​L’Homme Presse. Next question.
Occcasionally, very occasionally, difficult to win major races have an obvious looking winner in waiting. In my opinion, this year’s renewal of the King George VI Chase is such a race. Originally, as I did not think L’Homme Presse would run, I was convinced Frodon, especially at 16/1 and bigger, was the bet of the race, which he might still be, as an each-way chance. And as much as I would love Frodon to win his second King George, and again he is dismissed as an unlikely winner by the ‘experts’, logic tells me he will be unable to run the legs off the only horse in the race that might conceivably go on to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup. This is very much a case of my head over-ruling my heart.
L’Homme Presse might be inconvenienced by the tight track and soft/heavy is very different ground at Kempton than it would be at Newbury or Cheltenham, for instance. Since it became an ‘all-weather’ track, with all the additional drainage involved, the ground may not be compatible to the day I walked the track (the year Desert Orchid won his first King George, if you need to know) when there was not so much divots as hock-deep holes down the back stretch. But all that aside, L’Homme Presse is far and away the most likely of the field to go on the ground and possess the stamina and class required to win the second most prodigious steeplechase in the British racing calendar.
Although Bravemansgame has won on soft ground at Kempton, the Kauto Star last season was far from a competitive affair, with Ahoy Senor looking ill-at-ease on such a tight circuit. And remember, Paul Nicholls withdraw Bravemansgame from his intended Cheltenham Festival race last season citing the soft ground as being unsuitable. There remains the possibility that he may take the same decision on Boxing Day.
Ahoy Senor is destined to win a big race, though his only win on soft ground was a maiden hurdle at Ayr. He will come good but it will be on a more galloping track like Cheltenham or Newbury. I wouldn’t rule him out as a Gold Cup horse, I do though rule him out as a King George winner. I would rather have seen him in the Welsh National. Remember Carvill’s Hill?
In the King George you should never rule out a horse trained by a Tizzard. Eldorado Allen could easily run into a place but it’s a stretch to think he has the class of his mighty predecessors, the late lamented Cue Card and Thistlecrack.
It has to be admitted that Envoi Allen has an impressive number of 1’s to his name, 15 if I still possess the ability to count passed 14. He has won on all types of ground and over every distance between 2-miles and 3. Although at times he does not look a natural jumper of steeplechase fences, he has only fallen once, the day his aura of invisibility hit the deck at Cheltenham. He is as equally easy to dismiss as it is to envisage him becoming a Gold Cup contender by winning a King George. Rachel Blackmore could not possibly add a King George to her amazingly impressive C.V., could she?
Let’s get one thing clear about Frodon. Contrary to what his trainer says about him, Frodon has won three times on heavy ground and has prevailed a further six-time when the word ‘soft’ has appeared in the ground description. Good ground is not the most important ingredient for him. He has also won 3-times around Kempton. And he is a much better stayer than he was once considered. He is not out of the reckoning this year, though at 10 his best days surely must be behind him. He remains though the best value in the race and predict he will follow L’Homme Presse home.
Hitman is the joker in the pack. He has never run over 3-miles, so nobody can say with certainty he will not stay. He has, though, won 3 of his 4 races on soft ground and won readily over 2-miles 5 at Haydock. I suspect Harry Cobden may have chosen poorly once more.
Millers Bank. Never say never, though I choose to on this occasion.
Royale Pagaille is trained by Venetia Williams, so anything is possible especially when the ground is anywhere close to boggy. Of the entire field, Royale Pagaille is the only one at his very best on soft-to-heavy ground and his trainer is adept at getting a horse fit to win first time out at the highest level and has winning form at Kempton, albeit a handicap where he was thrown in at the weights. He is not the class of his stable companion, though, is he?
L'Homme Presse will win, with Frodon and Eldorado Allen to follow him home.
Goshen will win the Long Walk. That’s my heart talking again, though no one could argue that the ground combined with the track will suit him better than any of his rivals.
I’m prepared to give Thyme Hill another chance in the Kauto Star and though I cannot see her winning, I do think Epatante will finish closer to Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle than she did in the Fighting Fifth.
And a long shot for a later race – Arizona Cardinal in the 3. 05.

