Turf Flat Season.

Saffie Osborne is the new and much taller version of Holly Doyle. I like it when my expressed first impressions bare fruit as has happened with Miss Osborne. I watched her at Ascot one day on what would have been one of her first rides in public. Being by the famous Jamie, eyes were turned in her direction. ‘Getting rides because she is the daddy’s daughter,’ some might have said. I had legitimate grounds to despise her as her presence at The Old Malthouse and the weighing room had elbowed one of my favourite jockeys, Nicola Currie, out of her stable jockey position. All conjecture, for me, at least, ended that day at Ascot. She rode well, was tactically savvy and though she didn’t win it was obvious Jamie had tutored her well. Before Saffie put herself in the limelight, there was no question to be asked as who was the best rider in the Osborne household. There are definite grounds for debate around the dinner table now, though.
The one annoyance in Saffie’s victory response after her splendid ride on Metier to win the Chester Cup – her small place in racing history – was the use of the phrase ‘petrol in the tank’. Firstly, race cars rarely run out of petrol and can go just as fast with a few drops left in the tank as when full, though they stop rather quickly when the gage goes past the red zone. Isn’t the English language eccentric? – ‘stop rather quickly’. As silly as ‘stop rather fast’. Hey-ho! Horses are not cars. There is no combustion engine involved, so to suggest they are fuelled by petrol in some way is as surreal as the League of Gentlemen. I blame Mick Fitzgerald for popularising this description of a tiring horse and vote to have him horse-whipped for the offence.
Why can’t jockeys say ‘he was running out of oats’ or ‘the boiler was in need of more horse-nuts’? Neither, of course, as accurate as using science to explain why the horse was tiring at the end of an exhausting race yet closer to accuracy than the idea in the mind’s eye that horses are fuelled by petrol.

​The above quotation is from Horace Walpole, fourth Earl of Orford. Walpole is not a usual source of material for anyone writing on the subject of horse racing, not being known as a man who habitually kept ante-post betting tickets in his wallet. To be truthful, I was scratching around for a title, what with Sir Winston Churchill letting me down. I did consider using part of his ‘We will fight them on the beaches’ speech but it seemed, finally, to be over-egging the pudding a mite bit.
What came to mind when my eyes fell upon the Walpole quote in my copy of The Oxford Library of Quotation – a sort of literary ‘get out of jail free card for brain-dead wordsmiths – was the comical sight, at least on reflection, of the pink-shirted brigade attempting to scale the wire barricades at Aintree while the local constabulary hung on to their legs. The Pink Brigade think about our sport, while we, the horse lover and its protector, feel. What is data to the Pink Brigade, is tragedy to those whose pride and joy is no more.
The U.S., with its merciless dirt tracks, do not help our struggle against the cruel and malicious Pink Brigade. U.S. trainers do not help our cause by fighting tooth and nail to overturn the Horse-Racing Integrity and Safety Authority’s attempt to initiate nationally recognised uniform anti-doping rules, even though a judge has already ruled the proposed new regulations to be constitutional. It is the combination of dirt tracks and trainers allowed to run a horse under medication that fuels my dislike of the Breeders’ Cup and U.S. racing in general. To my mind, U.S. racing is home to the Openly Cheating. If that statement is libellous, if only in a broad sense, my reply is to ask how many trainers have their licences terminated in the U.S. for persistent rule violations. Only last week, Saffie Joseph became the latest to have his name added to the list of trainers to stain U.S. racing’s reputation.
For those who do not know, 7 horses lost their lives at the Run for the Roses’ meeting at Churchill Downs last week, two on the undercard of the Kentucky Derby.
The U.S. are upholding their responsibility to improve equine safety, I admit, and the 42 equines fatalities at Santa Anita in 2019 was cut to just 12 in 2022. That, though, remains, 12 at one single racetrack spread over a period of several months.
And, of course, we are not talking about jump racing here. One can only assume jump racing in the U.S. must have a less jaw-dropping fatality rate. We are talking about flat racing and flat racing on dead-flat racetracks. Excuse the unintentional and possibly offensive use of dead and flat to highlight my point. I can understand a spectator being bored to death by horses forever running short distances on a left-handed racetrack, with no undulations for variety, no stiff miles, no breakneck 5-furlongs, no race over 2-miles or more. Indeed, very few races beyond 1-mile 1-furlong. If Britain and Ireland adopted the U.S. style of racing, I, too, would consider wearing pink t-shirts and carrying super-glue in my pocket.
As we all know, horse racing in the U.S. falls a long way down the popularity ratings with both the media and the public and, as with in this country, the sport only appears in the national headlines when something awful or controversial occurs. I suspect the New York Times and the Washington Post wouldn’t much bother with reporting on the Kentucky Derby, yet both publications filled its boots with the tragedy of the 7 equine fatalities at Churchill Downs last week.
