​When it comes to ‘penning these blogs’, my method of procedure is to only write when I am either roused to do so or when I am clear in my head as to my opinion. Occasionally, though, even when I know I should be getting on with the short novel I am near to finishing or if not that, the memoir that is also coming to the boil nicely, I feel an urge to write about horse racing. I simply wake in the early morning, 4 am if you have a need to know, and something deep inside demands I write about the sport as it will prove beneficial to my mental health, if only for a day. The blank page, though, is not always inspiring; does not always fire-up the old grey matter.
I rolled my eyes yesterday morning when reading in the Racing Post that the European Pattern Committee had refused applications from York and Ascot to upgrade both the City of York Stakes and the Long Distance Cup to Group 1 status. It is generally accepted that there are too many Group 1’s throughout Europe for the number of horses that are genuinely Group 1 class. Yes, there are no 7-furlong Group 1 races in Britain and Ireland but that is a poor argument in the present climate for the City of York to be upgraded from Group 2. What is the problem with France owning all the 7-furlong Group 1’s? If the City of York were upgraded it would no doubt risk the competitiveness of the established Group 1 7-furlong contests within the Pattern.
I thought the argument for the Long Distance Cup at Ascot was slightly stronger but have no complaints about it remaining a Group 2.
The problem with the European Pattern Committee is that exists not to promote great racing but to support the breeding industry by making it too easy for owners to make silk purses out of sow’s ears. I contend that it makes the breed weaker by having too many Group 1 races and would make it stronger if Group 1’s were not to be ‘open competitions’, even if I would not include classic races in my argument. To race at the highest level, I believe, horses should have to qualify with big performances in lesser Group races. Group 1’s should not be the dish of the day but the one of the dishes of the season, with many of the present Group 1’s downgraded to Group 2 to act as qualification races for the truly major races. This policy would also, I believe, persuade owners to keep horses in training for longer than is presently the case and this in turn will provide evidence of both a stallion’s soundness in wind and limb and his courage as a racehorse.
I will provide two examples of my thinking, one on the flat, one over jumps, a code of the sport that is also flattered by having too many Grade 1’s. The Coronation Cup at the Derby meeting is a Group 1 only in name as it is increasingly rare for it to be stuffed with Grade 1 winners and does not compare favourably with Group 1’s later in the season. At the Dublin Racing Festival recently there were no fewer than 8 Grade 1 races, yet how many were in any shape or form either competitive or classy affairs. The top horses will always scare away the best of opposition, with the problem made starkly illuminated by one trainer dominating in each and every one of the Grade 1’s, but is a 2-horse affair truly worthy of being designated a Grade 1 race?
Never has the phrase ‘Less is More’ provided an appropriate and inarguable solution to a problem, even if the authorities turn their backs to both the problem and its staring-you-in-the-face solution!
If my proposal were to be accepted – it will not, of course, as it would not even be debated for fear of the applecart being not only turned-over but tossed high in the air – and if over a half of the present Group 1’s were to be downgraded to Group 2 status, these races would overnight become fiercely competitive if results in these races determined which horses would qualify for the prestigious Group 1’s and the glittering prize of the big bucks earned in the stallion sheds.
Instead of Group 2’s being upgraded or new Group races established, there needs to be a slaughter of the European Pattern.

​We live in a world that is becoming increasingly artificial and many leagues separated from the lives of our childhood, if you are my age, and an unfathomable distance from the days of ‘living off the bounty of the earth and seas’. All was not in the pink back then, of course, and some aspects of life are infinitely better in the present age. But that does not predispose as a species we would benefit mentally, spiritually or physically from wholly breaking the chains of the past. 
Horse racing is not immune from the central control of governments or their influencers. Yet horse racing is becoming a flagbearer for the days of yore. Racecourses are a lung in many urban landscapes, a green oasis of fresh air and open space in the towns and cities that were once open fields and woodland.
Horse racing brings the countryside to the urban sprawl. Watch YouTube videos of racing in the nineteen-fifties, sixties and seventies and you will not see racecourses encroached upon by modern housing developments. Newbury, for instance, is unrecognisable today when compared to the day when Mill House and Arkle first clashed in the Hennessey Gold Cup. Newbury has become parkland to an estate to domestic living quarters, the wonderful racecourse, first considered by legendary local trainer John Porter, might, I fear, be close to being listed by planning officers as ‘infill’. British racecourses should seek listed status. Recall the plight of Aintree in the Red Rum era of the sport!
Horse racing is a directly viewable connection between horse and man, perhaps the most historical union between animal and human. Horses are no longer ‘stock’ or ‘beasts of burden’ but a cherished companion, with jockeys now freed from the yoke of their former colleagues separation from emotion for their steads and able to express their affection and downright love for the horses that are the pivot of their lives. If horse racing is not in reality a sport with a heart, we fight the challenge of being accused of being no better than bear-baiting and cock-fighting.
