​As with many people, I suspect, I first became aware of horse racing through watching the Grand National on a black and white television set. Back then, as a nine or ten-year-old, I knew nothing of the vagaries and nuances of the sport and on a black and white t.v. my instant fascination could have little to do with ‘the all-the-fun-of-the-fair’ colour of the silks or jerseys or any of the back-stories of the horses and jockeys taking part. To my youthful eyes it was keystone cops meets the courage of jockey and horse, the lottery of chance, fate and the wrath of the gods all mixed and jangled together. It was love at first sight and for the best part of sixty-years it was a love that never wavered.
As with long-lasting marriages my love for the Grand National was confronted by grim realities, the race lost to the I.R.A. hurt me to the quick, the void National made me angry and miserable with those with the responsibility to protect the great race, though the greatest threat to this love-affair was when the tinkering began after the 2012 National won by Neptune Collonge. Two horses died in that race, neither directly due to the fences, with the bravery of the first two home neglected in favour of hand-wringing and a commitment to ever-decreasing circles.
I would have more respect for Aintree if they had put an end to the Grand National, to have had the final Grand National, and then announced the replacement race, the race I will always refer to as the Aintree National. The race next Saturday is not the Grand National, albeit they continue to register it thus. The distance is shorter, the fences lower, Bechers Brook is but a name on a plan of the course, and there are fewer runners and it is no longer the race of the people. In time it will go the way of the Epsom Derby and become of no relevance outside of the sport. It is nothing more than a cash-cow now, a fund that keeps Jockey Club Estates afloat.

I doubt if many people remember Gordon Cramp. The name was familiar to me as after he retired as a jockey, he trained at Failand, just outside of Bristol, my home city. I did not know him as a jockey.
It would not happen now, quite rightly, but when Cramp was offered the ride on Melilla in the 1962 Grand National, he had not ridden over fences all season and to get his eye in he begged a ride in a selling chase at Fontwell on the Monday of the week of the Grand National.
The horse was a 100/1 no-hoper, yet it was a milestone in the career of Cramp. Few would have expected Melilla to go beyond the first, yet the mare jumped clear as far as Bechers second-time round where she tired and Cramp quickly pulled her up.
The 1962 race was won by the 12-year-old Kilmore, ridden by Fred Winter. The 2nd and 3rd were also 12-year-olds, the luckless Wyndburgh was second for the third-time and former winner Mr.What was third, something which you would get long-odds of ever happening again, three 12-year-olds fighting out the finish of an Aintree National.
It would be nice to recall that Cramp’s career took off after his foray around Aintree but that would be fiction not fact. He finished his career with only 36-winners, though he went on to train a dozen-winners and work for some of the leading trainers. He also became a talented artist, painting water colours.

Keith Barnfield was more a painter and decorator than he was a jockey when he was offered the ride on Ormonde Tudor in the 1976 Grand National. He was 36 and his ride had only won a solitary selling chase at Tees-side Park (Stockton). 
Barnfield’s best season for winners was 1967/68 with 10 and the richest race he ever won was the £1,000 Colonel Thompson Memorial Hurdle at Market Rasen. His first ever winner was Scarron in a selling hurdle at Cheltenham in 1965.
His only ride in the Grand National ended at the first fence, though he was always keen to correct the form-book as Ormonde Tudor did not so much but slip on the long-wet grass. The horse was notable for having as many trainers during his time as a racehorse as he had years on the clock, moving stables on a yearly basis. It was only when he came under the care of Rosemary Lomax that he began to shine, winning three handicap chases for her. He also won three-times when he moved on to Tommy Fairhurst.
The 1976 Grand National, of course, was won by Rag Trade, delaying Red Rum’s immortality by 12-months, winning by 2-lengths whilst in receipt of 12 Ibs.

In Chris Pitts ‘Go Down To The Beaten’ there are 109 examples of people who rode without success in the Grand National. The 110th  is A.P. McCoy’s big moment in 2010. There will never be another A.P. McCoy and there will never again be a Grand National.

​When the weights for the Aintree National were published back in February, after first nominating four other horses, including the current favourite, Intense Raffles, out of the ether, the name Hyland came to me. I called it at the time ‘instinctive’, though on reflection I believe it was more a case of my brain subconsciously sifting whatever knowledge lies dormant in there and coming to the conclusion, which I now agree upon, that Hyland is well handicapped and a horse with the ability to jump well, though at Kempton last time his jumping was less reliable, and who would most likely appreciate the longer distance. He was 50/1 at the time, while now I have seen him listed at 16/1, though 25/1 is more generally available. So, whoever has been backing him please stop as I have lost all the value there was to be had. He was my choice and I must warn you that jumping on my bandwagon has proved expensive for people in the past.
With L’Homme Presse now a non-runner, my current four for the race are Hyland, Intense Raffles, Bravemansgame and Hewick. The first and the last on the list are in need of goodish ground, which seemingly they will get.