Until U.S. racing digs up its dirt tracks and replaces them with the kinder Tapeta surface it should be regarded as a pariah racing country. I quote from Jane McIlvane’s wonderful book ‘The Will to Win’, the true story of Tommy Smith and Jay Trump. ‘At the gate the starters work to get a horse into one of the padded stalls. The horse is a gaunt black. Sweat runs down its legs as though it is standing in a shower. It belongs to a used-car dealer, and it showed in its early races that it could run a little. So, its schedule was speeded up, two races a week, sometimes three. Now the horse is overtrained. It’s nerves have frayed. The last time it started the knot in its mud tail got caught between the bars of the rear gate. When it broke, lunging forward onto the track, it pulled half its tail out by the roots. Memory of the scalping agonizingly fresh in its mind, it rears straight up, unseating its ashen-faced jockey. The starter puts a chain around its puzzle and strives to get it to the gate. Three man stand behind the horse with buggy whips.’
I suspect the above is unfair, a depiction of the sport back in the early 1960’s. It was as hard to write now as it was to first read. But it reinforced my opinion about U.S. racing. Jay Trump was treated appallingly when he was racing on dirt tracks in the U.S. and wanted nothing to do with the sport. When switched to grass and timber racing, when treated with kindness and raced on a forgiving surface, he became a superstar to the initiated in the land of his birth and a Grand National winner when raced for a season in this country.

​Belatedly, yes, I know we are now five-months in, but I have decided to donate money to the Greatwood Charity. Actually, this ‘New Year’s Resolution’ is far more than five-months overdue. It is more like twenty-years overdue, I am ashamed to say.
In defence of my parsimonious character, I have never had very much money, no disposable income, little in the way of savings. I am a drifter in life, a hard-working, dedicated, honest, labourer of a human being. Intelligent but stunted, perhaps. Not a borrower or lender be, has been a motto I have inadvertently lived-by. Money has only ever been important to me when I have had not enough to cover my expenses. The thought of a mortgage hanging around my neck terrifies me even now and I have steered clear of credit cards with the same resolve as I steered clear of the covid vaccine.
I am far from money-rich at the advanced age of sixty-nine and retired from the grind of earning a living. Yet I know I am lucky to have reached the year that leads me towards the unbelievable and possibly unsustainable age of seventy. So, in any small way I can, I will support Helen Yeadon’s marvellous Greatwood Charity. I urge others to consider doing the same.
When I first moved to North Devon twenty-two years ago, a friend, knowing my life-long love affair with horse racing and horses, who had an appointment with Helen Yeadon when the charity was based in North Devon to arrange funding of some description, took me along. They were not what they are now as the charity was finding its feet and setting its goals for the future. But I easily recognised the good nature and calm of the place and may even have pledged to help the charity when the opportunity presented itself.
In a feature in the Racing Post last week, Peter Thomas highlighted the brilliant work of the charity and its extraordinary blend of giving ex-racehorses a home and a useful life and allowing vulnerable children the opportunity to rebuild their confidence, with people as well as hulking big horses, by learning at their own pace how to interact with human and equine alike.
Horse Racing, of course, contributes to the upkeep and ambitions of the charity through occasional race-days as at Newbury and the Greatwood Hurdle at Cheltenham. And I have no doubt that racing people dip into their pockets on a regular basis to give their support to a cause that must be safeguarded well beyond the life of its founder.
In one of Peter Thomas’ most heart-warming articles, the sour apple in the barrel was the news that the B.H.A. do not directly contribute to Greatwood funding. At a time when the credibility of the sport is under intense scrutiny, everyone needs to pull their weight. The Racing Post should make the feature on Greatwood available to any newspaper or magazine that shows an interest in publishing the article. And the B.H.A. should be contributing at least a five-figure sum-of-money to Greatwood as an annual donation. No excuses. No cries of ‘we cannot be seen to be favouring one charity over another’.
This sport should ease-off raising millions of pounds for human charities and devote itself to supporting equine charities. Cancer charities, for example, need financial donations but they are supported a thousand times more in a year than equine charities. Home is where the heart is. Racing people may benefit from cancer, heart and other human-targeted charities but without the horse they do not have a career, a life well-lived. 2024 should be designated the Year of Equine Charities. As should 2025 and onwards.
Greatwood do work bordering on the miraculous with horse and child. Go to their website, conduct your own research. If you live close by, visit and put a fiver in the charity box. Horse racing must be seen as a force for good for all equines all around the world. We are seen by our critics as ‘takers’ not ‘givers’, using horses for our financial greed. Critics do not see or understand our love of the horse, our wish for its longevity of purpose and our anguish at the loss of the individual is overshadowed by what seems a deliberate intention to censor all facets of the sport except tragedy and the woke, ignorant interventions of disturbers of the peace.
We should be raising money for equine charities at every race-meeting, in every High Street betting establishment. Greatwood shouldn’t be fiddling around looking for cash. The sport should be proud to fund it, to sustain its future. As with all equine welfare charities. We are always on the back foot, reacting to bad publicity, never on the front foot, directing the public gaze to all that is good in the sport. 