​I am not, I admit, the most charitable of people. I should donate more to the rehabilitation of racehorses charities and to the Injured Jockeys Fund. As is said, every little helps, and perhaps giving more should become my New Year’s Resolution. In fact, yes, I will donate more and more often to the animal charities of my choice. Yes, definitely. My Christmas resolution for the coming year.
What I would really like to do, and this, because of the long-odds against it ever becoming a reality, is more of a dream than an aspiration or ambition, would be to donate the largest proportion of any mega winnings from a Euro Lottery Draw to horse racing. I’m talking about the winning numbers that amount to one-hundred-million and upwards. You know, amounts that are obscene when others win them but might be not quite enough if you win yourself.
I would have horses in training, of course. Mainly jumpers but a few for the flat as well, though because of my age and my concern for how they would be looked-after after my death, I would limit my excess and put in place a trust fund for their after-racing lives. My main contribution to the sport, if the B.H.A. and racecourses allowed my indulgence and did not put obstacles and objections in my path, would be to raise the lowest levels of prize money on a day-to-day level.
I do have two pet projects I would insist on adding to the race calendar and would guarantee funding for three-years, hoping that during this period the races would prove their attraction to the public and trainers so that further sponsorship might be easily found in later years. The first of the omissions from the race calendar, as I believe, is a Ladies Race with a value of a £200,000 to the winner, making it the most valuable race of its kind in the world, run over a mile-and-a-quarter, restricted to professional female jockeys.
Of course, such a race is not as necessary as it was when I first thought of the idea but still worth pursuing as it will become the race all professional female jockeys around the world will want to win as, even now, the odds are stacked against the female jockeys winning or even featuring in, any of the classic races in any of the recognised racing jurisdictions.  A ‘Ladies Race’ worth six-figures to the winner, will allow female jockeys the opportunity to get on a far higher class of horse than, outside of Holly Doyle, is ever likely to come their way.
I dare say there are rules and regulations that will make bringing such a race to reality an uphill task, after-all, I am not suggesting a ‘Ladies Race’ should be either listed or Group class and definitely not a handicap but a weight-for-age conditions race on one of the less high-profile Saturdays during the summer months. I am though a stubborn man and will make it a non-negotiable condition of my largess that such a race comes speedily to fruition in the form I have outlined.
My second pet-project, and also its implementation will be conditional upon my grand gesture being honoured, is a 4-mile Champion Chase. I have long-argued that it is perverse, that a sport that has as its core steeplechases over what we term marathon distances, yet does not have a championship race over a similar distance. The National Hunt season has at the top of its sporting pyramid the Grand National, with the Welsh, Scottish and Irish versions centrepieces of the calendar in those countries, added to which both the British and Irish race programme has in its jewelled crown county and regional ‘Nationals’. It is absurd the 4-mile chaser does not have a championship race to align it with the 2-mile chaser, the 2-mile and 3-mile hurdler and the slightly less prestigious 2-and-a-half-mile chaser.
If the B.H.A. were to defer to my bounteous stipulations, I would then hand over a cheque for one-million-quid to improve levels of prize-money at the very bottom end of the racing pyramid. You cannot, as seems to be the thinking at the B.H.A., grow the sport organically from the top downwards. For good, sustained growth, the plant must have solid foundations, a healthy root structure. The one-horse owner, the small family partnership, the small breeder, are being left for dead, considered inconsequential to the survival of the sport, at least in Britain. There is an elitist leaning towards a ‘Premiership’ of racing, with little or no concern for the country racecourse, the small trainer/owner/breeder, historically the bedrock of the sport. I dream of righting the terrible wrong.
I am no mathematician; I have little idea how far a hundred-million will stretch and for how many years. Yet my dream should be the mirrored aspiration of racing’s movers and shakers, not the invention of more and more valuable races that only stretches to breaking point the quality of horses eligible for such races, rendering such races as uncompetitive and merely trials for races in the future . At the very least, the B.H.A. should have the aspiration for every meeting to have a highlighted race. It need only be worth ten or twelve grand but every card should have a main race of the day.
My dream is to raise the poorest level of prize money by four to five-thousand pounds. That’s all. If I ever won one-hundred-and-sixty-million pound that is what I would do with the money. I would try to save my sport. Oh, a more obtuse condition I would impose on the B.H.A. – I would insist on hand and heels racecourse trials to be implemented for professional jockeys, as some apprentice races are presently restricted. Just for the data and input it would provide as that too might help our sport to survive for another fifty-years.