It is sad that Langer Dan has been retired as he was such an endearing character. I would imagine the unreliability of his form over the past years was caused by the heart condition that has now been diagnosed. Let us hope he enjoys a long and happy retirement.

As James Owen said, quoting him from today’s Racing Post, the Triumph should be 2-miles 1-furlong, not 2-miles 2-furlongs, the distance the race became this year when the starter began the race with the runners a furlong from the tapes. He believes, and with both good reason and the evidence of the short distance East India Dock was beaten, that if the race had started from the starting tape, as it should be, his horse would more than likely have won.
If a race starts before the advertised start-time, it can be declared void. Yet no such provision is in the rules for when a race is run at a distance in variance to the advertised distance.

Mr. Kevin Walsh of Louth, Lincolnshire, in a letter to the Racing Post today, wishes to have the Aintree National restricted to horses ten and under. Imagine if that was the rule in 1977. We would not have had a three-time winner of the race and the legend that is Red Rum would be nothing more that that of a two-time winner of the race that I can without hesitation refer to as the Grand National.
If this suggestion were to be invoked next season it would deny such a horse as Galopin Des Champs from running in the race or I Am Maximus if he should do the double this year. 
It is a stupid suggestion and doubtless Aintree will give it consideration. It is yet another stab in the side of a once formidable and historic horse race.

To remain with the theme of the race formerly known as, at least by me, as the Grand National, which I now call the Aintree National, there is a wonderful book written by Chris Pitt ‘Go Down To The Beaten’, tales of the Grand National, in which the plucky defeated and noble attempts are given the limelight of publication. It could not be written in this day and age as the romance and derring-do has been removed from the race by those wishing only to protect the cash-cow that the race has become.
From this wonderful book I have cherry-picked the exploits of Just So, trained by three-horse trainer Henry Cole, though at the time I believe he had his home-bred mare, and Just So’s sister, Dubacilla in training with David Nicholson, and ridden by West Country journeyman jockey Simon Burroughs.
As with the plunge on Hyland this year, I had originally picked out Just So as a possible, as long as the ground was soft. He was 100/1 at the time. It had rained, snowed and sleeted in the run-up to the race and on the morning of the race, with punters realising that very few of the runners were going to appreciate ground conditions, Just So was backed, no doubt with small money bets, down to 20/1 at the off.
Just So was nicknamed Just Slow but he was a reliable jumper and as long as the pace suited him, he would gallop all-day. There was quite possibly not a race in the calendar for him, given that 4-miles was his bare minimum. Paul Nicholls had him for a while, finishing 2nd four-times in five-runs, including the Eider Chase.
In the 1994 Grand National, trained by his owner-breeder, he was beaten only 1 and a ¼-lengths by Miinnehoma and Richard Dunwoody, and had even led the field at Valentines, surprising even Dunwoody who asked Burroughs ‘What are you doing here?’ no doubt surprised as anyone that Just So should be leading a race so far from the finish.
The above is an example of why I hate what has been done to the National run at Aintree. It is highly unlikely that a three-horse stable will ever compete in the race again or that a journeyman jockey such as Simon Burrough will get so close to winning the race or that an ordinary handicapper like Just So will achieve such a brush with racing history.
In protecting their cash-cow, Aintree trampled over what the race has always stood for, romance, bravery, the little man given an equal chance against his or her betters, the unpredictable as likely as the predictable. I doubt if Ginger McCain sleeps easy in his coffin spiritually knowing that lesser horses of lesser achievement will be mentioned as attempting to achieve what Red Rum gloriously achieved.

​The Aintree National is not yet run, Sean Bowen is yet to be confirmed as champion jockey, Dan Skelton is still to bury the thought that Paul, Nicky or Willie might yet mug him for his first trainers’ crown, and the promise of the final glories of the season at Fairyhouse and Punchestown is still to be bestowed upon us, and already the over-reach of the flat is beginning to take centre-stage. Indecent haste, I call it. 
In Ireland, this coming Monday, there will be Guineas trials and Group 3 races, with the Ballydoyle battalion primed and ready for their first forays into a season where each horse will incrementally improve from looking rubbish first-time out to becoming favourites for Group 1’s and classics by early August. It is just what Aidan can achieve, whereas others cannot.
It would not be so annoying if after the Lincoln meeting there are a slew of meetings, yet there is not. Why? Because the Aintree National meeting takes precedence, quite rightly, all next week. Would it not make more sense if the Lincoln followed the Aintree National, with flat meetings every day in the following week? And if Ireland can stage Guineas Trials within a week of the opening meeting of the season, give me a reason why the Craven meeting cannot be staged in the week after the Lincoln in order to keep up the momentum of the new season?