Horse racing has a unique place in British society as its inception, history and evolution stem from monarchy, with Queen Anne still annually commemorated at Royal Ascot. Kings, Queens and Prime Ministers have involved themselves in the sport. Yet, at its core, it remains a working man’s sport, even for those of wealth and status who wish to be employed within the sport in one capacity or another. To work with horses is to be a class of people that work hard and long. Jockeys, trainers, stable staff, are all working-class no matter their family history. Horse racing embraces all social classes, all religions, all faiths, all nationalities. The horse allows no privilege just because those who come into contact with them are of royal, noble or wealthy descent. Horse racing connects all people from royal palaces to the estates that now encircle our racecourses.
Horse racing is perhaps the only sport that must deal with true tragedies on a regular basis. We wish it were different, yet it is the unwritten contract that we must abide by. Death sits at our shoulder, be it equine of human. In that, we are link to a past when life really was a day-to-day survival.
Gambling is not solely a racing matter. Horse racing is not solely an activity for the gambler. Horse Racing Matters for so many reasons beyond the bet offered and taken.

The ‘social licence’ has become a phrase to beat the sport with. It should not, though, refer to the misinformation of those who wish ill of the sport but to the number of people who attend race-meetings, view the sport on television and who spend their disposable income on owning racehorses or who bet on horse-racing. If the ‘social licence’ becomes a poll for objectors then in time all sport may become the target of people who simply oppose sport for no other reasons than they do not understand it or dislike the noise generated by those who attend sport.
An inner ‘social licence’ should exist, though, with everyone employed in the sport covered by this obscure and unwritten licence. Jockeys, for instance, should be given opportunities beyond the present system to prove their worth, with many more races restricted to jockeys in the lower half of the jockeys table. Trainers, too, should be allowed a fairer hand, with races throughout the season restricted to trainers with less, for example, fifteen horses in their care, twenty-five and forty horses registered in their name. The ’social licence’ should be in place to protect those who strive and struggle to make a living out of this sport, those hard-working and dedicated people who are the foundation stones of the sport. In this, the British Horseracing Authority is negligent.
Of course, the gold standard ‘social licence’ is the care of racehorses both in training and in retirement. In the latter the sport has until recently also been negligent, though thankfully we are now as a sport fulfilling that particular obligation. More must be achieved, though. We must see our sport through the eyes of the horses who we depend upon.

​Look, when I give a race a lot of thought, I am as poor a tipster as you’ll find in any betting shop or on-line forum. When I go big, metaphorically, you must understand I lack the courage to actually stake real money on my ‘judgement’, it is the result of an instinctual thought. When A Plus Tard won the Betfair a few seasons ago, as he jumped the last the phrase ‘this will win the Gold Cup’ sprung front and central to my thoughts. And so it came to pass.
Now, here it is, when Shishkin won at Aintree last season, reining in Ahoy Senor, who I was shouting to get home in front, the race ended with a similar phrase flashing across my mind. ‘This could win the Gold Cup’, to be precise. Galopin Des Champs winning at Leopardstown with total ease has, I admit, muddied the waters as I thought him as impressive a big race winner as we have seen for many a long day.
All the while when Nicky Henderson was campaigning Shishkin over 2-miles, my instincts were to up him in trip as I believed I was looking at a stayer, not a potential 2-mile champion chaser. At Newbury in the Denman Chase, Shishkin won by out-staying his rivals. The further he went, the further he was going to win by. I was equally impressed by the faith both Nico de Boinville and Nicky Henderson expressed in Shishkin’s ability to stay the Gold Cup distance. Of course, we will get the same nonsense all trainers and jockey spew if their horse comes a close second in a race, that their horse didn’t quite stay the distance, when the rest of the field have trailed in twenty-lengths or more in arrears. As David Elsworth replied to journalists suggesting Barnbrook Again didn’t stay 3-milies after finishing second in the King George. ‘He stayed better than those he beat’. Galopin Des Champs may prove at Cheltenham he is a stronger stayer than Shishkin but defeat will not automatically prove that Shishkin is not a genuine Gold Cup horse. Some days one horse will prove stronger than another. That does not equate to on another occasion the result will not be reversed.
