The death of Sheikh Ahmed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, brother of Sheikh Mohammed, is the loss of another important owner from the sport. He was an owner of longstanding. He won the 1987 Eclipse with Mtoto, horse of the year the following season and recently owned the world-traveller Addeybb. The Maktoun family may be one of the richest in the world and there may be sons and daughters to inherit the turf interests of their fathers, but their interest in the sport may be simply inheritary, keeping going a family concern, and it may become convenient to them to drift towards the racing jurisdictions in their own part of the world. At a time when there is more rocks in the road for our sport than a subcontinent mountain pass we need all the support we can muster and people like Sheikh Ahmed are hard to find and perhaps even harder...

In today's Racing Post, Lee Mottershead has a piece with Norman Gundill, the grand old man of Pontefract who has not missed a meeting at his beloved racecourse in the sixty-years he has served the place. As you might expect from Lee Mottershead, it is a lovely read which could have been much longer if he had included all of Gundill's anecdotes. I imagine Gundill to be a rare specimen in our modern world, someone who has served the same company for the length of time he has served Pontefract. He began as assistant secretary, then he rose to director, managing director and then clerk of the course. Gundill is the sort of man who should be celebrated across the sport, not simply in Yorkshire. He is, or should be, an inspiration to others, a man whose wisdom and horse racing knowledge is called-upon by the striplings just starting out in...

At Newbury, they needed rain and did not get any. At Ayr the opposite was true. When the government told you the country was in the midst of a drought, they lied. Only the south of the country had brown grass; in the north of England and Scotland sit-on mowers were to be heard on a daily basis. It was a brave call to carry on regardless by the Ayr stewards, especially as some jockeys, at least according to controversy-seeker Matt Chapman, were in favour of calling the all thing off.  I dare say those jockeys with mounts in the big race that needed bog-like conditions were enthusiastic about racing, whereas their colleagues on good ground horses  would have been in favour of an early finish to their working day. Ultimately, the right decision was made, as was changing the running order so that I.T.V. were able to televise both the...

Those of a similar vintage to my own may agree that time seems to zip past us far faster than when we were nimbler and fructuous. Not that I remember being either of those things. I am also pretty sure I skipped those years described by many 'as the best years of my life'. Any hoo: can it be a week already since the smashing of the latest glass ceiling? It sure it is and because of last week, Saffie Osborne is the star attraction at Ayr today, confirmed by her presence on the front page of today's Racing Post. I am not sure about these glass ceilings, you know, being only for female jockeys. It seems a bit discriminatory. There must be glass ceilings for male jockeys, not that I can think of one. Perhaps if an apprentice were to win a classic, though that could be of either gender,...

In today's Racing Post, Chris Cook dedicates his column to the 'plight' of female jockeys and why 'we' should not get carried away with Saffie Osborne winning the St. Leger last Saturday. He is right to mark the card for everyone. As much as it was a genuine history-making day for females in sport, nothing has markedly changed for female riders since the day Hayley Turner won the July Cup as they remain more than a little unrepresentated when it comes to Group 1's and classics. Given females are, in the main, lighter than their male equivalents, and should be achieving rides in the big handicaps in higher numbers than is the case - 25 go for the Ayr Gold Cup tomorrow, with only two ridden by female jockeys - they were scarsely seen in any of the Royal Ascot handicaps, for instance. As Chris Cook highlighted, of the top fifty...

No one, not even a born cynic and conspiracy theorist follower as I am prone to be, can deny that the weather in Britain and Ireland has not changed, perhaps for the better, over the past decade. Winters are less wintery, which can only be a good thing, and summers are becoming more Caribbean-like, which for me is less good. I believe this change in our weather pattern to be due to natural phenomenon, not human activity. At the moment El Nino is not playing nicely as it likes to bat the jet-stream this way and that, causing air currents to be where they are not naturally suppossed to be. Also, and this is never mentioned by advocates of climate catastrophe is the manipulation of the weather by scientists of several countries since the 1940's must also have played in part in buggering-up the world's weather. But let's not play politics...

It always brings me good cheer when the lead story on the front page of The Racing Post at this time of the year revolves around National Hunt. This morning it is Marine Nationale and Barry Connell's plans for him this season. It seems we will have to wait until Christmas to see him again. He is fit and well, though, something Marine Nationale has a habit of not being, with the wait till Christmas a strategy to have him fresh for the Dublin Racing Festival and Cheltenham. There is always the risk factor in delaying the return of a Group 1 horse until mid-season as all it takes is for the weather to close in over the Christmas period or for the horse to fall at the first fence and suddenly connections are on the back foot and with 2-mile chasers there is very little alternatives if Plan A is...