Of more importance, at least to me, is which horse will Sam Twiston-Davies and Rachael Blackmore choose to ride in the Aintree National? At the start of the season, and after the initial entries were published, I did not think for a moment that Sam would have a choice. Broadway Boy had looked the quintessential National horse as he stayed well, jumped well and had the necessary class needed these days for the Aintree National. I picked him amongst my first thoughts for the winner, yet, as with Sam, it seems, I have my doubts as he ran no sort of race at Cheltenham last time and it is clutching at straws to suggest the faster ground (really, since when has good-to-soft been considered to be ‘faster ground?) was the underlying factor in a very disappointing effort. To me, the horse has lost his form and I have given up on him for this year. Beauport looks by far the safest decision Sam can make as he has all the same attributes as his stable-mate yet with the added bonus of being in good form. 
Rachael’s decision is far harder. Does she plump for the 12-year-old class of Minella Indo who demonstrated in last year’s Aintree National that he can cope with the fences and stay the distance or does she go for the unknown and choose Senior Chief, a horse of lesser class but who may improve for the unique course and fences and the distance? I would advise Rachael to stay loyal to the old boy as it might be his swan-song and the Minella horses have always been lucky for her.

In her book ‘They’re Off’, Anne Alcock predicted ‘when their needs are eventually met in more sophisticated fashion’.
Anne Alcock was referring to separate changing facilities for female jockeys at racecourses. Her book was published in 1978. In 2025 separate female changing facilities have yet to be met by an embarrassing number of racecourses in this country.
Anne Alcock was not moaning at the disparity between male and female jockeys as she had sympathy for racecourses as the Jockey Club had made no plans for the implantation of the Sex Discrimination Act, no doubt believing that with their connections they could achieve special dispensation to keep the female outside of the jockey ranks. And when she said ‘no plans’ that was proved by the ad-hoc arrangements that were put-in-place so that the female pioneers could change clothes without the eyes of their male colleagues upon them. The office of the clerk-of-the-course was used at one racecourse, a cottage just down the road was another, an old caravan, public toilets were also used. Washing facilities were hardly considered a pre-requisite, nor mirrors. The in-mates of a female prison would be better served than the woman who were leading the way to where we are now. Not that anyone considered it a possibility we could be where we are now.
Female jockeys won their right to race and facilities have improved in the intervening 50-years, yet still, even with the ever-increasing number of female jockeys and the success they have achieved, not every racecourse has dedicated changing facilities for female jockeys. It is no defence to say money is tight as this situation has been ignored for the best part of that fifty-years.

​Mr. Incredible drove Patrick Mullins up the wall. He did everything humanly possible to get to the bottom of his quirkiness and as proved in last year’s Aintree National he failed without honours to dislodge the horse from his own ideas about the game. With the optimism of a child, believing love and understanding and equine psychology might to the trick, Sandy Thomson acquired Mr. Incredible, believing he might succeed where Patrick Mullins and all the great brains at Closutton only found the very definition of the phrase ‘second-bested’.
The horse, as talented as he might be, has taken a dislike, for whatever reason, mentally, physically or spiritually, to racing. At Kelso last Saturday, he started after a fashion, ran okay until hitting one fence and immediately took the unilateral decision to pull himself up. To add insult to ignominy, Ryan Mania, who to every observer had done all he could to achieve something better, was fined £80 by the stewards for not riding with a whip. He was also admonished for using the reins to encourage Mr. Incredible to change his mind and try one more fence.
Although the antics of Mr. Incredible can be seen as amusing and a challenge for wide-eyed optimists who hope to transform the old dodger, in truth the horse should be taken out of training and given a chance at another equestrian discipline. One thing is for certain, he must not be allowed to line-up in the Aintree National next week. If he is allowed to run and either refuses to start or takes another horse out of the race by veering sideways as he did at Kelso, it will a) stop another horse, owner, trainer and jockey from competing in the race or b) could inflict injury on a rival horse or jockey or even worse cause a pile-up Foinavon-style. Imagine if number 35 on the list of runners was Mr.Vango, the unalloyed shape and make of an Aintree staying chaser, a horse with the form and weight to suggest he would have an outstanding chance to actually win the race, which is not the case with Mr. Incredible.