​There is no getting away from it, with no amount of ‘no one man is bigger than the sport’ chanted against the tide of praise that can put the enormity of his decision to retire into any sort of context – flat racing, after one final season, is to lose its one and only superstar. The 2023 British flat season will be defined in racing history as the year of Frankie Dettori, and for that to be the case he will not even have to ride a classic winner or any of the major Group 1 races. Frankie Dettori is all set to leave the building. His shadow, though, will linger at all the racecourses he lit up throughout his stellar career.
Whether he is the greatest of the great flat jockeys is a matter of conjecture and personal choice. For many years I have dithered between Frankie being the best and Ryan Moore. In pure jockeyship skills there is not an atom between them, though if a gun were to be put to my head I would have to side with Moore as he is undoubtedly the more consistent of the two. Ryan Moore is bombproof, while Frankie can be rattled on occasions. Royal Ascot 2022 being a prime example.
In popularity amongst the public and, I would hazard a guess, his weighing room colleagues, Frankie wins hands down. The two are two sides of the same coin, one flamboyant and charismatic, the other dour and retrospective. Though, from what we are told, in private their roles as happy-go-lucky and straight-faced can be reversed. Ryan, it is said, has a great sense of humour. I wish he would go public with it, if only to confuse his interviewers. 
When submitting my thoughts to the B.H.A.’s whip steering group, I gave as evidence for my belief that ‘one hit and that’s it’ should be the way forward, the ride Frankie gave Enable when she out-battled Crystal Ocean in the King George & Queen Elisabeth at Ascot. As beautiful a ride as can be imagined, a prime example for all apprentices to try to emulate. One tap with the stick and then balanced harmony with his mount all the way to the finishing post.
There will never be another Frankie Dettori. We will only truly appreciate his contribution to the sport in 2024.

And now, more quietly than the extrovert Frankie, Davy Russell has hung up his saddle, winning on his final ride at Thurles, choosing a country course to announce his retirement, again in contrast to Frankie who intends to have his last British ride on Champions Day at Ascot in October 2023.
As with Frankie, Davy Russell lost none of his guile, skill or courage as he aged. At 43, at least to these tired eyes, he was as good in the saddle as he was twenty-years earlier in his career. In fact, given experience is never wasted on the older man, I suspect he may have been a better, more rounded jockey, as, perhaps, he was as a human being.
With Russell now gone from the Irish weighing room, the last of the brilliant cavaliers has ridden into history. Carberry, Walsh, Geraghty, Power, McCoy. The young lads following on have a gaping canvas to fill.
Russell’s greatest ride? Lord Windermere in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. The horse had no right to win jumping’s Blue Riband, yet somehow Russell conjured a stone of improvement in him, a horse that never before or after had the light of greatness upon him.
Finally, I will indulge myself with a poke at the trainer I hold in the highest of regards. Gordon Elliott recently claimed that Irish horses were better because their trainers did not ‘duck and dive’ like English trainers were in the habit of doing, with good horses, often from the same yard, taking each other on throughout the season. Paul Nicholl’s for one was not amused. Yet Gordon, with more than one Gold Cup horse in his stable, chooses not to send a horse over for the King George on Boxing Day. As it is with Willie Mullins, a man with twice the number of potential Gold Cup horses. And there is Paul Nicholl’s running all three of his potential Gold Cup horses.

​Henry de Bromhead’s statement that he might target Honeysuckle at the Mares Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival is a body blow for the sport. He has not positively said that the mare will not run in the Champion Hurdle but the implication is that he is seriously considering ducking the mouth-watering dual with Constitution Hill we were so keenly anticipating.
What is most frustrating about this bombshell is that the trainer, though disappointed the mare lost her unbeaten record, was encouraged by her performance, believing, as I do, that she may have run better in defeat in this season’s Hattons Grace than in any of her previous three victories in the race. If that is the case, and there is nothing deep-seatedly amiss with the mare, the indication must be that Honeysuckle is at the very least as good as ever, and will make a great leap-forward in fitness come the Irish Champion Hurdle in early February, or perhaps even a smidgen better than seasons past.
As I have said dozens of times, the owners and trainers of the top horses, flat and N.H., have a responsibility to the sport that feeds them and pouring cold water on all our expectations represents a disregard for the racing public and the sport.
The problem here, of course, is that damned Mares Hurdle. When the debate of the five-day Festival raged, the chief reason put forward by its detractors was the dumbing down on the spectacle of the best horses running against each other as owners and trainers sought to find easier opportunities of having a winner at the Festival. And, of course, the Cheltenham executive encourage the behaviour by allowing the best horses to run in lesser races. The conditions of the Mares Hurdle should exclude horses of Honeysuckle’s rating from running in the race, so to take away the temptation of pot-hunting by trainers and owners.
All we can hope is that Honeysuckle routs the opposition in the Irish Champion Hurdle and thereby forcing her connections to stick with plan A. She is the only horse capable of beating Constitution Hill or at the very least making a race of it with him. Without her, Constitution Hill will start a 1 to 4 on chance, making the race one of the most uncompetitive in its history.

