​I do not always send my thoughts and ideas to the Racing Post expecting publication. I will often a pen a letter simply for a Post journalist to read the letter in the hope he or she will either make his colleagues aware of my ‘latest’ thought or idea or perhaps pen a piece himself (or herself), as even the most junior member of the Racing Post team would do greater justice to a topic than I will ever be able to achieve.
I moved to North Devon in 2001 and happily continued to read the Racing Post as I have done since its very first edition. I am pleased to say that I mooted the idea of jockeys only being allowed to ride at one meeting a day during the early years of the new century. My concern was that jockeys were at risk of burning themselves out rushing from one racecourse to another on top of their riding-out duties early in the morning. I also believed it would allow more jockeys to earn a better standard of living if the top jockeys were restricted to one meeting per day. Of course this did come about, albeit only because the B.H.A. were mad keen to demonstrate to our oppressors that they were fully in-line with restrictions that the more informed of us knew to be pointless as far as controlling a virus was concerned and more about the control of people.
As today, I did not like the idea of Champions Day and proposed if it had to exist it should become the last day of the season – I proposed then, as I would now, an all-year championship – with the new season starting a day or two after the Ascot beanfeast for the wealthy.
I am delighted to be reminded by this trip down cuttings avenue that back then that there should be an all-female team at the Shergar Cup meeting. I also wrote in praise of Hayley Turner and that to encourage trainers to give females a greater opportunity of expressing their skills in the saddle that Britain should play host to the most valuable race in the world restricted to female jockeys and also, flying in the face of pattern rules, no doubt, that females should receive an allowance of 3 or 5lbs in listed races in order that occasionally they might get on horses of greater ability than is normally the case. You may say the success of Holly Doyle has driven a bulldozer through my argument for greater opportunities for females but no, not enough females are breaking through the ceiling Holly and Hayley smashed and more needs to be done in the 2025-season to open-up this one-way street.
I admonished the great Alistair Downs for using the term ‘rubbish horses’ and proposed a lower grade of racing should be established for the lowest grade of horse, a sort of point-to-point for the flat.
Back then I was in favour of a 5-day Cheltenham Festival.
In 2012, I wrote an impassioned letter supporting the Grand National, pointing out that neither According to Pete nor Synchronised had a jockey on their backs when they met their deaths in the race won by Neptune Collonge.
I was surprised when the Racing Post published a letter criticising covid restrictions at open-air spaces like racecourses and suggest the B.H.B. should partner with the F.A. and take the government to court over the matter.
It was around this time that John Francome won me over to his view that no smacks was the way forward when it came to the whip and wrote supporting his opinion.
Unsurprisingly, as the Racing Post published the book, my letter praising David Ashforth’s book ‘Fifty Shades of Hay’ gained a place in the letters’ column.
On a similar theme, I continued to criticise the naming of racehorses, especially the duplicating of names of famous racehorses. Coolmore naming a horse Spanish Steps mortified me and I gained a lot of support on the matter, though it still happens to this day.
I also wrote suggesting people should find a copy of Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker;s 1968 book ‘Spoilsports’: What’s Wrong With British Racing’. I quoted the first paragraph which, chilling, was a mirror image of all the sport’s problems today, except for the government meddling with the betting industry and draconian measures to ensure punters are not addicts.
I suggested methods of recruiting a different cohort of staff to racing stables, suggesting that many of the tasks in a modern stable, excluding riding, could easily be taught to anyone of any age.
In one of many letters on the whip issue, I suggested that when a jockey transgressed the whip rules, instead of the jockey receiving a ban and the horse disqualified, both the jockey and the owner should forfeit any prize-money won.
I suggested Britain needed the equal of the Dublin Racing Festival and suggested Cheltenham’s ‘Trials Day’ could evolve into a 2-day mini-festival with races taken from the March meeting, reducing the main fare to 3-days, there by satisfying those who believe the Festival should not have been extended in the first place.
As someone who used to love the St.Leger, it pained me to suggest that British racing should move with the times and restrict the Eclipse to 3-year-olds and upgrade it to the final classic of the season. It makes perfect sense to me, anyway. I used to think the St.Leger could gain new life by becoming the most valuable race over 14-furlongs in Europe but now I think it could remain as the sixth classic. Who said there can be only five-classics?
I continued to propose a 40-runner Lincoln Handicap run at Newmarket started from a barrier.
I argued that English-style hurdles were unsafe and proposed adopting French-style mini-fences. Thankfully, the English-style hurdles are now being discarded with a far-safer padded hurdle now becoming more used.
I continued to argue that no horse retired to stud at the end of its 3-year-old career should be regarded as ‘all-time great’ as truly great horses proved their ability to defeat the following season’s generation of 3-year-olds. Sea The Stars and Dancing Brave fall into the category, in my opinion, of gilded lilies.
I argued that in winter, Friday/Saturday meetings should be Saturday/Sunday as in opening-up the ground on the Friday allowed frost or rain to get into the ground and put the Saturday, and the major races scheduled for that day, in jeopardy. It would also improve the standard of Sunday racing.
I bemoaned the retirement of Hayley Turner. I made plain that though I opposed blood-sports, I reminded people how important hunting was for the education of both young riders and young horses. I wanted people to realise that racing is not a sport for high society and the mega-wealthy but a working-class sport that extends through all ranks of society. Henry de Bromhead proved me wrong about his decision not to run Honeysuckle against Constitution Hill. I pointed out that the B.H.B. resorted to science in changing the colour of the trim around fences and hurdles, yet omitted the input of science and relied on ‘opinions’ when instigating yet more new whip rules. I wanted Shadwell to give racing the gift of keeping Baaeed in training as a 5-year-old. And returning to Honeysuckle, I suggested once a mare won a championship race, the sex allowance should be reduced to 5lbs, to 3lbs if she should win a second championship race, then no allowance at all. It is wrong that a top-class mare should receive 7lb from a gelding with a much lower official rating.