What I do find strange, and, yes the case of One Man shoots holes in my opinion – a horse who won a Hennessey Gold Cup, admittedly off a low handicap mark, as a young horse and then went on several years later to win the Champion 2-mile chase, after somehow having his undoubted stamina replaced by raw speed – is how Protekterat can finish a close and staying on third two-season ago in a Gold Cup and yet now the experts are thinking him a Ryanair horse. Yes, he was disappointing in the Betfair Chase this season, though as horses get older, they often need more work to get them truly fit than they did when younger, yet in the handicap at Cheltenham and the Lingfield race, and again in the Denman, he was to be seen running-on to good effect. Rather like Frodon, if he learned to preserve his energy in the early stages of a race and not pull at the reins, he might prove more effective in the business part of the race, a problem which would still be a problem if they dropped him in distance. Over-enthusiasm in a horse is every bit as much a problem-to-be-solved as the horse reluctant to give his all.
Another aspect of trainer/jockey logic that baffles me was displayed by Alan King after the splendid sight of Edwardstown jumping his rivals into submission in the Game Spirit. Allowing his horse to bowl along in front obviously pleased the horse, with jockey and horse in almost total harmony for the majority of the race. So why suggest they might not employ the same tactics at Cheltenham in the 2-mile Champion Chase? Doing what they did at Newbury would be the best tactic to find a chink in El Fabiolo’s jumping, I suggest. And Jonbon, of that matter. Edwardstown is the best jumper of the three most likely candidates for the race, so why would you not make use of that superpower?
As when it takes an age to get a horse loaded into the stalls, the length of time it takes to re-shoe a horse at the start of a jumps race, must impact negatively on all the other runners, something demonstrated quite clearly by Harry Cobden’s mount getting very stirred-up at the start of the Betfair Hurdle and then running deplorably. I do wonder how the form of races impacted by delays works out later on in the season? Perhaps there should be a debate around a maximum time delay before the misbehaving horse is automatically withdrawn by the starter. 

​When I pen whatever you would like to call this stroll through my thoughts and concerns, I try to start with a title that encompasses the topic or topics I intend to cover. More often than not I go off-piste and have to amend or completely change the title, even when I believe it to be either snappy or intriguing. I am not, you must understand, a professional writer and neither do I have an editor sitting at my shoulder and have no training outside of ‘life’s university’ to guide my illiterate way. Today I will endeavour to stay within the topics of the Grand National, the racing calendar and the Mares Hurdle.
The initial entries for Punchestown’s Grand National trial were published in the Racing Post either yesterday or the day before. (Poor memory, can’t be assed to bring-up yesterday’s paper to clarify the facts). I suspect, though it was not my initial thought, it is a trial specifically for the Irish National at Fairyhouse, though the race title does not make this clear, though neither does Haydock’s Grand National trial, also due to be run in the next few weeks. What appalled me about the entries for both races, indeed all races over a distance of ground that in the past would make the race appropriate as a pointer towards Aintree, is how few of those entered have a sporting chance of fulfilling the criteria to be accepted to run in the big race. What is the point of a Grand National trial if it useless as a form-guide for the race it is a trial for? Perhaps the condition of the race that a horse must have run in a 3-mile chase should be amended to a chase over a distance of 3m 4-furlongs or more? Though ‘win and your in’ races through the season would make far more sense.
The B.H.A., and I dare say Horse Racing Ireland, publish their race calendars well in advance of the seasons covered. This was all very well in times of plenty but is it the right approach when the well is running dry? 
In Britain, it seems, it is becoming extremely difficult to find sponsors away from either the bookmaking industry or companies associated with people heavily invested in the sport as owners, though Ireland have no trouble finding sponsors either local or global.
With the pool of horses available slipping year on year, especially at the upper levels, it would make sense for Britain and Ireland to sit down and negotiate their race programmes so they gel with each other to attract the best horses available and the largest number of runners. This would inevitably mean both countries sacrificing or down-grading races of long-standing and eliminating many of the established Grade 1’s in both countries. This would be a ‘for now’ policy and could be changed if and when the pool of top-class horses returns to levels of the distant days when competitiveness was not a subject for debate.
I believe the seeds of this problem were sown when the Cheltenham Festival evolved from 3-days to 4. I approved of the change at the time and would have embraced a 5-day festival if it had come to pass. Not now, though. Over the last couple of years, the dynamic has become one of survival, not growth. Sadly, I believe it is time for the festival to revert to 3-days, with the Ryanair, the 2m- 5 novice hurdle and the Turners in particular directed to other meetings or a specific race-day away from the Festival. The 2-mile Champion Chase, the Champion Hurdle and the Gold Cup in particular should be ring-fenced, protected against the threat of small fields and long-odds on favourites. If the season was not so cluttered, races culled from the Festival-proper could be run at a ‘satellite’ Festival, though seeded throughout the season might prove more beneficial. The Ryanair at the upcoming Newbury meeting, for instance, and if the sport returns to somewhere close to its ‘glory days’ it could return to March and the Festival.
