And he's all heart too

The praise which the Racing Post gave to Ethics Girl last week would be equally fitting for Kadouchski, whose win at Sandown yesterday resulted from his ability and readiness to dig very deep. Conditions there were as testing as you could ever find and it really was a war of attrition up the final hill, a situation tailor-made to bring out the best in horses willing and able to force their heart and nerve and sinew to serve their turn long after they are gone. I know that Kadouchski's form is a bit up-and-down, but his seeming inconsistency is in no way the result of any lack of heart. If anything, in fact, his inconsistency is a true indication of the fact that he is incredibly genuine: it stems from the fact that he's a hard horse to get right and keep right, and consequently sometimes isn't physically able to post a personal best - but still he keeps trying as if the concept of going amiss isn't one with which he is familiar. Lest you think that I'm making excuses for the fact that I make a lot of mistakes while training him, by the way, I'll point out that I am his fourth trainer and that he was a maiden when he arrived here - so I'm probably not the only one to have found him hard to get right. He'd run below his best on his two previous jumps starts this winter when I'd expected him to run respectably, so I gave him a few easy weeks after his poor run at Folkestone on January 2nd, built him up again slowly - and happily it turned out that when he went to Sandown yesterday he was ready to show his best again. What I did, too, was to make sure that I put him in a race in which he didn't carry a big weight. He's only small and not even very stocky (unlike Ethics Girl, who is small but built like a tank) and so I think that it was as important yesterday that he was racing with a relatively low weight on his back (10 stone 3lb) as it was that he was racing off a relatively low rating (97, the lowest rating he'd raced off for over two years, and 7lb lower than the rating off which he'd won at Sandown 26 months ago). Even in weaker company, I think that the 11 stone 11lb which he'd borne at Folkestone last month was just too much for him. So that was all grand - and his fighting spirit meant that in a stirring slog up the hill, he came from well off the pace to collar the favourite/long-time leader about four strides from the line and win by a hard-fought three-quarters of a length. Great stuff!

While paying credit to Kadouchski's heroism, I should also point out that a big part in his win was the excellent ride which he received from his young jockey Peter Hatton. I'd had to recruit someone new for him as the race was for conditional jockeys, and I'd been surprised by how many people had said "Who?" when I told them that he was being ridden by a lad called Peter Hatton. Peter clearly hadn't caught many eyes previously, which I suppose is understandable as he's only a youngster and has only ridden a handful of winners, but he'd caught my eye when I'd been watching racing on ATR and RUK, most notably when he'd ridden the winner of a conditional jockeys' hurdle race at Kempton for his boss Alan King a few weeks ago, and I was very happy to put him down for the ride when his name featured in the list of jockeys which Dave Roberts presented to me. It all worked out perfectly because Peter still claimed 5lb in the race for not yet having ridden ten winners, while other 7lb-claimers only claimed 3lb. That, in fact, made the difference for us between victory and defeat, because it's fair to say that we wouldn't have won with another pound on our back. What also made the difference was that Peter's ride was faultless: I'd told him not to get conned into putting the horse under too much pressure too early because there's plenty of time coming up the hill at Sandown, the horse would stay on, and it's a track which favours good jockeys, ie ones who appreciate that the winning post is at the top of the hill, rather than halfway up it. He took all that in and rode accordingly, so he, like Kadouchski, can hold his head very high after the victory.

What was also very nice about yesterday was that Kadouchski's win kicked off a treble for Newmarket stables at Sandown. Kadouchski's win came in the first race; and the second leg of the treble came in the second when Russian Flag, trained by Neil King (who also sent out Fashionable Gal to win on the Flat at Lingfield yesterday and who is pictured here being interviewed on Racing UK by Lydia Hislop in the Sandown winner's enclosure, with Russian Flag walking around in the background), won a handicap steeplechase under Alex Merriam. The treble was completed later in the afternoon when the Lucy Wadham-trained Aviador won a two-and-a-half mile handicap hurdle under Richard Johnson. It's always good to remind people that Newmarket is an excellent training centre for both codes, a fact which is seemingly often forgotten. From my point of view, the reminder was particularly topical as I'd been to the AGM of the National Trainers' Federation earlier in the week and, having given my views on the (poor) collective response by the nation's National Hunt trainers to the tarriffs, I was told by one wise guy that I wasn't in a position to comment, being a Flat trainer. I did, of course, point out that I am not a Flat trainer, but a dual-purpose trainer - but I suppose some National Hunt stalwarts might not be able to grasp such a distinction. Anyway, I was particularly pleased yesterday to be able to reflect that in the past 12 months we've had 15 wins, with eight coming on the Flat and seven over jumps. I'd actually hoped that we might have been able to make it a true 50:50 split today as Alcalde was set to start favourite in a novices' handicap hurdle at Chepstow, but sadly rain stopped play there (and not before we'd got 80 miles down the road). That was disappointing, but no lives were lost and, God willing, he'll be able to fight another day. Perhaps as soon as next Friday, at Newbury.