If, and hindsight is a wonderful thing, in the build-up to the Grand National, I.T.V. had broadcast a feature on Greatwood, for example, the events that unfolded before the public gaze might have been seen in a truer light. I.T.V. are the guardians of our sport, much more than the B.H.A. could ever be. I wish I could have the ear of someone high-up in the I.T.V. sport hierarchy. 
That is unlikely to happen. All I can do is find my cheque book, go to the Greatwood website and donate.

​It is only May 7th and already I am irked about flat racing. Whenever someone fires off criticism from afar, with no hands-on knowledge of the minor or important detail, the critic is an easy target for ridicule. My ‘moan’ or critical observation, as I would have it, in this piece is more scattergun than directed at any one individual, even if I do hone-in on individuals whose worldly experience on the subject outweighs mine by an incalculable amount. 
I doubt if I was alone in thinking last Friday afternoon that the King and Queen, as they are post coronation, had a useful type for the Epsom Derby in Circle of Fire. Though only second, he was a running on second, looking all over that he needs the Derby distance even this early in the season. The winner, Castle Way, is highly thought-of by both William Buick and Charlie Appleby, though not as an Epsom Derby horse, it seems. Doubtless Godolphin have other fish to fry when it comes to Epsom. But that doesn’t take away from Circle of Fire that it was a striking effort on his first start of the season.
Yet, straightaway connections were already ruling out Epsom in favour of Royal Ascot. There was no mention from anyone it was the considered opinion that the horse would not be suited by the unique test of Epsom Downs or that the horse neither possesses the class nor stamina for the Derby. I could have accepted the decision if based on immaturity, that a hard race at Epsom may bottom the horse. I could even accept, even applaud, the thought that Circle of Fire was thought a St.Leger horse and he would be quietly brought-on with Doncaster in mind.
I am using Circle of Fire as an example of my thinking. I am in no way criticising the judgement of Sir Michael Stoute, Ryan Moore (whose opinion must have guided the decision to swerve Epsom) or the King and Queen’s racing manager. My ire is directed at the flat racing industry as a collective. Continually the Epsom Derby is referred to as ‘the greatest race in the world’, when clearly it has fallen behind many other races around the world, yet more and more it is regarded in terms of investment value rather than a sporting event, the Blue Riband of the sport.
It's all very well highlighting the crumb that a 1.30 start time this year allows for greater revenue from the World Pool but what use is money when the race itself continues to fall down the popularity ladder?
The French ignore the race these days. The U.S., Japan, Australia, Germany, etc, give it no consideration, believing the greater kudos in British racing is Royal Ascot or Glorious Goodwood. The worst stroke of reality, though, is that the Epsom Derby no longer stops the nation in which it is staged. And the most damning statistic, I believe, is that the Epsom Derby is no longer producing flat racing’s superstar horses. I would argue, perhaps wrongly, given my poor memory and inability, seemingly, to stand up and look for the reference book to prevent me from making as ass of myself, that Sea The Stars was the last potentially great horse to win the Epsom Derby. Don’t start me on why Sea The Stars can only be attributed to being the best (by a long way) of his generation and not a true great along the lines of Mill Reef, Brigadier Gerard or Frankel. Place Sea The Stars after Frankel and spot the odd one out.
This year, especially this year, the Epsom Derby needs to have star appeal, an A.1. celebrity, a bright light to hold the public attention so that come the first Saturday in June on the streets it is not ‘oh, is it the Derby today?’ but anticipation and acceptance that today is Derby Day. For the greater good of the sport, the Epsom Derby needs a Royal runner. Not as a sacrifice for the sport but a horse with a viable chance of being at the pointy end of the race, stirring the blood of viewers desperate for the late Queen’s lifelong love affair with the sport is underlined by finally having her name historically associated as the breeder of a Derby winner. The horse in question, and perhaps there is a dark royal horse waiting in the wings that I am not aware of, as of now is Circle of Fire.
I extend my critical thoughts on Epsom participation to all owners and trainers of top-class 3-year-old colts that have a pedigree that does not entirely rule-out the possibility that their class will see them prevail at Epsom. For instance, why with immediate effect would anyone rule-out Chaldean from having a shot at Epsom glory. He won with ease on ground somewhere between soft and heavy in the 2,000 Guineas. As a classic winner he is now worth a small fortune; his value would hardly be diminished if he failed at Epsom. His world doesn’t end with defeat; he can always return to the mile division.
The complex of not risking failure is creeping into National Hunt, in flat racing it is close to a medical condition. I am not suggesting that an immature horse should be thrown to the fires of Epsom as a marketing strategy, though I might suggest that if at this time of year, the majority of top-class 3-year-olds are too immature to endure the undulations and cambers of Epsom, then perhaps the race should be run later in the season. Yet this is the Epsom Derby we are debating. It is the premier race of the British racing calendar. At what point does the sport come first. The health and wealth of the sport. The very future of the sport. I would suggest at this moment in the sport’s history, with racecourse attendances receding, prize-money at an all-time real world low, it should be all-hands on deck to keep the boat afloat. I am not seeing that. All I see is the protection of investment. It never used to be like this – why is it like this now?