The B.H.A. and its Irish counterpart should be planning for now, not doing the same over and over again in hope that it’ll all come right on some night long in the future. Premierisation is more, when the current situation seems to demand less.
And that brings me to the mares races at the Festival. To my mind, no matter what ratings tell us, and yes Honeysuckle brought the house down at last year’s Festival, though a great part of that was in light of the tragedy that had befallen the de Bromhead family, the Mares Hurdle is a problem. It is not titled the Mares Champion Hurdle, by the way, even if it is the major races for mares in both Britain and Ireland. I believe the race should be titled the Mares Champion Hurdle, boosted in prize-money and should replace the International/Bula hurdle on Cheltenham’s trials day. This move would be beneficial to both the Champion Hurdle and whatever the race over 2-miles is called at the Dublin Racing Festival as it might galvanise British trainers to support the race and the meeting. If trials day became a 2-day fixture, the other two races for mares, the novice hurdle and the chase could be accommodated, along with the other races dropped from a 3-day Cheltenham Festival.
Given adversity trainers usually pull-through. Yes, Nicky Henderson would pull his hair out if he was arm-twisted into having to run his latest Champion Hurdle candidate in the Kingwell at Wincanton but as with all us, he would just have to suck it up or travel to the kingdom of Willie Mullins. 

​Forgive me. Today’s thoughts mirror 100% my thoughts in the previous blog I published. I constantly worrying that our glorious sport is at a tipping point; its survival dependent on correct if radical decisions that must be taken by the sport’s governing authorities in both Ireland and Britain. My thoughts yesterday were honest and truthful to my opinion, if not particularly well constructed. What I am now certain about is that the problem to be overcome is not wholly the domination of Closutton but the actual overall ailing health of the sport.
Willie Mullins won the first three races at Leopardstown yesterday, all Grade 1’s, with horses, given that stable jockey Paul Townend was not the winning jockey on any one of the three, that were, to the benefit of Danny Mullins, the second or third strings. All of the Closutton horses are trying, of course and not knowing which of his three, four or five-runners, is the best is a conundrum for punters, as it must be for Paul Townend. And though his domination (I suspect he won the Bumper as well) yesterday and virtually every day, is proof of his status as one of the greatest racehorse trainers of all-time, the rise and rise of Willie Mullins is perhaps detrimental to the sport as a whole.
Although there is some merit in limiting a trainer to a maximum of four or five runners per race, and if this was brought-in I would like it to include every race in the racing calendar, I don’t believe it is the solution that would best serve the sport.
Another of racing’s long-term problems, affecting both Irish and British trainers, is the retaining and recruitment of staff. It is a problem that I doubt affects Willie Mullins or perhaps any of the top stables either side of the Irish Sea. It is, though, a problem that must be addressed for the widespread benefit of every other trainer in both Ireland and Britain.
A cap on the number of horses any one trainer can have at their disposal in any one season would go some way to levelling the playing-field and countering the staff-shortage crisis. I would suggest the cap would be in excess of 100 and below 150 and to be for both codes of the sport. If a trainer with 200-horses registered to him or her were forced to reduce their string-size by fifty, he or she would also be forced to lay-off six, seven or eight members of staff. Because of the acute staff shortage in both countries, these people would immediately be snapped-up by other trainers, thereby going some way to reducing perhaps the sport most pressing issue.
Also, owners of the horses let go by their trainer would then have to find homes for them with trainers a litter lower in the training food-chain, which would go a fair way to levelling-up this particular playing field. Of course, the mega-trainers would keep the best and say goodbye to the lesser fry; occasionally though a gem would slip through the net and someone would find themselves with a Derby, Gold Cup, Cheltenham or Aintree contender that otherwise would not have found its way to them. For the sport, a cap on numbers achieves a win-win scenario and should be trialled for a couple of years to ensure it brings the benefits that theory suggests it should. And a cap should not be seen as punishing the very best but giving a leg-up to the sport at a time when the vast majority of its participants are in dire need of assistance.
Incidentally, who else thought Conflated was going to play a part in the finish of the Irish Gold Cup yesterday? I still think Galopin Des Champs will prove a hard hero to slay come March as he stays so well, which I don’t believe will prove to be Fastorslow’s main weapon (I even suggest they might divert him to the Ryanair) but though she is never the most optimistic of trainers, being more Tim Forster than Paul Nicholls in thought and word, I think Venetia Williams might have greater hope in her heart that a deserved Cheltenham Gold Cup winner might be within her grasp at long last.

