ronan, listowel & what we can learn.

​The French Derby winner, Look De Vega, will be ridden in this Sunday’s Arc de Triomphe by the oldest flat jockey currently riding at the top level in France. I have noticed his name for a long while and wondered how someone with the Christian name Ronan and the surname Thomas could be based in France. And apart from knowing he was born in Rennes, I have no idea. I suspect his father could be of Irish descent, why else would he be called Ronan, with Welsh antecedents somewhere within his family tree to answer why the surname Thomas.
If he were to win on Sunday, and he seems pretty confident of the horse being in the mix to go close, we might learn more about him. I looked him up but learned little other than he started his riding career over here and rode a few winners. To be honest, if I could understand the French language I would have learned a lot more about him. I did learn a bit of French at school but that was nearly sixty-years ago and I do remember feeling much better about myself when the little French I learned faded from my memory. At least I can still spell Arc de Triomphe, even if I struggle to pronounce Chantilly the same as the French do.

The Listowel Harvest Festival meeting is a cracking example of what the British summer jumping programme should look like. In the main, with the exception of a high-class Kerry National, the fare on offer was quite ordinary, and if you take the races individually, there would be little to spike the interest of people like you or me. Yet as a whole, it makes for a great week of racing.
Why can’t the British jumping summer programme be designed along similar lines? Ffos Las, Worcester, Newton Abbot, Perth, Market Rasen and Uttoxeter, would be prime venues for late spring, early summer, high summer and autumn festival meetings. In Ireland, festivals tend to be a mixture of flat and jumping and though only Ffos Las currently stages flat fixtures, it does not mean the other racecourses cannot do as they do for bumpers and pull-up the hurdles and stage a few flat races on the hurdle course.
I am not suggesting six and seven-day fixtures as with Galway and Listowel, though three and four-day fixtures must be doable. If Galway and Listowel can keep their courses fit for racing for an entire week, I cannot see why the courses listed cannot achieve the same.
There must be a highlight on the track, of course, plus a Ladies Day, a family fun day and so on, with, I suggest, a nod to the local area and perhaps local celebrations and history. I would suggest Ffos Las could stage a Welsh Classic of some sort on the flat, plus a Welsh Champion Hurdle. Worcester once staged flat racing and a summer festival would be a good time to reintroduce a few flat races.
Newton Abbot, a racecourse cursed by bad weather luck, have the advantage of many seaside resorts close to hand, which gives them a great marketing opportunity to fill the grandstands. Perth already stage two and three-day summer meetings and with a new management structure in place eager to build on Perth’s already fine reputation, I am sure they would engage in a more radical approach to summer jumping. 
As they are already home to the two major jump races in the summer period, the pinnacle of the programme should be at Market Rasen and Uttoxeter. The Plate at Market Rasen reflects the greater prize of the Galway Plate and should be seen as a British trial for Ireland’s most iconic steeplechase.
From late May through to the end of September, the focus for National Hunt should be on ‘Summer Festivals’, 3 and 4-day fixtures, perhaps with a smattering of flat races, with a central race to highlight the meeting, and with more than a passing nod at localness, local business, local trade and the tourist industry. In Ireland, the racing festivals are part and parcel of the local community and the B.H.A. should look to Ireland and organise our racecourses to try the same blueprint. It works wonderfully well in Ireland, why should it not work, at least if given time to put down roots, over here?