JOHN GOSDEN, SENSIBLE YET QUIETLY OUTSPOKEN AND BORN TO RULE.

If you were to ask me to draw a list of names as possible candidates for the post of Chair of the B.H.A. John Gosden would be the first name I would write down. He claims to be in no rush to hand over the reins of Clarehaven to his son Thady just yet, which is a shame as in three or more years he might think himself too old to replace whoever receives the poison challice of Chair this time around. When it comes to the B.H.A., of course, this time around may well be a period of months or even half a year. Why they thought it an investment to spend no doubt six-figures on engaging a firm of headhunters to locate suitable candidates for interview when two prominent and experienced men have already put up their hands for the position is for the B.H.A. to explain. To me, though, the man with the best oratory skills, with the intellect of a Cambridge Don and the intelligence of a scientist, accompanied, of course, by a life-long career in the sport, is John Gosden.

Gosden is the featured interviewee in today's Racing Post and virtually everything he said chimed alongside my own thoughts of where the country is heading, the uncertain future of our sport, Royal Ascot (the actual racing, not the frippery of the socialites who adorn the enclosures with their colour-matched look-at-me threads) and the fate of the Epsom Derby.

Of course, it plumped up my ego no end to read that someone as eminent and well-respected as Gosden agrees with my thoughts on so many facets of our sport. We disagree on politics, though. As with too many people when in comes to politics he wants change and stability yet is scared to embrace the newer political parties, scared that the political party he was reared on and has supported no doubt all his life might be driven to extinction for being the progenitors of all that the Labour government are now enacting upon us. Reform will support racing and are intent on helping businesses big and small to survive and to thrive. Reform, John, are a conservative-thinking party. They are though forward-thinking, British to the core and in lockstep with the thoughts of the majority of British people.

From a personal perspective it was heartening to hear someone as respected as John Gosden align with my belief that the fate of the Epsom Derby is not being helped by the dominance of the very organisation that loves it the most, Coolmore, though I portion most of the blame on breeders for turning their back on stallions blessed with stamina and putting most of their mares to sprint stallions and horses that specialised in 8 to 10-furlong races. Coolmore dominate for reasons not unconnected to cherishing the Epsom Derby and breed accordingly. Gosden should be nudging his patrons that are owner-breeders to change their breeding policy back towards stallions that won over 12-furlongs+. The Epsom Derby will only keep its place in the top echelon of world races if breeders stop breeding for success in Royal Ascot races of 8-furlongs or less and aspire to winning at races that have been at the heart of flat racing for over a hundred-years.

I also agree with John Gosden when he suggests it would do no harm to run the Epsom Derby in July, though if he would to put that perfectly sensible idea to the B.H.A. their response no doubt would be to react as if he had suggested they part the Red Sea or the Thames at Putney Bridge, with the word 'impossible' repeated over and over. It is the same response I get whenever I suggest to ensure there is a long enough gap between the Cheltenham and Aintree festivals for the top horses to run at both meetings, Cheltenham should be staged a week earlier, with the Imperial Cup run on the Saturday after Cheltenham along with the Midland National at Uttoxeter. Good God no! is the usual cry. In fact it would easier for someone to part the Red Sea that it is for tradition to be slightly altered to something more befitting modern times.

The B.H.A. is, in the main, unfit to oversee horse racing in this country. It needs pure horseman within its ranks to get it up to speed and there is no one more likely to bring the diverse elements of the sport into one wholeness than John Gosden. Someone get in touch with him to argue him into sending his c.v. to the B.H.A. Cross-fingers!