JOCKEYS CHAMPIONSHIP, MALTESE CROSS, CONSTITUTION HILL & OUT-OF-STEPS AND POSSIBLY OUT-OF-IDEAS.

Firstly, my apologies for the late arrival of this slog'n'blog, which is due to the death last night of one of our older cats. Because of the heat at the moment, his death required a quick burial which we undertook at six o'clock this morning. We may have started early in the morning but we did not complete our task until 8.30 am due to the foreman of the work insisting the hole be a good one-foot deeper than strictly necessary. No blood was spilt; no voices raised. A cat had died, the moment required solemnity and teamwork, which was duly delivered.

Being unable to sleep last night, I read today's Racing Post between the hours of 10-30 pm and 11.30, which now requires me to be able to read my scribbled notes and to do a fair amount of remembering. Here goes.

After riding five-winners at Windsor Friday evening, Oisin Murphy nailed his colours to mast with a promise to do all he can to retain his jockeys championship title. Due to his excursion to Killarney last night, he is now one behind Billy Loughnane, with Rossa Ryan making steady progress on both of them. As I have said a good few times now, three-years ago I predicted Loughnane would be champion jockey within 3-years, so if he fails to lift the trophy this season he will have sunk my prediction and lost my affection for him. It is up to him now. As I have often said, it is a mad procedure when the jockey who lifts the title trophy is not necessarily the jockey who has ridden the most winners in that season. The jockeys' title, I believe, should start on the first-day of the flat turf season and end on the last day of the turf season, with no all-weather winners counting towards the championship. There should be a second championship dedicated to the all-weather and perhaps a third trophy for the jockey to ride the most Group races in the period between Champions Day of this year and next, allowing a champion to be crowned at the meeting, a meeting very short on genuine champions.

Finally, though not finally, not for this slog-a-blog, the Epsom Derby form has received a boost by Maltese Cross winning the Grand Prix for William Haggas and Tom Marquand. He beat a small but select field of 3-year-old colts and must be the best middle-distace horse of his generation outside of Ballydoyle.

The madcap ambition of Michael Buckley to take a 9-year-old ex-jumper, winner of two okay novice races on the all-weather, to Australia for the Melbourne Cup has resurfaced. The great horse, who must now be back in training, will resume his foray on the flat by running at Windsor at the end of August. Given the need for softish ground for Constitution Hill, how likely is it that they will transport the horse all the way to Oz only to find firm ground at Flemington? To me, there must be a whole swathe of suitable races for the horse in Britain, Ireland and on the continent, allowing the horse the opportunity to build-up an impressive flat c.v during the oh so few years left to him. He is a hurdler, passed the age of prime, turned flat race and as Ted Walsh once famously said, this is not Hollywood. Then there is the not so small matter of the veterninary examinations and the c.t. scans. For a horse that has run, and fallen, over hurdles for 4 to 5-years, he must have acquired the sort of knocks and knicks that vets down under seem to think to be too great an embarrassmant risk for the race. Stay at home, Michael. Enjoy seeing him winning in his own class. He owes you nothing, while you owe him big time.

The tidal wave of dismay that has reached The Racing Post from disgruntled trainers and owners and beyond suggests that the B.H.A. is out-of-step with popular opinion in rejecting Peter Savill's application to be their next Chair. They were not even interested in his rescue plan for the sport. Nigel Payne, too, was rejected. The fear now, as the B.H.A. refuse to make public the runners and riders for this position of power, if diluted power, is that the next chair will be a new boy, someone who will have to ask for advice from those with greater knowledge of the sport and will be impotent for the first year of his tenency of the Chair while he (or she) gets 'up to speed'. A job for the boys job, as so ofen happens when this sort of job is up for grabs. I wonder if John Gosden has applied as it will take someone of his esteem to please an industry desperate for change, for new ideas and a finance stream that can be grown into a cascading river of growth.