A great leap forward

I think we could be on the verge of a great leap forward. We might be on the verge of it for quite a while, because Rome wasn't built in a day, but yesterday evening Emma and I attended a briefing in the Jockey Club Rooms which gave us great hope that traffic may be much less of a hazard for horses and riders in Newmarket in the future than it has been in the past. As some of you will know, this is a subject which has vexed me, and many other people, a lot in the past, with trying to get something done about it being akin to banging one's head against a brick wall. Mark Tompkins, as Chairman of the Newmarket Trainers' Federation, has found it a particularly frustrating subject. What has happened over the past few months is that William Gittus, on behalf of Jockey Club Estates Ltd, has engaged a firm of 'consultants' called EAS Ltd to try to help matters, and yesterday's briefing, given by William and a very sensible man from EAS called Pat Eggenton, suggests that things may be about to move forward. Mr Eggenton is, apparently, well accustomed to dealing with the government departments (national and local) which dictate what happens on roads, and it seems as if the very sensible improvements for which he has drawn up plans might actually take place. And if they do, then life will be a lot better (ie safer) for anyone who rides horses to and from Newmarket Heath. Which will be very, very good.

There wasn't a huge crowd at the briefing, but there was another trainer there (Chris Wall); plus a third trainer (Luca Cumani) was represented by his daughter. Riding home on my last horse of the morning, I'd bumped into Francesca cycling down Rayes Lane at lunchtime and expressed surprise that she wasn't at Ascot, where the stable was running the hot Royal Hunt Cup favourite Bankable. She explained that Ascot isn't really her scene (mine neither - but that's not so surprising) which will come as bad news to the compilers of the social pages of the Racing Post, who must be bemoaning all the anticipated photo opportunities which are thus failing to come to pass. Having seen plenty of her in the lead-up to the Derby, we also saw plenty of her in the lead-up to Royal Ascot, although there was only one photo of her in Saturday's Racing Post (which was OK, actually, because anyone who wanted two photos - ie Joff - could always buy two copies of the paper). Shock of the week, even more so than the win of the 100/1 maiden Flashmans Papers (I havent left out the apostrophe, because it doesnt exist) in the Windsor Castle, was that Sunday's Post contained one photo of Leonard Cohen (!) and none of Francesca, but the magazine which accompanied the paper made up for that omission. Anyway, Royal Ascot had to do without her yesterday, which was the briefing's gain.

Another bonus for the briefing was the unsurprising presence of Aisling's father-in-law, Councillor Appleby. Regular readers of the Racing Post letters column won't be surprised to learn that Andrew was present, but probably will be surprised to discover that he kept his verbal contribution to less than a minute (it would have been even shorter but for William having to ask him to repeat himself). Don't ask me what he said because it was even harder to make out his words than it was to understand what was being said in the appalling jockeys' wives feature in BBC1's coverage of the first day of Royal Ascot - not that the jockeys' wives were mumbing (at least I don't think they were, not that one could be sure) but rather because it was filmed in some wine bar or restaurant in which all one could hear was the clattering of cutlery and the braying of the other lunchers. Anyway, even Andrew didn't seem to find much fault with the proposals, which really is saying something.

And a further bonus for the briefing was the appearance (admittedly only when it was nearly over) by the ubiquitous Peter Hadden, whom any visitor to Newmarket will probably have seen in his unofficial role of overseer of the Heath. The other way to be aware of Peter will have been to be a reader of the Racing Post Chatroom, because it used regularly to contain his contributions. He hasn't appeared there for ages, and he tells me it is not because he no longer contributes, but because his missives nowadays invariably end up on the cutting room floor. Even allowing for the fact that Peter's comments weren't always that incisive, it's still hard to believe that there can be any sort of quality control operating in the Chatroom, not least because of the continued inanities from Big Dave Osborne. Anyway Peter showed up, and I'd like to be able to illustrate this chapter with a picture of him, especially as this morning I had a perfect photo-opportunity when we bumped into him strolling down the side of the Bury Road chatting away to Graeme Sanders and Rick Williams, trainer of and racing/stud manager to the mighty Seachange; but sadly I didn't have my camera in my pocket, which was a real shame.

It's now half an hour to the first race on Ascot's third day so I must be brief. Like most people, I feel that Ascot has lost the bulk of its charm as a result of its redevelopment, and the change from four days to five has clearly resulted in a dilution of the quality of the racing, but it's still a wonderful fixture. And the one way in which it has improved in the past few years is the fact that we now have each year the overseas (mainly Australian) contingent, which is a real boon. Camilla is setting a hot pace in our 10-runner stable tipping competition, having selected the Spanish horse Equiano who beat lovely Takeover Target at 22/1 in the King's Stand Stakes on the first day, but otherwise winners are proving hard to find. The two obvious winners - Henrythenavigator and Duke Of Marmalade - were both short prices, and Camilla and I are the only two whose selections are so far showing a profit, my having gone back into the black when Festivale won the last race yesterday at 10/1. I suspect that I'll be back in the red after today's racing, which looks tricky.

I suppose that the one thing worthy of comment from Ascot so far - other than the excellent performances of Takeover Target, team Ballydoyle and Quinlan Bros. - was the substitution of Frankie Dettori, taking the place of Mick Kinane, on Sixties Icon. I thought this very unfortunate, and that's leaving aside the rather horrifying idea that anyone could say to Mick Kinane, "I know that you're booked to ride our horse today, Mick, but we're taking you off because a better jockey has come available". That's just sacrilege (and crazy): it would be like doing the same thing to Lester! But what was particularly unfortunate was that it was the head of the BHA, Paul Roy, who did so. 48-hour declarations suit me well and I prefer them to 24-hour declarations, but you will be aware that the more vocal trainers of large strings don't like them (how could we not be aware?!) and that the only way that the BHB (as it was then) could get them (and the principle of compulsory declaration of jockeys on the same day that the horses are declared, which had been brought in a few years previously) through was by pointing out (again and again) that it really is important that the lists of runners and riders are compiled in advance of the meeting and that they are as accurate as possible. So you declare your horse and you run him unless he becomes unwell or lame, and your declared jockey rides unless he can't get to the meeting, can't do the weight, or can't pass the doctor. At Yarmouth last week Henry Moskowicz didn't want Kirsty to ride Filemot after she'd had a fall earlier in the afternoon, but I explained to Henry that it was out of our hands: if the jockey we have declared is at the meeting, can do the weight and hasn't been signed off by the doctor, he or she rides the horse, irrespective of whether circumstances change and we decide that we'd rather now put up someone else. So, against this background, it was just terribly unfortunate - not to mention bloody rude to Kinane, who of all jockeys really should have reached a place in the sport where he shouldn't have to put up with something like that - that Paul Roy should have elected to switch jockeys on the morning of the feature race of the day on one of the biggest racedays of the year and at the meeting which receives the most international exposure of all; it might have been harder for the BHB to push 48-hour declarations through if, to the mantra "It really is important that we get these lists of runners and riders out and that they reflect what is going to happen", had been added, "unless it's a horse owned by our chairman".