WHEN TOM SEGAL SAID ..., SUPER SPRINT PROVED A POINT, I HOPE, THE RELAXATION OF GOODWOOD & YOU WOULD NOT KNOW IT.

When Tom Segal said that he believes Joseph could one day be considered a better trainer than his father, his peers mocked him. How could anyone, let alone the son, become greater than the god of all trainers? Well, I went first on this subject, though tempering my approval of Joseph's ascent to the throne with my belief that he needed to remain a trainer of National Hunt horses as well as the blueblooded flat horses that are his bread and butter.  As David Jennings pointed out in The Racing Post today, the son is ahead of schedule in his bid, though I doubt given the level of his levelheadedness the thought has not even spent more than a single second in his head, to beat his father's record of 152-winners in an Irish season. In his record-breaking season of 2018, at this point of the season Aidan had 72-winners on the board. Joseph currently sits on 77.

Obviously, to be as succesful as Joseph, the name on the licence must be surrounded by a team bordering on the same level of excellence as the man himself and being the modest man he is, I dare say he deflects all praise offered to him on to his staff. Yet at the high point of the season, with two Oaks victories scored, five Royal Ascot pots brought home to Owning Hill and all the other important flat races won, Joseph is also diligently preparing Solness for a crack at the Galway Plate next week. I doubt if truth be told that anyone, not even Joseph, will ever be considered as great as Aidan, but if one man can become his equal it is Joseph. Believe me, Tom Segal will have the last laugh; he might just have to wait twenty-years to hear the applause for such a brave shout.

Newbury's Super Sprint yesterday proved a point. At least, I hope it proved a point. It was won by Zigazig Ah, ridden by Saffie Osborne, undoubtedly the best female jockey in the whole of Europe at this present time. Second was Angels Lane ridden by Laura Pearson, unknown, perhaps, outside of Britain and poised to relocate to Australia at the end of the season. Offering no criticism to Darragh Keenan, a jockey on the up, in a three-way head-bob of a photo finish, the two female jockeys were first and second. Pearson may have lost out to the best female flat jockey in the country but the ride she gave her horse was as good as Osborne's ride and on another day the result might have gone her way. I just hope owners and trainers will have seen Pearson yesterday, remembered her 'ride of the season thus far' at Epsom and for the rest of the season ply her with enough rides that she might change her travel plans and remain a British domiciled jockey.

I might also add that Jo Mason won a big handicap at the Curragh yesterday on Sondad, trained by her uncle. Given the horse, there are very many female jockeys in this country who could ride at a higher level and achieve many more rides than they do. I bang on about this subject not because of any bias or prejudice but because I believe it would make for a better look for the sport and encourage more females to go racing and follow racing if they could see on a regular basis female jockeys riding in and winning the major races.

Another drum I beat is the need for our top jockeys to have regular days of relaxation. In a video on YouTube last year, Tom Marquand was seen in a gym weight-lifting and receiving physio the morning after riding in seven-races at Kempton the night before. He was then riding in the afternoon. Yesterday, I idly picked-up the autobiography of Sir Gorden Richards and could not help reflecting on how the lives of our present cohort of jockeys live their lives compared to those of Sir Gordon's era. I am not suggesting that Tom and his colleagues are in anyway wrong and Sir Gordon was right. And in the past jockeys came, in the main, from the poorer side of society, with most of them under-nourished and slight of build and at the outset of their careers weighed no more than six-stone, with many weighing less.

In Sir Gordon's day, jockeys would often travel to meetings by train as there were no motorways to make long journeys speedier. They rode on the continent a lot less than today's jockeys, there was no Sunday racing and no evening meetings. Yet, the top jockeys looked forward to Glorious Goodwood as it was a good opportunity to rent a house for the week, to bring their families with them and, as Sir Gordon wrote in his book, enjoy a swim in the sea first thing in the morning and again in the evening. If Tom had his way, he would ride at Goodwood in the afternoon and then ride somewhere in the evening, go home, perhaps ride work the next morning and then drive down to Goodwood, a routine on repeat for the whole summer. 

We are a sport that champions good mental help, yet we allow our top jockeys to live their sporting life at full-pelt, working harder, I suggest, then any other sportsman. Seven-days a week for the whole year if they wished and the racing schedule allowed. There should be two or three days a month when there is either no flat racing, especially in high summer, or the same number of fixtures restricted to jockeys in the lower half of the jockeys championship. The latter are the ones who need the extra income of extra rides; Tom Marquand and his ilk do not. They need to chill.

You would not know it but it is the King George and Queen Elisabeth Stakes next Saturday. It is yet to be mentioned in The Racing Post.