SHOCKWAVES SENT THROUGH THE SPORT

It may be still be the posh daily read for the bearded, duffle coated, fashion Trotskyists calling for revolution, most of whom are not doing too bad for themselves in a free, capitalist society, with their regular holidays to exotic far away continents, nice homes and cars, who would risk being taken away and tortured in the communist 'utopias' they sing the praises of, but it cannot be denied that The Guardian newspaper is prepared to rock the boat of officialdom, even having been the cause of concern for the security services.

While I am sure that a few inside the confines of the publication do not approve of gambling or horse racing, there can be little doubt they can boast of having the arguably the boldest writer in the business in Greg Wood.

It was not unexpected that Wood would be the first journalist from 'within' the sport to break ranks and provide an unrestrained opinion on the Fact Finding Judgement released this week from the family court case involving Sheikh Mohammed, UK flat racing's largest investor over the past four decades.

The bizarre and quite disturbing events that the court believed on the balance of probabilities had occured will now be familiar to everyone who follows the mainstream news.

From a racing viewpoint, it is no surprise that those who have a platform to air views on racing politics chose in the main to either be non-committal, or to not even touch on the subject.

In ' Luck On Sunday'  it was agreed by all those present that the Sheikh and his family had been a positive influence on the sport in the UK, and that in some way or another, everyone working within the sport had benefited from his involvement. Richard Hoiles doubted whether the BHA  would subject the Sheikh to the ' fit and proper person's test' , adding that the question was whether the member of the Dubai Royal family would now decide on his own accord to move his large scale interests out of the country.

Wood went further in his piece in The Guardian, touching on an area that seems to be taboo for those reporting from within the industry ; namely, the case of the name now never discussed, Mahmood al- Zarooni.

When al- Zarooni received his seven year ban for steriod use, the official conclusion was that he was acting in his own capacity. This finding was, in Wood's words, ' ..without any meaningful investigation of the concerted doping operation at Godolphin's Moulton Paddocks stable in Newmarket.'

The reliance racing has on Sheikh Mohammed's financial input into the sport is put into perspective by Wood when he writes that, 'no individual is bigger than racing itself - so they say, but Sheikh Mohammed comes mighty close.'

Those tuning into Attheraces for Sunday morning's ' Racing Debate' may have been hoping for at least a small amount of time to be segmented for the topic to be  discussed.  The programme is after all billed as being,' hard- hitting, honest, critical, opinionated.'

Not a single whisper was uttered on the subject. No doubt the producers would point out that as we are on the the eve of the Cheltenham Festival, then it was apt for the show to concentrate solely on the meeting but one has to doubt whether the court's findings would have been alluded to in even the quieter times in the fixture list.

Returning to 'Luck on Sunday', during which the potential logistical difficulty of moving a whole, large scale operation out of the country was raised. In truth, it is probably not the mamouth task it would appear to be. The horses in training could be dispersed to trainers already on the payroll in Ireland and France, with the stallions also transfered to their studs abroad.

Their two Newmarket based in house trainers could be moved to newly purchased bases abroad, even though teething problems could initially surface from the trainers reading and adapting to home gallops they were not familiar with.

And what of the other Maktoum family members ? Hamdan has his own modus operandi,  keeping the number of animals to a relatively limited number, with loyalty shown to the trainers on his payroll.

At points of time in the past, the likes of the once mighty Peter Walwyn, Robert Armstrong, Harry Thompson Jones, Ben Hanbury, and Clive Benstead would have to have called it a day earlier than they eventually did, without the support of Hamdan.

The potential catastrophic consequence of the whole extended family cutting ties with the sport in the UK, is separate to the issue of how the sport would have fared if they had never entered the fray all those years ago.

We often wish for the days when the jam was spread wider, with all those select owner/ breeder operations who were the patrons that formed the backbone of the big flat yards in the 1970's. The Sobel and related Weinstock families, Lord Howard de Walden, Dick Hollingsworth, Louis Freedman, Arthur Budgett, Paul Mellon and Jim Joel.

Apart from the Budgetts', all of the above named standing dishes of British flat racing were still strong when the Maktoums really started to expand their racing empire in the early 1980's. The 1982 Epsom Derby made one realise they had arrived at the top level.

Sheikh Mohammed owned the second favourite, the John Dunlop trained Jalmood. The colt disappointed but the Hamdan owned Touching Wood finished runner up to the impressive Golden Fleece and would go on to win the St Leger.

