​In today’s Racing Post (08/03/23), Bill Barber, the excellent industry editor, gives a technical analysis of the present situation vis-à-vis the disgraceful, and, I suspect, illegal imposition (at least bordering on) of affordability checks on punters, those who are perhaps the backbone of British horse-racing.
I am not a gambler. Nor can I described as a bettor as I infrequently visit my local bookmaker and do not, and never have had, a betting account. For this reason, I have shied well-clear of the debate believing I had no justifiable foot to stand on to air my opinions. Yet, affordability checks do affect me, as indeed they may well in the near present intrude on the lives of people who have no interest in betting and horse racing.
Affordability checks are somewhat similar to the tactics of gangs in the East End of London post the 2nd World War, and the mobsters of New York that threatened shop, club and dance hall owners that if they ‘didn’t pay’ for protection, from whom it was rarely stated, they would find their premises raised to the ground. In this instance, the protection racket is organised by the Gambling Commission, its whispered threat of ‘do as we say or we will take away your licence and throw you out on the street’ as bone-chilling as the knuckleduster or sawn-off shotgun. The bookmakers, as would be expected, are too frightened to stand their ground and without apology pass on the ‘wishes’ of the Gambling Commission by way of imposing outrageous affordability checks on their customers, demanding evidence that they can afford to bet without sending their families into poverty, with the outraged punter having to hand-over to strangers details of their savings, investments, pensions, salaries, mortgages, etc etc. An unholy state of affairs that has all the hallmarks of draconian overreach.
All the while, racing, bookmakers and punters await the long-awaited publication of the government’s white paper setting out rules that must be applied by bookmakers to protect, largely from themselves, vulnerable gamblers and to, no doubt, lend them a helping hand towards counselling and a new life well away from the temptations of betting shops.
My fear is this: what is being enacted by government through the auspices of the Gambling Commission is a trial run with the objective of applying similar tactics and strategies on drinkers of alcohol, smokers and addicts of cream cakes, which will be easily achieved at the advent of the cashless society, which is already being prepared to be rolled out in 2025. Go to the World Economic Forum’s website if you believe me to be a tin-foil hat-wearer.
It sounds dystopian, doesn’t it? A plot lifted from a science fiction B-movie or second-rate novel. Yet, the Dutch government have legislation in place to throw farmers off their land and to return farmland to nature by 2050. A country famous for the vegetable and flowers it produces and sells around the world! Protesting farmers have been shot at by Dutch police, had their tractors overturned and the government have used propaganda and downright lies to vilify them and turn the public against them. Farmers: the enemy! Unbelievable!
It is my belief, though, that the delays in publication of the white paper is a sign that knowing itself to be as unpopular with the British people as the Dutch government is with farmers, the government are desperately seeking compromise, realising the threat to racing’s finances – the Gambling Commission deny advising bookmakers to impose affordability checks – is a threat to the £4-billion bonanza that goes to the Exchequer annually from horse racing and betting. They want to help stop people gambling away their savings but realise that the Gambling Commission are taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Bookmakers could help themselves by voluntarily removing online slot machines from their premises. I suspect this whole debate began with the installation of slot machines in betting shops, with bookmakers looking away while vulnerable people gambled their lives away feeding coins into these money-making machines. Get rid of these damn bookmakers games of chance money pits and the betting shop will overnight become more wholesome, more acceptable for the awful new world being constructed behind our backs.
One more thing: does anyone truly believe that bookmakers would willingly close the accounts of loyal customers, reducing their annual profits, if they were not told to do so, were not intimidated with the threat of unspeakable reprisals if they failed to do as they were asked? 
Someone should take one of the big bookmaking companies to court to seek legal opinion if the scope of affordability checks is fair, just and legal. 

​Five years after writing a history of Brighton racecourse, Jim Beavis published a history of Fontwell Park. To my mind, without such racecourses our sport would be less diverse and less interesting. Both courses are idiosyncratic as you will not find a similar topography to Brighton on the flat or Fontwell Park over jumps anywhere else in Britain. Also, I have visited neither of them.
The History of Fontwell Park is the fourteenth book on British racecourses I have in my racing library, joining the now defunct Birmingham and Harpendon, and the still very much alive histories of Colwck Park or Nottingham to you and me, Epsom, Newbury, Market Rasen, Chepstow, Worcester (or Pitchcroft) Ascot, York and Salisbury. The latter published in 2019, also by Jim Beavis (Jim was really getting the hang of this writing game by then) being my favourite of the collection. I would advise readers to avoid the Newbury book as the course deserves a literary effort far more entertaining than the one provided by Mr. Osgood.
Fontwell’s claim to fame is that on 10th October 1949, The Queen as she was then or the Queen Mother as we came to know her, became the first Queen of England to win a horse race since Queen Anne in 1714 when Monaveen, starting at 30/100 favourite, won a 3-horse steeplechase. The horse was jointly owned by the Queen and Princess Elisabeth, our late lamented Queen.
The photographs in the book lends weight to the author’s claim of the charm of Fontwell, with the centre pages dedicated to ‘then and now’ photographs providing evidence that though no longer formal gardens the groundstaff have worked wonders to keep an essence of floriculture about the place.