In the letters column of The Racing Post today, Mr. McEwan of Manchester makes a very good argument for horses to be disqualified if their riders have committed the sort of offence that got Shane Foley an eleven-day ban at Leopardstown on Saturday. It was not that Foley's offence altered the chances of one horse in the race but his actions caused three horses to be impeded, with Oisin Murphy claiming his horse, A Boy Named Susie, would have won without the interference and last season's Epsom Derby winner Lambourn being nearly put through the rail. I made the call after James Doyle was not given even a caution after causing Into The Black and P.J. McDonald to all but fall at the end of the race, that if the horse had fallen and either the horse or the jockey suffered injury or worse, the stewards would doubtless have made Doyle...

On occasions, an article will appear in The Racing Post that reminds the reader how much there is in our sport to be proud about and which other sports, if they knew, would be envious of. Former jockey, former St. Leger winner, George Baker, is the face of the B.H.A.'s Rider Development Programme. Not only is George coach to many apprentices, he also drives his white van, loaded with his equisiser (is that spelt right? Looks wrong) to stables up and down the country to advise stable staff on how to improve their riding skills. This initiative will not only improve riding skills but will also reduce, cross-fingers, accidents on the gallops and grow confidence amongst the lesser skilled riders employed in the industry. Always try to rise up from the bottom, not dumb-down from the top. The other day I quoted Jack Leach, former jockey, on why, in his opinion,...

It was always what I wanted to witness. It may have taken over fifty-years for it to happen, and I watched on t.v. that first female jockeys race at Kempton, but when it arrived it was far more joyous than I could ever imagine. If the script for the 250th running of the St. Leger was to be for a film, the editor  would have been ripped-up as too ridiculous, too 'National Velvet' to be considered both likely or believeable. The 250th running, royal patronage and Lesley Garrett, no less, singing the National Anthem, it was history enough. For the race to go down in racing history - history used in its correct context - was too much for any viewer to expect. Yet fate accepted the script in its entirety, allowing Saffie Osborne to remove yet another of the glass ceilings in the sport. The first female jockey to win...

Let me say this from the outset: I like James Doyle. He is one the finest riders we have at present. Holly Doyle once described him as a complete gentleman. I doubt if anyone has anything bad to say about him. That said, in my opinion, he should have received at the very least a 5-day ban after allowing his mount Final Objective to drift off a true line on or just after the finishing line at Doncaster yesterday. P.J. McDonald could have suffered serious injury and his mount Into The Black could easily have suffered likewise. I know it is a busy day with too much racing in Britain plus the start of Champions Weekend in Ireland but it was remiss of the Racing Post to not dedicate a few paragraphs to the incident. It was not appalling riding by Doyle; his riding did though result in a heart in...

In the history of this site, I have on various occasions proposed that the St. Leger be removed from its classic status, be upgraded to the most valuable flat race in Britain and opened-up to older horses, an alternative to the Arc, and keep its classic status but lose its tag as part of the triple crown, with the Eclipse restricted to 3-year-olds and upgraded to classic status. As far as I am aware no one has ever supported me in any of these proposals, even with 10-furlongs now considered the sexiest distance and with the Eclipse viewed far more as a stallion-maker than can ever be hoped for the St. Leger. The St. Leger always was my favourite of the five classics; my wish for change is based on not wanting to see the race become an irrelevance, a consolation classic, as I have termed it. It is a classic,...

How the Frosts cope with the adulation heaped upon their daughter is beyond my imagination. I am not suggesting she is undeserving of the universal praise, only that her parents know her, whereas her admirers only know of her. Her parents can, no doubt, recount stories of disobedience and perhaps even insolence, of tears and tantrums and interrogation in the wake of nights out with boyfriends who in the eyes of loving parents rarely came up to their expectations. As I have said before, Bryony Frost is the best publicity this sport has ever had. We must neither waste her talent as a jockey, which must be the first consideration, nor her ability to transmit to her audience her love of horses and of the sport she already dominates. We must not put her on a pedestal. She maybe a star but she is also human. We must not take advantage...

Anyone who did not visit this site last year will not be aware that I was all over The Jukebox Man as the coming Gold Cup winner, only failing to name him 'the next big thing' by the narrowest of confidence margins. I loved him from his chasing debut at Newbury all the way to his blow-out in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. Ben Pauling, quite rightly, I believe, came in for criticism for not informing anyone that a week prior to the festival The Jukebox Man had been lame with an undeclared injury. It was also said that the horse had made a 'noise' in the latter stages of the Gold Cup which would requiry surgery. It was all unsatisfactory. Again without description of the injury, The Jukebox Man will be off-games until the second half of the season, meaning he will be unable to defend his King George crown on...

