the queen at hexham, it will be disappointing, female jockeys on the up in ireland, only 9 & not so good names for a racehorse.

​To let you into a secret, it is two in the morning and I am not snoring. Also, we seem to have a problem with the electricity which is only affecting the lights and an inspection of the fuse box has determined that no switches are in the off-position. I will have to leave it to my other half when she rises from her slumber sometime after the dawn chorus to sort it. So I am operating under torch-light, which is kind of spooky at two in the morning.

Horse racing needs all the good news it can muster and Queen Camilla visiting Hexham yesterday, primarily to open a new stand named in her honour, was definitely good news, especially as she stuck around to ask for views from trainers and racecourse staff on the problems the sport is mired in at this present and pivotal time in its history. It seems both our king and queen have concerns for our sport and though their hands are constitutionally tied, we must hope that behind the scenes they can use their influence in our favour.

It will be disappointing if Elizabeth Gale, who rode her first flat winner yesterday, decides to turn her back on the National Hunt side of the sport to focus on the flat. She is fifteen-winners into her jumps career and though the flat may appear a less hazardous means of earning a living, she is receiving a lot of support from a whole raft of National Hunt trainers at the moment. Perhaps she should consider riding under both codes as Taylor Fisher is doing, though he may be injured as I have not seen him feature in the Racing Post recently. If girls stop hammering at the door, the imbalance between the sexes will never close.

After saying a hundred-times that there will be no Rachael Blackmore legacy if no female jockey is given the opportunity to advance their careers, I have to admit that in Anna McGuiness we might just be seeing the first flowering of Blackmore’s labours. McGuinness is attached, I believe, to Closutton and has already received a couple of rides from the master trainer and quite recently other trainers have started to use her. I also heard Ruby Walsh describe her as a talented rider, which should be endorsement enough for trainers to keep putting her up. And, of course, she will have ridden out with Rachael Blackmore at Closutton and no doubt taken advice from her.
Also in Ireland, a young female by the name of Burns, N Burns – for some reason in the 4-day declarations she is N Burns but on the day of the race she is Nicola Burns – is establishing herself. So perhaps the Rachael Blackmore effect is becoming reality on both codes.

It is a bit of a disappointment to have only 9-runners in the Epsom Oaks today, especially when the Derby has achieved each-way betting with a field of 19, more than enough for an office sweepstake. Why so many of the experts are overlooking Desert Flower on the basis that her pedigree suggests she is a miler I do not understand when Buick’s hardest task when riding her has been to pull her up at the end of a race. Charlie Appleby believes she will stay and so do I. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. 

To me, the names of horses are important. Yes, I have a thing about the French and Arabic languages used for naming a racehorse, though that is about being unable to pronounce foreign words and an inability to distinguish one Arab-named horse from another and the same with jumpers with part English part French names. But I am also all assy about names like Bubbles Wonky and Sugarpiehoneybunch, both winners yesterday, the latter at 28/1. There may be reasonable explanations for why these two horses were given the names they have, though I suspect in both cases a 5-year-old granddaughter was asked to choose a name and once she had spoken, there was no going back. I do though wish people would remember that once named, and once the horse has had its first run, that name cannot be changed. It may be fun to name a horse Sugarpiehoneybunch but this is a serious sport and I believe all aspects of it should be taken seriously.