Jim Beavis makes a very good fist of recording the founding of the course from training grounds to racecourse, though it made me wonder why there is not a race of importance at Fontwell these days as a memorial to its founder, Albert Day. Day trained at what is now known as Fontwell and was moderately successful and in want of a project, I suspect, to keep him busy during his retirement took the suggestion on board from his son-in-law, Meyrick Good, to construct a racecourse where once he trained his horses.
Beavis travels the road from private ownership to the racecourse being acquired by Northern Racing, from being a racecourse in straits not quite dire to the thriving course it is today, though it was 2008 when Beavis laid down his pen.
Idiosyncratic racecourses always throw-up specialists, with Certain Justice winning fourteen-race at Fontwell, closely followed by Stickler on twelve and St.Athan’s Lad eleven. And top-class horses have graced the racecourse with their presence, including Baracouda, Comedy of Errors, Crudwell, Hallowe’en, My Way De Solzen, National Spirit, Pendil, Salmon Spray, Stalbridge Colonist, Tingle Creek and What a Myth. And a good few others I might have mentioned, leaving them out only because anyone thirty-years younger than myself would doubtless not have heard of them.
Even when they are not riveting reading, I enjoy histories of British racecourses as they provide a great insight into how our sport has developed down the decades and in some cases centuries. I just hope that over the coming decades and centuries none of the present-day racecourses end-up as housing estates or business parks and recorded in books of the future along the lines of Chris Pitt’s wonderful ‘A Long Time Gone’, an extensive record of all the British racecourses lost to time and now only kept alive in the memories of the aged.

​You may disagree with me but it is my contention that the B.H.A. cock-up every good intention they try to apply to the sport they are supposed to either govern or oversee, depending on your point of view. The only exception is the rule to limit jockeys to one meeting a day, and that initially was imposed on them by government decree during the ‘scamdemic’. Don’t get me started! Restricting jockeys to one meeting a day was good for the family life of jockeys, the mental health of jockeys, the planet, as they were bombing up and down motorways less often, thereby cutting their carbon emissions and general wear and tear on their cars and, most importantly, the one day rule allowed many more jockeys to earn a better standard of living due to the increase of opportunities to ride and earn.
The B.H.A. are also on the road to, and here you may again disagree with me, to use a street expression, ‘fucking-up’ ( and I am not one to use swear words, either in print or as part of everyday language, and I apologise for the drop in standards now ) the greatest jewel of British horse racing, the Grand National. I concede that the motivation of the B.H.A. was to make the it a classier race with classier horses taking part. To my mind, though, it is fast becoming a mediocrity of the middle-band, with no genuine Gold Cup class horses entered and no horses whose connections are of the lower echelons of the sport. In short, the romance of the Grand National is no more. And that is both sad and unforgivable. 
The conditions for the 2023 running of the race are as follows: For 7-year-olds + which, prior to March 28th, have started in a steeple chase during the current season, and have been placed first, second, third or fourth in a steeple chase with an official distance description of 2miles, seven and a half furlongs or more, at any time during the horse’s career. Horses must be also allotted a rating of 125 or more by the B.H.A. handicapper following a review of the horses entered and after taking into account of races run up to and including February 19th. Horses which are not qualified for a rating in Great Britain or Ireland at closing may also be entered. Such horses may be eligible for a weight providing the handicapper is satisfied that the horse’s racecourse performances up to and including February 19th would merit a minimum rating of 125. To qualify, horses must have run at least six-times in steeple chases run under the rules of racing of a recognised Racing Authority up to and including February 19th.
The conditions, you must agree, match the length of the race. The conditions are set not to encourage participation but to exclude and discourage.
As the conditions stand, and this is a far-fetched scenario, but what if at the start of the year the O’Leary brothers decided to give Tiger Roll another crack at the race. Yes, he’s now too old and the O’Leary brothers never change their minds. But let’s say Tiger Roll won the race as a 7 and 8-year-old; the present conditions would not allow him to even be entered, given the short period Gordon Elliott would have to get him fit to run in a race of 3-miles. My argument is this: there is no provision for previous winners to be exempt from the qualifying conditions. Captain Kangaroo could run, even with 4 no-finishes in his last 4 races but a previous Grand National winner might be excluded.
Also, if the B.H.A. is so keen to protect the perception of the race to the public, wouldn’t it be a good idea to have ‘win and you are in’ races. The winners of a Scottish, Irish, Welsh or Midland National would be proven stayers and sound jumpers and the connections should have the opportunity to run their horses in the Grand National in spite of whatever rating they have. Suitable horses, to my mind, are a better fit for the race than horses with high ratings but of doubtful stamina and jumping ability.
Personally, I think the Grand National is in need of protection from the meddling of the B.H.A. rather than the ignorant antis. 
There are horses entered in the Grand National with less obvious chances of winning than Chemical Energy and Minella Crooner, neither of whom are eligible for the race as they have not met the race conditions. And we all know that Iwilldoit would have started the most favoured of the British runners, based on him being a winner of both the Welsh National and the Midland Classic, yet not allowed to run because he has only taken part in 5 chases.
The conditions for the Grand National must be revisited and revised to take into account the huge drop in entries this time around, especially from British trainers. I would like to see half-a-dozen races through the season with ‘win and you are in the Grand National’ as part of the prize for winning. I would suggest the Coral Trophy at Newbury and an Irish race added to the four suggested earlier. I would like the 125 rating dropped, with the handicapper having the discretion to exclude an entry due to the lack of relevant ability, and I would like previous winners to be exempt from all race conditions.