Racing politics is very similar, it seems, to what comes out of Whitehall. The case for Friday/Saturday meetings in winter to change to Saturday/Sunday is logical and, to my thinking, unarguable. Those in the racing media who slanted the story by saying a) that a meeting set for the Friday should not be sacrificed for the sake of the Saturday or b) that the Saturday card might have needed to be abandoned even if the Friday had been sacrificed, were guilty of sleight-of-hand journalism. The point Richard Hoiles made, and one that I fully endorse, is that Saturday is by far the more important day’s racing to the sport than either a Friday or Sunday and that corporate business should not come before what is best for the sport itself. For the long-term good of the sport, we need young people attending race-meetings and that is more likely on the Sunday than a school day like a Friday. There is so much backward thinking holding the sport to ransom, so much holding tight to the strings of what’s gone before and ignoring what works in the sport’s favour in other countries, that it is almost as if certain people would rather go down with the ship than change course and set sail for new horizons.
And nothing exemplifies leadership-by-chance leadership than the fiasco that is going to be the new whip guide-lines. Why the jockeys have left it so late to air their grievances on the matter is a question only they can answer. And why the P.J.A., of course, were so in favour of the new guidelines when they were first announced is another question in need of an answer. Why the B.H.A. thought it sensible to have the bedding-in period so close to the Cheltenham Festival is an example of the sort of ignorant decision-making that holds the sport to ridicule. Of course, now the jockeys have shown their hand, the guide-lines will be put on the back-burner until the summer, of that I am certain.
I never expected my suggestion of ‘one hit and that’s it’ to be adopted, though in time it will become an option, but I did hope that whatever the options were they would all be trialled for set periods, as would happen in any scientific trial. Then, everyone would know which set of guide-lines worked best for the majority.
Another question in need of an answer is how much weight did Tom Scudamore and P.J. McDonald’s opinions carry on the Steering Committee. Not much, I would guess.

​There was, at least for me, a great sadness to the defeat of Honeysuckle in the Hatton’s Grace at Fairyhouse on Sunday as she not only lost a race she had won in the three previous seasons but she lost her chance to become the holder of the longest sequence of victories and taken the records of Big Bucks and Altior.
Yet, and this says a whole load about the competitiveness of racing in Ireland compared to Great Britain, this year’s renewal of the Hatton’s Grace was almost certainly stronger than the previous three and Honeysuckle might, just, have a run a better race first time out than in any of her victories in the race.
She is getting older and as any trainer will tell you, as racehorses age the more work it can take to get them to peak fitness. I doubt if she has ever been 100% straight for her first race of the season, with Henry de Bromhead’s horses always better for a run under their belts. And, apparently, the de Bromhead string are operating to only a 7% strike rate at present, which suggests he is yet to strike form. History tells us that when his horses start winning, they are a formidable force.
Unlike his main rivals in Ireland, Gordon Elliott and Willie Mullins, de Bromhead is more akin to the trainers of another age who used the racecourse to put an edge on their horses, with a promising run thought more important than a first-time-out success. Where Henry de Bromhead is similar to Willie Mullins is that he tends to allow himself to be hostage to repetition, what worked last season and season before always being the preferred option. If this remains the policy for Honeysuckle, we will not see her again until the Dublin Racing Festival in February and her connections, and us, will have this season’s Hatton’s Grace hanging over our thoughts for the next two-months. Henry de Bromhead knows Honeysuckle far better than any of us, of course, but I would be inclined to get her out over the Christmas period, if only to confirm she remains capable of winning a third Champion Hurdle in March, and in case she now needs an extra race to ensure 100% fitness come her dust-up with Constitution Hill.

The best winner over the weekend, excepting Facile Vega (why do Irish jockeys allow the Mullins hotpots uncontested leads?) was Edwardstone in the Tingle Creek. There was something imperious in his victory, looking to be going the easiest as far out as the Railway fences and brushing aside the opposition with the verve of a potential champion. I thought, in winning the Arkle last season, he was the best of a poorish bunch of 2-mile novice chasers; I was wrong. On his Tingle Creek showing, there is no way I can see Energumene beating him in March at Cheltenham.
As for Shishkin? Although all last season I was of the opinion he wanted further than 2-miles, after all he outstayed Energumene to win at Ascot, I cannot believe his, for him, poor effort in the Tingle Creek was due to having lost all his speed and become a 3-mile chaser since last March. Though having no knowledge of the ‘bone condition’ that struck him down last season, I am swayed to think the repercussions of the condition was the main cause of his laboured performance and that, sadly, we may have seen the best of him and that it is the downward curve to retirement for him. But then we all said the same of Sprinter Sacre and we will never forget the miracle Nicky Henderson pulled off with him.

