sheikh mansour, prince sultan, the never to be forgotten Spanish Steps.

​I am not suggesting that Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is any way attempting to incrementally take over the world of sport. After all, as far I am aware, he is yet to show any interest in darts, canoeing or slalom skiing, what right-minded billionaire would. But he does own within a consortium a dozen or so top-flight football clubs around the world, including Manchester City, as well as over 900 Arabian horses, a department of horse racing in which he is a leading owner and breeder.
Now, which I dare say is good news for the world of thoroughbreds, he has purchased Haras de Fresnay-le-Buffard, one of the great studs in France. His plan is to buy a cache of top-quality broodmares, breed them to the best stallions, in order to have his own stallions in the future. To make his own stallions, of course, he will have to race the prodigy of his broodmare band and I would imagine, as he is basing his breeding interests in France, that it will be French trainers who will benefit from his involvement in the sport.
I must admit to having no love of Manchester City football club, though, mainly because of the top English players who wear the faded blue and white, I do follow with interest their ladies team. As with Man City, the Sheikh will buy his way to the top, which rather alienates me from him. My preference, and my allegiance, always goes to the small man/woman who starts with nothing but hope and achieves success through hard graft. One must not be mean-hearted, though. The Sheikh’s involvement in flat racing, even if it is French racing that will be the beneficiaries of his largesse, can only be good for a sport desperately in need of investment and big-time players to take the place of the even bigger names we have lost over the past few years.

The one Arab owner the sport can do without is Prince Sultan bin Mishal Al Saud who owes Richard Hannon £320,000 in training fees and who has been placed on the Forfeit list, meaning he cannot have a horse run in this country until he has settled his debt. How anyone, even a trainer as successful as Richard Hannon, can be expected to run a business, to pay his staff and the many overheads concerned with the maintenance of a large stable these days, when someone seemingly expects the four-horses lodged at Herridge Stables to be trained for free, is a matter Wetherbys and the B.H.A. need to answer. 
Owners, I believe, should pay their training fees through Wetherbys and when it is noted that an owner is falling behind with his financial commitments, he or she should be moved to the forfeit list until the debt is cleared. This may muddy the waters for some trainers who perhaps have a more flexible finance plan with certain owners, but it is a fact that we do not live in a land of plenty and no trainer should be placed in a position when he or she is sustaining the owning interests of an owner who is not playing with a straight bat.

This website has been in operation since 2018, I believe. Yes, I should know, and yes, I should look it up. I am old, though, with a memory shaped and functioning like a sieve and as Homer Simpson once said – when I learn some new stuff, some of the old stuff just falls out. I will look-up the history of this self-righteous and self-opinionated website and I will get back to you. Just do not wait up, though, as I am as forgetful as a goldfish.
Anyway, to get to the point. In the history of this website, I have written many hundreds of articles or essays or whatever you might want to describe the pieces you can now find almost a daily basis and by a huge margin – actually, if you add together all the contacts I have received on topics other than Edward Courages’ greatest horse, the number would fall well short of the contacts I have received about Spanish Steps.
If you have not heard of Spanish Steps – and not the 3-year-old that came of Ballydoyle a few seasons back. Boy, did that get my back up! – shame on you! Look him up. He raced from the 1966-67-season till the Grand National of the 1975/76 season and won the Hennessey Gold Cup in 1969. He also ran in the 1973 Grand National, finishing fourth, yet inside the all-time course record and the greatest horse race of my lifetime.
I still receive e-mails about him. Only yesterday I receive an e-mail from the son of the man who used to ride for Edward Courage and who then broke-in Spanish Steps.
One fact that tells a story within itself and which many might not know is that Jack Morgan, long-time head-lad to Edward Courage and ostensibly trainer of the Courage horses, choose to be buried next to Spanish Steps, such was his love of the horse. 
If you would like to research the horse, try finding a copy of Michael Tanner’s book ‘My Friend Spanish Steps’. Do not ask to borrow my copy as it is a treasure I intend to have buried alongside me. I cannot have the honour of being beside my all-time equine hero for eternity but I will have his life-story.