The Grand National is special and needs to be protected as such. I do not believe the present conditions for entry and running go anywhere close to achieving the best possible horses facing the starter year in, year out. And yes, when it comes to horse racing, I am romantically inclined and yearn to see another Mon Mome/Liam Treadwell class of winner. Though not a Red Marauder. 

​The revealing of the Grand National weights always used to be, for me, if no one else, the second – the first being publication of the entries - highlight on the road to the latest glorious running of the great race. Less so now, mainly, I suspect, as there are few surprises, with horses allotted weight close to or the same as their official ratings. I would imagine this year, as long as Any Second Now remains sound in wind and limb, the weights will not rise and horses will carry the weight published in today’s Racing Post. Which will be no favour to my lively outsider Gin On Lime on 10st 4Ib and currently 66/1 and longer. I doubt if any horse below Gin On Lime will face the starter.
It would surprise me if Conflated lines up, nor Envoi Allen, Royale Pagaille (I would fancy him if he did run) Fury Road or Ashtown Lad. My biggest fear is that Garth Broom (of Brocade Racing) will suffer a fit of collywobbles and text David Pipe to take his horse out of the Grand National. Until his last run, over hurdles at Sandown, I really fancied Remastered and 10st 10 seems a reasonable weight, receiving enough from the better-class horses to equalise the gulf between them and only giving a few pounds to the few lively outsiders lurking close toward the bottom of the race-card.
I would like Capodanno to a) not run in the Gold Cup and b) to have another run somewhere to make sure he has built on his good effort behind Janidil at Gowran recently. He is the horse at the top of the weights I respect the most.
In my opinion The Big Dog is overly burdened with 11st 5, the same weight as Capodanno. The same weight as a potential Gold Cup winner? Really! He will stay and until he fell at Leopardstown I would give him an outstanding chance of running a place. Now, though, I have gone off his chances, a snap decision that if personal Aintree history is anything to go by will come back to bite me on the backside.
As I write, my leading fancy is Lifetime Ambition, a horse trained all season with the Grand National in mind. 11st 3 seems a fair weight, receiving 9Ib from Any Second Now and 8Ib from Noble Yeats. At 8 he is the right age for a modern Grand National.
The second Mullins horse I like is the 2-season novice Gaillard Du Mesnil. You would put your mother-in-law’s prime burial spot on him staying the trip and taking to the fences and if Paul Townend passes him over – one would expect Mark Walsh to be back riding in time for Capodanno – I will forever doubt his ability to separate white from black.
There is a dull light in the back of my head drawing my attention to Ga Law. I had given him no consideration until I read today that he is an intended runner as I was under the belief that his trainer had said that they were minding him this season with next season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup as a long-term target. I still doubt he will run; though, of course, Emmett Mullins has changed trainers mindset after winning the race last year with a 7-year-old novice.
The Big Breakaway is on the same mark as Remastered and I like him for the reasons I favour Remastered, though being 2-years younger he might just have the edge.
I thought Happygolucky ran a monumental race in the Rehearsal Chase at Newcastle, beaten not far by L’Homme Presse and Into Overdrive, giving the second 13Ibs, on his first run for two-seasons. He disappointed next time out at Cheltenham, though we might put that reversal down to the dreaded ‘bounce factor’. I have had the feeling for two-seasons now that Kim Bailey has another major race heading towards him. This might be it.
Never discount a McCain lively outsider come Aintree and in Minella Trump he might yet pull a rabbit from out of the McCain family bag of wonders. He might need good ground to play a part, though on the other side of the coin he has a large number of 1’s to his name, 11 to be exact, and is currently around 66/1.
Corach Rambler obviously must be respected, though I fear he may get outpaced if the ground description does not have the word ‘soft’ in it.
To me, form plays no part when looking for the winner. If the ground, for example, is on the soft side I will seek out horses proven on such ground, with the same applying if the ground is riding fast. I also like to see solid form over 3-miles plus and I want a horse in form. I do not even take much notice of horses that have shown in the past a liking for the Aintree fences. On occasion, a horse will skip round the Grand National with a smile on its whiskers and then return the following year and either fall at the first or run flat as an ironing board and give the impression of hating the whole day.
So my revised six against the field are: Capodanno, Gaillard Du Mesnil, Happygolucky, The Big Breakaway, Gin On Lime and as of this moment my lead contender Lifetime Ambition.

​The Racing Post’s Lewis Porteous is a racing journalist of great potential. He is a young, no doubt ambitious, man who is privileged to work amongst journalists of great renown and talent. And just because he is young does not, of course, preclude him from being right when he expresses honest opinions on racing matters of the day. Today, February 21st, as author of the Tuesday Column in the Racing Post, he offers the readers the opinion that ‘The Grand National is a wonderful success story – so let’s lose the hysteria’.
Of course, the Grand National is a success story. The race in differing forms has lasted since 1839, the year Lottery became a name of legend. Once the race became established it was a magnet for the connections of all the best chasers of Great Britain and Ireland. It remains the most famous horse race in the world and is the only race in those two countries to attract the attention of the non-racing public, the media and the once-a-year punter. For a hundred-years (give or take) it was the most prodigious race in the calendar, with only the Epsom Derby to rival its popularity. 