I will finish with an old chestnut of mine. A few years ago, I wrote to the clerk of the course at Sandown and suggested that a long distance staying (Championship) race was missing from the National Hunt programme and that such a race would make startling contrast to the Tingle Creek. I added that I thought a run-of-the-mill regional ‘National’ was no attraction for a Grade 1 racecourse, when a conditions chase for staying chasers would be. In reply, I was told Sandown had ‘plans’ for the London National.
National Hunt is founded on staying chases, with the season still highlighted by such races. What there isn’t though is a championship race for such horses.

​Samcro last ran under rules in the 2022 Grand National. Not what people a few years earlier were predicting for him. Winning one or numerous Champion Hurdles was to be his destiny, at least according to that equine expert known as Matt Chapman. Or several Cheltenham Gold Cups. The racing world was Samcro’s oyster, it seemed. Samcro is now to run in point-to-points. Not a case of how the mighty have fallen as Samcro never reached the heights of the mighty.
I mention Samcro in the same breath as Constitution Hill as evidence for him being acclaimed ‘the second coming’, because as things stand his form closely resembles that of Samcro at a similar stage of his career. Now, don’t think for one moment I am the one dissenter when it comes to Constitution Hill. Potentially, he could easily be the great horse great men are predicting. But let’s not get carried away. He has run in five races, winning them all with ease, of course, but can anyone say, hand on heart, that beating Epatante 12-lengths, with Not So Sleepy only a few lengths behind her, is worthy of a Racing Post rating of 176?
According to the Racing Post, Constitution Hill is the third best 2-mile hurdler of modern times, with only Istabraq and Faugheen above him, with the likes of Alderbrook and Hurricane Fly (really) trailing in his wake. Utter nonsense, of course.
Ratings really are bollocks when a horse that has only run 5-times and is without a Champion Hurdle crown to his name, is rated higher than a horse that twice won the Champion Hurdle, with, is it, eighteen Grade 1’s to his name and is rated by Ruby Walsh as the best hurdler he ever rode. Incidentally, just to emphasise my antipathy towards ratings, Collier Bay achieved the same rating according to the Racing Post as Hurricane Fly! Really! Hands up anyone who is of the opinion that Collier Bay could even get within ten-lengths of Hurricane Fly?
And just to finish with ratings. Though the mares allowance is a brilliant innovation, when it comes to ratings it works mercilessly against mares. Referring again to Racing Post ratings, Dato Star, Collier Bay, Rooster Booster, Binocular and Kribensis, are all rated clear of Honeysuckle, twice the winner of the Champion Hurdler and unbeaten in 16 starts. Again, hands up anyone who believes any of the above could beat Honeysuckle, with or without the mares allowance?
Constitutional Hill is a wonderful horse with the racing world at his feet. It is obvious that Nicky Henderson believes he is the best he has ever trained, or at least potentially better than Sprinter Sacre in his pomp, and who better to recognise a great horse than the master of Seven Barrows. But until he beats Honeysuckle, and that’s no given as the mare only ever does enough to win and might be saving for herself more than enough to frighten the livings out of Constitution Hill come March, I refuse to join in with the hyperbole, as I refused to join in the hype over Samcro.
That said, God he does look mighty.

Although the racing was top-draw last Saturday, with L’Homme Presse particularly impressive, and to a lesser degree First Street, the day was overshadowed by the death of Porticello at Newbury. The Moore family are all brave, successful and a credit to the sport but for all that fate likes nothing more than piercing their lives with razor-cuts to the heart. Porticello had chaser written all over him and like Constitution Hill had the potential to make the equine world his playground. When fatalities occur the public never get to see a playback of the race so my thoughts are guesswork framed by a bias I have against British hurdles.
It is profoundly unfair bordering on accidents waiting to happen to ask a horse, especially a horse tiring at the end of a race, to jump a moving object. I do not know if Porticello was brought down by a swinging hurdle but it does happen and many horses have either lost their lives or been injured by a horse in front knocking the hurdle over, resulting in the horse directly behind having little chance other than to blunder into the hurdle as it swings back to its original position. In no equine sport are horses expected to jump moving obstacles and I wish British racing could replace the tradition hurdle with the small chase fence obstacles used on the continent and occasionally in this country, though Haydock for whatever reason seems to have abandoned them.
The brush obstacles/hurdles have the advantage that horses would only need to learn one method of jumping and surely would make the transition from hurdle to fence so much easier to accomplish. I rest my case.

