the racing seasons should be reconsidered.

​The flat season in Britain resembles, figuratively speaking, an expensive dress shirt when it first comes out of the washing machine. You can feel the quality of the fabric, even when it is crinkled, if not a mite deformed. But once dried and ironed it returns to its neat, showy best.
There is so much quality in the British racing calendar that it is done no justice by the almost apologetic way it opens each spring and by the ragged manner of its conclusion. Tomorrow is the beginning of November, the traditional start of the core National Hunt season, yet we still have flat fixtures mingling with both jump racing and the all-weather, with abandonments to flat meetings a common occurrence through the latter days of October and the early knockings of November.
Why couldn’t the flat season have ended last Saturday with the final Group 1 of the season, the Futurity at Doncaster? Why not run the November Handicap – yes, it was still October but what is in a name these days – alongside the Futurity to make it a more interesting card? Why must the flat season be dragged out to the point when it seems flat fixtures are just a road block put in place to deny National Hunt the limelight of television exposure?
It is the same with the all-weather. Though a traditionalist at heart, I have come to accept that all-weather fixtures play a significant part in the structure and financing of British racing. I dislike the slow creep towards giving all-weather more and more listed and minor Group races as all-weather tracks were instigated to prop-up betting revenue during those months of the year when National Hunt fixtures in particular were most likely to succumb to the weather. I see no point to the Winter Derby and believe all-weather finals day is a waste of precious resources and takes focus away from National Hunt at a time when the season is building to its glorious climax.
If I held any influence in the sport, I would make the all-weather a season within itself, separate from the flat season, with its own jockeys’ and trainers’ championship, with wins and prize-money not included in the various turf championships. I would have no problem with one all-weather fixture a day but only rarely more than one. And I would have a month in the summer without any all-weather fixtures to give the all-weather season a beginning and an end, with perhaps one valuable fixture on the last day for presentation of all the various championship trophies.
Neat, clean and defined edges to the seasons. Not messy as the flat turf season has become and removing the obscurity of beginnings and ends.
I would like to see the Grand National run earlier in the calendar, not as late as April 15th as it was last season, with Doncaster’s Lincoln meeting (see what I mean about what’s in a name? Lincoln is in Lincolnshire, not Yorkshire.) opening up with a bang, not as a whimper as has become the situation since the Lincoln lost all its prestige when it was inexorably linked with the Grand National as part of the Spring Double.
The Grand National should be staged on the Saturday before the start of the flat season, with the National season ending at Aintree. It’s all about peaks and valleys and at the moment both the flat and National Hunt seasons end either at the bottom of the valley or a distance from the peak. The F.A. Cup culminates at Wembley, not at Watford. The Wimbledon finals culminates on the Centre Court, not on Court 14. 
I have laid out my ideas for the Lincoln meeting many times before. In essence I propose the Lincoln would regain its notoriety in the sport, plus attract outside attention, if it were to be as it used to be, a 40-runner race started behind a barrier, to mimic the way the Grand National still holds elements of its history and to give flat jockeys a taste of what it was like for their forebears when there were no starting stalls. I would also have 5 or 6 other valuable handicaps on the card and design an I.T.V. 7 type bet around the day with a guaranteed first-prize of half-a-million quid in an attempt to focus the eye of the public on our sport for at least a day.
To wrap-up: the National Hunt season should start a week after the Grand National, with a month’s break in June or July, and should end on the day the Grand National is run. The flat should begin one-week after the Grand National and start with a bang and not a whimper and finish with the Futurity and the November Handicap run on the same day. The all-weather should be an 11-month season with a break in May or June, culminating with presentation of the various championship trophies, with no winners achieved during the season included in the actual jockeys’ and trainers’ championships.
Neat, clean and precise, with no messy edges. I rest my case.