White out

I took a call this morning from Ian Watkinson asking why I hadn't added my views to the acres of opinion which have appeared in the Racing Post over the past few days on the subject of the Yarmouth boycott, and the parts played by the various involved parties. I told him that we'd already had enough to read on the subject, so predictably he steered the conversation in other directions, which included a tale of how Jimmy McNaught nearly drowned in a water jump at Plumpton in the early '70s, and an exchange of views on the
trophies awarded to the AW champions. Ian is a regular contributor to the Chatroom in the Racing Post (usually under a non de plume which it would be wrong for me to divulge; but regular readers of the slot might be able to guess what it is) and I was disappointed to find out that it wasn't he who had been in there on Monday asking whether the AW championships had been sponsored by Ann Summers. Did anyone else notice the trophies? The photograph in Sunday's paper had shown Jim McGrath (GB, not AUS) and Chris Catlin accepting trophies (I don't think Jim had actually won one: he must have been accepting it on behalf of someone who had, unsurprisingly, gone to Kempton) which looked as if they were either rhinocerous horns or dildoes. And political correctness suggests that they are unlikely to have been rhino horns. It was weird. Jim McGrath was looking quite pleased with things, but Chris Catlin looked rather stunned - although that is his habitual expression, so maybe he didn't actually find anything odd in the choice of trophy.

Anyway, the Yarmouth boycott. I wasn't actually being completely truthful when I said we'd heard too much about it already - that's true, but not the whole truth - because the other reason is that I prefer nowadays to save my weird opinions for this blog. So here goes. As regular readers will be aware, I have quite strong views about those who take the contributions of racehorse owners for granted while enjoying a good life or a good living as a consequence of those contributions having been, and continuing to be, made. So, on that basis, the boycott was a good thing. Of course it was. But - I did think that there were one or two rather unsatisfactory aspects, the pressure put on Christine Dunnett being the most obvious. It should go without saying that a trainer isn't at liberty to treat the horses which he or she trains as his or her own unless he or she actually owns them, but even so it is worth saying (again). So, obviously, if a trainer wants to to use a horse to make a political statement, he or she just can't do it without the owner's blessing. Full stop. I feel that point may have been momentarily overlooked by some of the parties involved. Christine certainly had no reason to be ashamed of herself - which she would have had had she failed to declare a sound and healthy horse which the owner wanted declared. A further point which is worth making is that, for the bulk of the protesters, not running a horse at the meeting was no sacrifice at all: if you have a three-figure number of nice horses in the stable, what the ones which one has lined up for Yarmouth on Easter Monday do or don't do isn't really of significance, especially, which very likely would have been the case, their owners weren't planning to go to Yarmouth anyway. Proprietors of smaller stables aren't necessarily in the same position to be so detached under the same circumstances. One thought which occurred to me revolved around the Free Handicap. Barry Hills trained the winner last year (the really nice Prime Defender) and afterwards pointed out that the race had been worth more when he'd trained the winner 30 years previously; and when a journalist asked the Clerk Of The Course to explain the race's value, the reply was that it was at that level because that was the minimum level permitted for a Listed race, which probably wasn't the justification which the reporter had been expecting to hear. Anyway, my own view is that the differential in race values at courses owned by the Jockey Club, supposedly for the benefit of racing, and formerly classified as Grade One tracks, such as Newmarket and Kempton, and at the gaffs owned by the companies who make no attempt to conceal the fact that their motive is profit isn't as big as I'd expect it to be or as it should be, the Free Handicap (and the races at Kempton at the weekend, which suggests that the difference in owner's prize for winning races of similar grade at Kempton and at Yarmouth is about 150 pounds) being a good illustration of this. So - will there be a boycott of the Free Handicap? I doubt it. And as for the popularity of the maiden at Redcar on Monday of the same value as the one boycotted at Yarmouth the same day (at a meeting at which Tim Easterby tells us that he didn't make any entries because of his dissatisfaction with the prize levels), which had thirteen runners and in which the first three were trained by Richard Fahey, Mark Johnston and Peter Chapple-Hyam - well, I don't quite know what to say about that.