​If sport was included in the remit of the Monopolies Commission, horse racing would be in its sights. There was a commotion in the sport recently when Gordon Elliott saddled 13 (14?) runners out of 22 in a single race and the B.H.A. walked on to the dance-floor to suggest it might limit trainers to 4-runners per race. They have since back-tracked on the idea. Yet Gordon Elliott would not attract the attention of the Monopolies Commission, nor would de Bromhead, Henderson or Nicholls.
Over the two-days of the Dublin Racing Festival this weekend, the master of Closutton has entered in the non-handicap races a total of 52-horses. Of course, 52 is not exactly correct as many of horses have two or three entries and will only run the once and I will refrain from naming the races as these days race titles can be longer than the races they represent. But he has 6 out of 9 entries, 8/13, 4/8, 2/5, 5/13, 8/13, 8/14, 4/6, 3 out of 5 and 4 out of 16 entries in the Bumper that brings an end to what looks like on a paper an epic meeting.
He will have the favourite in most of these races, as well, of course, in a couple of the handicaps as he seems to have one or two well-handicapped if they should prove up to the task.
Anyone who has read Henrietta Knight’s book ‘The Jumping Game’, and especially the chapter on Willie Mullins, will realise his training facilities are no better than many of his main rivals in the training ranks, if indeed he has any real rivals. He has a top-class staff and some of the best riding talent in Ireland to aid him and it is not as if he was not successful before the double green team hooked-up with him or even before Rich Richie turned up at the gates with his ambitions, his wealth and charisma. I suspect the two reasons Mullins is the dominant force at present is because a) obviously, he has owners willing to pay top dollar (or Euro) for the best young stock that is on the market, and he most probably either makes the least number of mistakes or the most correct decisions regarding the races his horses should compete in. And it must be remembered he started from scratch. What he has, he has earned through the same blood, sweat and tears every trainer must overcome to become even moderately successful.
His domination can be regarded as either humorous or worrying, though no one disputes he is where is through hard work and not a small stroke of genius. And is it ethical to tether a man at the top of his profession by disallowing him the number of horses he wants to run in one race simply because he is too successful? It certainly would not be sporting to bring into place a rule for Mullins and not apply that rule to his rivals.
My view on this problem, if indeed it is a problem, is this. Decisions should be made by the governing authorities that are to the benefit of the whole sport as the sport is at the present. A rule could be adopted for now that can be changed in the future if the sport would benefit for the change.
I doubt if Willie Mullins employs a single lame duck in his roster of employees. If he has, say, 200-horses in training, he would have at his disposal, perhaps, 50 top-class employees at a time when the shortage of staff is one of the major problems affecting horse racing in both Ireland and Britain. If a cap of 150-horses (or any number from 100-upwards) is imposed, he would have to lay-off a small percentage of his staff, all of whom would very quickly be snapped-up by trainers presently stifled by not having top-class staff in their yards. I believe, at this moment in time, a cap on the number of horses any one trainer can train in any one season would benefit the sport as a whole.
Yes, a cap might be difficult to police as horses get injured or owners transfer horses to other trainers and trainers would always be having young stock come into the yard that might not necessarily run that season. And then there is the potential problem of trainers’ having pre-training yards or secondary stables where injured and resting horses are kept.
A cap might though twist the arm of owners with a large strings to their bow to send, no doubt their lesser horses when it comes to Mullins, to other trainers, giving them a leg-up and allowing many of them to have a little jam on their bread. Of course, trainers could get around the cap by setting-up their sons or daughters as trainers to benefit from the spread of owners and horses, thereby keeping owners in-house, as it were. But as of now, even if a cap could be construed as a restraint of trade, a limitation on the number any one-trainer could have at his/her disposal would benefit the sport to better effect than restricting trainers to 4 or 5-runners per race.
Tough economic times require tough decisions to be made by those in position of power and influence. Long-term, the sport will wither on the vine if only a few people mine all of the riches all-of-the-time.

​47-sleeps to total Irish domination. If only that were tongue-in-cheek.
Here’s an idea. Why not switch the Victor Chandler permanently to Trials Day at Cheltenham and stage a few other trials for the Festival at Ascot? The 3-mile Lightning novice chase could, perhaps be brought forward from its date in February. Paul Nicholl’s, talking about Stay Away Fay, seemed to think its present date in the calendar is too close to the Festival. Also, a trial for one of the novice hurdles, with the mares hurdle run this season at Doncaster on Saturday, switching to Ascot.
Running a trial for the Champion Chase seems, at least to me, a better fit for Trials Day than Ascot and as no horse would be asked to run in both the Victor Chandler and the 2-mile chase at the Dublin Racing Festival, I can’t see there ever being a clash between the two. For the benefit of the sport racecourses must compromise and work in harmony with each other.
