the racing post is back! Yippee!

​At last we have news to set our hearts racing – Horse Racing will soon be back, as will, thank all the heavenly deities, The Racing Post. Yes, from Monday, the Post is back as a fully functioning hard copy newspaper. I doubted if it would ever appear again on the newsstands but with a happy heart, I admit to being wrong. I will, though, continue bemoan its cover price. The Racing Post is the newspaper of the racing industry, it is, or should be, the gateway to the sport for anyone wishing to better acquaint themselves with the Sport of Kings (or should that be Queens?). Yet at £3.50 – I think that is right. It’s been so long since I held the paper in my hand that I have forgotten what ridiculous price it was at the moment of its silencing, and it had only rocketed-up in price for a weeks, so the new price had not chance to burn its way into my memory. Though any price above £2 is detrimental to the sport, pricing itself out of a market that comprises thousands of people with half an interest in the sport though without any experience or knowledge of racing’s intricacies and funny phrases and sayings.
But at least it is soon to be accompanying my breakfast and for that I must propose three cheers. On Monday it will be very similar to finally being able to hug a long-lived loved-one who has survived these past long weeks under lockdown, victim to broadcast scare-mongering and political half-truths, and who is released to enjoy some of what remains of our civil liberties.
It disappoints me that only senior jockeys will be allowed to continue their careers, while their most financially stricken colleagues will have to wait their turn. I asked at the beginning of this Covid interlude if a race a day could be restricted to the journeyman jockey but it seems such charity is beyond the B.H.A. And, of course, no owner or trainer will be able to take advantage of an apprentices’ weight allowance and of course, as I wrote in my previous article, it will be mandatory for jockeys to wear face-masks, even though the science is unequivocal that prolonged use can cause health issues and suppress the immune system. But we are where we are; bad science is ruling the roost: the new normal, I suppose. Science is what politicians and global criminals want it to be.
All that said, I am looking forward to the flat season to a greater extent than for many a long year. I have always advocated no 2-year-old racing before June and thanks to the Bill Gates sponsored ‘health crisis’ I am granted my wish. I am sure 2-year-olds will stay sounder and more genuine for the extra time given to their limbs and minds to mature.
It will also be interesting to have classic races at virtually the beginning of the season. I have always advocated the classics being later, so that trainers are not forced into rushing their classic colts and fillies, though as the Coolmore horses traditionally need a race or two to reach prime fitness, other trainers may have an advantage come Guineas Day.
Though happy to have racing back and though I believe Nick Rust should be sacked for the lack of effort on the B.H.A.’s part to save the 2020 Grand National (they did have eight-months to reschedule the race, after all) I commend their efforts to stage the classic races and other big races, even if many will be staged at courses other than is traditional. I am disappointed, and I apologise if government has been lobbied on the subject, but if there is one sport where spectators could be accommodated with, it goes without saying, social distancing (even though there is no scientific grounds to suggest it is having any effect on limiting ‘the contagion’) it is horse racing. Newmarket is a huge open space, as good an opportunity to trial a large gathering of people as can be imagined. Not a full house, obviously, but 20% capacity could be easily accommodated without the sort of close encounters (of the everyday kind) to be seen on a daily basis in every supermarket.
Overall, and I doubt if my true sentiments are coming across, I am close to joyful that a small step is about to be taken back to something like normality. Though I hope for the sake of Mankind that where we are heading is not true normality, the lives of our experience, but a world that is based on ‘the new normal’, as dystopian phrase as I have ever heard.