In today's Racing Post, in the Letters section, Mr. Nicholson of West Bolden, makes the point that as a retired man with time on his hands, someone who can go racing whenever it pleases him, he cannot see where the sense is in having three racecourses, all of which he would have attended if they were on three different days, staging meetings on the same day, namely, Sedgefield, which has acquired a fixture that due to ground conditions Uttoxeter could not hold, Redcar and Carlisle. There is no sense, of course, in swamping one area of the country with three-meetings on the same day. There is, though, explanation, and that is the financial fact that racecourses achieve more revenue from media rights payments than they do from public attendance. Not that this inconvenient truth is an excuse for the B.H.A. to allowg these three meetings to take place on the same...

The Bowens are a mighty National Hunt family. Mother, father, champion jockey, champion jockey's brother and Mickey, the current holder of the trainers licence, are all perpetual winners. A proper old-fashioned family unit; hurt one member of the family and you hurt every one of them. It is why I was surprised to read in today's Racing Post that Mickey will, in the next 12-months, relocate from the family farm at Yet-Y-Rhug, Letterston, in Haverfordwest, to Hanley Swan in Worcestershire. I doubt if Mickey Bowen truly wanted to move away from home. It seems that economics was the deciding factor in his decision. He cites travel and location as the primary reason for the upheaval. North Wales may be heavenly for holiday makers in search of peace and quiet but in the winter Bowen believes the air conditions, muggy and damp, are the reason the stable does not do so well...

On his first run since March, as a nine-year-old ex-hurdler, I thought finishing only 5 and a bit lengths behind two genuine Group 2 horses was a perfectly respectable effort on the part of Constitution Hill. The horse will come on for the run; will doubtless be better on turf; and will be seen to better effect when in his proper grade, when he can run in a handicap. I also think, as Billy Loughnane suggested, that he should be upped in trip. Why Nicky believes 14-furlongs would be his maximum trip is for him to explain. For a nine-year-old hurdler he might well be a bit speedy. But on the flat he will taking on younger legs yet to have their natural speed taken from them. In Nicky we trust, though. As for Hayley Turner and Adele Mulrennen wanting the horse retired! Do they not read the papers. I mean...

It is, according to the front page of today's Racing Post, Judgement Day for Constitution Hill. The great horse has had quite a few judgement days since he first went down with the 'twisties', as gymnast Simone Biles described her short-term fall from grace. He had a kind of judgment day when he first hit the deck in the Champion Hurdle won by Golden Ace. Then he fell again. Then he ran deplorably at Punchestown. Then there was the judgement day at Newcastle and then the one behind closed doors when he nearly fell twice schooling at Lambourn. The there was Southwell. So, Constitution Hill is well used to his fans and others choosing to call judgement on him. After two champion jockeys have had a go on him, it is the champio-elect who will be on board this afternoon at Kempton. I hope his presence, the horse not the jockey,...

I hope Chris Cook will forgive me for quoting from his insightful and wonderfully written article in today's Racing Post. I wish I could write so clearly and with such an easy rhythm as Mr. Cook. 'How do you get people to adopt as their favourite sporting heroes a bunch of athletes who might compete six-times over a two-year period before disappearing through a trad-door?' In the following paragraph he used the word 'tristesse' which I did not understand, and after a search of my big Readers' Digest Universal dictionary, I remain ignorant of the definition of the word. The answer to the question posed is easily answered, though difficult to achieve. What it needs is for horses like Bow Echo to stay in raining at least until their four-year-old careers. Bow Echo did not sustain an injury that would have prevented him from racing next season. The decision of those...

The Racing Post is currently running a series titled 'The Fundementals of Betting'. As someone who is an irregularly bettor, and you can define irregular in my case as once a year, this series has not taken my interest, though for anyone who does bet frequently, I am sure there are tips that might prove useful. My advice is to pick a professional punter and stick with his guidance, otherwise you will go mad cherry-picking contrary advice from all the other 'experts'.  Don't get me wrong. I would bet if I were wealthy enough to be able absorb thedoubtless losses. For me to bet, given the unhealthy state of my life-time savings, would be to put me in the category of gambler and I am too risk averse and too cowardly to go down that route. Chris Cook in today's in stalment of the series highlights the expert's opinion on jockeys...