Saturday clearly demonstrated the saturation of top-class horses trained in Ireland. Yes, Sir Gino emerged as a worthy favourite for the Triumph Hurdle but he was an outlier on the day. Lossiemouth looked exceptional, treating with contempt rivals that were all in the top bracket as far as British-trained horses are concerned. Clearly Willie Mullins has a plan for her that doesn’t include the Champion Hurdle this season, with the Mares Hurdle looking a shoo-in for her. Before tape-up, I thought Love Envoi’s 2nd to Honeysuckle in last year’s Mares Hurdle was by far the best form in the race, yet she was brushed aside as if she were nothing more than an inconsequence. Trained by anyone else, Lossiemouth would be Champion Hurdle bound, with the majority believing she had a shot at bringing down Constitution Hill. Mullins’ though, has two other strings to his bow for the Champion Hurdle, even if no one could have any confidence either will worry Henderson’s hero as they reach the climb to the winning post.
The big worry for supporters of British-trained horses for Cheltenham was Capodanno winning the Cotswold Chase. I seriously fancied him for the Grand National last season, thinking him a top-class horse, favourably-weighted, trained by a genius and largely overlooked. Race-fitness caught him out at Aintree, running and jumping well until his long lay-off caught up with him. He is now being aimed at the Ryanair and with Allaho ruled out due to injury, it’s hard to have any confidence any horse getting the better of him, certainly not a British-trained horse. Doubtless, Aintree will not be on his agenda this season.
The joy for me of the Cotswold Chase was the performance of Ahoy Senor. Yes, he finished last of four but it was, given he has pulled-up in his previous two races, his first proper race of the season and, for him, he jumped wonderfully well. And, of course, Stephen Mulqueen displayed the extent of his natural horsemanship when the stirrup leather failed three-out, at a point when he seemed as likely the winner as any other. Of course, Lucinda and Peter now have a dilemma to overcome, will it be Derek Fox or Mulqueen on Ahoy Senor come the Gold Cup. No disrespect to Fox, but I would stick with Mulqueen, especially as the team also have Corrach Rambler for the Gold Cup. My faith in Ahoy Senor is restored.
Mind you, the horse that is coming nicely to the boil for the Gold Cup is The Real Whacker. He ran on stoutly on Saturday and his front-running style might, just might, unsettle Galopin Des Champs.
James Bowen is a wonderfully talented horseman destined to become stable jockey at Seven Barrows whenever Nico de Boinville retires. To me, given Jonbon is not a straight-forward ride, he didn’t really gel with Jonbon in the Victor Chandler and possibly will wake-up this morning wishing he had done several aspects of the race differently. His sit at the fence at the top of the hill was remarkable and doubtless cost Jonbon the race but it has to be admitted that it was Jonbon’s worst display of jumping since switching to fences. I wouldn’t be surprised if the horse trots up stiff and sore this morning. I just hope if he is, it will be nothing to prevent him returning to Cheltenham in March. As was said on Saturday, Jonbon has run poorly in the past and still won at the Festival and I wouldn’t rule out him doing so again.
The downer on Saturday was that Ireland won the trials for the Gold Cup, the Champion Hurdle and the Stayers Hurdle, with Willie Mullins also scooping the mares hurdle at Doncaster and Gordon Elliott winning the juvenile hurdle with a horse now unbeaten in five races. We are doomed. Yet could Scotland be our salvation? In Lucinda we trust.

​Horse racing has given me the greatest amount of pleasure of my life, daily it is the pivot on which my life revolves, and thus it saddens me to the point of the precipice that the sport may not survive for more than a few decades, if that, beyond my demise. Finally, racing journalists are cottoning-on to similar dystopian predictions, not that anyone has any gold-standard solutions to halt the downward slope to oblivion. If only James Bond was real and a horse racing enthusiast!
Let’s be clear, there is a political agenda, not yet worldwide, though driven by foreign influence, to limit human interaction with animals that are both classified as domestic or reared for human consumption. Indeed, the World Economic Forum has plans to ban rice-growing, coffee plantations, dog and cat companionship, as well as their known targets of car-ownership, fossil fuels and limit human rights, freedom and the basic principles of democracy. All in the name of saving the planet from a problem of their choosing.
Why do you think the Gambling Commission of Britain is dead-set on Affordability Checks or the Irish Government has plans to ban betting advertisements during daylight-hours on t.v. and satellite broadcasting, while allowing the Lottery to be advertised during the same embargoed period? It is, as with every aspect of the W.E.F.’s ‘Great Reset’ agenda, a plan long in the naturing, based on the logic that no one will notice their dastardly plan if it is covertly established over a long period, rather like the frog that doesn’t know it’s being boiled alive until it is too late to do anything about it.