​What National Hunts get rights and the Flat does not, is how to end a season.
On Saturday, Brian Hughes was crowned champion jockey. He deserved, though would not have wanted, a long and spirited reception, though the respect of his peers was no doubt all that he wished-for. A.P. picked up the trophy on behalf of J.P. McManus as leading owner, the great man achieving the same distinction in Ireland. Paul Nicholls was again champion trainer and Luca Morgan received the trophy for leading conditional. All deserving winners, of course.
As someone who champions the lesser to the extent as I praise the stars of the sport, I would like the leading amateur rider to receive his or her trophy at Sandown. Also, flying in the face of gender equality, and on a day when two of the big prizes went to female jockeys, why not continue to highlight the burgeoning presence of female jockeys on the big-race stage by handing out a trophy to the leading female professional jockey. I’m not sure if Bryony managed to snatch the prize from Emma Smith-Chaston but if she failed to be leading female again this season, it would demonstrate to the public that other female jockeys are on the rise in the sport and that Rachel and Bryony are not rare exceptions.

Those crowned champions in different categories do not always go on to achieve great things in the sport, of course. Sometimes injuries bring careers to a halt. Sometimes it is weight, sometimes someone’s face no longer fits the needs of employers.
My eyes fell on a page in a book the other day listing the champion apprentices since 1982 and there were names I either couldn’t remember or thought ‘where are they now’. In 1994 Stephen Davies was champion. What became of him? In 1998 Carl Lowther. In 2005 Salem Golan dead-heated with Hayley Turner. We all know about Hayley but where does Salem now ply his trade? In 2007 Greg Fairley was champion. Again, what was his fate? In 2012 a name that puzzles me as I should know of him. A Ryan. And, I suppose, we all need reminding that in 2016 Josie Gordon was champion apprentice with 50-winners. Why does her face not fit these days?
In the same book was a list of the ten top-rated two-year-olds of the previous season, of which only Roaring Lion come close to being a superstar. Sands of Mali won, I believe, at Royal Ascot the following season, Saxon Warrior and Sioux Nation are successful sires, Expert Eye won Group races, while, in my eyes, U.S. Navy Flag, Verbal Dexterity, Fleet Review, Mendelsshon and Unfortunately fell off the radar. Or my radar, at least.
To finish this brief wander down flat racing’s rocky road, the highest-priced yearling at Tattersalls Sales was a yearling colt by Galileo that was bought for 4-million guineas by Godolphin and was named Gloam.
A yearling to be named King Power made 2-million and a half-guineas. All our Tomorrows 1.70-million Guineas. Faylaq 1.5-million guineas. And so on and so on. Bangkok, by the way, cost only 500,000 guineas.
The money thrown to the wind at horse sales beggars belief.
Finally, on how to end a season. It’s not the way the flat presently concludes. Champion jockeys that have not necessarily won the most races during the turf season leave a sour taste, or they do to me. Although the racing cannot be criticised, ‘Champions Day’ is humbug. Doncaster on November Handicap Day is where the trophies should be handed-over. That is the natural way to end a season, at the end. Not a month before, trivialising every race before the Guineas meeting and ever race after ‘Champions Day’.

​Not being a bettor or gambler, I do not possess the vested interest to fuel my thoughts on the government’s white paper on the future of gambling. I am, though, dedicated to the best interests of the sport and with the sport being aligned hand in glove with the betting industry, I, as it is with anyone with an interest in the subject, have the right to have my say. And say I will!
Several aspects of the subject bother me to the same extent as the problem of addictive gambling bothers me. To begin, historically the betting industry should have been, I will say, more robust - though in that I am suggesting they should have taken more than a passing interest in the welfare of addictive gamblers - in tackling the issue decades ago. Where we are now is a direct result of gambling companies paying more attention to profit than how they accumulated profit. Slot machines in betting shops was the start of the slippery slope to where we are now.
As people more knowledgeable on the topic of gambling have said, the white paper should differentiate horse racing from on-line bingos and casinos and, I would go as far as suggesting, all other forms of sport betting. There was a time, believe it or not, when the only sport the public could bet on in a betting shop was horse racing (greyhound racing, too. So that’s two sports). Then the government took the decision that gambling was good (source of government revenue) and opened-up all sports to the betting public. As my betters have said, punters can go on losing and winning runs, with monthly profit margins from punting varying enormously. The Gambling Commission does not seem aware of this fact.
But what irks me the most is the governmental finger pointing suggestively to the public at large that addictive gambling is the work of the devil, whereas addictive alcohol drinking is merely an extension of a socially acceptable way of life. There can be no debate on the benefits of preventing someone going into a betting shop, or through an on-line gambling account, and gambling the whole of his or her bank account away in a single afternoon, yet that same person can go into a supermarket and empty their back account on whiskey, lager and gin without anything being said other than ‘don’t drink that lot in one go, will you, mate?’ Ho Ho Ho!