​Firstly, a correction. The total of letters the Racing Post has kindly published is 103, one less than I stated, as one cutting, for reasons I do not remember, was duplicated.
Due to the amount of yellowing, the cutting I assume to represent the first letter to be published was my wish to see The Jockey Club overthrown due to their policy of public relation exercises, rather than positive reform and my belief they were selling the sport to bookmakers and putting the punter before animal welfare issues.
I am pleased to discover that even back then, the 1990’s, I was campaigning (through the letters column) on the issue of horse welfare, pointing out that it was hard to defend the sport on welfare grounds when a jockey only received suspensions of 4 or 6-days for transgression of the whip rules, yet for the offence of giving a horse a school round or dropping their hands in the shadow of the winning post and losing a place because of it, a jockey would receive a ban of 21 or 28-days. Give a horse a hard time and receive 4-days suspension; give a horse an easy time and receive a punishment of 21-days. I was even an advocate back then of an independent inquiry into the use of the whip and trials of races where the whip was only carried for safety purposes.
I was particularly riled by handicappers wanting to see all horses ridden out to the finishing line, even those with no chance of reaching the first 4-places. This was tantamount to animal cruelty in my opinion and thankfully the Jockey Club decided to apply commonsense and go no further with the proposal.
I was also belligerent in my defence of Tony McCoy’s ride on Pridwell in the Aintree Hurdle when he beat Istabraq in very soft ground. The Jockey Club took a dim view and suspended him and made him attend the British Racing School in order to improve his whip action. As I said, the public thought it a masterly ride – the ride of the season – the Jockey Club, for reasons of a public relations exercise – took the opposite view. I also suggested as McCoy and Timmy Murphy were due to attend the B.R.S. at the same time, that it might be an idea for the Jockey Club to mandate all jockeys go to the B.R.S. for annual refresher courses on how to use the whip so as not to offend the Jockey Club.
I put forward the idea that the quality of the Triumph Hurdle field should be protected by a 4-year-old handicap hurdle being added to the Cheltenham Festival. I am not saying this was my idea but it did come to pass. I should extend my apologies to (Sir) Alaistair Down, a literary hero of mine, as he hates the 4-year-old handicap and if he had his way he would get ride of it.
I was also banging on about the lot of the journeyman jockey, suggesting a few races a week could be restricted to jockeys who not ridden a certain number of winners in the previous 6 or 12-months. It has come to pass, though not significantly enough to stop me sending the Racing Post letters on the subject in the future.
At Leicester during this period, Norman Williamson dropped his hands close to the finishing post and was nabbed on the line. Of course, he suffered a suspension. Of course, some of the masters of punditry were up in arms about it, some of them wanting Williamson hung, drawn and quartered over the incident. I pointed out that not all punters lost out, as many would have backed the horse that was first past the post and that Williamson was human and like all humans could be expected to err once or twice during his career. I also drew readers’ attention to the number of jockeys injured at the time, some of them seriously, just as contrast to the welling of crocodile tears.
I often bemoan my letters rarely either cause debate or effect anyone’s thinking. When summer jumping was implemented, I made the point that while racecourses had to provide ground no worse than good-to-firm in June and July, there was nothing to stop them racing on hard or firm the rest of the year. My view prevailed.
At this time, The Jockey Club were beginning to consider changes to the Grand National, a topic I rage against even to this day. They wanted a better class of horse running in the race, even though the 1973 Grand National was perhaps the classiest Grand National since the days of Golden Miller. I suggested they should first ensure a 4-week period between the Cheltenham Festival and the Grand National meeting would be a good place to start. I also suggested the Midlands Grand National should be run either in February or as the major race during the summer jumping period. I also proposed, as I would today, that the Whitbread, as it was, should be reduced in distance to 2-miles or half-a-mile further to mirror the start of the National Hunt season.
I was no advocate of rolling over and allowing sponsors to tickle the racing belly. Sponsors are vital to our sport. I thought that then and, sadly, believe it today. But they should not be allowed to steal the title of a race and replace it with the name of the sponsor. Why we could not have the Epsom Derby brought to you by Betfred, for instance. Or the Aintree Grand National brought to you by Randox Health. The Newbury Handicap Hurdle sponsored by Ladbrokes or whoever now sponsors the big hurdle in February.
I proposed it would put a quick end to the whip debate – it is disheartening that the whip was an issue in the 1990’s and here we are 30-odd years later and it remains a point of contention – would be not to suspend the jockey but withdraw prize-money from the owner. No jockey would knowingly break the rules if it meant the owner employing him would receive no prize-money for winning the race.
Finally, even then, as now, I was calling on owners to keep horses in training as 4-year-olds. Coolmore took no notice of my plea and retired Giant’s Causeway as the end of his 3-year-old season. Perhaps, he too, was a special horse, with special genes.

