REGRESSION AT ITS FINEST

"I wish I was in Greenhall Whitley Land....", sang the chain gang prisoner with a footballer's perm, cracking stone in a sun drenched quarry as he dreamt of being back in the homely atmosphere of his local. 

We never did find out what wicked deed he'd carried out to receive this punishment in the first place but the makers of the advert wanted us to imagine him more of a safe-cracker than someone who mugs pensioners.

The Greenhall Whitley Gold Cup would have been run on last Saturday's Haydock Park card. It was once a race of some significance and advertised the chances of Cheltenham Gold Cup as well as Grand National hopefuls.

A version of it still exists, but is called the Betfred Grand National Trial and is a morph of the race originally carrying the Grand National Trial banner at the venue and the Greenhall Whitley. It is run over three and a half miles, the same distance as the former and two furlongs further than the race that carried the local brewery name, but is run at the same fixture as the latter, the Grand National trial originally being run in early February.

First run not long after WW2, the Grand National Trial was won by Aintree winners Freebooter and Sundew in the early years.

Red Rum won the race in 1975, drifting from 4/1 to 6/1 and described as 'backward' and in need of the run by the Raceform representative around the paddock. Three weeks later he started favourite for the Greenall Whitley but made several jumping errors and finished fourth to The Benign Bishop.

Those Haydock Park drop fences took some jumping and were ideal for prepping for Aintree. On his next start Red Rum chased home L'Escargot in the big one.

The Greenall Whitley Cup was introduced in 1968. It was won by Gold Cup winners Royal Frolic and Alverton in the 1970's, and by Gold Cup runners-up Righthand Man and Yahoo in the 1980's.

The first one I saw live was the 1977 running when Harry Wharton's grey  General Moselle landed a popular victory, being the headline horse on the front of that morning's Sporting Life.

And I remember lucidly being at the venue for the1978 running when Jonjo won aboard Rambling  Artist, having been handed the race when Ron Barry and Rambling Jack folded on landing at the last when having the race in the bag. Barry sitting still and letting the horse pop over quietly - he was a veteran rider at that stage and was getting some stick from the crowd, arguably deserved even if from the pocket.

The second horse home in that running, Lucius, would go on and win the Aintree event on his next start.

An also ran in the race was Red Rum, who was never traveling after making a bad mistake at one of the fences in the back straight and who would be making what would turn out to be his final racecourse appearance.

Shortly after he was diagnosed with a hind leg injury that led to a retirement announcement which in hindsight was probably a good thing as it prevented an animal considered public property from running at Aintree as a thirteen-year-old.

The Grand National Trial disappeared from the fixture list in the early part of the 1980's until it's reappearance in 1991, when for a few runnings it carried the Greenall Whitley name. During that decade Party Politics joined the roll of honour of those who would also win the Aintree race, along with two further Gold Cup winners, Cool Ground, and Master Oats.

Highlighting firstly the progress of the two original Haydock Park races followed by the tinkering is  an example of how messing about with something that was fine in the first place can have confusing consequences.

It also is a reminder of what a needless, disgusting move it was in ripping up that fantastic old course with its drop fences and replacing it with portables.

Oh well, they have their wish. Extra trashy summer fixtures, some shockingly poor for a track that was in the Grade One category. And they get the type of crowd they wish for too, an example of a quick fix for short term gain but long term irreversible damage the penalty for it all.

Then there is the irony of calling the present race the Grand National Trial with the alignment of the changes in the sense that like the old Haydock Park course compared to now, the present Aintree race carries the name of a race that is no more, despite it being a hugely valuable and interesting handicap chase.

So you now have animals prepping on a track that demand wise is a shadow of its former self, for a race that has similarly changed considerably in the tests that it once presented. Neptune Collonges (pictured) being a recent example.

It is very despairing when the powers that be make it a priority that racing paints an agreeable image of itself, and in doing creates a myth whereby racing is seen to have acknowledged and ironed out most of its wicked ways such as whip usage, drop fences, stiff fences, downhill fences but at the same time breaths a sigh of relief that they out there don't yet know the truth about wastage and the thousands of healthy animals who are disposed of or are lost through the system without trace.

As image is geared by visual impressions, those high up may not have approved of what last Saturday was visually a grueling pain inducing contest, won by an animal without a Grand National entry.

It won't be in their mandate to educate audiences about going too fast over long distances on testing ground, let alone trying to assure viewers how relatively safe such conditions are, when they could replay Red Maurader's Grand National as a prime example.

Not a chance of that.

Image taken by Author

ANOTHER OBTUSE PROPOSAL

Tomt S CC BY-SA 3.0

Before leaving Stanley House for a spell at Manton, John Gosden suggested that the community of Newmarket are fenced off and have their thoughts dominated so much by horse racing that if a nuclear war was raging, they would go about their lives oblivious to it all.

