The anticipation used to overwhelm all other considerations. The Saturday of the Grand National I used to term my 'holy of holies'. Pull the curtains, take the phone off the hook, pray to a deity I did not believe in that there would no protestors and that no horse would be harmed in pursuit of my annual entertainment high. For over sixty-years I was stupidly in love with the Grand National. Not so much now, though. I wish it were not so, but now when I read about or watch recordings of Grand Nationals of the past, it is like watching a former love of my life and yearning to be together again. That's how it is with me, the sentiment aided and abetted by the knowledge I have to accept that is how it will be for the rest of my life. What a 'health and safety' National does not,...

The opinions of others should always be respected. For instance, writing the 'Another View' column in the Racing Post this morning, David Carr supports the many changes to the race he refers to as the Grand National, as if after a hundred and one changes something can be the same as when it was first constructed. He is right when he says life moves on, referencing, amonst others, the F.A. Cup semi-finals were played without a t.v. audience and that fifty years ago the Grand National was sponsored by the now defunct 'News of the World' newspaper. I respect and accept his opinion and I would hope he would likewise accept my differing stance on this subject. I am aware that the Grand Nationals won by Red Rum were different to the race Merryman won in 1960 and that year's renewal was different to the race won by Golden Miller in...

If you were asked to name the greatest Grand National horses of all time, who would you put at the top of your list? It takes little imagination to suppose that 99.9% would have Red Rum as a clear winner. And who would argue? I would put Red Rum at the top of my list but not by as wide a margin as you might expect. It is Manifesto who muddies the water. Yes, Red Rum's three Grand National victories are clearly superior to Manifesto's two, yet the latter ran in eight Grand Nationals and was placed numerous times. 1895 may be back in the dark ages but back then the Aintree Grand National took no prisoners and just to finish the race was an achievement in itself. In 1895, as a seven-year-old, Manifesto finished fourth to Wild Man From Borneo. 19 started, 11 finished. In 1896 our hero was canonned...

Nicky Henderson is teasing us again. You may be firmly in the camp that believes Jonbon is not a 3-mile chaser and running him over that distance at Aintree this week will be to waste an arrow given Jonbon is entering the latter stages of his illustrious career. I believe he will stay 3-miles but that is not the point. Apart from the possibility of Jonbon finishing out of the first two for the first time in his life, there is no downside, I contend, for giving 3-miles a go. If he doesn't stay, he doesn't stay. But at least going into next season Nicky will have that data to hand when plotting which races to go for. Come next Boxing Day, Jonbon will be a week away from rising eleven. Next season might be his last active season. If Jonbon should prove he does stay 3-miles then the King George...

Apparently, on social media there has been a hoo-ha regarding the treble achieved by Dan Skelton at Newcastle last Tuesday. I do not associate myself with social media platforms, so I am unaware of the degree of hostility, though reading David Jenning's column in the Racing Post today, it is obvious that Dan upset the fragrant petals who if life had treated them differently would have taken holy orders, by not informing them personally of the gamble his owners were trying to accomplish. It is described as a 'monster gamble'. Dan, as fine a fellow as you are likely to ever meet, has not come across to me as someone who would have the balls to be first out-of-the-trenches and think it hardly likely he risked more than a fiver on the three horses involved, none of which on paper looked bankers. As I have said in the past, part of...

Writing in the Racing Post today, Sam Hendry makes the point that whether you are a flat, jumps or point-to-point, enthusiast, we should all agree that we are all one sport. Granted, Hendry was making the wish that horses should be more regularly campaigned as both hurdlers and flat performers, citing, obviously, the success of Constitution Hill winning on the all-weather recently.  I am an advocate of horses being able to swap between National Hunt and Point-to-Points, abling trainers to give a horse lacking confidence the easier option of racing against horses of a lesser ability and for connections of promising young point-to-pointers and hunter chasers to try their luck against the professionals without having to forfeit their right to return to pointing during that season. Cross-overs can occur at the start and end of a National Hunt season, with trainers looking for a pipe-opener to put an edge on fitness...

As of now, Chelmsford City is no more. It still exists, Iran has not blast it off the face of the Earth and no stray U.S. missile has found its way to Essex as of today. No, the existence of Chelmsford City as a licensed racecourse is in jeopardy due to the actions of the B.H.A.  As much as I take joy in the loss of an all-weather racecourse, there are many things in this subject to question the B.H.A. about. Why leave the decision to take away the licence to hold race-meetings after declarations for their fixture today and more importantly their meeting on Saturday which had enhanced prize-money on offer? And why offer no explanation for why the B.H.A. has taken the action it has? Trainers, quite rightly, are up in arms about the situation, with Eve Johnson Houghton in particular extremely belligerent in her response to the situation....