​Although I had a few letters published in the old Sporting Life, none of which I have any proof of – the cuttings will be somewhere in the house – it is the Racing Post that has indulged my need of expression of thought, concern and idea.
I am over-privileged by editors of the Racing Post in that I have had over 104-letters published during the paper’s existence. I say ‘over 104 as on occasion I have forgotten to take a cutting from the paper as proof of publication. I am not a diligent or tidy man when it comes to either my writing or the keeping of ‘important’ documents, a fact proven to me when I realise the titles in my document file is now approaching 1,400. I excuse my lack of ability to have different ‘envelopes’ for different categories of files by assuming I make life difficult for hackers if I should ever be considered worth hacking, which I am not as I do not bank on line or keep any personal information within the documents.
Yesterday – I do not know why as I had not planned to do so – I went through my clippings box and sorted the cuttings into three divisions. Those I had published when I lived in Gloucestershire, those published from where I currently live, though before I read on-line, and those published since I took out a subscription back in March 2023.
The numbers are, Gloucestershire 36, Devon 41, subscription 27. Total 104.
I do not know if this is any sort of record or if it worth boasting about. But it is good for my mental health. You see, this sport is my wealth, even though I am a poor pensioner; I care about it as someone cares for a loved-one. It pains me to hear it wrongly criticised by people who know little about the sport, who cry crocodile tears when our horses suffer fatality and offer no sympathy to those whose lives are shattered by the death of that horse. It annoys me that the sport has been allowed to drift so far backwards that in any world league table of racing prosperity, prize-money, attendance or prestige, we would be behind countries that once worshipped at our feet in every category bar, perhaps, prestige.
Although I have this website, I have no audience or readership of note. This is very much a vanity website. I refuse all entreaties for commercial sponsorship or for others to have a voice on my platform or chase a greater number of hits. If people fall upon the site, I am pleased. If they communicate, I try to respond, though you will be amazed at the gobbledygook I sometime receive. The site, though, allows me get things off my chest and into print and off my mind, that otherwise would nag away at me. The site is an outlet; the Racing Post letters column a voice to the world.
Although flattered that the Racing Post indulge me to a far greater extent than they refuse me, what disappoints me is only very occasionally do I elicit a response from fellow Racing Post readers. To me, a letters column should invoke debate, an exchange of ideas, with, perhaps, Post journalists taking up the cudgels and putting a more professional spin on the exchanges. I am firmly of the opinion that no one sector of the sport has ownership rights to the sport and that it is ‘our’ sport too. By that I mean the spectators, the enthusiasts, the readership of the racing media. Often, I read letters by other readers that give a clear insight into a problem, especially by people of my age who feel disenfranchised by the way the sport’s promotors deem fit to market the sport at people who at present are non-racegoers. Racecourses with a policy of card-only transactions are actively driving away custom in times of declining attendance, for instance. This subject should be debated as often as the Gambling Commission and the Government twin assault on our betting shops and punters. 
Letters columns are a mirror that all heads of racing’s stakeholders should stare at on a daily basis, to reflect on their policies, their preferred way of operating and if they are in conflict with their masters, the public.
Not all of those 104 published letters do me justice, though many of the topics I commented upon in the past have played out in my favour. Recently, I have come to realise that I should refrain from making comments on topics that are beyond my level of understanding, as with the finances of racing, though I still contend a monopoly of one sort or another is our only chance of righting the ship, and the meddling of the Gambling Commission.
Tomorrow, or the day after if I cannot get round to the research required today, (going though all 1,400 of those files, I will give a flavour of the topics that have irked me to send off a letter to the Racing Post, and the ideas for the betterment of the sport I have put forward. This will be solely for my benefit, you understand, as this website has such a very short reach.