Judging by some of the opinions emanating from some of the town's inhabitants recently, there are also plenty of deluded out of touch individuals when it comes to considering problems in their own profession.

William Jarvis, who has had a training career laid on a plate for him but still underperformed, is concerned how a drop in the minimum stake on the cancerous FOBTS may jeopardise those in his profession.

"The racing industry cannot absorb a drop in prize money and that's a fact. " Jarvis stated, rather pompously.

There is no escape that the intention that FOBTS are designed for is to turn vulnerable individuals upside down and shake them until every remaining penny tumbles from their pockets.

Horse racing in the UK has a bloated fixture list dominated by poor, unattractive fare that fails to inspire not only the emerging generations but the long term fans too. As a result, many are happy to see the shortfall in revenue resulting from the increasing trend for punters to turn their attention to other sports, subsidised by the slot players.

A sport that once took for granted that its position as the dominant source of activity for punters has not only stood still as the other major sports have thrived; it has with its gimmicky makeovers, wall to wall trashy cards and misunderstood 'forward thinking', taken a step backwards and fallen out of the major sport tier.

Fellow Newmarket trainer Mark Tompkins at least understands that if racing is having to rely on FOBTS, then something must be wrong with the model in the first place.

In the USA there has since the millennium been an increase in the number of racetracks turned into what they term as 'Racinos'. These are basically racecourse with large halls full of slot machines which are in operation during the race meeting.

In locations where the racetrack is near to the main river, there have been situations where large riverboat casinos have parked up nearby on a race day to try and entice the players away from the race track, in turn threatening the very existence of the venue as many only survive because of the additional income from the slots.

Curiously, I found a so called  'academic study' from four American University professors who concluded that there had been an increase in the actual horse race wagering at tracks where the slot machines were allowed. They also noted that there was spike on the racing awareness graph in the aftermath of the film Seabiscuit.

One of the UK team covering stateside racing of an evening once stated that the USA is the 'heartland' of the sport. If so, then the sport worldwide is doomed. True, the sport in that country had a golden period in the 1970's that was arguably unrivaled anywhere else in any other country in the world, but in the four decades that have almost passed since there has been no repeat.

In short, the tormented empty minds hooked on the FOBTS are not the same as those who may risk and lose a sizeable amount of money after spending a few days getting stuck into the form for an Ebor day card.

One group would understand and accept the risk and consequences of a poor day, month or year.They garner enjoyment from the challenge. The other would have no idea why they are doing what they are doing but moronically press away at the buttons.

And returning to that comment about Newmarket during a nuclear world war, John Gosden has in the past day added his support for some dreadful sounding new concept that he describes as a ' timely initiative' in light of the predicted fall in revenue from a reduction in maximum per spin FOBT stakes.

This stupid, stupid planned series comprises of a dozen teams with thirty horse each partaking in a series of six £100,000 handicaps.

This in light of the fact that we already know that the team sport concept in racing does not appeal and shows the sport in the wrong light, that valuable handicaps are ten a penny throughout the season, and that all recent new initiatives have failed to broaden the appeal of the sport.

Gosden is out of touch with reality and from his position on the inside knows less about what makes racing truly appeal to those on the outside, than those of us on the outside know about training racehorses, which is not much at all.

Will they ever learn that what they are doing is slowly chipping away at the part of the sport that is unique when put alongside other sports, apart from athletics. A fixture list that retains the same shape as a century ago and one that until recently added new events after careful consideration.

It's now a free for all and more new events, meetings, changes in planning have been introduced in the past thirty years than the previous one hundred and fifty years, without any benefit to the sport as a whole.

In years gone by those who wanted to look ahead to the flat season would already have burnt a considerable amount of midnight oil looking to the Lincoln. Remember that competition run by the Sporting Life where you would pit your skills against the handicapper by trying to predict the Lincoln weights.

One winner impressed them so much that he was given a private handicapping job for the newspaper in days when those jobs paid comparatively well compared with now.

Unfortunately, with the soulless all weather nonsense appearing daily throughout the Winter no one really talks of the Lincoln or Spring double anymore though I suppose some trainers are glad they don't have to run a horse at Cagnes - sur - Mer to try and obtain a fitness advantage.

And with the Ante -Post markets for the classics dominated by masses of pretentiously named Ballydoyle representatives, the Ante-Post markets from Cheltenham a minefield with the multiple options for horses available, we just have the Grand National In Name Only Chase weights to peruse during this week, and that's an event that is merely an imitation of the real event which has now passed by.

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

The black and gold John Player Special Lotus cars that carried  Emmerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti to Formula One titles could be said to be the symbolic high point of the relationship between sport and the tobacco industry.

Horse racing in the UK formed its own mutually beneficial relationship with the now scorned upon manufacturers, most notably with the introduction of two new events to the calendar in the 1970's.