My fear is that ‘affordability checks’ on gamblers is an experiment that in time will be extended to all walks of life. A cashless society – it is inevitable as it is part and parcel of the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ which all the G10 member countries have signed up to – is programmable, allowing ‘Big Brother’ to monitor and control where people spend their ‘money’ or ‘credit points’, on what and to what amount. It may come across as ‘conspiracy theory’ but it is not. Go research ‘The Great Reset’ and you will discover the dystopian future that we are slowly creeping towards.
I actually doubt that horse racing will feature in that future, if I am being honest. Good that I will be dead when the ‘Klaus Schwab way to live’ is at everyone’s door.
What the government’s white paper on the future of gambling makes fuzzy is that the gambling industry is messy, almost a behemoth out-of-control. Betting is the very air that horse racing breathes. Horse racing is no longer the very air the gambling industry breathes. In gambling terms, I believe horse racing should be separated from all other forms of sport betting. Horse racing has no relation to tennis or golf. Neither of those sports, or any other sport, except greyhound racing, goes hand in glove with betting. You can bet on who wins the Wimbledon Final but tennis gains nothing from either the hot favourite or a rank outsider lifting the trophy after two-weeks of grunt, growl and money exchanging hands over the internet or the bricks and mortar of a high street bookies. The winner of the Grand National may return at 8/1, the winner of the Ladies Final at Wimbledon is not announced on the B.B.C. news as the even-money favourite.
The B.H.A. must advance the case to government that horse racing must be treated differently to other forms of sports betting. It must make clear that on-line betting on casinos and bingo is nothing less than a game of chance, whereas betting on horse racing requires experience and knowledge of many aspects of the sport, jockeys, trainers, recent form and past form, the configuration of racecourses, the preference of horses to certain ground conditions, ete etc. As with the horses themselves, punters hit form and go off the boil. But mostly, office staff at betting shops should be allowed to treat their customers as individuals, unlike the faceless punters who bet on-line, where some form of control must be established.
As I suggested, I am ill-informed on this subject to be taken seriously. My concern is for the sport. I accept betting as a necessary bedfellow, not a best buddy. I just wish gambling companies could only take bets on general sports, with bets on horse racing conducted through a Tote/racing monopoly. Fantasy. Pure Fantasy! 

​The Betfred Epsom Derby will be off at 1.30 pm this year as the F.A. Cup Final between the Manchester rivals (two Derbies in one day) must kick-off at 3.00 pm at the behest of the Metropolitan Police due to the possibility of riot and hooliganism by City and United fans. I suspect supporters of the losing side will be overly-grumpy at the defeat they have suffered, will be mocked as losers by City fans, so changing the time of kick-off will only result in riot and hooliganism later in the evening when the Derby winner will be tucked up for the night in his stable.
Once upon a time the Epsom Derby was a highly significant social event; Parliament would recess at noon so that members could catch the train or horse-drawn carriage to the track to hobnob with both their social equals and their aristocratic betters. Some of the sitting M.P.’s even had an interest in racing, with perhaps a runner in the race. If only that were the case today! The Epsom Derby, due as much to this decision as any other reason, is now reduced to the status of a horse race and nothing more. It is one aspect of life to have a classic rearranged due to the coronation of a King but to have the sport’s supreme classic shuffled into the backwater of the day for no better reason than a football match is being played close by should be seen as a wake-up call.
This farce could be avoided if someone at the B.H.A. had noticed that this year’s Cup Final was to take place on the same day as the scheduled Epsom Derby and an early decision taken to stage the great race on a different day altogether. Perhaps the following Sunday, even if the French Derby is slated for the same day. Or the Friday before, with the Oaks run on the Saturday. Running the race at 1.30 is, to my mind, was the worst option open to the B.H.A. and yet they chose to slight the importance and reputation of the race. It smacks of ‘get the race run by hook or by crook’.
The dilemma, of course, is not rooted to the 2023 staging of the Cup Final at 3 pm but in the decision to make redundant history and tradition and stage the race on the first Saturday in June for betting and television reasons rather than keep to the historic date of the first Wednesday in June.
When staged on the first Wednesday in June, the Epsom Derby was a special day for Londoners and those living in the immediate environs of Epsom Downs. For city dwellers it was a day-out, a mid-week holiday, a ride on a charbanc. A day to look forward to. A day off work. A day out in the fresh air. A party on the Downs. All the fun of the fair and all that with a horse race on top and within shouting distance of Britain’s toffs, with perhaps even a glimpse of the Queen or King.
And, of course, they don’t play F.A. Cup Finals on a Wednesday afternoon, do they?
