THE AUTUMN OF THE YEAR.

​This is my favourite part of the flat season. Not because the first fall of leaves herald the beginning of the end of the flat season. Not that the flat season ever truly ends. There is no full-stop to the British flat season. No definitive underlining. There is not even a pause. Any self-respecting analysis would surmise that the day the champion jockey is awarded his trophy would represent the final day of the season. But no. That would be too simple. Traditionally the season ended at Doncaster with the November Handicap. But no. That is only the end of the turf season and the start of the all-weather season, though that in reality is twenty-four-seven. The champion jockey is not even necessarily the jockey who rides the most winners during the turf season or even in the calendar year. No, the flat simply never ends, with one season running seamlessly into the next, as hitched as links in a chain.
This is my favourite time of the flat year because by and large, with the monstrous exception of the puffed-up and phony Champions Day, the big races are the races of British racing history. The St.Leger, the Cambridgeshire, the Cesarewitch, the November Handicap, the Middle Park. Once upon a time you could have included the Newbury and Liverpool Autumn Cups.
I have reservations about the status and value of the St.Leger. I am a died-in-the-wool traditionalist but though the last of the classics has revived in recent years it remains, to my mind, the poor relation, with its position in the calendar set so far away from the other four classic races it seems almost an outcast. I have made the suggestion that the Eclipse should be restricted to three-year-olds and upgraded to classic status, with the St.Leger reinvented as Britain’s most valuable horse race, an all-age rival to both the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe  and Melbourne Cup. But that is a debate for another day.
I steer clear of involving myself in dispensing tips, and with good reason, but I thought earlier in the season that Southern France looked a typical Coolmore late bloomer, the sort to come out and win the St.Leger. Kew Gardens, to me, looks a little on the weak side and may prove to be a superior four-year-old than a three-year-old. I wouldn’t give up on him, though I wouldn’t follow him over a cliff between now and next summer.
The Cambridgeshire is my favourite mile handicap of the season. I know for certain it is just everyone’s favourite one-mile, one-furlong race. I just hope they do not do to the Cambridgeshire what they have done to the Cesarewitch and make it a race for the elite and kill outright all of its centuries of romance. Tales of gamble won and lost, the great horses who have either won the race on the path to greater glories or won it simply because it was a race great horses ran in. It can be won by a plunged-on 2/1 favourite or a 100/1 outsider. If I had my way I would promote the two big Newmarket autumn handicaps as it was in their hey-day – the Autumn Double.
Instead of throwing a million-quid at the stayers’ race, and ruining the race in the process, throw the million-quid to any trainer/stable that can win both races, with bonuses for jockeys and with a big prize for any punter who can find the first three in each race. Or at least a super-bet that combines both races.
As he normally is, Matt Chapman is right in his tirade at the reframing of the conditions of the Cesarewitch. I have long said we need in this country a race to rival the Melbourne Cup and while that race remains a handicap the Ebor would be the race to promote, though in time my new St.Leger would be my preferred option.
I am all for encouraging breeders to breed staying horses. The preference for sprinters and milers does nothing this side of the pond for the welfare of horses. What use is a sprinter after its racing days are over? A stayer has many more options open to them, even if it is only as a hack. But what this sport also needs is more owners, preferably owning home-bred horses and races like the Cesarewitch give the one-horse syndicate or owner a realistic opportunity to win a big pot and become part of British racing history. This realistic opportunity is now to be taken away and given on a plate, a golden plate, to Coolmore, Godolphin, Juddmonte or any organisation with a huge string of horses. This is not criticism of the aforementioned. Flat racing owes them a great debt. But their season will never revolve around winning a back-end handicap and their joy will be small in comparison to an owner of one horse, and as Matt Chapman rightly said, from next season the race will have six Coolmore horses, six Godolphin horses and so on and so on. If you change the whole ethos of a race you should change its name too. Since the Grand National was altered the romance, if not the drama, has gone from the race. Little-by-little this is happening with all major races and racing is the poorer for it. Horse racing should be all-inclusive and what is happening with increasing regularity is that the rich are consuming the less rich and the sport is being governed for their protection, to the detriment of everyone else.