today is not the same as yesterday - perhaps it should be.

​The problem of small-sized fields and non-competitiveness that beleaguers National Hunt at the moment will soon be visiting flat racing in this country. National Hunt has its stronghold in Ireland and Britain, and to a lesser extent in France, especially the provinces. In most other racing jurisdictions jump racing is, at best, a minority equestrian sport and non-existent in most other countries.
Flat racing, though, thrives throughout Europe, the U.S. and Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, and latterly it is being used to boost the leisure industries of Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. And that is, if it is not already, a problem waiting to impinge on the competitiveness of racing here as more and more owners go in search of the mad money on offer for even the most modest of races run at the racecourses of those latter three aforementioned countries.
Britain and Ireland have the history and tradition, the rest of the world has the prize money.
Anyone researching the history of flat racing in Britain during the 1920’s through to the 1990’s will see a sport much different to now. The classic races thrived, of course, as did Royal Ascot, with for much of that 70-years the major race of the Royal meeting being the Ascot Gold Cup, a race that has become almost a novelty in this day and age. The City and Suburban run at Epsom was an important race, as was the Jubilee at Kempton, with the Lincoln a race every trainer and jockey aspired to win. The major races, races which might be reported on the front pages of the national newspapers, shone bright in the calendar. And that is the problem British racing has established for itself. Too much racing has swamped the calendar, with our prized gems hidden from the view of unbiased observers.
The Lincoln Handicap, for example, has become a nondescript handicap, the winner forgotten about in the headlong rush to get to the first classics of the season.
In the past, trainers of classic winners, for instance, were rarely asked about future plans as the racing calendar set in stone the route from Newmarket to Epsom and then Ascot, Goodwood and Doncaster. Now, as with the plans for City of Troy, after Epsom any port of call around the world is mooted, with Aidan O’Brien already talking about sending his latest superstar to Saratoga after winning the Epsom Derby, with even the Irish Derby not given a mention as a possibility.
I have argued the point for many years, and doubtless will do so until my final breath, but ‘we’ have allowed the Doncaster St. Leger to become irrelevant, almost a consolation race for three-year-olds that have failed to bag a big race throughout the season, yet it has the prestige of being the oldest classic in the world. And as far as modern breeders are concerned, the English St. Leger is an irrelevance and yet the B.H.A. and Doncaster bask in its reflective glory, ignoring the fact that in reality Britain only has four classics worthy of the status as a classic horserace.
If I had a voice to be heard or influence to promote change, I would upgrade the Eclipse at Sandown to classic status and, of course, restrict the race to three-year-olds only. The Doncaster St. Leger should then have money thrown at it, run over the same distance of 1-mile 6, a great selling point to my mind, so that it becomes an English Arc. If it were run a few weeks earlier than the Arc there is no reason why the two races should clash.
If the St.Leger meeting was to be held earlier than has been tradition, the whole of the racing calendar would need to be altered, and that is no bad thing. The flat season could easily be made into three parts, with the first part framed around the five classic races, the middle part the summer festivals and the major Grade 1’s and the final part framed around the big two-year-old races, with major handicaps bolstering the whole. And I would advise getting rid of a swathe of the Group 2’s and 3’ as they take-up a whole lot of prize-money and provide little in the way of competitiveness and betting revenue. They exist solely for the benefit of breeders and to make life easier for trainers.
The B.H.A. should bite the bullet and strip the calendar of summer all-weather racing and rein it back to what all-weather racing was intended-for – to be there when the weather forced abandonments in winter and spring. People bury their heads when talking about prize-money. It is a problem exacerbated by the explosion in all-weather racing. For nine-months of the year, all-weather tracks are unnecessary. 
Premierisation, I have come to believe, is a good idea being wasted. I would fight to the death to preserve our small racecourses and I believe with all my heart that the B.H.A. have a duty to ensure they not only survive but thrive. But they are not premier racecourses and premiership should be focused on our premier races and premier race-days. Royal Ascot will be five-days of premier racing; you cannot compare a day at Musselburgh or Plumpton with what is on offer at the Royal Meeting. You cannot have premier racing every weekend, the same as you cannot have Liverpool versus Manchester City every Sunday.
We need to go back in time and study the race programme for the 1930’s, the 1950’s and 1970’s. Strip out the unnecessary, shine a bright light on the best we have to offer and instigate a ‘for now’ policy and build from the ground up and not from the top-down. The past, I believe, is where the answers to most of our problems are to be found.