Anyway, I'm very happy to join both sides of the debate by offering Christine my good wishes at what has obviously been a very stressful time for her (which I have already done) and by saying that I applaud the fact that the protesters have made the effort to do something, whether or not it required any self-sacrifice, for the general good. On which subject - have you noticed how the Racing Post is getting very bad at quoting people out of context? I very strongly suspect that Mark Johnston has been done a huge disservice by the Post (and the fact that he hasn't pointed this out doesn't dissuade me from this view; it merely suggests to me that he doesn't want to lower himself to prolong the debate in self-justification - 'Never apologise, never explain' is a motto with quite a lot of merit). Anyway, we all read that Mark has said that he "makes good money from training fees alone" and that "if small trainers go under, my position will only strengthen". Of course, the inference we are meant to take, and evidently most people have taken, doesn't paint Mark in a very good light - witness a writer in today's paper saying that Mark is "gloating". But this has to be wrong: surely he has been quoted completely out of context? Common sense says that it is likely that the point he was making, only part of which we have been allowed to read, was that any protest which he makes is more for the benefit of trainers other (smaller) than himself. Surely his point must be that he's going to be alright whether or not anything gets done because his financial position is secure, whereas for those farther down the ladder things are more crucial; in fact, that he could be acting against his own interests, because if the deteriorating financial situation forces small trainers out of the game, all that means is the removal of some of his competitors? I believe that Mark was saying that, which is hugely to his credit, but that either incompetent or malicious journalism (take your pick) has portrayed him in exactly the opposite light.

And here's another one. Yesterday we read that today's paper would contain an article on the US-based Irish trainer Eoin Harty, tantalizing us with a quotation which had him saying, "I could just walk on to Newmarket Heath, take over 50 horses and start giving Michael Stoute a run for his money". Did you read that? I certainly did. My thoughts were, "Gee, what a bumptious idiot - and what a fool Sheikh Mohammed must be to entrust one of his key positions to a clown who could come out with a daft thing like that". I wasn't planning to read the article, because I thought that I'd already heard enough to weigh the man up. Fortunately, when I saw that the article was by Nick Godfrey, and therefore deduced that it would be worth reading irrespective of the merit or otherwise of its subject, I did read it - and found out that what Harty actually said was, "Training in Europe is a very different concept - I'm not even sure that I could handle it. Well, I suppose I could get used to it after a time, but I'm not deceiving myself that I could just walk up to Newmarket Heath, take over 50 horses and start giving Michael Stoute a run for his money". Can you believe that!!?? What he was saying was the polar opposite of what yesterday's paper had told us that he was saying. There must be so many people who read the first snippet which was highlighted but failed to spot the real statement which was buried away in a page of text the following day, and who have quite unjustly been given completely the wrong impression of the man. That's just so unfair. Is that malicious journalism or incompetent journalism? I don't know. All I know is that the Racing Post owes Harty a big apology - and I suspect that it owes Mark Johnston the same.


Anyway, that's enough politics for one chapter. What's been going on in the part of the world that really matters (to me, anyway)? Well, Easter Day was very special: we had better snow than we've had for years. I rode Polly up the Heath at about 9.30 in conditions which were close to a white-out, which was tremendous. I took some photographs, at least one of which I hope will be positioned adjacent to this text before too long, which illustrate my point: all one can see is her ears, with the ground and the sky just blending into one with no horizon visible. Fantastic. Of course, at this time of year snow doesn't last long (which is one of its advantages) so it was already starting to go by the time Emma and I took Anthony up to the Heath to build a snowman - but I'm pleased to say that vestiges of his snowman still remained yesterday (Tuesday). And the dogs were stars too, Sarah in particular having a ball in the snow. It was lovely.

Leaving aside the thrill of the snow, we can also savour the thrill of expectation, because we have seven horses in reasonably strong work just now, and all seem to be going nicely. Five of the seven - Brief, Polly, Imperial Decree, Jill and Filemot - galloped this morning, and all performed very satisfactorily. The other two are Anis, who has already done one very pleasing gallop this year but who is just off games for a week or so, and Belle Annie, who is coping with her cantering very well and is almost at the point of galloping (in fact, a horse of minimal ability would have been classified as galloping if going up Warren Hill at the speed she went up it this morning), and I am very happy with both of these too, so we can look forward to the season with optimism - and just hope that, if we are lucky enough to win some races, the horses' owners will have something to show for it.