Famous Bridge will be disqualified from winning the Haydock National Trial back in February as he has failed a dope test. It seems Famous Bridge is one of those horses whose muscles tie-up (like when I get cramp in my calf muscle and sometimes my fingers and toes) and is regularly treated with Dantrolene Sodium (perhaps I should try it), which normally has left the body of the horse long before it races. On this occasion, a trace of it lingered. The problem I have with this judgement is that Dantrolene Sodium is not performance enhancing, yet though Nicky Richards was not fined, the owner, Hemmings Racing, were fined £57,000, the value of the prize now taken away from the owner. That will sting, I would think.
Although the decision to disqualify was easy to make and the rules allow no wriggle-room, the disqualification seems harsh given no offence was deliberately committed. Who is to say the fault was with the manufacturer of the product in question, perhaps some element of the product was greater than it should be. Who knows? Perhaps the laboratory that tested the urine sample investigated the possibility that the product was different in some way to normal. It just seems unfair when the product is ranked as not ‘performance enhancing’.

Being a bit of a softie and a champion of female jockeys, I was pleased through the winter months to see Nicola Currie riding winners again. Without having ever met her, I always find her an engaging young woman when interviewed at the races. I was also pleased when I discovered she was the squeeze of Sam Twiston-Davies, although I suspect that relationship has gone south as south can go.
So, it was a shock to read she is about to start a 39-day ban for multiple infringements of the whip rules. She had the fortitude to take the punishment on the chin, did not waste anyone’s time by appealing and accepted she has been trying too hard to get her career back on track. Now, of course, her career has gone off the rails at the very moment she was beginning to go full steam ahead.
I hope she can come back stronger and with a more relaxed attitude to her career and hope that trainers give her the opportunity to bring to the fore all the promise of her days as an apprentice. She is good and tidy rider but then again that can be said of a hundred of her weighing-room colleagues.

​The Lincoln Handicap, formerly run at the Carholme, Lincoln, but now parked on Town Moor, Doncaster, is a flicker of a flame to the raging inferno it once used to be. Before and after the 1st World War, it was a race more prized than the Grand National, with the Spring Double an aspiration for trainers and punters alike. The Lincoln represented the arrival of spring.
Nowadays the Lincoln is just the first of a season-long series of heritage mile handicaps and a long way from being the most prestigious. The Lincoln has become a light on the horizon of a sport that limps into view, stays its hand for a few days and sputters into life in April with the Craven meeting at Newmarket, with by then the Lincoln firmly forgotten.
The flat begins with a whimper when with very little thought it could dazzle like a troupe of flamenco dancers. Now a two-day meeting when it might become a festival of the arrival of the flat.
So here goes, impressing no one, I should imagine. Why not begin the flat with a six-race all-handicap card that comprises an I.T.V. style accumulator, accompanied by an advertising campaign, with a £1-million first prize for anyone who can name all six-winners? With a slightly mad, almost certainly radical Lincoln Handicap has the final event.
The Free Handicap for 3-year-olds (not necessarily transferred from Newmarket) could open proceedings, shining a light of the progress and possibilities of the previous season’s two-year-olds and whether any runner might play a part in the classics to come. The Newmarket Town Plate might be resurrected, the 2-miles 2-furlong handicap lost from the Doncaster programme and in need of restoration. A 5-furlong handicap, a 12-furlong handicap and either a six-furlong handicap or a mile handicap for 3-year-olds. Big fields, big fun.
Here is the thing, though. Unless Doncaster could conform to my radical proposal to transform the Lincoln into a race of jeopardy and intrigue, a flat equivalent of the Aintree National, I would suggest the Lincoln meeting be transferred to Newmarket. You see, tipping one’s hat to tradition and history, I propose the Lincoln Handicap should become a 40 (or 34 – this idea was born in my head before Aintree wrongly decreased the maximum field to 34) runner race, started from a barrier!
I want to escalate the Lincoln from something quite ordinary to a race where the public hold their breath. There will be difficulties with a bumper-field race not started from stalls, though not-so-much once the race is started. Back in the day, it could easily take twenty-minutes or more for the starter to achieve an even start. Though back in the day the more savvy jockeys knew how to manipulate the starting procedure in order to achieve a flying start. Races could be won at the start in the days before the advent of starting stalls.
Getting 40 (or 34) horses in a line, especially with 40 (or 34) jockeys with zero experience of barrier starts, would be akin to shepherding cats and t.v, would have to allow for the possibility of a delay. But this would be a one-off. I am not suggesting any other race should be altered in this way.
My thinking is this: the flat should begin with a bang and not a whimper. The Lincoln is an historic race, with a history that goes back to the origination of the sport and it is beholding on the B.H.A. and others to give the race the opportunity to be what it once used to be. The flat should have a race with similar jeopardy to the Aintree National and racing should also reach out to the public with a £1-bet that could win them a life-changing amount of money, especially with the Aintree National staged the following Saturday.
What greater sight would there be than 40 (or 34) horses thundering down the Town Moor or Rowley Mile, much in the same vein as the first six-fences at Aintree. Though perhaps the fear on the faces of the jockeys riding in the Lincoln might be more memorable. The unknown is always fearful, is it not?
This Saturday’s race will produce, I predict, nothing that could be described as extraordinary. A Lincoln with 40-runners (or 34) started from a barrier can only produce the extraordinary.
It will never happen. It will never even be debated.