Ready to roll?

Today has been rather pleasant. It was cold and wet during the first half of this week, but today was dry, mild and generally very springlike. A couple of weeks of such weather (fat chance!) and we'd have put the winter well behind us. Weather forecasters, though, seemingly can't even semi-accurately look more than a couple of days ahead, if that - so we'll look ahead to the next couple of days, which I hope will see us running Kadouchski at Sandown (tomorrow) and then Alcalde at Chepstow on Saturday. I'd like to think that we'll have two good runs. After how wet it's been prior to today, the ground will be very testing at each track. This oughtn't to be much of a problem for Kadouchski, while I hope that Alcalde won't be massively inconvenienced, even if admittedly I'd prefer to be running him on a good to soft track than on a heavy one. The main thing is that both horses seem very well. They've each been rolling a lot, which is great. I love to see horses rolling, whether that be in the stable after exercise or on the ground when they are turned out. The day-yards out in the yard are a lot wetter now than they were last week when these photographs were taken; but, whether good to soft or heavy underfoot, they provide places where horses like to roll, as these photographs of Kadouchski (upper)and Alcalde (lower) in the relatively dry conditions of last week show. In my mind at least, when horses are rolling with the enthusiasm shown here, then they are in good form. The next couple of days will tell us whether that opinion is correct.

Sign of the times

I have a theory that one is better off buying young fillies than young colts because, if the horse achieves something, the filly will have some sort of value at the end of her racing career, while a colt (who will presumably be a gelding by that stage) won't, irrespective of how well he has done. However, currently this theory doesn't seem to hold water (although I hope that this is only a temporary situation, because one hopes that the bottom which has recently fallen out of the breeding market will return at some point when racing and the country's general economy return to something like health). I found out just how little water the theory holds yesterday when Anis Etoile (pictured returning to the winner's enclosure after a bumper at Uttoxeter in 2009) failed to attract a bid at Ascot Sales, despite boasting a decent pedigree (she is a half-sister to the stakes-placed hurdler Serpentaria and her dam is multiple-winning half-sister to the Ascot Gold Cup winner Celeric) to go with her National Hunt victory. A year or two ago she would definitely have had a value as a National Hunt broodmare - but now, 'no bid'. I am pleased to say that she has subsequently found herself a good home as a National Hunt broodmare in Ireland, where she could well breed a high-class jumper, so the story does at least have a happy ending. But, even so, it is still a sad indictment of the times.

Still, things could be worse. For instance, one could find oneself booked to ride a horse in a steeplechase whose form figures read PPUUU. That's the fate which befell poor William on Monday. The same horse's form figures, predictably, now read PPUUUU. This was the horse's first run for over six months, I presume because of a rule which dictates that a horse who fails to complete the course on five consecutive occasions can't run for another six months. Anyway, the statutory six months of intensive schooling produced the result one would expect: the horse appeared to jump the first OK, but then blundered at the second, blundered at the third and blundered at the fourth, at which point a (presumably relieved that the ordeal was about to end) William fell off. But you can read all that in the Racing Post - to get the true lowdown on William's day, however, you have to read his thoughts on Twitter. If you do, you'll know that he cheered himself up in the evening by eating fish pie.