​In Kyprios we are quite possibly witnessing the best stayer in flat history. Bold statement, especially as horses are no longer bred with Ascot Gold Cups in mind and Yeats won 4 Ascot Gold Cups. Yet he just seems unbeatable over any distance from 14-furlongs upwards, and he wins without any undue effort. Two weeks after winning over 20-furlongs on soft ground at Longchamp, he won with such imperious ease at Ascot, he was practically unmanageable in the winners’ enclosure and even Aidan had to admit to defeat when it came to the group photograph. How good he is we will never know as I doubt if a horse will appear on the scene next year to even make him exert himself. They will decline the offer, of course, but it would make interesting viewing if they were to chance their arm and run Kyprios over 12-furlongs in something like the King George & Queen Elisabeth Stakes, which perhaps now requires its name shortened to just the Queen Elisabeth Stakes in honour of our greatest monarch.
But do not get the impression my view of Champions’ Day has changed. It rankled me all day to have the meeting described as ‘the conclusion of the flat season’. It is not, as flat racing on turf continues until November and the appropriately titled November Handicap at Doncaster, with the final Group 1 of the season next weekend also at Doncaster. How can we educate people to our sport when we make claims that cannot be justified by common-sense alone?
It continues to rankle with me that Joe Leavy, for instance, come November, might have ridden more winners than Sean Bowen and yet because jockey championships are decided between two arbitrary dates and not the whole of the season, Leavy would not go down in history as the leading apprentice for 2024. I would hold the same opinion if Sean Bowen was denied the title by this short-changing of the season.
Also, given the sport is in decline, with nowhere near enough money in the sport to provide prize-money on a daily basis that, when compared to countries with far less of a heritage than Britain and Ireland, is embarrassing, how can £2-million in prize-money for one six-race card be justified? As with the equally fatuous Bleeders’ Cup, Champions’ Day is a bun-feast for the mega-wealthy, with the same coterie of owners, trainers and jockeys taking home all the buns.
And the meeting is invariably run on atrocious ground.