​The new whip rules come into force in this country on February 6th, with a ‘bedding in period’ starting on January 9th and lasting until, I guess, February 5th. On its own there is little to quibble about, after-all, the B.H.A. had to eventually decide upon a starting point for the ban on the forehand use of the whip and the potential for disqualification if jockeys exceed the limit of eight strokes by a count of four. If the offence occurs in a major race all suspensions for jockeys will be doubled. ‘Harsh’, as the female jockey says in the t.v. commercial. 
Now, whether you are in favour of the whip being used so publicly in this woke world is another debate entirely. Though, I suspect, in time use of the whip, whether in the forehand or backhand position, will form the last skirmish in the war to save our sport extinction.
Surely someone at the B.H.A. should have had the foresight or common-sense, or the balls to speak-up, to realise that bringing in these changes five-weeks before the Cheltenham Festival, with most of the Irish jockeys having no first-hand experience of riding to the new rules, is a potential recipe for a whole load of bad publicity? In National Hunt (the new rules for the flat begin on Lincoln Handicap day on March 27th, with a similar bedding in period as for National Hunt) shouldn’t someone at the B.H.A. have displayed a greater grasp of the bigger picture and fought for a bedding in period from the first day of the new season, with the new rules kicking in five-weeks later? After the Lord Mayor’s shows at Cheltenham and Aintree.
Yet, as poor is the decision to implement the rules on the date they have chosen, neither the new rules nor the firing of the starters’ pistol is not my main concern/criticism. 
When it was decided to find a new colour for the woodwork of fences and hurdles an university was brought-in to conduct a series of trials, with the horses, seemingly, favouring white over all the others colours trialled. I am no jockey but to my eyes I believe the majority of horses are jumping more cleanly. Certainly, I have heard no complaints from jockeys.
So, why did no one put forward the suggestion that some of the better ideas put forward in the B.H.A.’s survey be trialled in races? If, for example, for two-weeks there were a dozen races restricted to no strikes of the whip, a similar trial for ‘one strike and that’s it’, a similar length of trial for the rules now to be implemented, with another trial for the Scandinavian approach. The B.H.A. would then have gathered enough data and opinions to make a judgement based on real-world racing, rather than having another shot in the dark at what might be best for horse racing in the long-term.
I am not saying that the new rules will not work. What I am saying is that no one knows if they will bring about any improvement for jockeys, horses or quieten the baying mob at our gates. When that bloody awful idea of City Street Racing was proposed, an idea dead and buried it is to be hoped, at least its proponents had the guile to conduct trials, a common-sense approach that didn’t, it seems, impress the B.H.A.
The new rules, which may or may not allow the long-running debate to be put on the backburner for a while, could easily have been drawn-up by the jockeys themselves. Little has changed for them, the strikes remain the same, they can still crack a horse on its rump eight-times, they just must not use the whip in the forehand position; they even have a four-strike leeway before disqualification comes into play.
As Racing Post journalists continue to say: the sport has a dreadful addictive habit of shooting itself in the foot. My fear is that it might just have gone and done it again. And with a little more thought it could so easily have been avoided.