Though it cannot be argued against the principle and ambition, the changes made to the fences prior to the 2012 race up-ended the complexion of the race to a greater degree than any of the debacles in its history. The Grand National of today is not the Grand National of Red Rum’s time. Would the greatest Grand National horse win three times if he had the ‘upturned-dandy brushes’ to leap over rather than the green upright monoliths he conquered? The neutering of the fences, sadly, neutered the race.
Lewis Porteous is wrong – it is doubtless his youth that is to blame – to say it is a better class race now than in the recent past. The quality of the race did dip post Red Rum. The Cheltenham Festival had become all-consuming and the prize fund for both the Irish and Scottish Nationals slowly increased to a point where, as it remains, both races became attractive alternatives to Aintree; whereas the Aintree prize-fund remained static. When Maori Venture won in 1987 his owner Jim Joel picked up a cheque for £64,710. Red Rum only won Noel La Mare £25,486 when he became the most prolific Grand National winner in 1977.
The fairy-tale story last year was Sam Waley-Cohen, the most successful rider over the Aintree fences of his era, winning on his last ever ride on a racecourse. People overlooked the fiercesome race had been won by a novice, Noble Yeats, having only his sixth (?) run in a steeplechase.
Young Porteous is correct when he suggests that in the past many of the runners had no realistic chance of winning, with many a long way out of the handicap. Yet, I ask, do any of the once-a-year punters notice the quality or lack of quality of the horses they see listed in the morning paper? The puzzle trying to find a juicy winner remains the same today as it did in 1973 or 1953.
What the great race no longer possesses is romance. Rachel Blackmore was a great story; in winning she changed her sport to a degree; she made sporting history. Yet the horse was owned by one of sport’s wealthiest owners (a great man whom the sport will always be indebted) and trained by one of Ireland’s major trainers. And Rachel Blackmore is one of her country’s top jockeys.
Red Rum was romance. Grittar was romance. Aldaniti was romance. It will be a long wait till we get a Grand National winner trained behind a car-showroom or a horse trained by a permit-trainer.
Granted, overall the quality, if you go by their official ratings, will be higher this year than twenty-years ago, yet in 1973 the lightly weighted Red Rum beat Crisp, L’Escargot and Spanish Steps. When was the last time four-horses of their star appeal lined-up at Aintree? All four beat the existing course record, did you know that? That’s quality for you!
The Grand National will always be a great spectacle. 40-runners thundering down the line of six-fences, culminating in Bechers, the most neutered fence on the course, the Canal Turn, Valentine’s, the Chair, will always catch the breath and fill the eye with wonder. And the winner will always be worthy. But the race has lost its soul. The Duque de Alburquerque trying year after year to achieve his ambition of simply finishing the race and not finishing his day in one of Liverpool’s hospitals. Rosemary Henderson finishing fifth on her grand horse Fiddler’s Pike. Noel Fehily finishing sixth on the basically 2-mile chaser Celibate. We will never have such minor yet heroic achievements again.
And we still have fatalities. Look at last year’s race. And we still do not have the Gold-Cup class horses entered, let alone run in the race. What we have now is the mediocrity of the middle-band, horses high on seconds, thirds and fourths but lacking number ones against their name, with as many no-hopers as we had when it was a free-for-all to enter.
I love the Grand National. It was my introduction to the sport. Close to me I have five-books on the subject and I wish there were more. The race, though, has lost its soul for no substantial gain. I am old, young Porteous, I see the world and our sport through eyes of greater experience, perhaps, for now, even greater knowledge. You may be right in theory. But what you miss is that the Grand National is not simply a horse race. It is the root upon which the whole sport has grown. It is not a race like any other and should not be assessed in a similar manner to a handicap at Cheltenham, Sandown or Newbury. It is the Grand National. It is a race long on history and ingrained with romance. It has a soul; a stifled soul but a soul still. The race must be altered again so that soul can breathe its magic once more. The Grand National is a race of myth and legend, young Porteous. To survive it must have Mon Mome’s, Tipperary Tim’s and Jay Trump’s.

​I have little confidence in the British Horseracing Authority. It is my opinion that, seemingly, no member of racing’s regulatory body has a deep-seated and abiding love of the sport and knowledge of its long history. As good as Julie Harrington might be as a businesswoman and as successful as has been in her previous career ventures, she has no intuitive understanding of a sport that is complex, nuanced, with many strands making up its whole, populated by people who earn their crusts from the many diverse aspects of the sport. I believe the B.H.A. offers the sport poor governance and is the weak link that lies at the heart of the sport’s steady decline.
I offer as evidence to back-up my opinion, the whip.
There are many sides to the whip debate and I do not expect everyone to agree with my view that ‘one hit and that’s it’ is the way forward.
I expressed my opinion in the B.H.A.’s steering group’s survey, which should have been a good step forward in finding a workable solution to the long drawn-out and by now quite tiresome debate. I did criticise the inclusion of two jockeys on the steering group panel, arguing that it was like allowing the guilty to suggest their own sentence and as it has turned out I was proved correct as, eventually, the jockeys as a collective turned against the original proposals, approved and championed by Messer’s Scudamore and Macdonald, and had the ban on the backhand stroke overturned and are in the process of trying to have the above shoulder-height part of the regulations similarly thrown-out.