Here’s a thing, and I squeeze this in without titling it, if only to spare Richard Forristal’s blushes, but the 1st, 2nd & 4th in yesterday’s Champion Stakes were geldings, all of whom would have graced any Arc de Triomphe.

Here is another thing of annoyance. Charyn is a dude. He only comes alive on the racecourse, doing so little on the gallops at home, that already having run six-times this season, including only a few-weeks ago, he had to be given a stern work-out last week to ensure he was at his peak for the Queen Elisabeth Stakes, which he won eventually in facile fashion. According to his trainer, Roger Varian, Charyn ‘loves his racing’. He is only 4, yet to reach full maturity. Yet he will be off to the stallion sheds after one more run. In troubling times for the sport, it would be helpful if owners did all they could to keep the top horses in training longer than their 4-year-old days.

The furious cries last jumps season over the embarrassing domination of Willie Mullins are not heard in response to similar domination of the sport by Aidan O’Brien. In Ireland, he has trained, as of 20/10, 126-winners for £6,437,000 (0r Euros). In Britain he has trained only 31-winners for £8,283,000. Then of course there is the haul of prize-money won in France. Compared to Aidan’s achievements, Willie Mullins needs to pull his soaks up and concentrate harder. Yesterday, not only did Aidan have a winner at Ascot, but as a side-dish he had 4-winners at Leopardstown and a 1,2, 3, in a race. Today domination of Ireland and Britain, tomorrow the world, if the ‘lads’ want it, of course.

​There is a universal answer to the stupidest question and if I hear Oli Bell ask the stupidest question again, I will send a letter of complaint, using language that would upset Archbishop Welby, to his boss, Ed Chamberlain. Oli’s boss, obviously. Ed Chamberlain is not, or ever could be, boss of Archbishop Welby, even if God is no longer keen on the job, either. The universal answer is ‘of course he/she is. I wouldn’t be running if he/she is wasn’t, you nincompoop!’ The question, of course, goes along the lines of ‘he/she is okay at home, no problems?’ As if Aidan O’Brien is going to answer. ‘Ah now, Oli, were not happy at all with her. Billy, who rides her every day is unhappy. Juan, who looks after her, is pulling his hair out because of the condition of her and the ‘lads’ have been huddled in the chapel saying prayers to the almighty. But, you know, Oli, I think she’ll be alright, especially on this ground.’ A trainer should really use such a reply as that would stupefy the interviewer and might put a stop to the stupidest question.

Sylvester De Sousa is right. As is Richard Forristal. As is everyone who questions the fairness and point of the totting-up process. Personally, I would hit jockeys who exceed the regulated number of strikes with harsher penalties in the first instance and do away with the totting-up nonsense. For example, for a first offence keep the penalties as they are 2-day, 4-day, whatever. Second offence in a six-month period, double the length of suspensions and so on. Persistent offenders will soon reach the number of days of suspension that squeeze their pips to the extent that they will soon be mending either their whip action of their ability to count up to six. And instead of doubling the length of suspension when jockeys fall foul of the whip rules in major races, a fine of 25% of the value of the race should be imposed. I would also like to see a small percentage of all fines imposed on jockeys, trainers and owners go to R.o.R.

This is the time of year when I moan about Champions Day’, the one race-meeting I would ditch in the blinking of an eye. Originally, if my ailing memory is not fooling me again, is that Champions’ Day would morph into a European equivalent of the Bleeders’ Cup. Obviously that aspiration proved a hill too high to climb.
It is absurd to have such a high-profile meeting at the end of the season, two-weeks after the Arc and a similar number of weeks before the Bleeders’ Cup. Kyprios is the only equine champion due to take part and only one human champion will be there. The ground will be dire, as it almost always is at Ascot in October and the finishes as unedifying as a 4-mile chase in the mud at Hexham. Scatter the five big races to other meetings, such as York’s final meeting of the season, return the Champion Stakes to Newmarket, etc.
As always with the B.H.B., if it is not enough, it is always too much. Champions’ Day falls into the latter category.

