the passing of racing legend.

​When someone like Joe Mercer dies, a former jockey who you have always regarded as one of the supreme riders of your lifetime, a jockey who was at the top of the sport during not only your formative introduction to horse racing, he began riding in 1953, a year before my birth, and was there at the heart of the summer sport into ones own middle age, the passing reinforces the reality that you too are closing in on your own demise. I read the birthday list in the Racing Post daily and I find it hard to believe that the jockeys of my early years are now in their sixties, seventies and eighties. Where have the years flown to? Why is it in my head I am the age I was when Joe Mercer retired, 1986, and yet all the evidence suggests I too am old enough for my passing to be no surprise to anyone who knew me back then?
Only recently, I.T.V. broadcast an old interview by Brough Scott with Smokey Joe, pipe-smoking as you would expect, reminiscing on his time in the saddle and it was a joy to see him fit, if older, with seemingly a long retirement ahead of him. Sad, and yes, I know, life is simply a coming and a going and Joe, as with all us, has now left this earthly realm. I hope he died happy and his family will rejoice in the respect he engendered throughout his life, and if there is an afterlife, let’s hope he is reunited with his brother Manny, killed in fall at Ascot racecourse just as Joe was making his mark as a jockey.

When Joe Mercer began his career there was very little sponsorship of races and as he progressed historic horse races became ever more frequently taken hostage by commercial interests and while in National Hunt the sponsorship of Whitbread and Hennessey kickstarted the resurgence of the sport and the support of global companies elevated the prize money on offer for the classics and other prestige races, there has been consequences that I believe have had a negative effect on the sport. I refer to the decline in importance, and indeed in some cases the complete loss, of races that in Joe’s day were considered by owners, trainers and jockeys as being of high importance.
I believe the B.H.A. could do the sport, both flat and National Hunt, a great service if the majority of these lost and diminished races could be restored to the race calendar. I refer to races like the Great Metropolitan which since Epsom retired its longer course has been reduced in distance and prestige. It was of race of enough significance for Captain Sir Cecil Boyd-Rochfort to include in his list of major races won during his career. For the record he won it twice, in 1961 with Little Buskins and 1964, with Gold Aura.
Other races that should be considered for a reboot are the Rosebery Memorial at Kempton, the Jubilee Handicap, the City and Suburban at Epsom, the Queen’s Prize, the Great Yorkshire Chase, the Gainsborough Chase, and those sponsored inspired novice hurdle and chase series, the Panama and Wills races. And I might also add those major races that were run at racecourses now defunct, like the Derbyshire Handicap and the Manchester Cup.
We have sacrificed continuity to the demands of commercialism. I am not suggesting reinstating the old will be a panacea for the ills of today. Far from it. We are in desperate need of visionaries with bold plans to swell the sports coffers. Yet taking a step back might remind us all that though racing must be managed as a business enterprise, it is also very much a sport, a sport with a very long history and such races as the Jubilee (the Great Jubilee) and the Great Yorkshire Chase are embedded at the heart of that history. And, yes, nominally many of these ‘lost’ races remain in the calendar either much diminished in stature or under the blanket of a sponsors name, my point is that the Skybet Chase has little resonance, whereas the Great Yorkshire is a title as rich in provenance as a tapestry hanging in a medieval royal castle.