racing cliches, it is about control, stupid & more informed information.

​The term ‘he likes to be fresh’, so loved in previous seasons by Dan Skelton, still regularly used by Paul Nicholls and now taken-up by Fergal O.Brien about Crampo who is due to run at Ascot this weekend, I have to come to abhor. What does it mean? Has Crampo whispered the advice in O’Brien’s ear? Or is the trainer simply grasping at the standalone fact that Crampo won first-time out last season and performed poorly in all subsequent runs? If Crampo does not win on Saturday, is this a clear message it is not worth supporting him for the rest of the season as his longest rest will have been between his last run last season and his first this season? Tell me the name of a horse that only ran once every six-months and won every time? Because is a horse truly ‘likes to be fresh’ it would only run once in a long while and Crampo, for example, will be running between now and Cheltenham if he gets stuffed on Saturday and if does go to Cheltenham without a run since Ascot this weekend, if ‘he likes to be fresh’ proves to be correct, he will only ever run twice a season.
‘He likes to be fresh’ proved very wide of the mark with Protektorat and is more often wrong when Paul Nicholl’s uses the term to exude his confidence in his own ability to get ‘one ready first-time out’.
The other phrase that jockeys and trainers trot out to explain an unexpected reverse is ‘there was not enough pace in the race’, when the obvious ploy to counteract a slow pace was to inject speed into the race by making a forward move. If you could not win due to the slow pace, how could a jockey make things worse for his horse by going forward and injecting the necessary pace himself?
Also annoying, though there are mitigating circumstances, many of which we are not privy to be told about, is ‘there are no races for these horses’, especially, Mr.Henderson, when beginners and novice chases come around and you do not have a runner and do take advantage of these ‘hens’ teeth of a race’ by running more than one horse. Mullins will run four in a beginners’ chase without turning a hair, so will Elliott.

When will racing people, especially journalists, wake-up to the bleeding obvious that restrictions imposed on punters by a) the gambling companies or b) the Gambling Commission or c) the government, is all about control. Whichever way this evil nonsense plays-out, gambling will not be an act of free-will on behalf of the punters but at the consent of a governing authority. As with privately owned cars, natural extinction of the racing industry is being brought about by small increments. The frog has no idea it is about to be boiled alive!

Returning to trainers and the work of journalists. A large number of pages in the Racing Post is given over to the thoughtful genius of its form experts, and to what trainers have to say about their runners in the spotlighted races of the day. We hear little from Tom Segal or Paul Kealy, for instance, on the reasons their tips and naps went down the toilet the previous day. Nor are trainers asked the following day why the horses they ran in the spotlighted races did not perform to the standard they expected. As someone who is not a bettor, as a rule I skip over the tipping pages, though I might be persuaded not to if the previous day’s tips were not already in the bin and explanation or excuse were to be written so the dedicated punter had informed information to chew on. Negative data is still data, after-all.