I believe National Hunt racing in Britain and Ireland will be the first to succumb. It is one of the reasons why I am so vehemently opposed to the continual changes to the Grand National as it represents a slow walk hand-in-hand with Animal Rising/Climate Activists who are the front-line of the ‘You Will Have Nothing and Be Happy’ agenda of their W.E.F. paymasters. Fifteen-minute cities need a large footprint and racecourses and golf courses are the sort-of open-spaces required for the development of such warden-controlled urban sprawls.
Activists cannot be seen to advocate the euthanizing of a hundred-thousand racehorses, mares and assorted other animals kept for sporting purposes. Activists believe we do not care for the animals we race, breed-from or merely keep out of love and respect for them. They believe they care more, not that any one of them cries for the loss of a single racehorse. So, the process of extinction will be slow, a phasing-out that, I believe, has already started. Make the sport financially out-of-reach of the majority of people, cut funding steams to set in motion the slow boil and bring into play the idea of a ‘social licence’ and hundreds-of-years of sporting and social history teeters at a precipice. 
Animal Rising want racehorses let loose on National parks and land sequestered from landowners, to fend for themselves. Naïve. Stupid. And so on.
And don’t argue that the British Government would not sanction the extinction of horse racing because they need the tax revenue that comes from betting to help fund the infrastructure required to bring the fifteen-minute cities into fruition. Or that the Minister has reiterated the value of racing to the economy. In the worldwide ‘close-your-eyes and hope for the best’ dash for electric-battery cars to replace petrol and diesel on our roads, governments are letting slip even larger tax revenue streams. What did you think the covid vaccinations were for? Did they provide a barrier against the virus? Why did every country deny that herd immunity would stop the virus, when we all know it was herd immunity that finally brought an end to the Black Death, a virus that killed half the world’s population? Big Pharma is owned lock, stock and barrel by the elitist megalomaniacs who are funding ‘the future’ of their own design. During the covid and vaccine period of world history, Bill Gates and his billionaire associates all doubled their personal wealth. Think on that! They have gained enormously, while we have had our incomes slashed!
When the bulldozers were being lined-up to destroy Aintree racecourse in the late sixties, even as a child I thought seriously of taking the train to Liverpool with the purpose of – I didn’t know what but I wanted to do something to save the home of my dreams and expectations.
At the other end of my life there is nothing I can do to save the sport I love beyond anyone or any other aspect of life but to vote accordingly at the next General Election, for my one vote to help stop the W.E.F./W.H.O. aligned Tories or Labour achieving a majority in Westminster. I will vote Reform and hope I never have to walk towards the precipice. To quote Private Frazer. ‘We are doomed, I tell you. Doomed!’
Perhaps not. But we will be history come, say 2050. Not that I shall live to witness the fate of my doomsday prophesy.

​I often wonder how many of the staff at the B.H.A. read the Racing Post. Does Julie Harrington have the paper delivered to her home or does she subscribe on-line? Perhaps the industry newspaper awaits her on her desk at B.H.A. headquarters? You see, and I dare say I am being unfair, but I am continually made uneasy by some (or most) of the decisions to come from Portman Square – it is as if the administration of the sport is regarded by the sport’s overlords and protectors as merely a logistical exercise, a moving about of all the pieces from 9 to 5, followed by a dash to the exit and back into a world they are better at ease with.
The horse-racing industry is a complicated, nuanced sport; it cannot be learned scholastically or from hearsay. To oversee and administer the sport, a depth of knowledge would be needed, don’t you agree?
Ascot could not race on the Saturday and I have no quibble with the meeting being called-off. But could they have raced on the Sunday? And would Willie Mullins have sent El Fabiola across the Irish Sea if the conditions of the race stated, that if at all possible, the meeting would be staged on the Sunday if the weather intervened on the Saturday? The other alternative, with Lingfield almost certain to go ahead, why couldn’t the race have been slotted into the final day of the Winter Millions meeting?
The point is this: it is accepted opinion that National Hunt is being diminished due to a general lack of competitiveness and in particular the top horses being kept apart until the Cheltenham Festival. The Victor Chandler was a race to look forward to with much anticipation. A mouth-watering clash was promised between the top 2-mile chaser in Ireland and the top 2-mile chaser in Britain. 
Willie Mullins had already announced that if the race was held-over for a week and prize-money reduced, as so often happens when a race is rescheduled, that he would keep El Fabiola for the Dublin Racing Festival. It was not an ultimatum or an exercise in arm-twisting. Mullins was planning what was in the best interests of the horse and its owners.
Although the rearranged race is not quite the penalty kick for Jonbon it might have been if El Fabiola had skipped the race if run at Ascot last Saturday, he will be long-odds and we will learn nothing that we don’t know already. 