As if J.P. McManus has not achieved immortality in the sport already, he now, possibly sensibly, has instructed Willie Mullins to train I Am Maximus for the Little Grand National and not the Cheltenham Gold Cup, as he has ambitions for his horse to win two or possibly three Little Grand Nationals. The horse could easily achieve the double this season because, as Willie Mullins pointed out in excusing the death blows perpetrated on the formerly great race, the race is more for the high-class horse these days, with the lesser owner and lesser trainer with the ordinary handicapper unlikely to get a sniff of a run from now on.
But let us be clear, if I Am Maximus were to win four Little Grand Nationals, he would not go near to equalling the achievements of Red Rum as he won 3 proper Grand Nationals, when no fence resembled an upturned dandy-brush and the race was a fair reproduction of the race as it was during the 1930’s to the 1960’s. If I Am Maximus were to win multiple Little Grand National, in my opinion, it would not make him the equal of Tiger Roll and he only won two Substitute Grand Nationals.
The days of Aintree legends are over.

Newton Abbot has suffered its sixth abandonment due to waterlogging since the end of last season, on the day racing at Wincanton is held on ground described as good, good-to-firm. Are the weather manipulators targeting Newton Abbot for practice purposes?

​The Irish racing judiciary know how to torture a man, don’t you think? First Shark Hanlon is hauled before them on a charge which is a result of either an accident or negligence, then with the vicious mindset of a Judge Jeffries they pronounce him guilty and impose a sentence akin to life imprisonment with hard labour, and now, to extend Shark’s pain, they will deliberate on whether they were right to impose a draconian sentence for a further fourteen-days!
Will ‘they’ have the good grace and common dignity to admit they erred in treating Shark as if he is an animal abuser and reduce his sentence to the rap over the knuckles his error of judgement deserved?
Is it not enough that the whole sorry affair has taken a rapier to both his business and reputation, with twenty-eight of his horses being shipped to England this weekend to be sold at public auction, and twelve of his staff set to lose their jobs? My only hope is that when Shark’s nightmare comes to an end, be that in 10-months-time or in fourteen-days, leading owners in racing will send him horses to help him re-establish himself. Horse racing in both Ireland and Britain is not a healthy enough state to send to purgatory characters with the public appeal of Shark Hanlon.
As I said yesterday, if Shark’s appeal is not successful, this will be the worst injustice in racing history since Captain Ryan Price lost his licence for a doping offence it was later proved he did not commit.

Slowly but ever surely, we inch toward the Charlie Hall Chase at Wetherby and the take-off for the 2024/25 National Hunt season. Let us hope Sean Bowen and the two Harrys, Skelton and Cobden stay injury-free for the bulk of the season and come April any one of the three can be crowned champion. The trainers’ championship is harder to call as Willie Mullins, as his habit in all things, apparently, will not make-up his mind whether to bother with defending his title until late March, as he did last season, when he went on a winning spree unknown in the sport, culminating in winning the first of the little Nationals with I Am Maximus.
If you are of the opinion that Mullins will not reign supreme again, you must have an idea of a horse outside of Closutton to beat Galapin Des Champs and, sadly for Nicholls, Skelton and others, if the two-time Gold Cup winner fails to complete the hat-trick it is odds-on his conqueror will be a stable-mate, of which there only about half-a-dozen likely candidates.
My wish is for Paul Nicholls to have a Gold Cup contender as the sport is better when he is in the mix. If I were to suggest a possible Ditcheat Gold Cup horse outside of Bravemansgame, I would go for Ginny’s Destiny. I have no idea why but Nicholls seems to have become one of the Marmites, you either respect and admire him for his positivity or you hate him for being arrogantly-minded. I am in the former camp and make no apologises for being a fan. I wish him well in his quest for a fifteenth trainers’ title and will again feel sorry that Dan Skelton has fallen short yet again.

Amazingly, given the rain we have had over here, especially North Devon and it seems in Berkshire given the ground for Ascot on Saturday is likely to be soft with heavy patches, Thurles has called-off Thursday’s meeting due to a lack of rain.