Did the aforementioned owner/breeders have relatives ready to step into their shoes who considered that the emergence of the Maktoums had changed the landscape for the worse, or were there no willing and able family members keen enough to take over at the helm?

We shall never know. But if they did decide to cut ties with the UK, how would it impact on national hunt racing, a sphere in which Sheikh Mohammed had a small but successful dabble with approximately thirty years ago, but who had sold on some stallions who have made a tremendous impact in the winter game, such as Fleminsfirth and Old Vic.

Those who ply their trade exclusively in the winter game may not feel much of a negative after current. However, they are unlikely to have cause for opening a bottle of red and partaking in ebullient singsong.

  image reproduced under CCO

AN EVASIVE REPORT

Formula One is a sport of narrow engineering precision. When a mechanical malfunction suddenly arises, the root of the problem can invariably be traced back to the exact culpable bolt, wire or valve, sometimes involving an input of human error in a climate were honesty is essential.

It's near to rocket science from which it has benefited greatly. In the fascinating book 'Dr Space', about the life of Wernher von Braun, it is revealed that the rocket pioneer made it of high priority to promote a culture of honesty in the pursuit of perfection.

The book's author Bob Ward writes of an incident in 1953 when a Redstone missile, being tested at Cape Canaveral, suddenly failed in mid flight. Test after test followed on the area in which it was believed the fault existed but no answers were found.

Then, one of the test engineers came to von Braun's office to say that during the preparation for the launch he had touched a contact which produced a spark. As the procedural checks he then carried out produced no faults, he did not think the incident was significant but thought it should now be mentioned just in case there was a link to the malfunction

This information resulted in a further analysis being conducted which revealed the cause of the missile failure. Von Braun then sent the engineer a bottle of champagne so that the message cascaded to his team that total trust and honesty is essential in missile development.

With horse racing administration, the hope of a culture of honesty and trust with the aim to benefit the greater cause is something that can only be dreamed of. For it doesn't know its Aft Unit from its Jet Vanes, something that is apparent reading between the lines in the Horse Welfare Board's five year welfare strategy titled  'A life well- lived '.

The one hundred and thirty page report which can be downloaded from the BHA website contains a section with the heading ' Growth and maintenance of trust.'  It states that ' To achieve trust, particularly with outside audiences, we must also consider issues of perception '.

A concerning aspect of this section of the report is that it soon becomes apparent that it advocates that in order to change some negative perceptions, compromises may be required which would result in long established traditions being challenged.

This leads on to section 11.1, ' The future of the whip'  which is yet more time spent on what should be the non issue of an area that it is needlessly discussed live on air every couple of weeks.

The whole underlining mood of the report is of apology and appeasement to factions whose ultimate aim is to wipe out the sport and who are patient enough to do it by a process of small steps that chip away until, they hope, that the whole structure will be dismantled.

In the section on safety, there is a timeline diagram, highlighting improvements made from the 1960's to the present day. Some we must be thankful for, such as replacing the concrete posts and wooden rails during the 1970's, and the banning of jump racing on hard ground in the 1990's, while the disguised abolishment of the race that was the Grand National, will not have been similarly welcomed by traditionalists - in fact, the report has some of the 'modifications' missing from the timeline.

To many, the most anticipated section of the report relates to responsibilities of the racehorse owner in relation to aftercare along with the tracking for life of all horses bred for racing.

Section 9.4 of the report, ' Understanding responsibilities ', speaks of the owner being put on an 'education scheme' so they will understand that they are, ' ultimately accountable for the horse, particularly when its racing career is over, and to ensure they are equipped to exercise that duty of care. '

You cannot help but conjure up an image of pot bellied, snappily dressed wide boy, who was on a good run through making some dodgy property developing deals but is now suddenly having to cut back on excesses after high risk investments came up tails and placed him deeply in the red.

Is such a character going to give two hoots about aftercare for the horse he splashed out on that can't run fast enough to keep itself warm ?  Of course not, and owners with similar profiles are aplenty within the sport. These are the ones trainers are forever chasing for unpaid bills and are often cited as part of the reason why they end up calling it a day and handing in their licence.

Section 9.5 of the report ' Funding of aftercare', provides  lightweight suggestions but no solution. In fact, in it the HWB concedes, ' we lack specific expertise in this area', which hardly gives encouragement that things will improve. It suggests that responsibility is in the hands of the whole industry and that an expert funding review should be conducted. This basically means they haven't a clue what to do.