​With exceptions, though mainly on the flat, horse racing in Britain and Ireland when it comes to jockeys remains male-dominated. The sport prides itself that we are a diverse sport, with females taking on males as equals, yet, I would argue, that prejudice against females still exists by both trainers and owners, especially the latter, I would suggest.
On the flat, Hollie Doyle and Saffie Osborne have risen to be in the top twenty over the past few years, and though riding fewer winners than Doyle and Osborne, Hayley Turner remains as popular and as in demand as ever. Outside of those three, name another female who might have rides at, say, Royal Ascot, and then ask how many females will even ride in a classic or Group1 this season, even though there are another dozen perfectly competent female jockeys who could be relied upon to make a good fist of things if given the opportunity in a Royal Ascot handicap?
Over jumps, with the one significant outlier, the female jockey is languishing amongst the also-rans. And, yes, the same can be said about fifty male jockeys, all capable, few who will ever get the chance to compete at the top level.
It is surprising, at least to me, that the Sex Discrimination Act became law in 1975 and it was several months later before the Jockey Club became obliged to issue National Hunt riding permits to females. By the end of that year, females had ridden in 145-races and won 10. All amateurs, of course, as in 1976 very few people in the sport thought there would ever be professional female jump jockeys.
And, of course, the Jockey Club treated females differently to men. Did you know chin-straps were made compulsory for women long before they were made compulsory for men. It had something to do with women having long hair.
The point I am attempting to make clear is that though the female is the equal in ability and success in all other equestrian sports, when it comes to horse racing in the fifty-years since the female was considered equal to the male only two British female jump jockeys have won Grade 1 races, Lizzie Kelly, who we lost to motherhood, as we lost Bridget Andrews, with the majority of Grade 1’s over jumps won by one female jockey, the exiled Bryony Frost.
Any argument for female jumps jockeys to receive an allowance in this country, as is the case in France, as demeaning as it must be to be considered a lesser jockey, is thrown to the wind by the existence of Rachael Blackmore, one of the most successful jockeys riding over jumps at the present time and considered not only the equal of the best but better than most. Yet Blackmore came to this sport late in life and only turned professional as she was getting few rides as an amateur and if it was not for the intervention of the O’Leary brothers and Shark Hanlon, and latterly by Henry de Bromhead, she might well now be working in the equine science industry.
The number of professional female jockeys in Britain at the moment is quite small, with most of them already receiving an allowance due to lack of winners. In the main these women only ever ride outsiders in races and rarely appear on t.v. Although it would be unfair on their male equivalents, for the good of the sport, I believe it is time, at least for a period of experimentation to accumulate data, for a female to be able to claim the 3Ib allowance until they have ridden between 125 and 150-winners in all races. There should also be a return to the series of female jockey restricted races and one good-quality race a year restricted to female jockeys so that a) females are given the opportunity to sit on a better quality horse and b) should be a terrestrial televised show-case ‘blue riband’ race in the calendar for female jockeys to aspire to winning.
Furthermore, and this will be proven on Saturday-week, we need Bryony Frost back riding in this country. Paul Nicholls has booked her for Stay on Fay in the Aintree National, obviously the outsider of his five, and I will guarantee she will receive more attention than those who will ride Ditchet’s other four runners. Frost is box-office and we need box-office.
In the coming years, the sport will lose both the Blackmore and Frost effect, arguably the two most popular jockeys riding today, and there is no female jockey in a position to take their place at the top table. All the experts spoke in glowing terms as Lilly Pinchin advanced from 7Ib claimer to becoming a fully-fledged professional, yet how many winners and how many opportunities has she received since? Charlotte Jones, in the north of England, was similarly praised as a conditional and yet her name nowadays only appears occasionally on race-cards. Yes, the same can happen for male conditioners when they ride out their claim but Joe Soap or Fred Fancy will only thrust the sport into the limelight if they go on to become the next A.P.. A top-achieving female will be a story to go beyond the Racing Post. Fifty-per-cent of the world’s population are female and for this sport to become nationally recognised as equality diverse it has to have a larger proportion of its jockey population female and to achieve that ambition our female jockeys should receive a little help. Not charity but opportunity.

