While we should never forget is that this is a commercial publication produced to make a profit for the publishers who rely on the yards to contribute with details of their strings when they are under no obligation to do so, co-operation benefits the image of the sport.
Moreover, with the stakeholding groups within racing all acknowledge that the sport is in a struggle to win over, then retain new fans, it is a mystery why the BHA along with the governing bodies who preside over the sport in Ireland and France, haven't come together and agreed to set up a free access, regularly updated website, detailing the animals in all of the yards.
As it is mandatory for trainers to inform the jurisdictions of horses going into training with them, or leaving their premises, then the information is already held by the authorities and making the details public could only help to reduce the impression that covertness is a hallmark of the sport in times when those who reckon they know best, insist that the sport should be opening up.
Can you imagine if the FA deemed that there was no need to make the names of the playing staff of professional football teams available to the public, resulting in a name or two out of nowhere appearing on the released team sheet an hour or so before kick off.
Well, it's not quite so dramatic in racing but it would be possible for a situation to arise in which the public only first became aware of an animal belonging to a given yard at the time of the five day declarations on its racecourse debut, provided the horse held no engagements in early closing events and it involved a reticent trainer who wanted no press contact.
Thumbing through Horses In Training 2021, released in the past couple of days, a curious aspect is that Aiden O'Brien, who at one time went through a long spell of choosing not to complete the details of his inmates for the book, now provides the full string, as do both Joseph and Donnacha O'Brien while Dermot Weld, who for many, many years, you could bank on providing full co-operation, is now a notable absentee.
Furthermore, only a small number of French based trainers have entries. The likes of Andre Fabre, Alain Royer- Dupre and Jean Claude- Rouget were all once regular respondees to the publishers requests. All now fail to appear. And if you've browsed through the Ballydoyle juvenile battalion numbering seventy nine, you may then turn to compare the strength with the Gosden youngsters only to find on this occasion John and Thady have decided not to provide details of their two year old string.
It must also be taken into consideration that this book, once published by the Sporting Chronicle, then after that by the Raceform organisation, is now under the banner of the Racing Post stable, a struggling organisation that is a pale light of its earlier years and has gone all weird by embracing the daft modern concepts which do not fit in neatly with a sport whose traditions are amongst its most appealing strong points.
This opens up the possibility that some handlers choose not to co-operate through lack of respect towards the paper and its staff - though on that, we can only speculate. It is indeed curious that Richard Fahey's name is listed with the note "trainer did not wish details of their string to appear" - which indicates that the trainer has taken the effort to return the form as opposed to not corresponding at all, in order to make a point.
This would increase the likelihood than rather than it being due to wanting to conceal that, say for example, the number of juveniles for the season within the yard has taken a hit, the action is due to something penned that has caused offence, however unlikely that may seem given how neutered the approach of the paper has become. So we can only guess, and probably guess wrong too.
Roger Charlton has as usual contributed fully though looking through the Beckhampton two year olds the Juddmonte breds are absent, as they are from the other yards who have given details of their juveniles and were on the Khalid Abdullah roster. This indicates that the exors of the late Prince's estate have been late in deciding how to apportion the new horses put into training - though the older Juddmonte horses in training are listed at the likes of Charlton's yard.
The 1970's rarely saw trainers failing to support this publication. If on the odd occasion a name was absent, it would almost certainly be a result of the form being returned late in which case you would then find it published in the Sporting Chronicle Handicap Book, from which you would then neatly cut it out and sellotape it into your copy of Horses In Training. It's an irony that the trainers and owners respected these publications and the people behind them back then, despite being far more aloof to the media than they are now.
Perusing a copy of this publication from 1950 ( which at the time was it's 57 th year of publication) it becomes apparent how many handlers in those days held military titles - not just the Captains and Majors that were still plentiful in the 1970's, but Colonels, Commodores and Rear Admirals too! Still, it was only five years after the end of WW2 so it should not really be surprising.
Bruce Hobbs was then training a string of nineteen jumpers at Letcombe Regis, his two riders being Geoff Wragg and Bob Turnell, who the trainer had a second claim on, while M V O'Brien overlooked a string of twenty nine at Churchtown including Cottage Rake, Hatton's Grace, Royal Tan and Knock Hard!
The strongest flat team listed in the book that year, rivaling those of Noel Murless and Captain Boyd - Rochfort, was the one based at the Fitzroy House location of Marcus Marsh who was the principal UK trainer at the time for the Aga Khan family. Marsh overlooked a string of sixty five, a number up at the top end numerically at the time, and whose riders were Gordon Richards, Charlie Smirke and Edgar Britt.
Marsh would train that year's 2,000 Guineas winner Palestine for the Aga Khan 111, with the owner's retained rider Smirke aboard. All of the other English classic winners of that season were trained in France. Two years later Marsh, Smirke and the Aga Khan took the Epsom Derby with Tulyar, helping the Newmarket trainer achieve his sole trainer's championship.
Forward to the 1958 publication, and the Marsh string had halved. The Aga Khan 11I had passed away the year previous, and the overall strength had fallen some way behind both Murless and Captain Boyd-Rochfort, as well as the yard of Jack Jarvis plus the leading Northern based trainer, Captain Charles Elsey.
There can be no other sport from which dipping in and out of time windows provides such fascination which is why the rich, in depth history of it should be shouted out to all, not brushed under the carpet by the obtuse for fear that it would make the modern day representation of the sport too outdated, by linking it to a colonialist past or whatever similar bilge the likes of those that support nonsense such as this stupid, impending summer team competition would spout out.
Anyway, it's sadly now too late to turn back and correct the mistakes made by those driving the sport, beginning from when the opportunity of an off course Tote Monopoly was forsaken. As it goes downhill and regroups as a fringe sport away from the spotlight, there will always be those long gone time windows to dip into, obsess and learn more about. That is at least some consolation.
image from wiki
A track from the last album before this once great band sold out and turned into a resemblance of a part cabaret act. Released at the end of a great sporting year, with racing providing vintage seasons in both the jumping and flat spheres.
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