I'm particularly enjoying the twitterings of William (seen here mentally composing a tweet while riding Alcalde earlier in the winter) now that James Main's trial in the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons' star chamber has finished. Unfortunately it appears to have had neither a happy nor a just ending. Admittedly James Main was also guilty of falsifying his records which is a serious matter but, surely, not one for which a vet should be struck off - but his principal crime appears to have been doing what his client asked him to do by giving the horse a drug which isn't illegal and which isn't harmful. It isn't against the rules of racing (nor the law of the land) for a horse to be given this drug, only for him/her to run later in the day of its administration - but, if he/she does run after having received this drug, that's the trainer's responsibility, not the vet's. Anyway, that's all water under the bridge now - but as I have said in a previous chapter, the coverage of the trial made for good reading while it lasted. Even if, as with all good soap operas, pretty much none of what was said (under oath, I'd imagine) appeared to be true. And that's the beauty of William's twitterings. You can watch Coronation Street or East Enders, be bored to tears by the inconsequential daily activities of Albert Tatlock, Ena Sharples or Dirty Den, and know that none of it actually happened. You can follow the James Main show trial and know that, while the events happened, the way that they are portrayed bears pretty much no relation to reality whatsoever. Or you can follow William on Twitter (WTKjockey) and know that he is 'telling it like it is'. Right down to the smallest details. The one mercy is that he doesn't appear to twitter when he's sitting on the lavatory. If he had done, I suspect that we'd have heard plenty of tweets from him on Monday morning.

She is all heart

Ethics Girl (seen in the first picture cantering to post under Robert Havlin) is such a trouper. She didn't win at Wolverhampton last night, but she ran yet another hugely creditable race, demonstrating once more that, as the analysis of the race says in today's Racing Post, "she is all heart". One can't be down-hearted when one comes home from a race with the horse in good shape and having run with great credit, but even so the race was actually slightly frustrating from our point of view. It was an odd race as one of the runners, Far From Old, took charge of the rider and shot into a clear lead, which he held for two thirds of the race. As he'd been heavily backed, he had to be regarded as a serious contender, which made things awkward for the remaining jockeys. He did, of course, weaken suddenly as the field turned out of the back straight, but the upshot was that Ethics Girl hit the front too soon and, instead of tracking her main danger Carter (who is seen on her inside halfway through the race, with eventual runner-up Parhelion just in front of the pair of them) into the straight, she found herself leading into the straight with Carter following her through. She would have been long odds-on in the in-running market on the home turn, but unsurprisingly (to those who know her) she was overhauled by Carter at the furlong pole, and even lost second (as the third photograph shows) in the dying strides to Parhelion, from whom she had taken the lead with ease at the 450m. She was running off her highest rating ever, finished just behind horses with whom she had looked very closely matched on the book (she and Carter had gone off the 3/1 joint favourites, with Parhelion at 7/2) and still finished TWENTY FIVE LENGTHS clear of the fourth, so really we can't feel too hard done by - but still one came away just feeling that maybe 'what if?'

One trainer who came home with no ifs or buts was our friend Toby Coles, whose charge Cotton King (pictured going to post under Ian Mongan) had won the previous race, over the same 14-furlong course but for horses in a lower ratings band. Toby had had the option of running Cotton King in that race with a high weight or in our race with a lower weight, and he surely pulled the right rein in opting for the weaker race: the horse's SP of 10/11 showed that he was very well placed in that heat, whereas he would have been deemed to be less of a good thing in our race. However, it's now fair to say that he'd have won either with ease, having scooted home by ten lengths in a time almost exactly a second quicker than that posted by Carter. I was so pleased by Cotton King's victory as it's grand that he's doing so well (and not only because he's giving yet another boost to Rhythm Stick's form, being one of several horses to have finished behind Rhythm Stick and then gone on to win next time): Toby is a very skillful and conscientious horseman who works all hours God gives, so he really deserves to make a success of his training career, and Cotton King (seen well clear of his rivals inside the final furlong, and then returning to the winner's enclosure) is shaping as a horse to help him along the road to success. I was bold enough to suggest to Toby while Cotton King was still a maiden that he could end up winning a Cesarewitch with him, and I'm happy to stick with that verdict after the horse's win (his third) last night. And if the horse does go on to even greater glory, he will be paying a mighty tribute to the skill both of his trainer and of his regular rider Sammy, as he is far from easy. The horse's previous connections gave up with him and cut their losses at a very early stage, but Toby and Sammy look to be doing just fine with him now.