​When Nicky Henderson said on I.T.V. in the aftermath of the Champion Hurdle that Constitution Hill would run next at Punchestown I was, well, let us say, surprised. Constitution Hill was reported as in good health and yet, even though the horse had only one proper race all season after a twelve-month or more ‘holiday’, he would not be going to Aintree for a race he has won previously.
I hate myself for throwing criticism at the master of Seven Barrows as his career record should allow him the honour of never being questioned by nobodies like me. 
Yes, Constitution Hill had to pull out most of the stops for the first time in his career at Kempton on Boxing Day. But his next race at Cheltenham, even if he closed his eyes and played to the crowd at the last hurdle, was a romp in the park. And in the Champion Hurdle he had only half a race; he would have exerted himself more fully in a gallop at home. So, yes, he should be running at Aintree, and all being well going on to Punchestown in hope of gaining revenge on the usurpers to his crown.
And Mr.Henderson has announced that all being well, as long as the schooling goes without a hitch and the horse has no more health issues, though nothing is set in stone, the plan now is for Constitution Hill to run at both Aintree and Punchestown. So, no criticism from me. As usual, Nicky Henderson, if only eventually, has made the right call. Personally, I would follow him over the hill and into the valley of death.
I just hope there is no eleventh-hour change of plan for Hyland, my horse for this year’s Aintree National.

I am not alone in wishing J.P. McManus would give his home-breds a better type of name. Mr. John Peacock of Northallerton, in a letter in today’s Racing Post, agrees with my thoughts, as did another letter-writer who described the winner as carrying overweight of eighteen-characters. 
As with Nicky Henderson, I hate myself being critical of anything that J.P. says or does. He is a saint amongst men. And again, I would follow him over the hill into the valley of death. He is, I believe, the greatest man in the history of National Hunt. It is not, though, as if Inothewayurthinkin is the worst name he has given a horse, there are worse, it is just this a very very good horse, with a lovely kind character.

This time in the calendar my over-riding thought is ‘damn it, the flat starts again in a few days.’ I am not someone who lives the winter anticipating the Craven meeting and wondering how last-season’s two-year-olds have trained on. I am proudly in the Captain Tim Forster camp who was of the opinion the flat should be banned. Well, I do not go that far. The flat, at least, gives National Hunt an annual holiday. Or it used to.
Once upon a time, back in the good old days before colour television, the Lincoln Handicap was as big a betting race as the Grand National. It was not unusual for fields of forty-runners to line up behind the barriers. It was a race all the top jockeys wanted to win. Nowadays it is just another mile handicap, which is sad and brings no credit to the sport, the B.H.A., Doncaster or the history of the race.
Coupled with flat racing starting with a whimper, the Lincoln Handicap is a race in need of an overhaul, a little razzmatazz to return it to its glory days. My answer is radical. I have aired my thoughts on this site and in letters to the Racing Post. But people, it seems, care as little for my proposal as they do for the Lincoln itself. Perhaps I will reprise my ‘big idea’ tomorrow or during the week. If I remember. I will leave myself a note as mental notes these days are as reliable as Chatbot A.I. (Read the story about the Norwegian guy who, according to a chatbot (whatever that happens to be) had murdered his wife and two children, when both are still alive and living with their husband and father). When A.I. gets something wrong, it is described as an hallucination. But I diverge from the subject matter.

As much as I hope Nicky Henderson gets his deserved National winner in a fortnight, the best story would be if Hewick were to win, as Shark Hanlon seems to expect. Of course, the dead horse on the trailer story will be rehashed and no doubt embellished by the seamier sider of journalism, but after the knee-jerk punishment metred out to Shark for such a trivial ‘offence’ there would be a kind of justice if Hewick, the £800 buy, could add an Aintree National to his hoard of big race trophies.

​Finally, trainers are coming together to ask questions of the B.H.A.’s leadership and governance of our sport. Ralph Beckett even made the point that, in a time of near-emergency, the in-coming (but not until the summer) new chair of the B.H.A., Lord Charles Allen (anyone remember the ventriloquist Ray Allen and his sidekick Lord Charles – might be related, who knows) who has no first-hand knowledge of the sport, will be foraging around in the dark for six-months until he achieves a slight grasp on what the sport is all about. I paraphrase and extend my own views on the matter. Ralph Beckett, as you will be aware, is far more diplomatic than I could ever be.
Trainers, given they have responsibility not only for the equine stars upon which our sport is borne, but also stable-staff and owners, while also supporting their local economies, want a bigger share of the governance pie. And quite rightly. In an impromptu vote prompted by William Haggas, those attending yesterdays meeting of the Trainers Association, made their view plain that racecourses held the reins of power, not the B.H.A..
Trainers must continue to push to have their voices heard by the B.H.A. 