The sport, and Premierisation if it is be a success, especially through the winter months, needs clashes that excite the punter, the media and the spectator. El Fabiola versus Jonbon was such a race and because of a lack of foresight from the B.H.A. and, perhaps, a stick-in-the-mud attitude by sponsors, the race we were looking forward to is lost, replaced by a substitute affair that does not spark the imagination.
Is it asking too much, especially through the winter months, to have it stated in the conditions of major races (and meetings as a whole) that if the weather causes abandonment on the Saturday, if possible, the meeting will be staged the following day? Yes, Ascot and Lingfield staging meetings on the same day is far from convenient and ordinarily I would be critical of two local racecourses having meetings on the same day but better a little inconvenience than having potentially the most exciting race of the season thus far ripped from our grasp.
Lingfield was fit to race. Ascot is situated in close proximity. Couldn’t the groundstaff have taken the covers off the course and allowed the rising temperatures to have done its work? If Ireland can reschedule within days of an abandonment, why can it not be done in Britain? Why can’t the B.H.A. think-ahead and put into place alternative venues for the major races if the weather should spoil our fun? 
The Cheltenham Festival can only be staged at Cheltenham. The Grand National can only be run at Aintree. And though races like the Victor Chandler should be run at the course where it is traditionally held, where is the harm in having a potential relocation in the conditions of the race in case Mother Natures takes command of the situation?

​I dare say it is because at heart I am unromantic and cynical, an all-round miserable sod, that my surname namesake, Henrietta Knight, has never really tickled my fancy. She was, and may prove to remain, a top-class trainer of steeplechasers and I admire and respect her allegiance to the sport. Yet I have never warmed to her, which is doubtless my loss, not her loss.
I do though warm to her as a writer of racing books and I particularly enjoyed ‘Starting From Scratch’ (Inspired To Be A Jump Jockey), which sits next to Terry Biddlecombe’s autobiography ‘Winner’s Disclosure’ on the bookshelf here. Her 2018 publication ‘The Jumping Game’ will also sit next to her late husband’s book, which will require displacing one other book and attempting to find room for it on another shelf as it is unthinkable for Henrietta’s two books not to stand either side of Terry’s book.
I have come late to ‘The Jumping Game’ and should have purchased it when it first came out. Why I erred, I cannot say. Sometimes important matters either pass me by or slip my memory. ‘The Jumping Game’ is an accompaniment to ‘Starting From Scratch’, with the theme of ‘How National Hunt Trainers Work and What Makes Them Tick’. As with most sporting books when as soon as they are published, they gradually become more and more out-of-date and reading ‘The Jumping Game five-years after publication is akin to reading a history book.
In 2018, for instance, Willie Mullins had not trained a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, whereas in 2024 he has bagged three, with a fourth most likely waiting on the horizon for him. Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson remain the top two trainers of National Hunt horses in Britain, with no one coming out of the pack to challenge their supremacy, though as he has done since 2018, Dan Skelton continues to strive to close the gap.
What Henrietta skilfully achieved in this book, is that though she is happy to give her opinion, she doesn’t directly challenge the training principles of the trainers she visited. For instance, she is a proponent of loose schooling horses, sending around a barn jumping without a rider on their backs. Other trainers do not loose school their horses, and yet every trainer she visited is equally successful if you take into account the differences in number or quality of the horses under their care.
She only mentions Best Mate five-times and her late husband Terry 7-times, which displayed great restraint. It would have been very easy to boast about her past achievements and compared herself to the trainers who consented to be interviewed for the book. It is obvious that she is greatly respected in the racing world and would be a vaunted visitor to any racing yard. What would be interesting, given she did give the slightest of hints in the book that she had not entirely ruled out returning to the training ranks, is how she might have changed her approach to training after inspecting all the different training surfaces, stable routines and thoughts of the participants who comprise the book.
Though she definitely has her own long-held opinions, augmented by the wisdom imparted by Terry during their partnership, she is a thoughtful woman and would not be slow to change tack if she considered improvement could be found in adopting someone else’s methods.
I thought the chapter on Peter Bowen was the most enlightening and that the two principles most top trainers adhere to are air-flow through stables and barns and turning horses out into paddocks during the day, both with the aim of horses getting as much clean air into their lungs as possible. What surprised me the most – Venetia Williams does not believe in grooming horses, which flies in the face of everything I have believed in and what all the great trainers of the past believed in and what is advocated in all the horse management books I have read. Grooming, I have always believed, stimulated the oils in the skin to produce a shiny coat. Apparently, though, it can make horses grumpy. We live and learn, and in this case, dispute. Not that I would dare challenge Venetia on the subject as I suspect she would eat me alive.