AS I HAVE SAID A THOUSAND TIMES, WHY SIR GORDON WAS SO GOOD & ABUSE.

I hope Chris Cook will forgive me for quoting from his insightful and wonderfully written article in today's Racing Post. I wish I could write so clearly and with such an easy rhythm as Mr. Cook.

'How do you get people to adopt as their favourite sporting heroes a bunch of athletes who might compete six-times over a two-year period before disappearing through a trad-door?' In the following paragraph he used the word 'tristesse' which I did not understand, and after a search of my big Readers' Digest Universal dictionary, I remain ignorant of the definition of the word.

The answer to the question posed is easily answered, though difficult to achieve. What it needs is for horses like Bow Echo to stay in raining at least until their four-year-old careers. Bow Echo did not sustain an injury that would have prevented him from racing next season. The decision of those who made the decision on behalf of his deceased owner was based solely on grounds of self-interest. There was no thought towards what would be good for a sport in need of every little bit of help it can acquire. It is the same with Zavateri, a horse who looked, at least to me, if he would improve a bundle as a four-year-old. Yet here we have a sound horse, trained by one of the sport's most popular trainers, a horse who because of his trainer would have attracted a large following amongst racing fans, whisked off to stud long before he reaches maturity. Colts should not be allowed to stand as stallions until after their four-year-old careers and this could be achieved if all stallions had to be licenced, with payment for that licence coming from a small percentage of stallion fee. Yes, some owners will circumnavigate such a licencing system by standing their horses in another country, yet why shouldn't Ireland, France and the U.S. not follow suit. The sport of horse racing must come first. A thoroughbred on the flat, at the top level, can race for up to four-seasons; at stud that horse could cover mares for fourteen-seasons. I rest my case.

This is a day when I steal the thoughts of far better writers than myself. Next up is a paragraph from one the best books every written by an ex-jockey, 'Sods I Have Cut On The Turf' by Jack Leach. Published in 1961. Here he quotes Harry Wragg idea why Sir Gordon Richards had such great success as a jockey. The quotation marks are for Leach's writing, not the exact words of Wragg's.

'Harry Wragg's idea about it, which must be respected, is that Gordon, with his superbly light touch on the horse's mouth, which was just enough to keep it balanced, and his way of 'going with' his mount, allowed it to stride perhaps an eighth of an inch more than it could with any other jockey. I don't know how many strides a horse takes in a mile race. But let's say that when all out a horse strides twenty-five feet - then you don't have to be a great mathematician to work out that if Wragg's theory about Richards was correct, there is no doubt why he had such a bulge on everybody'.

No jockey in British racing history won more jockeys titles than Sir Gordon. Yet no one was jealous of him; indeed he was respected and revered by even those top-class jockeys he beat on a regular basis, any one of which would have been champion if not for Sir Gordon's presence in the weighing room. Because of recency bias, young 'uns having no personal knowledge of racing in the past and when lists of great jockeys are churned out, the name of Sir Gordon is never at the top, only a sidenote along the lines of 'oh, we have to remember Sir Gordon Richards', as if he were a rival of Fred Archer, when in fact his career overlapped the first dozen-years of Lester Piggott's career.

I cannot imagine sending abuse to a trainer or jockey. The only way I would offend a trainer or jockey would be give unwanted advice when they have a quandary on their hands, as with Nicky Henderson and the travails of Constitution Hill.

A report in today's Racing Post has the welcome news that abuse on social media of trainers and jockeys has decreased since the National Trainers Federation brought in an ex-policeman to track down these low-life keyboard warriors, with 25 cases referred to the police for further investigation and 140 cease and desist letters sent to those who feel they have the right to be abusive when a horse they have backed has not won. Apparently, many of these people apologise for their actions, not that I think that is enough to prevent them from some sort of punishment being metered out. Tar and feathering, perhaps?

It should be a privilege not a right to air personal views about someone on social media or in the comments section of YouTube channels. Free speech should be protected at all times but the right of the free man to express his opinions should be accompanied with respect, with no place for swear words and threats of harm. I hated the sight of Kier Starmer from before he became Prime Minister yet my public comments about him were never accompanied by bad language or threats to his life, for example. I am not on any social media platform and my comments are only through YouTube channels, a direct response to what I viewed. 

If you have lost money because a jockey has erred, to use a northern expression, 'let it lie'. One day you might make it big and you might be on the receiving end of such comments. What goes around, can come around. Personally, I never set out to cause offence on this website. I only hope to persuade people to think for themselves; to see my side of a debate in order for them to see more clearly where they stand on the issue. You have the right to an opinion the same as I do. But that does not justify the use of abuse to get your point across. Leave those trainers and jockeys alone. Life is too short to make an ass of yourself!