​I may well stand accused here of hypocrisy. I believe, and have stated this belief many times on this website, that the first principal of horse racing should be that the horse comes first in all matters. As such, I should be 100% in agreement with Nicky Henderson, Alan King and Venetia Williams, in their decision to withdraw Constitution Hill, Edwardstown and L’Homme Presse from their respective races at Ascot this weekend. On Saturday, perhaps due to my profound disappointment at being prevented from seeing the three horses run for the first time this season, I was, at least in my mind, highly critical of both their decision and their reasons for taking an infuriating decision that displayed horse racing in a very poor light.
On reflection, though, I believe the matter in hand is not the withdrawal of the three horses but ‘between the clerk of the course and the trainers in question and who held the moral high ground? Nicky Henderson claimed that in his opinion the true state of the ground was ‘good to firm’ or ‘quick’. Alan King agreed. Even though the soft ground preferring Goshen won quite tidily on the same ground that was not good enough for Constitution Hill, Edwardstown and L’Homme Presse to strut their stuff. But if Henderson, King and Williams, were correct in their description of the ground, then ‘the good, good-to-soft in places’ was clearly a misrepresentation and as such a) an enquiry should be called and b) the clerk of the course, if found in error, should be reprimanded in some way.
It has to be admitted that circumstances have been testing for clerks and their ground-staff for the past six-months or more, with lack of rainfall and diminishing levels of water in reservoirs for irrigation. But if the ground is firm or good-to-firm clerks should be truthful, with no need of apology as the situation is clearly out of their hands. This, I believe, is the crux of the matter; not were the three trainers acting in cowardice for withdrawing their prestige horses. It is blindly obvious that either the going description was accurate or, as Nicky Henderson made clear, it was not. All three trainers declared with the going described as ‘good, good-to-soft in places’ and on race-day it remained the same, yet no fines were issued. That only makes sense if the stewards believed the trainers had a fair point and the ground was not as advertised in both the morning papers and on track.
What must be concerning for connections and enthusiasts is that the same situation could occur both up at Newcastle this Saturday and at Sandown the following week. There is no doubt that racecourses, due to the prolonged dry spell, are soaking up rainwater like a sponge and for all the rain that may fall on Newcastle and Sandown if it stops on the Thursday or Friday the ground might go from soft to good overnight and we will have the spectacle of Henderson (with his trusty walking-stick) and de Boinville (in his wellington boots) walking the track before racing with faces as long as Constitution Hill’s.
Where I find Nicky Henderson somewhat contrary is that he could run Constitution Hill at Newbury this week in the Gerry Fielden, which is now, I believe, a limited handicap, yet his preference seems to be to drag his horse all the way up to Newcastle to face a right ding-dong with his stablemate Epatante who will be in receipt of the 7Ib mares weight allowance. To me, a numbskull, yes, without the assistance of a shred of inside knowledge, that is making the ‘nightmare’ situation ever more complicated.
One final point on the weather. I live in North Devon and we have had a foot of rain in the past few weeks; I wish someone would build a racecourse hereabouts as we get a whole lot of weather, and I mean the Atlantic is an, at times, over-zealous provider of rainfall and stormy winds. It rains as I prattle on!

​Soumillon.
I am told that Christophe Soumillon was warned about his conduct by the French stewards on at least one occasion during the season just gone. If this is true, why did his punishment for elbowing Rossa Ryan out of the saddle not reflect this? As I said before, a two-month suspension of his licence during the quiet months of October and November was no more than an enforced holiday for a jockey with Soumillon’s riding record and the wealth that accompanies such a stellar career. Now with the police that oversees such matters in France muscling in on the case, it seems the penalty imposed on Soumillon could be lengthened or might even extend to having his riding licence suspended indefinitely. 
As riding offences go, causing grievous harm during a race to a fellow jockey, would be pretty hard to beat, and the fact that Rossa Ryan walked away unscathed by the incident is hardly here nor there. The possible ramifications of an elbow to the face could have resulted in severe injury or worse. When a horse falls, a jockey, though not exactly expecting it, does have instincts that kick in to protect himself to some extent. An assault during a race would be completely unexpected, leaving the jockey unable to comprehend what had happened to him and, in Rossa Ryan’s case, with no experience on how to deal with falling off over the horse’s tail.
Soumillon, of cause, lost his retainer with the Aga Khan over the incident, not for the first time, and perhaps the lost revenue from not riding the largest string of racehorses in France will cause him to reflect longer and more bitterly on his ‘moment of madness’ than the two-months twiddling his fingers until his suspension runs its course. It is my opinion, that if Oisin Murphy deserved a 12-month ban, Soumillon deserved at least the same. Perhaps with the intervention of the French Gaming Police the penalty will fit the crime.

