THE MADNESS OF LOVE ME TENDER, MEETINGS CLASH, AMATEURS & 1945.

Mr. Bradley of Goole, in todays letters column of The Racing Post, makes a very good point about this year's renewal of the Ebor Handicap. A wholesale gamble on Love Me Tender went down the pan, as we know, punters, drawn in by the magic of Willie Mullins, backed Love Me Tender, ridden by William Buick, as if they were 'all in the know', as if they could not afford not to back 'the next Ethical Diamond'. The horse did not have the form to win an Ebor, having won nothing of note in either France or Germany before his arrival at Closutton and had not run in either Ireland or Britain before his attempt to win Europe's most valuable flat handicap. As Mr. Bradley correctly states, surely it would not be beyond expectations that horses running in such a prestigious handicap might have run in Ireland and Britain in order to give punters a solid form line to underscore their bottomless faith in Willie Mullins. He suggest three-runs, which would annoy the racing god held in such esteem by punters as the Closutton maestro has a liking for pulling rabbits out of hats. Yet I think on this matter Mr.Bradley makes a very good claim for the conditions of the race to be altered in the direction of his perspective.

Mr. Crawley of Ightham, also in today's letters column, points out that last Friday two racecourses, Fontwell and Goodwood, situated only 13-minutes apart, both staged evening fixtures. Any racing fan living in the area who wanted an evening at the races then had a choice, with some no doubt attending Fontwell and some Goodwood. Yet if either of these racecourse had the evening to itself attendance would no doubt have been greater. Liverpool do not play at home if Everton also had a home fixture. Neither would Bristol Rovers if Bristol City had a home game.

Back in the day before racecourse claimed total ownership of their fixture list, when in Britain on a week day only two meetings per day was the norm, the meetings would be a hundred miles or more apart. Carlisle and Newton Abbot. Carlisle and Salisbury. Salisbury and Redcar. Common sense would decree that on any one day there should be only race meeting in the north of the country, one in the midlands and one in the south. But we lost sight of common sense a long while ago and no one of influence in the sport has ever thought to organise a mission to go and locate it, rather like Stanley when he went in search of Livingstone.

I respect amateur jockeys. But that does not stop me from proposing they should be consigned to history. In today's Racing Post, Peter Thomas interviews David Dunsden, one of our corinthian amateur flat jockeys. He is a very competent rider and I hope he achieves his ambition of winning today's Amateurs Derby at Epsom. He is a true amateur. Patrick Mullins, on the other hand, is not. He is as able a rider as most professionals. He earns his living from the sport. He has more advantages to aid his career than virtually any professional you care to name. I admire Patrick as a jockey and rank him as one of the best writers on our sport, up there with Lee Motttershead and Alastair Down.

I have proposed in the past that all licenced jockeys should be refered to as just that - licenced jockeys. Not amateur or conditional or apprentice, with licences coming with restrictions on what type of race they can ride in. Patrick would have the same grade of licence as Paul Townend or Danny Mullins, for instance, allowing him to ride in any race in which he could obtain a ride. On the flat, someone presently labelled 'an apprentice' would only be allowed to ride in races against other riders in the same category until competence is proved allowing them to go from 'category 7 licence to category 6, for example. So someone like Oisin Murphy would go from a category 7 licence through to a category 1 licence through his career, which obviously would allow him to ride in any race, anywhere in the world. There would be winners and losers if my proposal came to fruition as ability would be the only criteria in which a career could be advanced.

The drain on my memory does not allow me to profess a wealth of racing knowledge that I can draw on. In the past, the opposite was true. Sadly, no more. Knowledge acquired today might not be on the tip of my tongue tomorrow. Even if I put this knowledge into print, it does not mean I will remember it comes a week today. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that I can rarely remember the subject matter of the previous day's blog. This is a preface to a fact I read yesterday which came to me as brand new knowledge. I fully recall Royal Ascot being transferred to York but what I had not realised that in 1945 York hosted the St. Leger as Doncaster was out of commission due to the damage done to it not by Herr Hitler but by the British army. It is said 150,000 watched, or tried to watch, Stanhope Joel's Chammosaire win perhaps the most unique St. Leger ever run, even though th government refused to relax for the day food or petrol rationing.