One of those, the Benson and Hedges Gold Cup made a tremendous impact from the onset and remains as strong as ever under a different name. The other, a two and a half mile event for first and second season chasers, was discontinued in 1986.

The race, first known as the Wills Premier Chase Final, had its initial staging at Haydock Park on Saturday 17th January 1970.To make the line up, you had to of finished in the first four in one of the several qualifiers staged in the first half of the season.

Run at 3.15 with the light beginning to close in, the race was won in the Sir Ivor colours by the Dan Moore trained L'Escargot. He would go on and win the Cheltenham Gold Cup two months later, retain his crown in 1971, then win the Grand National four years later.

The second running of the Wills Final went to the Tom Dreaper trained Leap Frog who would go on and finish runner up to L'Escargot in the Gold Cup.

1972 saw a third Irish winner in as many runnings, the winner Colebridge again hailing from Greenogue, with Jim Dreaper now at the helm.

There then followed a sequence of home-trained winners. The John Francome ridden Floating Pound was Fred Winter's second winner in 1976, the result perhaps altered by Cancello unseating his pilot two out. The name of the race had now been changed to the Embassy Premier Chase Final. It was, of course, the same sponsor, the Embassy brand having been founded by WD & HO Wills.

There was a particularly vintage renewal the following year with the event falling to the Ron Barry partnered Border Incident who came home ahead of Bunker Hill and Mouse Morris. Amongst the also rans was Tied Cottage, who had taken the field along at a good lick, and the future Grand National winner Lucius.

Border Incident was physically fragile and Richard Head struggled to keep him sound. It has been said that he should be remembered as one of the best chasers of the 1970's not to win a Gold Cup, though factually this is based more on unrealised potential than weights and measures form.

I remember walking past Peter O'Sullivan going into the course. Sedate expression, dark tinted spectacles, carrying binoculars and his bulky Raceform loose leaf as it was called, which sounded in itself like some odd brand of tobacco. He had napped Border Incident in his Daily Express column.

The 1978 running was another success for Fred Winter in the shape of The Dealer who beat the Tony Dickinson trained True Wish. There was speculation that The Dealer was considered at home to be on par with his stable companion Midnight Court, who would win the Cheltenham Gold Cup that season.

The Dealer was to be targeted at the Sun Alliance Chase but we will never know how his career would have panned out. He became unsound after the Haydock run and was never to be seen again.

The 1979 running was run on a Friday in early March, the originally planned fixture lost to the weather. It was undoubtedly the most celebrated running of the event when after a prolonged duel, Silver Buck came out on top over Night Nurse.

It was one of those occasions when you boast of being in attendance. A bit like a footy fan speaking more passionately about some third round FA Cup replay over being at the final, this was one day where you were glad you were there, felt part of an exclusive club to have been there, and wouldn't have swapped it for any Breeders Cup, Melbourne Cup or the like of.

I guess it would be the same for those who were present at that Red Rum versus Crisp re-match race at Doncaster, one that is hardly ever spoken of.

Some will have a dig and belittle the 1979 Embassy Premier Chase Final race by pointing out that Night Nurse was rumoured to be short of full race fitness, but the truth is that despite the Peter Easterby trained gelding arguably being the greatest hurdler of all time, in the steeplechasing sphere Silver Buck was the superior of the two, albeit only marginally.

The 1980 running returned to Ireland in the form of Daletta who would go and won the Irish Grand National that same season. That would be the last time the event was staged at Haydock Park.

The final five runnings took place at Ascot. The hardy Royal Bond won in 1981, the mighty Wayward Lad in 1982, the popular Comb's Ditch in 1983; these were followed by Ballinacurra Lad taking a substandard renewal in 1984, the meeting abandoned in 1985, before the likeable Very Promising took the honours in the last ever running of the race.

Imperial Tobacco made an announcement that it would cease to sponsor the race. No new sponsor could be found and the event was left to perish.

There was a welcome place in the calendar for the event during its decade and a half existence. But the sad truth is that with the onset of several valuable novice events throughout the winter, particularly in Ireland, the event would have had a limited shelf life if it had been maintained.

This weekend we have had a cluster of now established events put together with an eye-catching name given to the occasion. The Irish fixture list had had a notable prize money boost from the Celtic Tiger period.

When a weekend rarely passes by without a valuable novice chase there would be no incentive to run a tip-top novice chaser in a qualifier then travel to England for a final in January when there are a plethora of rich pickings to be had at home.

Similarly, there are plenty of nice prizes at home for connections of  British based novice chasers to weigh up rather than obsessing themselves with a Wills Final concept.

So while there will be no rebirth of the race , its marked contribution to the sport in such a relatively brief time period is something that must be acknowledged and retained in the archives as a reminder of the benefits of a controlled and sensibly managed fixture list.