Section 9.6  ' Euthanasia' , talks of the potential for greater scrutiny of the use of euthanasia in the      ' breeding, pre-training, sales and aftercare sectors'. It mentions the introduction of a 'clear decision process or decision tree, that is adopted and clearly communicated by the whole industry. '

It's hard to see how this will alter anything. Just a case of ' car is a write off, give me x amount for scrap and we'll both sign here', though our vehicle may be a fit, healthy and manageable young horse whose crime is not being able to run fast enough.

Regrettably, the whole gist of the report, presented with lots of bold highlighting and the use of in vogue buzzwords and phrases, is that it has been selectively crafted.

It's all well and good displaying charts that show that racecourse fatalaties are low in percentage terms, but when they do not give the figures of how many of the four thousand odd horses that leave training in Great Britain alone each year are unaccounted for, then it shows the project is one to stall time while they work out what to do over the next few years.

If for some reason the financial bubble fails to burst and the numbers of horses in training are maintained, then they'll have to work on another document to explain why so many 'tracked' horses that have left training end up being euthanized. Hardly a true culture of trust and honesty.is it ?

Image Apollo 11  - in the public domain

A WORRYING SATURDAY FOR THE MAKEOVER MERCHANTS

With a reduced Premiership football schedule allied to no other eye catching sporting events being broadcast, one would expect that more casual viewers would have tuned into ITV racing last Saturday than would be the norm for the third weekend in dreary February.

The viewing numbers would have been comparably low with past decades but there would still have been enough following proceedings to make you realise that racing 'got away with it'  in times when incidents are easily amplified out of proportion by social media.

Just imagine if prospects for racing at Haydock Park had been so remote that they had called the meeting off on Friday. Without doubt, Lingfield would have been called upon to be the saving grace, providing a theme of its own with the return of Kachy, arguably the most popular All Weather horse in the thirty one year history of this arm of the sport in the UK.

Such a broadcast would have been presented as a star double billing, the highest rated chaser in training Cyrname attempting to put his disappointing King George run behind him, and the best AW horse, Kachy, having his prep for his swansong race.

Even those who rightly believe that where welfare issues are concerned racing yields too much to outside interference instead of standing its ground, cannot deny what a public relations calamity it would have been if both of these animals had not returned safely back home.

As things transpired, ITV racing did not have to turn to Lingfield to make up their schedule, leaving the casual viewer oblivious to the fate of Kachy. Rightly or wrongly, the ITV team made no reference to the tragedy knowing that racing fans would of been aware of what happened, while it served no positive purpose bringing the news to the passing viewer.

Fortunately, these viewers would have shared everyones relief as Cyrname appeared from behind the screens minutes after the solemn expression carried by Harry Cobden appear to foretell of news far gloomier. It may not have endeared them to the sport but at least would have shown the high degree of affection these unique creatures are held in by those closest to them.

On the subject of Kachy, even those of us who believe the introduction of AW racing in this country has done little to attract new fans to the sport but has done plenty to interfere with the assumed priority of the winter jumping programme, became quite fond of this animal.

His run in an up to standard Diamond Jubilee at Royal Ascot last summer reminded everyone that he  could mix it in with the best on the turf and it would have been fascinating to see how connections would have marketed him as a stallion in the sense that he could have attracted a new niche of breeder with the focus on AW  racing - that of course would have been dependant on the sport itself not imploding through lack of funding.

One area in which last weekend was a reminder of, was that hostilities still exist towards the image of strung out animals finishing exhausted in testing ground. Those over a certain age will probably struggle to remember criticism on a similar level as to what you read now, either from journalists or posters on racing forums.

The first time I can remember the media having a dig at what has been forever a traditional sight in National Hunt racing was in the late 1990's when a couple of writers confessed that they much more preferred watching an AW race to a tiring slog over the sticks with the runners appearing to finish in slow motion.

Many stupidly make comparisons with the Battle of the Somme, which is not furthering the point they are trying to make. Records show that the most dangerous surface for jumpers to run on is firm ground. Horses travelling quicker, putting the shock absorbing tendons under strain on landing, with the falls more likely to result in a life ending injury.

One of the most unedifying spectacles came at the beginning of the old jumping seasons, which more often than not use to clash with the Saturday of Glorious Goodwood.

Cards littered with three and four runner fields run on going sometimes described as' hard ', horses commonly finishing lame, nothing to like at all. They eventually prohibited racing on such surfaces and not before time.