Mr. John Hall of Birmingham, in a letter in today’s Racing Post, suggests, as many do, that the influence Willie Mullins now has on our sport is bad for our sport. I do not necessarily agree that Willie Mullins’ success is having a bad influence, it does, though, pose questions that need to be debated.
Restricting, as Mr.Hall suggests, any one trainer to a set number of horses they could run in any one race would have knock-on effects, as clearly demonstrated last week at Cheltenham, in field sizes and competitiveness. Given the many problems horse racing must navigate its way through, such as under-staffing, though not at Closutton, and prize-money, there would be an advantage to the sport if a cap was imposed on the number of horses any one trainer can have at his or her disposal. This would entail, say if the cap was put at 100 or 125, that the excess would have to go to trainers with less than the capped number, as would the staff laid-off due to the cap. More and better-quality horses and staff would be spread over a larger number of trainers. Of course, Ireland would have to cooperate with Britain to see this happen, and then there would be the restraint of trade aspect to grapple with.

No one ever mentions the over-arching clout the Jockey Club Estates has over the sport. In owning, amongst other racecourses in their portfolio, Aintree, Cheltenham, Epsom, Kempton and Sandown, they possess the majority of the sport’s crown jewels, the Aintree National, the Cheltenham Festival, the Derby and Oaks, the King George and the Eclipse. When Dan Skelton proposed the attractive idea of staging the Aintree National Festival  as the last meeting of the season, allowing a six or seven-week period between Britain’s two major racing festivals, the Jockey Club basically said ‘No’, without any regard to debating the matter. It is their ball and they decide the rules. It is as if they believe they own the sport, which they do not. Dan Skelton’s proposal should be debated by all of the sport’s stakeholders and if the majority believe it an idea worth pursuing, the B.H.A. should simply impose the change on Jockey Club Estates.

Uttoxeter, and its young clerk of the course, have come under fire for describing the going last Saturday as good-to-soft when the times for the races suggested it was nearer heavy, with flack also coming their way for not changing the going description during the meeting. The clerk of the course took the decision to water the course to ensure soft-ground and once the ground began to cut-up during the day that water no doubt rose to near the surface, making the churned-up ground soft, perhaps even heavy.
The point I wish to make is this: when I was a lad, a long long time ago, clerks were almost always ex-army men nearing retirement age. This ex-army jobs for the boys then changed to older men of great experience of managing soil and grass. These days, the clerks tend to be young, barely out of university-age, and they are, seemingly, learning on the job, gaining experience through making mistakes and doing the job better next time. These young people also do not seem to stay at one course for a long period of time. Just my opinion, of course, as it is my opinion that pundits who criticise going descriptions and so on should remember the mistakes they made on the long road to expertise.

The final piece in Lee Mottershead’s look into how British racing benefits both the local economies, as well as the National Exchequer, is a broad sweep of the interactions between horse racing and politics. Without in anyway being critical of a tour-de-force of journalistic writing, what Lee made no comment on, in line with everyone else who writes on this subject, is that our Prime Minister is more aligned to the policies of the W.E.F. (he has openly admitted he prefers what goes on at Davos to Westminster) than what is good for Britain and its people. If anyone cares to research the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ you will discover that the end-game is that people all over the world will live in mega-cities where everything one needs will be within fifteen-minutes of where they live, and that the countryside will be left to nature to manage, with people excluded. How will racecourses fit into that prospect?
This is why the government has no need to include racing in its ‘plans for national growth’. Do not fool yourselves that Starmer has any interest in our sport. It is his wife who has the interest. Starmer just tags along when it is convenient to him for the photo-opportunities an appearance in public affords him.

​Several trainers have expressed their view that the race formerly known as the Grand National (it still is, of course, though there is very little of the grand to it these days) will lose its popularity if it is continually won by the top trainers, top jockeys and the same half-a-dozen of owners. It is what I have said since the B.H.A. and the Jockey Club started first to tinker and then to slaughter the race. Reducing the maximum number of runners was for me the last straw and have vowed never to call the race Grand every again. It is the Aintree National as far as I am concerned.
The suggestion that there should be win and your in races throughout the season was put forward two or three years ago and yet, apparently, Aintree and the B.H.A. are still giving it consideration. Woke has won over history, tradition and romance, and when you either ignore one of the three and consign romance to the pages of a Reg Green book on the subject, the race is no longer the Grand National but just another National, albeit a richly endowed long-distance chase.

Brant Dunshea, chief executive of the B.H.A., defended the appalling starts at the Cheltenham Festival by taking the side of the starters and the protocol they have in place. He is quoted as saying ‘if the starter had let them go when the horses were jig-jogging we would have had the Charge of the Light Brigade.’ He is wrong, of course. The two main factors in horses breaking into a canter or jig-jogging was starting a race on a bend and starting a race so far away from the tape, which actually provided the sight of horses galloping past the starter, which Brant Dunshea is against, it seems.