There is another reason why the Epsom Derby should be returned to a Wednesday and that is the ‘premierisation’ of racing; the keeping of Saturdays as holy days for the elite racecourses and the elite races for the benefit of increased betting turnover. Returning to tradition and running the Derby and Oaks mid-week would open-up a Saturday for those racecourses not considered ‘elite’ by the B.H.A to stage meetings to advertise all they have to offer the racing public. Instead of shuffling Mussleburgh, for instance, and their showcase meeting to the backwaters of morning or evening racing, as is proposed, such racecourses could take up the marketing mantle and hold sway on the first Saturday in June. All-turf Saturday, perhaps, a celebration of the country’s smaller racecourses from Musselburgh to Carlisle to Salisbury and through to Brighton. Or whichever racecourses wishes to stage a marque event to showcase all they have to offer.
The Epsom Derby does not deserve to be treated in this shabby manner. Whichever way this issue is dressed-up, it is an insult to the sport. The Epsom Derby has a far longer history than the F.A.Cup - first run in 1760. Compared to 1760, football is still running around in short trousers. A member of royalty may present the winning trophy at Wembley but the Epsom Derby was born out of royalty and our late and still missed Queen was as much associated with the race as she was with Buckingham Palace or Sandringham. Would the B.H.A. have taken the same decision if our late Queen were still alive? I doubt if the matter was even thought controversial by King Charles. No disrespect intended, your majesty.
Our late Queen held the sport and its history in high regard and desired only what would be in the best interests of the sport. Reluctantly, she may have given her consent. I, too, hold the sport and its history in high regard, though I am not tolerant in all matters and, if given a deciding vote, would have rejected the 1.30 start time in favour of almost any other option. This decision, to my mind, goes into the mad, bad and sad category of B.H.A. decision-making. The message it sends-out to the wider sporting public is this: horse racing no longer is no longer relevant; not even our premier flat race, ‘the greatest race in the world’, apparently.

​This is not the first time I have written on this subject and I doubt it will be the last. Though if I die shortly then obviously this will be my last word on the subject. Let’s hope not, anyway. At least, angry gods, allow me to live past this coming Saturday so that I can witness what will be, I believe, Frodon’s swansong at Sandown over a distance of ground he has never attempted during his long and successful time as a racehorse.
By the way, although he is a French-bred and Frodon must be a town or village in France and hence has his French-themed name, I have no objections to it. To an ignorant Englishman it is easily pronounceable.
I will not upset or insult owners of French-bred horses ‘saddled’ with tongue-twisting French-language names by citing examples of my displeasure. Nor will I give examples of what I refer to as ‘the Irish plague’ of using perfectly nice English words into a form of word-play train which needs to be unlinked in order to establish how it is to be pronounced. Worse still are the language manglers that in order to conform to the 18-character regulation leave out vowels in order to make the finding of the correct pronunciation a horse racing version of trivial pursuits. I admire and respect J.P.McManus in front of any other living human being, yet he, I believe, was the originator of this crime against language and the inspiration for so many to follow in his wake.
Another of my pet hates, no doubt a deliberate policy by French breeders of National Hunt horses, are names that use half-French and half-English words. And, then, as if the namers of French horses have no other aim but to annoy me, and the rest of Mankind, I suspect, there is the misplaced apostrophe, as easily cited by the great Big Buck’s and the less great Favorito Buck’s. What is that about? French ignorance or lack of regard for the English language?
Then there is the plague of the suffix that entangles in the memory horses of the past. How many de Obeaux are there? How many de Clermonts? De Guyes. Or de Berlais. I could go on. And, no doubt, will. Minella, for instance.
The similarity of Arabic names also brings about entanglements in the memory. I just pray Hawaii does not become a hot-bed for either the breeding of thoroughbreds or its language becoming in-vogue for the naming of racehorses.
Just don’t get me started on the replication of names of famous horses from the past. Just don’t. It is not just the laziness of people to seek out original names but disrespect for the history of our sport and the horses that have inspired people to attend racecourses throughout the decades, or to bet on horses, to work in horseracing etc etc. 
Yes, the naming of horses is a bit of an obsession with me.
On the surface, the names of horses, especially when set against the indisputable greater problems the sport is grappling with at the moment, is trivial. Yet, I would contend, the first nuance of our complex sport anyone attending a race-meeting for the first time or forced, perhaps, to watch horse racing on the t.v. on an afternoon, will be confronted with will be the names of the horses walking around in front of them. Could anyone take football seriously if competing teams had names like Nicnaknickynoo Wanderers, for example. Or cricket if the teams bore names like the Loopy Lou Eleven. Names are a welcoming voice. Names will suggest whether we take horses seriously or are they just considered by racing people as takeaways, easily replaced if they do not prove up to the mark. Elements of the sport may be fun, entertainment for the masses, but the sport now embraces a ‘from birth to death’ policy when it comes to care of the horse and though when a racehorses moves from licenced stables to the roll of ex-racehorse it’s stable name can be changed, it’s name in racing history remains the same. Name a racehorse Nicnaknickynoo and when the new owner of the now ex-racehorse is asked the name of his or her new pride and joy, the name will reflect poorly on both the sport and whoever named the unfortunate beast.