Whenever a Cheltenham Festival has a fatality total that raises concerns outside of the normal hostile bodies to the sport, the word 'soft' tends not to play a part in the going description.

It's ironic that the drainage installed forty years ago was an end product from the shortened, thirteen race 1975 Festival, which was staged in conditions so testing that it was questioned whether the final two days should have gone ahead after the Tuesday was abandoned.

They took the bails off after Ten Up won the Gold Cup on part waterlogged terrain but history tells us that there was not a single fatality at the meeting. Neither was there any losses from that comic strip Grand National won by Red Maurauder.

The old fashioned mud loving slogger, once part and parcel of the winter months, will soon be finding itself redundant if the image freaks have their way. And this will be part of a continuing, blinkered sanitation process, that will ultimately lead to the death of National Hunt racing as we know it.

image cc attribution Simone Bisotti

RACING SITS ON CRUMBLING FOUNDATIONS

The news that the average racecourse attendances for 2019 had again dropped when compared to the previous year should not have been unexpected. What the plain figures fail to translate is the true extent of the fall off in real engagement with the sport.

This is because the numbers are propped up by the theme meetings, summer Saturdays, and in vogue festivals. A truer barometer would have been to compare non -themed, weekday meetings only. I fear that comparing these attendances down the years would make grim reading.

These are the category of meetings attended in the main by racegoers who have horse racing as their number one sport. When they return home, the large majority of their punting will be on things equine as opposed to the plethora of other sports that your long session on the booze, summer Saturday attendees will speculate in rather than scanning the Sunday card at Ponty or the Monday evening one at Windsor.

If we accept that the figures would raise more alarm if those returned from the non- cult days were examined in isolation, then the situation becomes even gloomier when we ask why this is so.

The harsh truth must be repeated again and again, which is the percentage of horse racing fans amongst the generations under thirty five years of age, is massively lower than the generations before and that there is not enough of them to replace the genuine fans of the past as they become ill, infirm, and pass away.

And with a shortfall in funding due to racing's share of the betting pie decreasing, the sport will have no option other than to downsize.

In my area of employment, I have for many years been in a daily e-mail exchange of opinions with a colleague over sport, politics and 1970's television. I am dismayed by the fact that horse racing has changed for the worse. He holds similar sentiments over his first love, football.

He still retains his season ticket at a world famous club that has experienced a resurgence of fortune in recent years. He has been a regular at the games for forty five years, has lived three miles away from the stadium for his entire life, but feels his club is now just a franchise like Burger King and McDonalds.

He has attended less than half a dozen matches this season, even missing a showcase fixture with a famous club from a rival city for the first time since the 1970's, and will either sell his ticket at face value to people in work, or sell it back to the club at a loss.

When the latter happens he cites it as evidence that no locals are interested in the club anymore due to it being hijacked by the assortment of fictional characters he uses to state his case. Josh from Solihull, Jeremy from Cirencester, Cecil from Woking, Farquaar from Harrow, Seamus from Sligo, Fritz from Bonn, Jan from Oslo, Jason from Chicago and Ming from Singapore.

On the now rare occasions he attends, he sits quietly in his speck on the halfway line hoping his team get beat. He dearly hopes their fortunes will take a steep downturn, they get relegated, and that what he terms as the 'modern fanbase' evaporates, returning the club to the locals to re-build from scratch. He cringes when he hears what he refers to as 'numpties' singing continental sounding songs, and is dismayed that Sky portray football as not existing before the advent of the Premiership, with their presenters towing the line as they ' know what side their bread is buttered on.'

I told him that that such an eventuality would be most unlikely to occur in his lifetime. He disagreed,
 " Who would have thought United would get relegated six years after beating Benfica !," was his response, "And Leeds have taken two major nosedives since then...and what about Forest and Villa."

As part of his lone crusade, he has been travelling to watch games from lower leagues, watching home games at the likes of Wigan Athletic, Tranmere Rovers, Salford City, Preston North End and Fleetwood Town. He met some Rotherham fans while on holiday in Benidorm and confesses he was in awe of them. " I have so much respect for them," he enthused. " Faithful to their local club through good and bad times."

He also wishes to experience how the ' hijackers' or ' parasites' feel. Twelve months back he joined a members club of a mega rich, rival city club, who have been experiencing heady times. Being a member entitles him to apply by telephone for a season ticket in a short, few hour time period. He tried last summer but could not get through. He will make another attempt this close season.