Not that the jockeys are wholly wrong. In fact, common-sense is coming from the weighing-room and not Portman Square. When I read Julie Harrington quoted as saying. ‘If we decided to leave it until after Cheltenham or Aintree, we would then have been told there wasn’t long until the Guineas, Derby and Royal Ascot’, I cringed. Not that she is incorrect. But the time to have implemented changes was obvious to all. For the flat it was during the winter all-weather season and for National Hunt it was through the Summer jumping season. Anyone with an innate understanding of the sport would not be making the mistake of changing the rules weeks away from the most popular race-meeting of the year.
In fact, a scientific approach should have been adopted from the very beginning, with various race-day trials conducted to provide data on all the possible scenarios from no-whip to the whip being left to the discretion of the jockeys. The B.H.A. trialled different coloured trim for hurdles and fences, studied the data scientists provided and chose, rightly or wrongly, white. But for the long-running whip debate they gave no thought to data collection and went with opinion and guesswork. Even worse, at least to my perspective, is that data makes clear that the whip, and the false belief that horse racing is cruel, is the leading reason why young people do not connect with the sport. Yet, even as Germany lowers use of the whip to three-strokes and France to five, jockeys riding under the jurisdiction of the B.H.A. can use up to seven-strokes. This flies in the face of their own research that use of the whip is the cause of young people showing no interest in the sport. And it also might be a reason why big business, outside of big bookmaking chains, does not use the sport for advertising and marketing as they did in the past.
Yes, I know the whip is a perception issue. Even the R.S.P.C.A. is of the same opinion. Yet the raised whip is preventing the vast majority of the public engaging with our sport and no argument based on the whip being padded and causing no pain or harm is going to shift public opinion. The sport must go to them as it is plain they are not going to come to us.
I also do not agree that racing will be less competitive if the whip is banned or severely limited. The lesser motivated horse, the lazy, blinkered, kind, will win less, if at all, but those horses who currently curl under the crack of the whip will become more willing to exert themselves and while they only win occasionally now, they will win more often in a whipless future. And jockeys will simply have to learn to push out a horse in a finish using strength and guile rather than resort to whip crack away. I also believe that fewer horses will suffer injuries as jockeys will be forced to keep their mounts running in a straight line rather than allowing them to run off-course, usually away from the whip.
And why have ‘hands and heels’ races for apprentices if there is to be no shift in the future to whip-restricted races?
For the entirety of its existence the B.H.A. have cocked-up the whole whip issue and the harder they try to find a workable solution the more they cock it up. In the coming twelve-months an embarrassingly high number of jockeys will suffer whip bans, with many disqualifications that will annoy owners and trainers and pour unlimited amounts of humiliation on the sport. And for what purpose? To prove how tough the B.H.A. are when it comes to jockeys breaking whip rules?
It's not Julie Harrington’s fault. She does not understand the sport she presides over. In fact, the Jockeys Association are more to blame as they have offered nothing but criticism of any whip resolution for decades, rather than seeing the sport as a whole and solely concentrated on the views and aims of its membership.
The suspension of jockeys for 3-weeks or 3-months is not the answer. The answer is pick a number, 1, 3, 5 or 6, or even nil, and let that be the absolute number of strokes a jockey can use to encourage his or her horse in a finish. Never mind backhand or forehand or over shoulder height. Set a number lower than 7 and stick to it. If its 1, which one day it will be, and remember we may have a Labour government in eighteen-months-time and they have threatened to abolish use of the whip altogether, and any stroke above that number will result in that same number of weeks suspension. I stroke above the permitted number, I week suspension. 2 above, 2-weeks and so on. Clear-cut. Precise. End of debate. And hopefully the public will look upon us more kindly in the future. 

​Skulduggery is an interesting word, wouldn’t you agree? It is a noun, meaning ‘devious trickery, especially underhand or unscrupulous behaviour’. It is an alteration, apparently, of sculduddery: ‘gross or lewd conduct’. Of unknown origin. I suspect if I put myself to the trouble of research, I would come across the derivation of the word but it would take time, time I cannot spare as I have much to get through this dreary February afternoon. So, unlike David Ashforth, who would go at it with the verve of dedication unbeknownst to someone like me, who is of the half-hearted band of so-called writers, I will only add, now I am aware of the oldie word ‘sculduddery’, that I prefer it to the modern-day version, which, it is easy to imagine, derives from the practice of digging-up graves to extract skulls for the purpose of sorcery or black magic. 
The dear Queen Mother once owned a chaser called Black Magic; I’m pretty sure I’m right about that. David Ashforth should write a book about the most successful owners of National Hunt horses of the sixties, seventies and possibly the eighties. If you know David, or Mr.Ashforth as I would address him, make him aware of my website and my suggestion for his next book Thank you.
Onto ‘Ringers and Rascals. A Taste of Skulduggery’. Published in 2003, back in the days of democracy, freedom of both speech and movement and when we hadn’t yet cottoned-on to how bad things in the near-future were going to be.
I admire David Ashforth and I am now on the lookout for his published work. To find his unpublished work I would have to break into his house and find his cache of unpublished or unfinished work, and in the process baffle both the police and Mr.Ashforth as to why anyone would go to so much trouble for so little reward. I will not be stoop to such nefarious business, mainly because I have no idea where the great man lives.