My obsession with this topic came from being told by someone working at the time for the B.H.A. (his name, by the way, is Paul Singh) that it is difficult to find a name not already in use or one that cannot be used as it is the name of a classic winner, Grand National winner, etc etc. Thank the Lord for that latter small mercy. The reply came from a strongly worded complaint that Coolmore had the audacity and ignorance to name a horse Spanish Steps, arguably the name of the most revered racehorse since Brown Jack. Bold claim? Not if you go by the number of ‘contacts’ I receive either in support of my opinion or those who had a connection with the horse and wish to forward me their pride in the connection with a horse ‘who danced every dance’ during his long and successful time as a racehorse. Do you know Jack Morgan, who trained Edward Courage’s horses, is buried next to the great horse. I only know as someone contacted me with the information.
It is a fact that British and Irish trainers source almost the majority of their fresh stock from France so it’s about time I made my peace with the intricacies of the French language. Right? No. Why not translate from the French into English when these horses cross the channel? Ban 18-character names made up of a train of words that have to be disassembled to be made sense of. And owners, please give horses nice, sensible names, names that add dignity to the horse and the sport. My ‘racehorse names’ page is a feeble, naïve, perhaps, attempt to help owners find a suitable name for their wonderful horses. The English language is huge and growing all the time, with words that go and out of fashion. ‘Feague’, for instance. Google the word and you’ll find the meaning is horse-related, for all that it is distasteful.
If blessed with the task of naming your yearling or store horse, choose wisely and give the future some consideration. You wouldn’t want to be associated with naming a future Derby or Grand National winner Nicnaknickynoo, would you?

​Why must we be always on the defensive when we talk about the Aintree Grand National? It is the most well-known horserace in the world, or at least we are led to believe it is. Though even if you or I believe the Melbourne Cup might rival the Grand National in worldwide popularity these days, you, too, must withstand criticism from animal rights activists who take delight in listing the horses to suffer fatal injuries in the race. Popularity is a twin-edged sword in times of woke and a widespread ‘I don’t like it. It should be banned’ mentality!
I said back in 2013 when the fences were modified, the distance changed and conditions of the race altered to attract ‘a higher class of horse’, that fatalities would continue to occur as, with all horse races and horse events, we are in the lap of the gods as to whether we ‘count them all out and count them all back’. It is as true as it would be with a 3-horse novice chase at Taunton or Hexham as it is the a 40-runner Grand National. In sport, we are all but pawns played by gods of fate who make changes to the rules to suit their whims and fancies.
I suggested in an earlier ‘blog’ that the first 3-fences are the bogey fences at Aintree and have suggested twenty jockeys should be assigned by a draw to pursue the inner to middle from the start, with the rest pursuing a middle to outer route, with the field mingling between the third and fourth fences. Also, the right horses should be attracted to run in the race, not necessarily the highest rated. But that is another issue. This piece is about restoring the Grand National’s sullied reputation with the public to ensure we keep the middle-ground on our side, or at least not taken to the other side.
The Grand National should be aligned to horse welfare charities. Let our belief that the Grand National is the most watched horse race in the world be our guide. Why not use that platform to highlight the abuse and negligent care of horses around the world? Sir Peter O’Sullevan’s charity raises money, in part, to support The Brook Hospital, a charity that provides veterinary care in third-world countries. Not only should the light be focused on horse welfare issues in foreign countries but money could be raised for the wonderful horse rehabilitation charities in Britain and Ireland, Riding for the Disabled charity could be helped also through charity aligned to the Grand National. Any and all horse welfare charities could be sustained through association with Aintree.
All that is required, and, yes, I dare say setting up such a fund will not be as a,b,c, as I suggest, but stick with me, is for a small percentage of all winning bets to go to the horse welfare charity, a small percentage of bookmaker profits from the race, a small percentage of jockeys prize money from the meeting, with perhaps jockeys donating their riding fee from the Grand National to help swell the pot; owners, too, might offer a small percentage of their prize-money. And so on and so on.
The Grand National has been the love of my life, more so than any human being. I am 69 now; how many more Grand Nationals will I be privileged to witness. To be honest, after my death I’ll not spin in my grave if there are no F.A. Cup Finals, no free and fair elections to parliament or Repair Shops. But I’ll spin like an out-of-control turbine if the Grand National is consigned to history.
The Grand National has been a force for good in my life since I was a child. As someone who grew up on a council housing estate in Bristol, with no connection to horses of any kind, the Grand National fired my imagination for a sport I knew absolute zero about and gave me an interest that aligned itself to my heart ever since. It is time the B.H.A., the Aintree executive, Jockey Club estates and the racing public at large, gave the Grand National and Aintree racecourse assurance for the future by making it a force for good, to help horses of every kind around the world and nearer to home.
The back-foot negativity must end. Give animal rights activists a small voice as we have far more in common with them than they will admit to. I suspect those connected to horse racing donate more to animal charities than any other sector of society and feed and care-for more animals than those collectively who have become our enemy at the door. We have nothing to be ashamed about.