His general rules on supporting a club are that you have to satisfy two criteria. Firstly, you have to be within close travelling distance, have ties with the locality and can't have passed by other clubs on the way to the ground; and secondly, you have to have paid into the club for many, many years. According to his rules, all of this criteria has to be satisfied.

As he is vehement in these views, they can sometimes upset people. A few years back a work colleague asked him to come down to the basement car park for a fight. He declined, saying he had no wish to put his job at risk but felt that this level of reaction vindicated his beliefs.

There are some parallels that can be drawn with racing and what he believes is happening to his football club. He talks of ' links' being broken in the sense that locals are unable to obtain tickets meaning fathers can't take sons to the game resulting in a new generation believing that it is normal for fans to support a team through a television set.

Racing is suffering because a link had been broken whereby the father would be in the household betting and watching horse racing. This has now been a rarity for some time now leaving a generation who have been brought up to link betting with football, who are now fathers themselves. Link terminally broke.

Whether racing's fans should wish for the sport to hit a crisis, downsize, then operate on a scale with a manageable fixture list, with theme meetings something of the past, I'm not so sure.

It probably will happen sooner rather than later but where you can't make comparisons with footbal is in the sense that while a football club can be reborn with a new stadium built on a different site, once a racecourse is lost to a housing project, as so nearly happened with Kempton, then it has gone for good.

One wish my controversial work colleague hopes will come true is for betting to be banned on football. He claims it's not in the spirit of his sport. Unfortunately, it is too late now for the sports betting explosion to be put back in the box. It's even more unfortunate for racing as such a circumstance would have been a positive game changer.

image - creative commons zero

A PAMPERED CATEGORY

The expansion in the National Hunt arena of events staged exclusively for mares has resulted in the opportunity for some performers to sit cosily in a niche and reap rewards that otherwise would not have been attaintable.

Lady Buttons has almost reached celebrity status within racing's confines. She has become something of a winning machine in these mares only races. Whether it is deserved is another matter, for some would point out that the females already have a carrot dangled in front of them in open events in the form of the 7 lb allowance, which was increased from 5 lb for the 2003/04  campaign.

Ten of the fifteen races won by Lady Buttons have been open only to the ladies, of which all seven of her victories in listed or graded company have also come in these confined events.

In her stiffest task in open company over hurdles she did not disgrace herself when fourth of the five runners in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, not beaten a million miles. And probably the most difficult task she faced over fences was when she started second favourite for the Maghull Novices Chase, ending up far from disgraced to finish fourth, less than nine lengths behind the winner.

But in the creme de la creme of mares only hurdle events she had her limitations exposed when finishing only fourth, which would have been one further down if the sublime Benie Des Dieux had not come down at the last when having the race in the bag.

What cannot be emphasised enough is that as well as being one of the chief benefactors of these pigeonhole events, her connections are also fortunate that she is trained on the right side of the Irish Sea for some of the mares she would have been coming up against every couple of weeks in Ireland would have made her life hell.

Whatever, she has put her trainer on the map which resulted in some animals costing eyecatching amounts being placed in the yard. Admittedly they have since moved on but adding to the exploits of Lady Buttons, they have made the name Phil Kirby a more familiar one than it previously had been.

Mind you, I would guess there are many envious souls around when they look at the success enjoyed by this popular mare and her connections. What about all those talented animals who have not been favoured by a positive discrimination policy, and have no niche to home in on ?

This mare friendly policy is reminiscent of some of the mandatory courses public sector workers have to attend. There was one I heard from the grapevine fronted by a lady who opined that when she sees a room full of white, middle aged men, she is disgusted. Oh yes, she made it clear, such a sight is bland, outdated and disgusting.

If she had found employment within the BHA, I'm sure she would have championed the expansion of mares only contests, and would equally have expressed disgust at seeing a handicap chase field full of geldings in the seven to nine year old age range.

The expansion of veterans only events has not yet reached the same scale as the mares races.  Hopefully we will not see one introduced at the Cheltenham Festival, though on second thoughts as they have chipped away enough at the quality of the individual races, what would it matter to take a couple of runners out of the old Ritz Chase.

The BHA has not finished this project yet despite there being a record number of female horses in training in the National Hunt sphere.

A mares only chase planned to be introduced at the 2021 festival is undoubtedly part of the bridge to a five day meeting. A tiring five day meeting as opposed to the original all quality, pulsating three days.