‘Ringers and Rascals’ is a book about people who substitute one horse, usually a horse with moderate form, for a look-a-like but of far greater ability in order to bring off a large gamble. My one quibble about this book, and it is only a small quibble as quibbles go, is that the book, by necessity as though he is a fine writer with a brain to go with it, he cannot know everything about every equine subject, is heavy on research, to the point where David Ashforth’s whimsical style appears far less frequently than I would wish. Other than that, there is little to quibble about. The ‘King of Ringers’, Peter Christian Barrie, takes up a lot of Mr.Ashforth’s time, mainly as he was actively painting (dying) horses to look like another horse and using cocaine and other substances as a back-up, on both sides of the Atlantic. It is amazing what he got away with. Read ‘Ringers and Rascals’ to find out exactly what. This book maybe twenty-years-old but that does not mean I am about to give you chapter and verse of the why, wherefores and dénouements of the book.
The Flockton Grey story is especially well told, with information I was unaware until reading the book.
Although definitely a good read, there are no real heroes; only villains and as someone who lives and breaths the sport of horse racing the stories were overhung with the odour of foul play and sometimes rank cruelty, as with the shooting of a horse no longer required. And, of course, maybe because I remain wet-behind-the-ears, I cannot admire or have empathy for someone who brings the sport into disrepute, even if they have fallen on hard-times and have no other options in life.
Horse racing doubtless reflects life in general; although I want everyone in the sport to be saints, I should imagine they are in short supply. Saints usually are, even in the House of the Lord. And there must be sinners, people who continue to get away with their own form of skulduggery. I both wish them caught so they can be expunged from the sport and I wish them to remain in the shadows so their villainy does not further sully the public’s image of the sport. I wish the sport clean. But then there would be fewer juicy topics for writers like David Ashforth to get his literary teeth into.
Defy the Grim Reaper, Mr.Ashforth, live long, live whimsically. 

​As someone who came to horse-racing at a very young age through the B.B.C.’s coverage of the Grand National it is unsurprising that of all sporting occasions the race remains closest to my heart. I love the race as a parent must love their only child and during the 9-minutes or so of its duration I inwardly pray, as a parent might do watching their son ride their first bike or take part in their first ‘dangerous’ sporting activity, that no harm befalls it, which, of course, refers to no horse losing its life. Equally, the pray extends to B.H.A. appointed officials not cocking-up, leaving the sport and the Grand National in particular with embarrassing egg on its face.
This year, fulfilling a wish/ambition of mine, the race will be run on my birthday for the first time. For most of its life the Grand National was dominant in the calendar, with virtually every top chaser entered, and was given precedence in the racing year. The middle of March is now given as a matter of course to the Cheltenham Festival, when once that time of year was the traditional time for the annual running of the Grand National.
Personally, I think it is wrong of the B.H.A. to squeeze in the great race wherever it might fit. The Grand National is, or at least was, the most famous race in the world and shouldn’t, in my eyes, play second fiddle to any other race-meeting in Britain or Ireland. But there you are, it is what it is. At least this year I get my wish to have the race run on my birthday, if I get to live a few more months, something not to be taken for granted at my age!
In 1954 (you can work out my age, if you wish) the race was run on 27th of March and was won by Royal Tan, trained by Vincent O’Brien and ridden by Bryan Marshall, the middle of Vincent’s staggering three Grand Nationals in a row, a fete unlikely to be seen again, I would bet. The first televised Grand National was 1960, won by Merryman, trained by Neville Crump and ridden by Gerry Scott. I believe the first Grand National I watched was the following year when Nicholas Silver won, beating Merryman by five-lengths, ridden by my boyhood hero Bobby Beasley and trained by Fred Rimell.
My favourite Grand National, a race that never becomes less agonising every time I re-watch the race, was 1973, the year Crisp so very nearly achieved the impossible task of achieving the impossible, narrowly losing out to Red Rum after treating the fiercesome fences with contempt. No horse would ever be capable of giving Red Rum 23Ibs around Aintree and beat him, not even Arkle. Yet he nearly did so. I will never consider 1973 as the start of Red Rum’s hat-trick; to me it will always be Crisp’s Grand National.
The entries for this year’s renewal is rather disappointing, with only 85 possible runners, 54 of which are trained in Ireland. Perversely, though there are only 31 British-trained horses entered, they represent, I believe, our best chance of wrestling the trophy back from the Irish for many a year. Ashtown Lad, Corach Rambler, Fiddleronthehoof, Ga Law, Happygolucky, Iwilldoit, Le Milos, Mister Coffey, Our Power, Remastered, Royale Pagaille, Secret Reprieve, Sporting John, The Big Breakaway and Threeunderthrufive, all have perfectly reasonable chances of winning. Of course, as you would expect, the Irish have the ante-post favourite in Noble Yeats and the second favourite in Longhouse Poet and third favourite in Any Second Now. Yet Remastered is joint second favourite, with Ashtown Lad, Corach Rambler Iwilldoit and Le Milos quoted at odds no longer than 20/1.
I was surprised to see Envoi Allen amongst the entries, and his stable companion the mare Gin on Lime, other than that the entry, apart from the small number, was as you might expect. You would have thought a prize fund of a million-quid would have tempted a few more, even if speculative, high-profile entries. Which allows for the impression that prize-money at the top-end cannot be as paltry as trainers make it out to be.
