MUSCAT BANG ON, DESERVES GREATER SUCCESS, PREDICTION MARKETS & HERE COMES THE SUN.

I would be amazed to discover that Julian Muscat believes in any topics of debate that are labelled 'conspiracy theories'. He is, at least his style of writing and thought process comes across to me, a Geoff Boycott type of guy. Nicely struck singles are more his thing, rather than lofted straight drives that only just makes it over the head of the fielder on the boundary. He bats straight and true. I say this as he is the member of The Racing Post team of contributors that I am least likely to agree with. Not that he necessarily is wrong in what he writes, just that he doesn't always chime with my opinions, and I am as likely to be as stumped while floundering outside of the crease as anyone. Anyway, having poured cold water on the expressions of greatness for Constitution River by his colleagues, it was surprising to read his column today, where his thoughts were my thoughts. The horse has achieved little so far to be graced with such tributes. As Muscat said, great horses make great races, great races do not make great horses. The Eclipse was poor for a Group 1. The time to bestow gifts of greatness on horses is the end of the season, not at half-time.

If ever a flat trainer deserved greater success for his endeavours it is Richard Hughes. Twelve-months ago he achieved a first Group 1 winner, No Half Measures in the July Cup, yet his life has not changed. He still works hard, trains plenty of winners and continues to berate jockeys who make basic mistakes on his horses. I doubt there is anyone with a trainers' licence in this country with more cliff-face experience of the sport than Hughes. As a jockey he worked his way to the top of his profession and as a trainer I thought he would do the same. Yet he floats along in mid-division. In a column in The Racing Post today, in which he does not hold back on his opinions, he claims to have seventy two-years-old in his stable. I hope there is at least one Group 1 horse amongst them. as he is a trainer deserving of dining at the top table, not just once in a while.

As befitting someone of my age, I am unsettled by change. My local supermarket has altered its chiller cabinet where the milk is kept. It was off-putting to have the milk on the left, not the right. I made my opinion known to the assistant manager, light-heartedly, mind you. But you would have thought by now that supermarket managers where aware that customers do not like it when they move stuff around as if they are creating an out-of-season Easter Egg Hunt. It was the same just now when I read about Prediction Markets. I know little about them and wish I knew less. I instinctively recoiled in horror at the amount of money Prediction Markets will take away from general betting. From my limited knowledge of this interloping, predatory new invention, is that it has nothing to do with the riddle of finding the winner of the first race at Catterick today or Wolverhampton tonight but of putting your money where your mouth is on whether you agree or disagree about a subject, be that the next new war, the cost of wheat or the bra-size of the mayoress of Bilgepump-on-sea. Kill Prediction Markets now before it is too late. Give them the cold shoulder. Send them to Coventry. Kill Them. Kill Them. Exterminate!

Will the B.H.A. step in and postpone the meetings at Ascot and Newmarket this Saturday due to the hotness of the weather? Do not, I beg you, put money on your opinion with any of the operators of Prediction Markets. Pray to your God for cooler weather. Given minor meetings during the last heatwave were postponed, the B.H.A. have a dilemma on their hands. 33-degrees is red-zone territory, is it not? What is certain is that Ed or a clerk of the course will give a sermon on climate change and no one example the weather-altering operations that many governments around the world have been at play with since the 1950's. But that is conspiracy theory, so it cannot have anything to do with the hotness of summer, can it. Beautifully green at Hamburg last Sunday, wasn't it? Did anyone notice how parched it was at Saint Cloud and how green and lush it was for the German Derby?