response to extreme racing post negativity.

​Let me begin by saying that I believe there are far too many minor Group races on the flat in this country and if I had my way over fifty-per-cent of them would become limited handicaps. Listed and Group 3’s exist solely to ensure easy black type for the owners of fillies and mares to increase their breeding value and appeal to bidders at auction. They do nothing for the competitiveness of day-to-day racing.
Ireland, too, has too many soft Group and Graded races. But that is Ireland’s problem and one that in time they will sort out. In Ireland, it seems to me, as with all matters to do with racing, they have a surplus of time, so much they do not know what to do with it.
According to Lee Mottershead and others, horse racing in this country is ‘broken’. I disagree, at least when it comes to National Hunt. 
I contend that the situation the Racing Post addressed was brought into being by the inception of one race, the Betfair Chase at Haydock. This race was unnecessary at its inception and has remained a thorn in the pre-Christmas race programme every since. In fact, I surmise, that if it wasn’t for Kauto Star the race may well have sunk without trace very early on in its existence. 
The Betfair is run most years in bog-like conditions; the Irish, and Willie Mullins in particular, ignore the race, as does Nicky Henderson, and because of its proximity to the Ladbroke Trophy it is taking a toll on the quality of runners in which is the second-most important staying handicap chase of the season. To my mind, the Betfair or Lancashire Chase as it is registered but not known as, would serve the sport better if it was restricted to the previous season’s novices, allowing trainers a convenient path toward the King George at Christmas for the less experienced chaser.
To my way of thinking, the first half of the season should culminate over the Christmas period, with most of, British trained chasers, at least, clashing in the King George. And as much as I believe Sandown Park is one of the best racecourses in the world, deserving of top-quality racing at every meeting, at present it is in dire need of a good drainage system, a fact that undermines every major jump race it stages. If I had my way I would either move the Tingle Creek to Kempton, with the Desert Orchid going in the opposite direction or the Grade 1 status applied to Kempton’s Desert Orchid, with the Tingle Creek becoming a valuable prep race for Boxing Day. It is not the races that are the problem but the order in which they are run.
Mares hurdles and chases are highly important to the breeding side of National Hunt and in the main in this country, though not so much in Ireland, these races are reasonably competitive. But there should be disincentives for connections to continue running mares in these races at the expense of the steeplechasing and hurdle classic and semi-classic races. For instance, the mares hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival is not titled as a Champion Hurdle for mares and as such there should be a ratings cap in the conditions of the race, which would at least make it more competitive. I realise Honeysuckle is now to be aimed at the Champion Hurdle but it is ridiculous and unproductive for the sport for her to be allowed to run in much lesser race at the Festival when she is favourite for the Champion Hurdle or any mare of a similar calibre. Also, as things stand at the moment, the top hurdler in the country, Epatante, can receive 7lbs from lesser horses in every hurdle race she runs in. This cannot be right. As the Champion hurdler she should lose the right to the mares allowance; in deed any mare that reaches a rating similar to Epatante and Honeysuckle’s present mark should automatically lose the right to the mare’s allowance.
The race programme post-Christmas is, whether we like it or not, all about the route to Cheltenham. Every measure should be taken to encourage Nicky Henderson, for example, to campaign his top horses more vigorously up to the New Year, with enough prep races to have the top horses at their prime for the middle of March, which I believe there are. 
I have complained for years that we cannot without any surety claim that today’s hurdlers and chasers are as good as those that went before them in the sixties, seventies and early eighties, because those horses ran quite regularly in handicaps whereas at present Messres Henderson, Nicholls, Mullins etc would have a fainting fit if they were forced to run their top Cheltenham horses in any sort of handicap. Yet certain races deserve better quality runners, the Ladbroke Trophy and the Betfair Hurdle in particular. If Persian War could run in and win a Schweppes (now the Betfair) and then go to Cheltenham and win the Champion Hurdle why can’t Epatante, Buveur D’air or any of the contenders for the Champion Hurdle? The thoroughbred hasn’t changed that much in the past thirty-years has it? Or perhaps it is the trainers who have changed? Or the vanity of owners?
This is a subject a knowledgeable scribe could write a small book about. It is a subject that a hundred knowledgeable scribes could write a book about without any one of them agreeing with anyone else. But I will finish my two-pennies worth with this, and it is a fact the Racing Post did not mention: after the Cheltenham Festival there are big prizes to be won at Aintree and Punchestown, with the Fairyhouse Irish Grand National meeting and Sandown’s old Whitbread meeting also to be considered. In deed most of the big prizes in National Hunt are competed for in the final 3-months of the season; it is why Mullins and Henderson in particular do not get over-excited in October, November and December and, with the exception of the Dublin Racing Festival, they are not too invigorated by January and February either.