The missing hoops file (cont'd)

While writing last night about those who have recently gone on or come off the Missing Hoops File (as Winning Post's list of jockeys on the sidelines is called) I forgot to mention the news closest to home on this subject. Iva's recovery from her broken knee, sustained at last year's Yarmouth September meeting, has been painfully slow, but she's taken a big step forward recently in returning to the saddle, albeit in a very sedate manner. As anyone who has found themselves returning to the saddle after a serious injury knows, the one thing one wants to do is to ease oneself back into it gradually, which obviously requires a sensible horse: the last thing one wants is, after months on the sidelines and while one is still in a lot of pain, is to climb aboard a horse who's going to jump around. Well, step forward Ex Con, who is also known as my hack. This is absolutely perfect timing as Ex Con is currently at a stage of his preparation where he wants to do as much walking and trotting as possible, so he and Iva have spent this week putting in the slow miles to help each other return to fitness. Iva's principal job, of course, is in Jane Chapple-Hyam's stable, and she's set to return to work there on Monday, just doing yard-work on the ground initially as she isn't yet up to riding any horse other than an abnormally quiet one, as she is still in a lot of pain and still has very limited strength in her knee. There aren't many horses in the town who answer to that description, but Ex Con fits the bill perfectly. When she told Jane that she had begun riding a quiet horse here to get back into the swing of things, Jane asked whether she was riding one of the racehorses, or riding a hack - which actually isn't that easy a question to answer, as Ex Con, who as we know is a multiple winner, is equally adept in both roles. And, as the second illustration in this paragraph illustrates, he'll be perfect too for more energetic riding when the time comes! (And finally, as the chapter's third and fourth photographs - in the next paragraph, even though they relate to this one- show, he's had a lovely morning, the perfect post-script to a ride being, of course, a roll.)

By a curious coincidence, I sat down to read last weekend's Winning Post once I'd finished writing yesterday's blog chapter - and who should appear in one of my favourite columns, the 25/50/75/100 years-ago retrospective? Well, none other than one of the subjects of yesterday's chapter: Peter Hutchinson. Why? Well, 25 years ago last week, mid-February 1986, he was also in the news: "Apprentice Peter Hutchinson breaks his ankle in a race fall at Moonee Valley". Read in parallel with Peter's recent misfortunes, that provides a timely and worthwhile reminder that a lengthy career for a jockey can be best summed up as quarter of a century of serious injuries. The same column also provided a reminder of the toughness of horses: 50 years ago "Watch Out wins two consecutive races at Healesville within 21 minutes to become the first horse to do so since Belmont Park, who won successive races at Rosehill on July 31, 1954". Healesville's only a picnic track so its races in 1961 might not necessarily have been very competitive - but racing in Sydney has been very strong for a long time, so one particularly has to doff one's cap to Belmont Park. Just like Phar Lap's achievement in winning on all four days of the Flemington Carnival in 1930, it's a fair bet that Belmont Park's feat in winning consecutive races on a metropolitan fixture in Sydney will never again be achieved. Would be grand to see, but.

If the time capsule is one of the most readable columns in Winning Post, the highlight of this week's Racing Post surely has to be report of James Main's trial before the panel of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. The series of reports is as entertaining as any soap opera - and, just like a soap opera, it's completely pointless: (unless I'm missing something) James Main hasn't done anything wrong and the trial shouldn't even be taking place. Surely it isn't an offence for a vet to give a known bleeder an injection of an anti-bleeding drug? The fact that the horse raced later in the day, when clearly she wasn't eligible to do so, was the misdemeanour - but that's down to the trainer, not the vet. If a vet had given such an injection without the trainer's permission or knowledge, then it would have been a different matter altogether. But, as far as I can gather, all the vet did was do what his client asked him to do, even if the fact of billing for a "pre-race check" suggests that, in his mind, he was doing something which ought to have been covered up. Notwithstanding that bizarre piece of book-keeping, however, I can't see that he has broken any rules at all - so why this hearing is taking place at all is far from clear to me. