soon laid to rest, the man responsible, prediction & wrong emphasis.

​A quiet day, Thursday, 20th of February. In North Devon the weather is very much traditional February weather; wind and rain, with no respite forecast for several days. The weather was similarly wintry for the funeral of Michael O’Sullivan. Appropriate weather for such a sombre occasion, I would suggest. David Jennings attended the funeral, to both extend his condolences to a family so cruelly treated by fate and to give Racing Post readers an insight to an occasion that a week before no one could have imagined would feature on the front page of the industry newspaper.
As David Jennings wrote, ‘Ireland does a lot of things wrong, but we do funerals right.’ The newspaper is worth buying today if only for David Jennings report.
As an aside, how is it that in Ireland burials take place within a week of death, yet in Britain that period can be as long as 3-weeks? In Britain we do a lot wrong, funerals no exception.

Huw Irranca-Davis is the Welsh government’s deputy minister with responsibility for climate change and rural affairs. Firstly, Irranca would make a good name for a racehorse and I have added it to the list of possible names that in the fulness of time will appear on the dedicated page of this website that holds many thousands of possible names for thoroughbred owners to choose from if they are struggling to find a suitable name. It is a free service, though I ask anyone using a name from the list to donate £25 to any equine charity of their choice.
Back to business. As the minster responsible for climate change, he should be held responsible for his crimes against both nature and people. Climate change is a terrible thing and those, as with H.I.D., who are actively changing the climate for the worse should be apprehended, tarred and feathered and exiled to the melting ice-sheets of Antarctica. There should be no need of a trial as his job description, responsible for climate change, is enough to find him guilty as charged.
As for his undemocratic decision to take away the jobs of those employed in the greyhound racing industry in his country, to condemn to no life and little value all those greyhound puppies just born or that are still in their mother’s wombs, I would suggest the Welsh people should rise-up and march on the Welsh Assembly because after this undemocratic decision, taken to appease a noisy minority, what may come next is a ban on people keeping cats, dogs and rabbits as pets. That is the line of travel, my friends – it is thus written in the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’, the text of which is written across the heart of Sir Keir Starmer and is the unsaid doctrine of the Labour Party.

As anyone who occasionally visits this site will be aware, I know very little and have even less insight into what is going on. My wizard-like instinct, though, is telling me that Racheal Blackmore will retire either during this season or after Punchestown in May. It seems to me that there is a quiet changing of the guard at Henry de Bromhead’s at the moment, with Darragh O’Keeffe riding more of the horses, including the Robcour horses, than Rachael, with Mike O’Connor beginning to be given greater prominence. I may be wrong, I often am, and will be saddened if I am to be proved correct, but I predict we will soon be losing her from the jockey side of racing. 
With Bryony Frost now plying her trade in France, and if we are to lose Rachael too, there is no one to fill the void, no legacy for any female jockey to grab hold of. The era of female jockeys winning Grade I races may be over.

The headline ‘Winter Derby springboard to Bahrain target for Gosden’s Military Academy’ in today’s Racing Post annoyed me. It is only February; we are 3-weeks away from the Cheltenham Festival and races in Bahrain that will escape most of our memories by the end of April warrant a ‘trial race’ in this country. Not that the Winter Derby was originated as a trial for races in a foreign field, and, actually, the Winter Derby annoys me, given how it is given prominence at a time of the year set aside for National Hunt to be the main dish! Flat racing hogs the headlines and the t.v cameras from April to November, is that not enough or is the plan to begin that coverage earlier and no doubt continue longer?