While there is plenty of ammunition to oppose the justness of these confined events, particularly at the higher level, it would be unfair to spin the myth about Dawn Run missing the Champion Hurdle if the mares race had been in existence in 1984 .They will cite the fact that she was ideally suited by further than two mile, had indeed finished runner up in a vintage renewal of the Sun Alliance Novice Hurdle when far from the finished article, and that taking the easy route by making it fairly certain she would be Queen of her own domain, would have been too tempting to turn down.

What people forget though is that Dawn Run was right at the forefront of the Champion Hurdle reckoning after battling on to repel the challenge of the reigning champion Gaye Brief in the Christmas Hurdle. There was nothing in that Champion Hurdle field that would have frightened off connections

Which path those connected with Flakey Dove would have taken in the same circumstances is open to debate. She looked a fair place prospect in an open renewal of her Champion Hurdle, but on the evidence of her victory in the Cleeve, the extra distance of the mares only race would have been tailored for her.

Nevertheless, the crux of the matter is that no particular category of horse should have the fixture list tailored to increase their chances of success. Indeed, Lady Buttons got a taste of what those animals who are exluded from niche events have to put up with, when finishing a commendable but well beaten second to Moon Over Germany in that highly competitive two mile handicap at Aintree.  I doubt the race will be on her schedule again this year, same with the even more fiercely fought race in the same category at the Cheltenham Festival.

Lady Buttons is now ten years old. Perhaps she will be retired to the paddocks when this campaign closes.  Many would say she would have retired from action earlier without the help of a friendly programme of races.

But it's not quite so clear cut. Dubacilla raced as a ten year old mare finishing second to Master Oats in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, followed directly by another gallant performance to chase home Royal Athlete in the Grand National. Eyecatcher finished third in two successive Grand Nationals in the 1970's at ten and eleven years of age. And the popular Credo's Daughter, owned by James Bolam, raced on until ten years of age during the same decade.

Anyone trying to make comparisons with the increase of top level fillies and mares flat races in this country cannot logically equate the two scenarios. The flat racing world is a bigger, richer place,and action was taken to stem the flow of those crossing the Atlantic on a one way permanent journey to take advantage of the plethora of valuable fillies and mares races, mostly less competitive than the equivalents in Europe.

Those opposing the continued expansion of valuable mares only events in the National Hunt arena stand on solid ground and if Benie Des Dieux takes the easy option and bolts up looking like she'd have taken all the beating in the Stayers Hurdle, then this is an issue that deserves to be debated on a higher platform.

image in public domain

QUALITY WITHOUT NUMBERS

Much has been written about the concentration of quality animals in a small number of hands. It is an issue that began to be of concern in flat racing during the 1980's as the strength of the traditional owner breeder began to flounder, and the Maktoum family investment flourished.

What we could not foresee at that time was that one day the National Hunt arena too would be made up of a map dominated by a few pulsating power spots; two in Ireland , one in Lambourn, plus a cluster of them in the West Country.

The situation may alter soon in Ireland with Gordon Elliott soon to feel the Giginstown Stud wind down, as Joseph Patrick O'Brien's yard continues to strengthen.

Over here, things are likely to remain the same for the foreseeable future. The Northern jumping scene has never been so poor, the Skelton operation in the Midlands churns out winners but the overall quality shows no signs of stepping up  a further level, while a combination of Nichols, Tizzard and Hobbs lead the way for the West Country - a situation that could not have been predicted when Paul Nichols raced clear of the Pipes and seemed set to be a lone dominant force.

One trend that has changed down the last few decades, indeed something that can be argued that had made the sport less fascinating , is the need for trainers to play the numbers game. What has happened to the , " I can only give my best if I have a manageable number of horses in my care", words that are now only used as an excuse by those unable to attract more owners.

From that last list of trainers mentioned,  you tend to think of Colin Tizzard retaining a select, limited number of horses, when in reality the number of inmates has shot up to one hundred and twenty !

How times have changed. The West Country was for many years the weakest arm in the sport, with David Barons running the main  operation in the region. Going into 1979, Horses In Training listed Barons as having forty five animals under his care, with future Schweppes Gold Trophy winner Bootlaces, the name you are drawn to.

Indeed Bootlaces victory in that race was a big moment for a region that had been starved of big race success. One year later the Triumph Hurdle would be won by Baron Blakeney trained by M.C.Pipe, and by the time Barons had the best horse he would ever train in his yard in Playschool, followed a few years later by the Grand National winner Seagram, Pipe would be the dominant force in British racing.

Going back two years to 1977, the Lambourn scene was business as usual in jump racing's sphere, dominated by two legends of the sport in Fred Winter and Fulke Walwyn.