The Betfair Chase.
To some, changing your mind is a sort of weakness of character. Yet, as top trainers prove time and time again, a change of plan is testimony to the genius of being willing and able to think on their feet. After the Badger Beer at Wincanton, Paul Nicholls told everyone with ears that Frodon would go straight to the King George. It seemed a logical plan, yet now, subject to half-decent ground at Haydock, Frodon is to strut his considerable stuff against A Plus Tard on Saturday, not in hope of toppling the Gold Cup winner but in pursuit of second-place money, the £40,000 on offer a major help to him in retaining his trainer’s championship and a help to Frodon’s owner in paying the fees for those horses in his ownership who do not, unlike Frodon, pay their way. At 20/1 Frodon is the value in the race as he must have every chance of finishing in front of Bristol D Mai (the ground will most likely be nowhere near soft enough) and Eldorado Allen, though Protektorat will be a more stern foe.
On the subject of the Betfair; I believe the race has run its course and should be altered in some way or done away with altogether. If it was not for the ground invariably being soft or heavy at Haydock during the winter months, I would advocate the race being confined to second-season chasers (last season’s novices). If that were the case this year the race would be more competitive with the likes of L’ Homme Presse, Bravemansgame, Ahoy Senor and any number of last season’s better Irish novice chasers in contention for such a large early season prize. To my mind, the Betfair weakens every other 3-mile chase of note right up to the King George, and perhaps even the King George itself as the winner at Haydock invariably has a hard, tiring race.

The New Shape of British Racing’s Governance.
The B.H.A. now have the final say on all things affecting horse racing in this country. The tripartite agreement is now, rather than dead in the water, as most people have recognised, cremated, its ashes left in a trash-can where they should have been placed soon after its inception. 
Hooray, those who know about these things are generally hollering. But, the B.H.A. still have to make the right decisions and while it is beholden to shareholders that might not be as easy as a walk-over at Huntingdon.

Saturday.
Constitution Hill, Edwardstown, A Plus Tard, Hitman, Bristol De Mai, Protektorat, Frodon, L’Homme Presse, Goshen, Sir Gerhard, State Man, Vauban – Need I say other than Bring it On!

​Hands up! I have never seen Flightline race, apart from the footage I.T.V. televised from his race before the Breeders Cup. Yes, though I watched, for the first ever time, some of the races from the Breeders Cup, mainly on Saturday, I did not last the course in order to see for myself the wonder horse Flightline. An early start the following day forbade me to stay up to watch the ‘Championship of the World’ to its, apparently, wondrous conclusion. And yes, being a cynic by nature the hullabaloo over Flightline did not float my boat.
Now, I am not refuting for a moment that Flightline is, or was, a horse of prodigious ability, the winning distances he achieved makes that unarguable to even someone of my cynical nature. But come on, the horse has a career record of 6 from 6, all on dirt and I suspect all over the same distance and racing only on left-turning racecourses. Would he have stayed sound beyond six-races? Could he have won races on turf or over longer or shorter distances?
Any journalist who believes Flightline is ‘the best ever’ or ‘one of the best ever’ is guilty of indulging himself or herself in an extravaganza of hyperbole. The word ‘potentially’ must be used when anyone gives their opinion on where Flightline stands in the pantheon of great horses, even U.S.-based great horses. Flightline, like so many European-based, racehorses, had the potential to set the benchmark for what a racehorse must achieve to top that mythical pantheon of ‘great racehorses’. Without taking anything away from Sea The Stars, a horse regularly listed as one of the ‘great horses’, his dominance lasted for no more than eight-months before he was whisked away to stud as, and I quote, ‘he had nothing else to prove’. Of course, he was retired at the end of his three-year-old season as his value as a stallion would have plummeted if he proved unable to give weight and a beating to the following year’s crop of three-year-olds.
This is also true about Flightline; retired before the financial bubble could burst. Of course, $50-million dollars in stud fees in his first season as a stallion would be difficult for any one of us to turn down. And, I am sure, those invested in Flightline are in it for the money, not the sport.
And this the crux of the matter as far as I am concerned. Horse racing is both a sport and an industry and like the chicken and the egg it is arguable comes first? Well, I’ll tell you the answer, the sport, as without the races that comprise the sport, Flightline would not be worth today what the bloodstock market suggests he is worth to his owners. Racing journalists, though perhaps not bloodstock journalists, should be appalled that a potentially great horse should be taken from the sport after only six-races. Six!
It is my opinion, contentious as it may be, that owners have a primary responsibility to the sport, especially in an age when the sport all around the world is facing hardships and criticism from anti-animal sports activists. Horses with the ability of Flightline draw crowds to racecourses; they put bums on seats to an extent that no human participant can normally do. The sport in the U.S. needed Flightline to stay in training for another year in the same way the sport in Britain needed the boost of Baaeed staying in training as a five-year-old. In retiring Flightline after only a handful of races, his owners are being both excessively greedy and selfish. They should not be applauded but held to account for acting solely for their own benefit. And $4.5 million for 2.5% share is ludicrous if you dwell on the possibility that the horse might be a dud at stud. It happens.
Is it any wonder that National Hunt in this country and Ireland has the more loyal and substantial following?