In the course of my labours yesterday, an idea came to me. It is not an idea I have any major faith in, though within the construct of the idea there is, I believe, a kernal of ingenuity that a man or woman of greater intellect may be able to develop into a thing of respectability. I was thinking of nothing much when Constitution Hill came into my thoughts. Then Invades, the company that brings coach-loads of students to sporting events, and the buzz that the great horse created when he ran at Southwell. My thoughts then shifted to the hated, by me, concept of team racing, as if horse racing should adopt the key elements of Formula 1. Then I found myself wondering if horse racing, turf flat, could incorporate a genuine team event within an ordinary day's racing. Then my mind lingered on football's champions league, though the female...

The hole that appeared towards the final race of Trials Day at Cheltenham back in January has come back to haunt clerk of the course John Pullin. The hole vexed Lydia Hislop to the point she was quite nasty to Pullin in an interview as dusk fell that evening. Now, I suspect, it will not only be Lydia proving discourteous to Pullin, after the press release announcing that the final 3-days of the Cheltenham season are to be axed in favour of sorting out the drains in the home straight. Yesterday's press release came as a shock to all those trainers who intended to have runners at the 2-day meeting in April, and no doubt that shock was amplified by amateur riders and point-to-point enthusiasts hoping to enjoy, perhaps, a first competitive visit to the home of National Hunt racing. In the latter case, the May meeting has been transferred to...

I am no fan of all-weather tracks, I should have made that pretty clear by now. I appreciate the importance they have in keeping the show on the road during spells of snow, flood and biting frosts but do we not have enough of them already.  I fear the sport is slowing being walked into a U.S. attitude to the ground horses must race on, with very soon a dirt track added to the roster, as well as several new synthetic-surfaced racecourses. So no one will be surprised if I shed no tears if Chelmsford City should not survive the latest crisis to invade the calm of the only all-weather racecourse to install an adjacent turf course, its only claim for it to have greater priority for survival over Britain's other dull-as-ditch-water all-weather racecourses. The racecourse might have closed, if only temporarily, last week if the B.H.A. had not granted it...

I have long argued that our sport is very much a working-class sport underpinned by the wealthy and the mega-wealthy. Stable staff are obviously working class even if members of that staff were born to rich parents and were educated at Radley or Eton. To get anywhere in racing it is a requirement that you must work as hard as everyone else on the team and be twice as dedicated. Jockeys, too, work their asses off, working seven-days-a-week either riding out for a trainer or (and) on the racecourse. In fact, all sectors of the racing industry, including farriers, racecourse staff and bookmakers, are all working class irrespective of how large their financial assets are. Trainers, too, even if they served in the armed forces or came out of universities with degrees, or if set-up by a wealthy parent, cannot get by with a superiority complex. Trainers are out of bed...

I dislike the compounding of words to create a name for a racehorse. But today in the 1.30 at Uttoxeter there is a horse called All One Word. I like the name, don't get me wrong. Yet surely given all one word comprises only one word, should the owners not have considered naming the horse Alloneword? You do not get it so much these days but not long ago the days leading up to the Lincoln meeting comprised a lot of moaning that the flat always started with a whimper; it also went out with a whimper.  The latter is natural and could only be avoided if 'Champions Day' were to be the final fixture of the season. There is no reason, though, why the turf flat season should not begin with a little flag waving and several trumpeters. Flat connoisseurs have waited through a long winter for this day, so...

The names given to thoroughbred racehorses sometimes taxes me. I do not believe a serious sport such as horse racing should allow owners to give our beautiful partners names that ring with ridicule or silly humour. And when I see a name of a former popular or great horse replicated on a racecard, I am, at best, annoyed. Racehorses should be respected and honoured from conception to the grave, and this right should begin with its name. In his column in the Racing Post today, Chris Cook rambles around the name Sexy, a name given to a well-bred two-year old owned by Amo Racing. Sexy is related to Chaldean, in my eyes a fairly ordinary winner of the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket. Although not a name I would ever give to a horse - if only - it is far from being the worst name ever given to a racehorse. Chris...