In contrast to now where the famous Berkshire village is dominated by Nicky Henderson's one hundred and fifty horse yard, Winter submitted a string of forty three horses for publication in Horses In Training ( in picture), while Walwyn had four more in his Saxon House yard. At the time a young Henderson was Winter's assistant in addition to being the stable's amateur rider.

Namewise, Winter housed an embarrassment of riches led by dual Champion  Hurdle winner Bula,  one time Champion Hurdle winner Lanzarote, one of the best chasers never to win a Cheltenham Gold Cup in Pendil, plus future Gold Cup winner Midnight Court. Not to be left out were the veteran of veterans Sonny Sommers, twice future Grand National placed Rough And Tumble, former and future Embassy Chase Final winners Floating Pound and The Dealer .

Bula was now twelve years of age with the chance now gone that he would go down as the immortal who would be the first horse to win both the Champion Hurdle and Cheltenham Gold Cup. Sadly, he took a crashing fall in the Champion Chase that year, sustained a shoulder injury and had to be put down a few months later.

And if that wasn't enough bad luck for the Uplands yard, Lanzarote, when also attempting to be the first to win Cheltenham's two most famous races, was lost after breaking a leg in the Gold Cup.

Walwyn's stables housed an important cast member of the greatest hurdling era ever in Dramatist, the Champion American chaser Fort Devon, who would be in the Gold Cup picture for the next couple of years, along with two cracking two mile chasers owned by the Queen Mother, in Game Spirit and Isle of Man.

These were the days when delegation was used more sparingly, when a trainer would not need to ad lib or turn to a delegate when someone asked after the Cantab gelding purchased from the point to point field.

Nowadays, the most successful yards house numbers that would have seemed unmanageable back in the day. The consequence is that we are left with yards with assistants and head lads around every block you turn. And from what we are able to glean many are run in the same vain as Japanese owned car factories, with both animals and humans being numbers, spots or blobs on silly confusing wall charts.

It must be working for the most successful large yards, but it now seems pure nostalgia to think of a red skinned, weather beaten faced trainer with nicotine stained fingers, entering the box of every horse at evening stables, running a hand down the forelegs himself, and exchanging a few words with the lad who he would know by name instead of K39.

To demonstrate that the Winter and Walwyn yards weren't the exception to the rule in being highly successful yards while having what would now be considered smallish sized strings, it's worth looking at the numbers in some of the other jumping yards in 1977.

Neville Crump had a string of twenty two, which included quality performers Cancello, Narvik, Sparkies Choice, Collingwood, Even Melody and Ballet Lord. Fred Rimell had forty six horses listed under his care including the previous year's  Cheltenham Gold Cup and Grand National winners Royal Frolic and Rag Trade, Grand National regular The Pilgarlic, former duel Champion Hurdler Comedy of Errors, and not to forget Andy Pandy who would be tanking along in a clear lead in the Grand National when coming down second Bechers.

Tony Dickinson had just twenty nine listed, mostly recognisable quality sorts including the future King George V1 Chase hero Gay Spartan, and although Peter Easterby had seventy listed under his care, it was a dual purpose yard with only twenty two animals four years old or older. Amongst this select group were Night Nurse, Sea Pigeon and Alverton, supported by other quality jumping horses in Canadius, Annas Prince, Town Ship and Midao.

In fact the two largest jumping yards were the seventy something of G.W.Richards, and the ninety two of W.A.Stephenson. Both had around a dozen flat horses at the time but by today's standards the total numbers were not exceptionally large.

No matter what way you contrast the two eras, forty years apart, you would search long and hard to drum up a convincing case that today's scene, dominated by a few large  industrial winner churning factories, beats the days of old, where the most gifted trainers sought a select number of horses to enable them to operate with a fully concentrated hands on approach.

AT LEAST ONE THING TO BE THANKFUL FOR !

January 1980 does not seem forty years ago. Certainly for those who spend their life diligently studying the works of Shakespeare, or the history of the French Revolution, time will have stood still. No doubt many in racing circles would wish the clock had stopped ticking in their world too.

Looking through a copy of Pacemaker International for that month, the one with the front cover showing Night Nurse and Jonjo O'Neil in mid air over the water jump at Newbury in the Mandarin Chase, there did not seem to be an awful lot to be concerned about on racing's frontier.

In all the changes that have occurred in the past forty years, there was no inkling that the emerging generations would be raised in a world where betting on football would overall become their main focal point of having a punt, and that racing would fall into a shadow of future uncertainty. The prospect of this was never considered in any publication or context.