People continue to suggest changes, even people within racing. But the Grand National must not change beyond the small alterations I have suggested. It must be 40-runners as the number is part of its distinction and history. It must be 4-miles 2-furlongs plus. It cannot be anything other than a source of danger to horse and rider as any equestrian sport cannot be anything other than played out to the whims and fancies of fate and the gods that set the rules.
The Grand National, though, must be seen by the middle-ground as a force for good. It is within the gift of British and Irish horse-racing to help horses around the world through the annual sporting event that is known worldwide as the Grand National.

​I dislike the concept of ‘premiership racing’ as it wreaks of elitism and that cannot be right when in the main horse racing is a working-class sport. Within the entanglement of the idea, though, I admit, there is a thread of common-sense. 
I have written before that if one-weekend in every four were to be given over to promoting the racecourses of Britain and Ireland that fall outside the ‘premier’ racecourses, I believe the sport as a whole, as a community, would benefit. I also have come around to the idea that British flat racing and National Hunt should not have to jostle for supremacy during the months of March, April and May.
During the hey-day of the sport, before the dual complication of all-weather racing and summer jumping, the two seasons were delineated, starts and finishes defined, boldly declared on calendars. These days, the situation is fuzzy, confusing, with neither the flat nor National Hunt having either a beginning or an end.
In fact, the mingling of the conclusion of the jumps season and the beginning of the flat resembles an elitist jumble sale in a cathedral. 
Post the Cheltenham Festival, we have all-weather finals day, the Lincoln, Aintree, the Craven meeting, Scottish Grand National, the Greenham, Sandown and the old Whitbread and then the Guineas meeting. With, of course, the Irish Grand National, Punchestown and the Irish trials for the upcoming Guineas in Britain, France and Ireland, adding to the mish-mash.
How the B.H.A. will deal with this six-weeks of the season as part of the ‘premiership’ scheduling of the 2024 race programme will make for very interesting reading.
My proposal, a work in progress, I admit, would be to limit by half the number of all-weather meetings for a 3-month period during the core flat season to increase the availability of horses to compete at the numerous turf flat meetings that are staged between June, July and August.
I would have no National Hunt meetings in May, with Newton Abbot, Worcester, Stratford, Market Rasen and Perth, given priority in June, July and August, with a limit of 3-meetings a week. I would then have a further hiatus of 2-weeks in October.
Limiting all-weather meetings in the summer, where they are less needed for betting turnover purposes, and curtailing the increase in summer jumping, is the easiest method of improving the competitiveness of British racing.
The Grand National in mid-April, though a one-off this season, is a good idea and as Aintree can now provide ground no worse than good, I would suggest staging the race at the end of April, giving the National Hunt season a fitting conclusion and some much-needed breathing space. This would allow six-weeks between Cheltenham and Aintree, necessitating, I admit, a clash with Punchestown. Yet that conundrum illuminates the tangled mess of having too much Grade 1 racing in so short a time period, especially when the National Hunt season in Britain trickles to luke-warm between Christmas and the Cheltenham Festival.
With the flat, the problem is that it starts with a whimper, then has ‘festival meetings in abundance’ through June, July, August and September. In a world where Ireland, France and every racing nation from the U.S. to Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabian are in competition for the best horses, with all of them offering far greater amounts of prize-money than either Britain and Ireland can afford, wouldn’t it be possible to cut back a wee bit in the summer festival schedule. Or, at least, become more inventive with the race programme?
There is greater latitude for change with the National Hunt programme. Stage the Cheltenham Festival a week earlier than tradition dictates, run the Imperial Cup and Midland National the day after. The Scottish National can then take-up the following week-end and the old Whitbread the Saturday before the Grand National, though I would alter the distance of Sandown’s feature race to around 2-mile 4-furlongs.
Tentatively, I would suggest a 9-month turf season starting in early March with the Lincoln – as a 40-runner race started from a barrier, as I have suggested many time before, the intention being to make the race a more stand-out feature and to give modern jockeys the opportunity to experience racing as their forebears knew it – the early programme devoted to racecourses, as with Bath, that suffer from firm ground during the core season, given priority, with a week in April for the traditional Guineas Trials. The Guineas in May, Derby (returned to the first Wednesday of the month) in June, Ascot in July, York Ebor meeting and Glorious Goodwood in September. Or something along those lines. The season coming to a conclusion in November with a plumped-up November Handicap. 
All complete nonsense, of course. The problem of non-competitive racing, a congested race programme, too much racing and embarrassingly low levels of prize money, ‘is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ as Sir Winston once said of Russia. The great man also said, both which could be said of horse racing at the present time in this country. ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’. He also said, ‘to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.’
Perhaps the legendary Captain Tim Forster had the best solution. ‘Get rid of flat racing’. Perhaps we should. Britain and Ireland dominate jumps racing, after all, so should we concentrate all our efforts on what we do best?