I always like to pick six to keep an eye on, a number that might be shortened or lengthened once the weights are announced. Lifetime Ambition and Remastered have been on my Grand National radar all season and top my early fancies. I have long said Royale Pagaille was more a Grand National than a Gold Cup horse and The Big Breakaway has taken my eye of late. Capodanno has class, though I worry he might be overburdened by the handicapper for such a young horse and Gaillard Du Mesnil seems to posses both stamina and a good way of jumping.
Remastered, Lifetime Ambition, Royale Pagaille, The Big Breakaway, Capodanno, Gaillard Du Mesnil.
Noble Yeats could easily end up with top-weight and as impressive as he was last year, and how deserving it would be for the talented Sean Bowen, I can’t see it happening. Any Second Now is 11 and age will possibly catch him out, an argument that could be said of any number of the entries. Conflated has class but they didn’t run him last year and probably won’t run him this year. Franco de Port looks, at least to me, to be a Grand National sort but Willie Mullins has it in his head that he is more a French National horse and with so many entries to chose from, it is likely France is what he will be kept for.
I always like to pick out complete no-hopers that might out-run their odds and the two that stand-out at present are Hill Sixteen, if its very soft on the day, and Happygolucky.
I would, though, like Tom Scudamore to go one better than his dad and win on Remastered. I just hope Brocade Racing stop being so squeamish and allow their trainer to give their horse the opportunity to join Native River as a legend of the sport.

​Matt Chapman, perhaps to your surprise, is a brilliant interviewer. If you do not believe me, seek out his interview with Aidan Coleman on At The Races. As a pundit, though, he can take a bit of sticking with, even when you agree, if only partially, about what he is saying. If only, instead of letting himself go on a rant, he controlled his rhetoric as he achieves so skilfully when playing the part of interviewer.
I find his adherence to the pseudo-science of ratings tiresome and I wish he would not fall back on them when presenting his argument. ‘Ratings are Bollocks’, as I have stated many times. Honeysuckle is not the worst Champion Hurdler of all-time, as he must have said on two-dozen occasions last Sunday. She has beaten Epatante twice in succession in the Champion Hurdle at level weights, which, according to my calculations, makes her at the very least the better Champion of the two.
The essence of his point, though, I agree with wholeheartedly. I will substitute the word ‘pathetic’ for an exercise in pot-hunting if Honeysuckle runs at the Festival in the mares hurdle. I would rather have the mare retired than have her downgraded to the status of Mares Hurdle contender. She has won that race and progressed to the zenith of the sport. A dual with Epatante might add interest to the race but at the race’s creation was it the intention for the race to become the destination for previous Champion Hurdle winners? It is ridiculous for the winners of the last three Champion Hurdles to sidestep the main feature to strut their stuff in a far lesser race. Perhaps Epatante and Honeysuckle are unlikely to win another Champion Hurdle but that doesn’t mean they should not be afforded the opportunity to give context to whichever horse does rule supreme come March 14th. Champions should only turn up at the Cheltenham Festival to parade or to compete in championship races and the Cheltenham executive are doing the sport no favours allowing connections of great horses to sidestep the glory races for the selfish pleasure of pot-hunting.
I would like to add one thought to the debate that went unsaid either on I.T.V. on Sunday or in today’s Racing Post. Henry de Bromhead’s horses are hardly pulling up trees at the moment. Indeed at no point in the season so far could you, with hand on heart, claim that Henry’s horses have been on-form. Yet history, or the form-book, at least, tells us that come the spring Henry makes hay. Come Cheltenham, Aintree, Fairyhouse and Punchestown, Henry can go toe-to-toe with Mullins and Elliott. Honeysuckle is at her best in the Spring, when sun shines on her back.
So I implore Henry, Kenny Alexander, Peter Molony and Rachael, to make no decision on whether the great mare is retired or whether she goes to Cheltenham for either the Champion or Mares Hurdle, until the last possible minute. As Matt Chapman quite righty pointed out, it is entirely possible that one or the other of State Man or Constitution Hill could yet be ruled out of Cheltenham due to something as insignificant as a stone bruise. There is nothing to be gained by throwing in the towel now when there remains the possibility of great good fortune to come.
My difficulty in proclaiming Galopin Des Champ a Gold Cup winner in waiting is Fury Road being upside him at the last at Leopardstown, landing awkwardly, veering to the far rail and then giving the clear impression of not staying the 3-miles. Also, even though Paul Townend, as is normal after a race, had trouble pulling Galopin des Champ to a walk after the finishing line, Stattler was closing on him after the last. It concerns me that in a fast run Gold Cup, like so many before him, Galopin will not get up the hill. Whereas A Plus Tard, as long as he back to his best and Henry’s horses are firing again, will be strong up that hill. As will Ahoy Senor. Do not discount Ahoy Senor. I have this feeling in my water that Scotland may be celebrating come the afternoon of March 17th.
The two horses that most impressed me on Sunday were Gaelic Warrior – I have yet to see a recording of his race but the bare facts will point you in the direction of backing him for whichever race he runs in at Cheltenham – and at a lower level Dancila, a winner at Musselburgh. The horse was still fighting Paddy Brennan going to the last hurdle and there were a couple of winning hurdlers trailing in his wake.
Finally, to return to the Mares Hurdle at Cheltenham. Again, Matt Chapman is right. This race has no place at the Festival as it takes good horses from championship races. Why must all championship races be at Cheltenham. What about a 2-mile Champion Mares Hurdle at the Dublin Racing Festival? Some years it will not be so good and in others, this year might be a case in point, it would make for a very interesting, high-class race. Food for thought.