My favourite trainer of all-time must be David Elsworth. Not just because he trained Desert Orchid and Persian Punch but because a) he never minced his words and b) he had the courage of his convictions. Only the great man thought Desert Orchid would win a King George as no one, perhaps including his long-standing stable jockey Colin Brown, thought his front-running tactics would allow him to stay, including me, and yet he won from the front, going away. Again, he was alone in keeping the faith that Dessie would win a Gold Cup on a course he did not do well at, on ground he hated and over a distance that would likely be beyond him; that was certainly the opinion of Dessie’s owners. Yet he won with the aid of grit and the same kind of courage as his trainer. The 2-miler (?) then confounded everyone by winning an Irish National and a Whitbread. ‘Elsie’ was a genius with chasers and equally a genius with flat horses. Think what he might have achieved if he had ever had a stable of jumpers like Closutton houses today or a stable of flat horses that Aidan O’Brien has the privilege of training?

When it comes to personal favourites, outside of my love-affair with Bryony Frost, my favourite jockey of modern times has been Daryll Jacobs and I am both relieved and disappointed for him to announce that this season will be his last. A jockey who loves his horses and has no inhibitions about people knowing it, he will be in Ireland for most of his last season and if I could have one wish for the season it would be that Daryll lands a race to rival his Grand National success on Neptune Collonges. In my book, Daryll was the last jockey to win a true Grand National.

​According to his celebrated trainer, who we must remember is salaried to the lads of Coolmore and who has no deciding vote on which horses stay in training and those who go to the stallion sheds, is quoted as saying that he does not know how good City of Troy could be. And, of course, we shall never know as after the Bleeders Cup he is to be retired. That he is to stand in Ireland and not America is nothing to feel grateful about. 
Aidan will continue to describe him as the best he has trained, until the next one to come off the conveyor belt, of course, and ‘the lads’ will promote City of Troy as an all-time great, ‘the best they have ever bred’. Without being dogmatic about it, I suspect the form book will not have City of Troy as the best horse to come out of Ballydoyle, though I would not wish to name the highest-rated horse Aidan has trained in his illustrious career. It is not City of Troy; of that I am certain. Given the opportunity, he might have proved me wrong. And I wanted to be proved wrong, believe me.
When he won the Dewhurst, the ‘lads’ thought him ‘their Frankel’ and their joy was easy to behold. Yet unlike Juddmonte, who kept Frankel in training as a 4-year-old, Coolmore are taking the money and running away, denying the public and, more importantly, the sport the opportunity of gaining from the popularity the horse has achieved. Horse racing in Britain and Ireland needed City of Troy to be raced at 4, as all great horses should be campaigned. As with Sea the Stars and Dancing Brave, City of Troy is the best of his generation and only that, though as a 2-year-old he was head and shoulders better than the aforementioned superstars. Oh, a superstar is not the same as a legend, a word, like genius, that is greatly overused by the media and publicists. Let us hope City of Troy does not flop at the Bleeders Cup as he did in the 2,000 Guineas or the boast that he is bred to a great dirt horse will be blown away like Coolmore have blown away the opportunity to have a living legend to rank alongside Frankel  and Dubawi. 

Shadow of Light impressed me more than any other two-year-old this season in winning the Dewhurst. He won a race that perhaps he should not have done, sweeping to the front from what looked like an impossible position and winning in the manner of a horse who will easily stay at least another furlong.
What I like about Charlie Appleby is exampled in how he reversed what he told the press after winning the Middle Park: taking the dogs for a walk, he mulled over how to proceed with Shadow of Light, debating whether the horse was the sprinter he thought he was. He spoke with William Buick and then debated the matter with the lads in the yard (senior, I should think) before suggesting to the ‘principals’ that they should supplement Shadow of Light for the Dewhurst. Embracing, diplomatic, prepared to chance his arm and perhaps his reputation. He is a good man who deserves the success he brings to Godolphin.