Poniros won the Triumph. I remembered. Finally. He will be interesting to follow, not only at Punchestown but during the coming flat season. One thing is for sure, he will never start 100/1 ever again.

Did anyone watch Nick Luck interviewing Gavin Cromwell last Sunday. Although to be honest, Nick Luck might have been interviewing Inothewayurthinkin given he was in the camera lens the very same amount of time as his trainer. He only went out of shot when he changed from peering over Cromwell’s left shoulder to his right. Even when the trainer took himself out of Inothewayurthinking’s stable, the horse followed him to take up position once more on Cromwell’s shoulder.
The horse looked wonderfully well, very pleased with himself indeed. And, no, I still have no liking for his name, Gold Cup winner or not!

Finally, some perspective on last Tuesday’s attendance of 55,498. In 1985, the day See You Then won his first of three Champion Hurdles, a record attendance for a Tuesday was set at 27,880. Yes, back then, everyone was happy to get north of 25,000!

​As I suspected, there will be no Gold Cup/Aintree National challenge from Inothewayurthinkin this season. It will be Punchestown or an early holiday for the J.P. home-bred as he has been scratched from the big race, even though he would have been a stone well-in due to his new rating. There was nothing to be gained from running the 7-year-old in the Aintree National and a whole lot to lose, as happened with Synchronised, J.P.’s previous home-bred Gold Cup winner. It is the right decision, especially when J.P. already has 3 of the top 4 in the betting.
A good few have come out of the National, allowing Hyland to get into the race if one of those above him becomes a non-runner. My other two fancies, Intense Raffles and Bravemansgame – I hope Harry Cobden chooses him over Kandoo Kid – also remain in the races, as does L’Homme Presse.

The highly informative Mark Holder, who I have come to admire after first being sceptical of him, is the latest ‘expert’ to side with the Mullins/Richi decision to abandon the Champion Hurdle in favour of easier pickings. It is Mark’s opinion; he is wrong, though. Everyone in racing from owner downwards has a duty to do everything they can to support and promote the sport. When the ship is sinking, it is the duty of every crew member to put their shoulder to the wheel, to bail water with all their strength. Rich Richi is a golden goose for this sport and I admire everything about him, including his flashy suits but I do not buy the reasoning for opting out of the Champion Hurdle. If they could not run her in the Champion Hurdle due to her fall at Leopardstown, then that same reason should have stood for running in the Mares Hurdle. For this sport to survive so that it can go on to thrive every man, woman and child must all row in the same direction.

In today’s Racing Post there is an article by Lee Mottershead that is as illuminating and informative as anything I have ever read in the paper since its inception on Tuesday April 15th (my birthday) 1986. The theme is the cost of keeping a horse in training, based on figures provided by Ben Pauling, fast becoming one of my favourite trainers, and the financial benefits his success provides for the local economy. I will not steal any of Lee’s research, though I encourage everyone to search out the article and show it to any friends or relatives who may be sceptical about the sport and as a reminder of how the people of racing help both the national and local economy. A brilliant piece of writing from a truly wonderful journalist.

Lulamba will run again this season, so says Nicky Henderson. Now, I deeply admire the master of Seven Barrows and as he nearly always is proved right whenever I or my betters challenge the decisions he makes on behalf of his owners, I am always nervous when putting into the public domain thoughts that are negative towards the great man. But here goes: Lulamba has run twice since joining Nicky and once, I believe, in his native France. Nicky is always one to remind hacks that this horse or that horse is inexperienced, usually followed by the question ‘where are the races for them?’ And, in general, he is correct. The race programme in this country almost looks as if it is designed to make the life of our top trainers as difficult as possible. Yet there is opportunity between now and the last meeting of the season at Sandown to run Lulamba twice, let alone the once at Punchestown. If the horse goes into next season lacking experience that will be due to not taking advantage of gaining that experience this season. If only every trainer were followers of the flat guru Mark Johnston who believed ‘horses are there to run’.

We might, just might, be at the beginning of a new golden era for Champion Hurdle type horses. Constitution Hill, though I would go chasing with him in order to get him concentrating a bit more on his jumping, State Man, Willie Mullins’ Supreme winner (name escapes me, something beginning with K des Bordes) The New Lion, Lulamba, Palladium, East India Dock, and I would include in this list Golden Ace and the Triumph winner, again the name escapes me. I am old. I often try to open the front door with my car key and I am sure goblins get in my car and move things around as I can never remember where the position on the right stalk (or is it the left) is for the windscreen wipers back and front. And there is no cure, except the one provided free by the Grim Reaper. Or by the name you are more familiar with, Sir Keir Starmer, who has it in for all us ‘uneconomic eaters’.

Kopek des Bordes, winner of the Supreme. Well done me! Thankfully I-Page went down, giving my brain time to boot-up.