the racing calendar.

​I dislike the concept of ‘premiership racing’ as it wreaks of elitism and that cannot be right when in the main horse racing is a working-class sport. Within the entanglement of the idea, though, I admit, there is a thread of common-sense. 
I have written before that if one-weekend in every four were to be given over to promoting the racecourses of Britain and Ireland that fall outside the ‘premier’ racecourses, I believe the sport as a whole, as a community, would benefit. I also have come around to the idea that British flat racing and National Hunt should not have to jostle for supremacy during the months of March, April and May.
During the hey-day of the sport, before the dual complication of all-weather racing and summer jumping, the two seasons were delineated, starts and finishes defined, boldly declared on calendars. These days, the situation is fuzzy, confusing, with neither the flat nor National Hunt having either a beginning or an end.
In fact, the mingling of the conclusion of the jumps season and the beginning of the flat resembles an elitist jumble sale in a cathedral. 
Post the Cheltenham Festival, we have all-weather finals day, the Lincoln, Aintree, the Craven meeting, Scottish Grand National, the Greenham, Sandown and the old Whitbread and then the Guineas meeting. With, of course, the Irish Grand National, Punchestown and the Irish trials for the upcoming Guineas in Britain, France and Ireland, adding to the mish-mash.
How the B.H.A. will deal with this six-weeks of the season as part of the ‘premiership’ scheduling of the 2024 race programme will make for very interesting reading.
My proposal, a work in progress, I admit, would be to limit by half the number of all-weather meetings for a 3-month period during the core flat season to increase the availability of horses to compete at the numerous turf flat meetings that are staged between June, July and August.
I would have no National Hunt meetings in May, with Newton Abbot, Worcester, Stratford, Market Rasen and Perth, given priority in June, July and August, with a limit of 3-meetings a week. I would then have a further hiatus of 2-weeks in October.
Limiting all-weather meetings in the summer, where they are less needed for betting turnover purposes, and curtailing the increase in summer jumping, is the easiest method of improving the competitiveness of British racing.
The Grand National in mid-April, though a one-off this season, is a good idea and as Aintree can now provide ground no worse than good, I would suggest staging the race at the end of April, giving the National Hunt season a fitting conclusion and some much-needed breathing space. This would allow six-weeks between Cheltenham and Aintree, necessitating, I admit, a clash with Punchestown. Yet that conundrum illuminates the tangled mess of having too much Grade 1 racing in so short a time period, especially when the National Hunt season in Britain trickles to luke-warm between Christmas and the Cheltenham Festival.
With the flat, the problem is that it starts with a whimper, then has ‘festival meetings in abundance’ through June, July, August and September. In a world where Ireland, France and every racing nation from the U.S. to Japan, Australia and Saudi Arabian are in competition for the best horses, with all of them offering far greater amounts of prize-money than either Britain and Ireland can afford, wouldn’t it be possible to cut back a wee bit in the summer festival schedule. Or, at least, become more inventive with the race programme?
There is greater latitude for change with the National Hunt programme. Stage the Cheltenham Festival a week earlier than tradition dictates, run the Imperial Cup and Midland National the day after. The Scottish National can then take-up the following week-end and the old Whitbread the Saturday before the Grand National, though I would alter the distance of Sandown’s feature race to around 2-mile 4-furlongs.
Tentatively, I would suggest a 9-month turf season starting in early March with the Lincoln – as a 40-runner race started from a barrier, as I have suggested many time before, the intention being to make the race a more stand-out feature and to give modern jockeys the opportunity to experience racing as their forebears knew it – the early programme devoted to racecourses, as with Bath, that suffer from firm ground during the core season, given priority, with a week in April for the traditional Guineas Trials. The Guineas in May, Derby (returned to the first Wednesday of the month) in June, Ascot in July, York Ebor meeting and Glorious Goodwood in September. Or something along those lines. The season coming to a conclusion in November with a plumped-up November Handicap. 
All complete nonsense, of course. The problem of non-competitive racing, a congested race programme, too much racing and embarrassingly low levels of prize money, ‘is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ as Sir Winston once said of Russia. The great man also said, both which could be said of horse racing at the present time in this country. ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning’. He also said, ‘to jaw-jaw is better than to war-war.’
Perhaps the legendary Captain Tim Forster had the best solution. ‘Get rid of flat racing’. Perhaps we should. Britain and Ireland dominate jumps racing, after all, so should we concentrate all our efforts on what we do best?