In today's Racing Post, the paper's Irish editor, Richard Forristal, asks if horse racing should be concerned by both the Welsh and Scottish parliaments ban on greyhound racing. And the answer is a resounding yes. If you do not know the how and why the Welsh government have banned greyhound racing, I advise you to read Forristal's article as the how was not so much based on the issue of greyhound racing but on political expediency. Greyhound racing's fate is due to historical intransigence by those involved in the sport. There were just too many scandalous news stories in the News of the World and similar national newspapers regarding cruelty, the 'dumping' of dead or unwanted greyhounds, the need for outside charities to step in to find homes for retired greyhounds, that sort of thing. Horse racing is not immune to the same criticisms. I was horrified to read that the...

It seems a long period of time since Trials Day at Cheltenham, the day Sir Gino fractured his pelvis in the Bula Hurdle or whatever it is titled these days. The initial prognosis was that the fractured pelvis would heal and he would return to action the following season. Alas, it was not to be. The superbug type of infection that had laid Sir Gino low the previous season, and which he was lucky to survive, returned during his latest spell in the 'horse hospital' and after a long struggle to defeat this infection, the vets treating him were left with no option but to euthanise that most handsome of horses. We all die sometime and as you get older, as I do daily - yes, no matter your age we 'all get older on a daily basis, but believe me, when you pass six score years the downward spiral in...

The National Trainers Federation have a plan, or perhaps it is a suggestion, which, perhaps, the B.H.A. and its stakeholders will take into consideration when next they declare their latest cunning plans for the sport. Of course, I am in favour of the proposals of the N.T.F.'s proposals as they chime to a great extent with the bell I have tolled over the past few years, which is heartening for me as I am fixed to the belief that the few who read my ramblings must think me extraordinarily naive for someone of my age. The N.T.F. suggest that race-planning should be organised around a bottom-up strategy rather than the elitist position of top-down. This suggestion makes so much sense that it beggar's belief that the people at the top cannot see its merits. There are far more lower-grade horses in training than graded horses and for growing the sport this...

In Ireland, the flat turf season began the day after the Cheltenham Festival came to its mighty conclusion. Aidan O'Brien dipped his toe into the water at Leopardstown, though he waited for Naas yesterday before he started to make a splash. Already he is voicing possible classic trials for horses that we heard very little about last season. It is the flat on repeat; the same old, the same old. For me, someone for whom the flat's existence is just to fill in the time while the jumpers take their rest through the summer and autumn, the start of the flat is an impudence, an intrusion, bullying its way into the headlines long before the National Hunt season has drawn to a close, before the once most popular and greatest horse race in the world is run. Although the Aintree National is rarely run before Easter, before the Irish equivalent at...

Although it is a significant landmark to achieve £4-million+ in prize-money, and the first National Hunt trainer to do so, I hope it is not a sign that Dan Skelton will go on to become as dominant in Britain as Willie Mullins in Ireland. This is nothing to do with the man himself; he is a credit to the sport, but if it becomes a case of Skelton always first, the rest nowhere, the sport becomes predictable and that would be unhelpful in rebuiding its popularity. We need each season to begin with uncertainty as to who will win the major races and which trainer will emerge with the champion's trophy come late April. Although I was unhappy last season that Dan was mugged by Willie Mullins when it seemed going into Aintree that he was home and hosed, the manic surge from unlikely to all-out winner by Mullins made it...

On this website there is a list of possible names owners might want to avail themselves of if they are having difficulty naming a horse. It is a long list, now in alphabetical order, but it is no longer an ever-extending list, partly because I have forgotten the instructions I was given on how to upload to the page. But that is good, even if I continue to scribble potential names on to bits of paper and the back of my note-book, as what was originally simply a point-proving exercise had become an obsession, which remains an obsession, though no longer in the public domain. I was annoyed by someone - his name was Khan - at the B.H.A. claiming it was difficult to name a horse without occasionally resorting to famous names of the past. I disagreed, pointing out the large number of languages in the world, with famous names...

Sometimes I stumble across evidence to suggest that I might actually know what I am talking about, odd as that may seem to anyone who does me the honour of reading me more than once. When the talk about Constitution Hill was all about the group races he could run in, I was of the opinion that the ambition, until proven inadequate, should be to target the heritage handicaps, with the Ebor as the ultimate target. It seems my thoughts on the matter have somehow travelled east towards Seven Barrows, with Constitution Hill's next appearance on the flat slated for another novice race at Kempton next week. Though the John Porter at Newbury remains on the radar, it seems Nicky Henderson is taking the more cautious approach of seeking a handicap mark for the former hurdler, which will make it easier for him to find suitable future targets, especially in the...