Indeed, the article that stirred you most went under a headline that would be fitting for January 2020. Written by Tom Forrest, and  titled , ' The Case Against The Whip ', it was a prophetic piece that highlighted a couple of pertinent issues that have since been addressed.

The first was the free for all whip actions permitted at the time. Forrest recalls the whip actions of two riders from his racing memories, the Frenchman Paul Blanc, along with the Aussie Des Lake. Evidently their styles were likened to ' Catherine Wheels' , 'Dervish dances' and ' windmills',  whip actions that, according to Forrest, observers would remember for the rest of their lives.

Little did the writer know that over the coming summer a certain Australian rider by the name of Peter Losh would be riding in Great Britain, displaying one of those Whirling Dervish whip actions the writer thought he would not see again.

He then made reference to the ' ferocity ' used by Lester Piggott on both Roberto and The Minstrel in forcing them across the line in their respective Epsom Derbys. These were races discussed regularly then whenever the whip issue was raised. Eventually, following criticism from some notable figures within the sport, as well outside forces,  rules were  introduced restricting the height the whip could be raised, ending those familiar Pat Eddery and Piggott motions, with the instrument being brought down from sky high.

The other issue that has since been resolved is that relating to the size and weight of the whip. Forrest refers to a picture in the December 1979 edition of the magazine showing Morston beating Cavo Doro in the 1973 Epsom Derby, where he describes the stick carried by the rider of the runner up as having enough, " springy fibreglass to satisfy the average Olympic pole-vaulter."

He suggests that in the end the solution would be to, " insist that the whip must be made of such weight and material that no matter how hard it is applied, the horse cannot be hurt."

To the credit of everyone involved, this is precisely what evolved, but what could not have been anticipated was that it would not close the book on the matter and that we would move on to an age where the racing authorities would pander to the public and would be more concerned with image than substance and factual evidence

Another article that catches the eye from the January 1980 edition of the magazine is one composed by Patricia Smyly under the title, ' The Climate for a Course of Action.'

At the time, the previous 1979/80 National Hunt season had seen the highest number of fixtures lost to the elements since the winter of 1963. The response was increased speculation on whether the prospect of  all- weather racing would become reality.

Smyly discussed the subject with Air Commodore Brookie Brooks, who at the time was the Chairman of the Racecourse Association. Brooks opined that he could not see jumping taking place on the all-weather. This would have been to the benefit of the sport if this prediction had been correct as from the top of the head the things that spring to mind about that short lived venture were silly looking obstacles with a blue stripe, an increase in fatalities, Suluk, and Martin Pipe's  Run For Free who would end up winning the Welsh and Scottish Nationals.

Brooks visualisation of how the all-weather would fit in to the flat programme was slightly of course too. He talked of a Stateside scenario where a course would house a couple of hundred horses in stables, and where the cards would be made up only from entrants housed within. He spoke of Windsor being suitably located for this initiative.

Brooks passed away in 1988, a year before the first all- weather meeting was staged and would no doubt have been surprised if he had known how this area of the sport would expand, something that polarises opinion as to whether it has proved to be to the benefit or detriment of the sport.

Finally, that January 1980 issue contained a contribution by Howard Wright titled,  'The Metrification of Racing ', a piece that made uneasy reading for those of us who had never really got to grips with what we considered as Napoleonic garbage.

Admittedly, we can work out that the Derby is 2400 metres but trying to convert height given in centimetres into feet and inches, even more confusingly pounds and ounces into kilograms, is something most born within a certain period could do without.

Wright's article highlighted the opposition to any change by the then senior Jockey Club handicapper David Swannel, on the glaringly common sense ground that the conversions would not be straightforward - one pound being half a kilo or 0.453 to be exact.

That metrification did not take hold in British racing is something we should be thankful for. And it therefore makes it all the more baffling why some commentators still persist to randomly talk of distances in metres. It's now an abandoned path.

And as we are leaving the EU, maybe the number of television channels will be reduced so instead of having the space to broadcast unamusing trash like Ant and Dec, Gavin and Stacey and Ben Elton, they will have to roll out quality shows at peak viewing time, like The Two Ronnies, Morecambe and Wise and Benny Hill.

And who knows, a return to the times when if a household had the telly on during a Saturday afternoon, there would be a one in three chance that they would be tuning into some horse racing. That would be good news !

image author Kmtextor - licensed under CC.