​As the more observant of readers will already be aware, in 2013 I self-published a collection of horse-racing themed short stories, ‘Going To The Last’. I can’t lie, not a successful venture, even if I am reasonable proud of several of the stories in the book. I did it. I persevered. I overcame the tedious road to publication.
I am no businessman. I wrote the stories over many years, believing, naively, that individually, because the theme was rare for the marketplace, a home might be found within the pages of a literary magazine for them. Didn’t happen. Here’s my first insight into the world of fiction. Editors of such magazines, whether they be mainstream or cult, are young, university educated and hip; they have no understanding of any subject matter not covered in any English Lit course they attended. Also, even if one of my short-stories was a romance, editors of such magazines viewed the story as, at best, sporting and decidedly unromantic. It would be the same if the story had a ghost theme or science-fiction. 
So, with no other road to pursue, I gathered the stories together and self-published and the book can be bought either in electronic form or as a soft-back. If I had to offer advice on which media to recommend, I would plump for soft-back as at least you have something solid to offer your local bookshop or to offer to your friends and relatives for their critical acclaim.
It matters little if your book is fiction or non-fiction, be it horse-racing themed or any theme you care to mention, you would find it easier to convince a leopard to go vegan than to find either a literary agent to take you seriously or a book publisher willing to gamble on your sales-pitch. It is tough, verging on impossible, for a first-time author without a public persona to be published mainstream. Honestly, the autobiography of a double axe-murderer or a bronze-medal winning lacrosse player has a far better chance of publication than the expert musings of an unknown, back-bedroom scribbler. Better writers, J.K.Rowling to name but one, than you or I have suffered repeated rejection by both literary agents and publishers. On the reverse, there are writers, still unknown and unheralded who have bucked the system and found themselves on the bookshelves of Waterstones etc and yet have earned barely a penny for their efforts. No one in the big bad world of literature has ever said life was fair.
Selling books is all about marketing and advertising. I am useless at both. Hence the poverty of my existence. It can cost between £350/£600 to have a modest soft-back self-published. To stand any chance or even breaking even, and by that, I mean your original outlay, you will need 10-times that amount to advertise to the world the existence of your book and still you will have to network your way around local book stores, local radio stations, local newspapers, spreading the tentacles of your marketing as far afield as your finances will allow. No paid appearance and free advertising on the ‘One Show’ for you. 
If I haven’t drained you of all enthusiasm for your project, here is my advice to help you along the way to either the top of the bestseller lists or the oblivion of the unpublished.
Unlike all writing advice magazines, I do not propose you only write about what you know but if you do chose a subject not close to your heart you must research, research, research. Always be on top of the facts. Do not lure yourself, through tiredness, into thinking your readers ‘won’t know the difference’, they will, or mix a little fiction into your non-fiction book to give spice to your narrative. You will always be found out by someone. Never take your reader for granted.
Because, yes, you are writing for your potential readers. Not yourself.
Give your book a title that represents what will be found inside the cover. I made the mistake of titling my book after the title of the first story. Any number of the stories would have provided a more alluring title, ‘Yesterday’s Magic’, for instance. In fact, ‘These Stories Are About Horse Racing’ would have been a better title as anyone Googling ‘books on horse racing’ would eventually find the title staring them in the face. Whereas ‘Going To The Last’ means nothing to anyone outside of the sport. If people know about your book you have achieved the first rung on the ladder to selling the damned said book to your first buyer.
Get your work professionally edited. Adds extra cost to the exercise, money you certainly will never see again, but you will have a book that the reader can have no criticism of your syntax, punctuation or spelling. An extra, non-tired, pair of eyes can also spot glaring factual errors and repetition. Remember, you must convince your potential buyers that you are a competent and professional author.
Do not fall into the trap of asking or allowing family or friends to proof-read the manuscript. Never ask them what they think? They love or admire you, they might want a favour in return, and they will not want to hurt your feelings by giving an honest verdict. ‘It’s good’. ‘Didn’t know you had it in you’. Good for the ego, perhaps, but no long term good comes from false praise. Straight down the line cruel but constructive criticism is kinder in the long run, believe me.
Pricing your book is a minefield. Do you price it with a view of a return on your investment as quickly as possible? Do you price it modestly so that you get instant sales? I priced the electronic version of my book modestly and the soft-back at around £10, mainly because it cost far more to get it to market. The e-book I have abandoned, left it to drift into the oblivion of the electronic ether. The softback I half-heartedly marketed; the local bookshop sold the three copies I gave them, as much to their surprise as my own, and I sent copies to local libraries in towns associated with horse-racing, Epsom, Newmarket, etc. And it is listed on this website. Useless, I know. So, make sure you do a whole lot better.
And that is the best advice I can give you: market and publicise your book. Be prepared to work harder at making your book known to as many people as possible than you ever did writing the damn thing. You might even enjoy the process of being an entrepreneur. In which case, it will be all the encouragement you need to start the follow-up book.
I have vowed never to write another book ever again.
(For those in want of where to go to achieve self-publication, I will offer you the people who held my hand along the way. eBook Versions, 27 Old Gloucester Road London WC1N 3 AX    www.ebookversions.com)
Good Luck.
Because you will need it!