In 1948, an Australian newspaper magnate, Sir James Joynton Smith, visited England and took quite a fancy to the Epsom Downs, the whole shooting-match, not just the racecourse. He was so wealthy he was in the habit of buying anything he wanted to buy and instantly knew he wanted to be the owner of the Downs. In an instant,as only mega-wealthy can afford to do, he had formed a great and adventerous plan for the Downs, including not only continuing with the Derby but also bringing the Grand National to Epsom. When told neither the racecourse nor the Downs were for sell, Sir James shrugged his shoulders and set his heart on Hyde Park in London, in want of erecting a racecourse there. How life would have been changed if Sir James had his way.
Matt Griffiths is featured in the racing post today. Matt, once the rider of Dashel Drasher, nearly died in a car crash in which he was the driver. His best mate died in the accident and after a long recovery from some serious injury, including damaging his frontal lobe, he was sentenced to 4-years in prison for causing death by careless driving while under the influence ... Drink or drugs, I suppose. While not wishing to diminish the seriousness of car accidents caused by careless driving and people who drive under the influence of drink or drugs, and fully aware that justice demanded that Matt had to suffer a penalty of some severity, sending people like Matt to prison, someone who is essentially honest and dependable, someone unlikely reoffend, the latter part of his sentence seems to suggest a better way to penalise someone like Matt.
In the latter part of his custodial sentence, Matt was imprisoned a few miles away from where Sam Thomas trains and Matt was allowed to go work for Sam, taken there by car early in the morning and picked-up at night and returned to prison. This could have been his whole sentence, working without pay, with other restrictions placed on him like banned from driving or drinking alcohol, tagged and so on. Matt now works for Sam and Dai Walters and rode his first winner back at Bangor recently. Putting Matt behind bars could not bring back his friend who died in the car accident, nor could it remove the guilt that doubtless Matt will always have to live with.
The two incidents at The Curragh which led to America Queen being withdrawn from the 1,000 Guineas by the vets and an even longer trot-up process for Magny Cours, which resulted in her getting very stirred-up and sweaty, though the vets eventually allowed her to run, has resulted in the Irish trainers association demanding an investigation into veterinary checks on race-days by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Body. Incidentally, I may have conflated the Magny Cours thing with America Queen. Not quite sure. The stupidity to come out of all this was that vets have told the connections of Magny Cours they must present x-rays of her limbs before she can run again, even though this is exactly what Richard Hughes presented at the check-up, which the vets decided to ignore. Ireland, I am told, is a lovely country with a population of lovely people. There is a fault-line, somewhere, amongst some people, the majority of which seem to hold official positions within the horseracing hierarchy.
Disappointed to be informed by the Racing Post today that Charlotte Jones has retired, going out on a winner at Cartmel, the racecourse where she rode her first winner, where she rode out her claim and where she rode the majority of her winners. Like so many female jump jockeys she was under-rated and under-used. What is nice is that her replacement at Jimmy Moffatt's will likely to be Leah Norici, the first jockey, I will guess, in this country to have Albanian ancestry.
Pleased though that Siobhan Rutledge finally rode out her claim at Fairyhouse yesterday on Stone Bear. It is always a cause for celebration when a jockey rides out their claim, though for a female jockey in Ireland it must be doubly celebratory as Siobhan is only the third female to ride out her claim on the flat, following on from Cathy Gannon who was champion apprentice in 2004 and before her the trailblazer Joanna Morgan. I may be wrong but I believe all other professional female jockeys in Ireland, flat and jumps, all still claim 7Ibs. Life for jockeys in Ireland is very competitive, it is why so many of them try their hand in Britain, but in these days of equality and diversity it is a bad look for Irish racing for it to be so dominated by the male of the species.