It seems likely that come Tuesday we will be confronted with the first horse disqualified from an important race due to the jockey breaching the whip rules by four-strokes. Apprentice Jamie Powell has admitted going four over with his whip, which makes it inevitable that Manxman will be promoted to first place. You have to feel sorry for the losers in all of this, Cathy O’Leary the trainer, the owners, though I suspect they will have collected their  winnings before the result of the stewards’ enquiry was announced and those who backed Manxman to win. But if the whip rules are to mean anything meaningful for the image of the sport, Alphonse Le Grande must be disqualified. The only upside for racing is that at least Tony Martin was not in the picture this time around.

If Shark Hanlon does not win his appeal to the Irish stewards tomorrow over his disqualification from the sport for 10-months due to the accidental uncovering of a dead horse being transported for disposal at a slaughter house, it will be the worst case of injustice since Captain Ryan Price lost his licence due to a horse metabolizing a prohibited chemical due to natural processes.
If an accidental display of a dead horse is worthy of a man losing his livelihood for the best part of a year, then no present penalty for deliberate acts of rule-breaking can be anywhere close enough to being proportionate. 
I remain convinced Gordon Elliott was harshly treated by the same authority, even though he was partially to blame for the hullabaloo that came from a photograph leaked to the public by a scumbag with a grievance. 
Shark does deserve a large fine for the accident he was partially responsible for and a sharp rap over the knuckles. To me, a £2,000 fine and a suspended sentence would be proportionate. I cross my fingers that the Irish Stewards come to their senses and going forward they stop hanging good men out to dry, while excusing the worst offenders, as they did with Stephen Mahon or whatever his damned name is.

​The president of France’s Club des Gentleman Riders et des Cavalieres, a man with the fine and noble name, Paul Henri de Quatrebarbes, writing in today’s Racing Post, is of the opinion that amateur riders should be seen as an endangered species and upgrading the National Hunt Chase at the Cheltenham Festival so that professional jockeys can ride in the race is blatantly unfair to those in the amateur ranks. 
Here is why he is barking up the wrong tree. The amateur in France may be different to the British and Irish amateur, I am not qualified to say. With the obvious exception of David Maxwell, who is throw-back to the days of Brod Munro-Wilson and others who were true Corinthians, the leading amateur riders are professional in all but status. No one denies that Derek O’Connor is nothing but a wonderful horseman/jockey who he has the talent to ride any horse in any race. But his life is 100% horses. He is not a dentist, shopkeeper or financier, as it seems the leading amateurs in France can be. And though Sam Waley-Cohen was and is a businessman by trade, he was also as good an amateur as we have seen on British racecourses since the days of yore, a man who rode the old Aintree fences as well, if not better, as any professional. And anyone who believes the excellent Patrick Mullins is an amateur is deluding themselves. His life is racehorses, seven-days a week, from dawn to dusk, no doubt salaried as his father’s assistant, with the keys to Closutton as his inheritance. 
I am not of the opinion that there should be no place for the amateur rider in British racing apart from the point-to-point field. Too many of our top National Hunt jockeys have started out as amateurs to have that door closed to those with the ambition to follow in their footsteps. In Ireland, I suspect, the sport would collapse without the input of amateurs. Indeed, as an extreme example of someone who began the legend he has gone on to become, Ryan Moore’s first ride was as an amateur.
I do believe, though, there are too many amateur races on the flat and wish there could be a grand final that all the amateur races could lead up to. The enthusiastic true amateur who rides out at a professional stable before trading jodhpurs and riding boots for either a shirt and tie or skirt and blouse before heading off to their day-job should be applauded and encouraged. Our doors and windows should be open to all. Surely, though, one or two amateur races a week should be enough to satisfy the demand.
As I have said before, there remains at the Cheltenham Festival two-races restricted to amateurs, there is only one race restricted to conditional jockeys and no race restricted to professional jockeys. Indeed, it is possible, no matter how unlikely, that, with the exception of the Martin Pipe Hurdle, an amateur rider could ride in every race at the Festival, including the National Hunt Chase. If that is not preserving and encouraging the amateur rider I do not know what else can be provided for the cause.

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

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

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

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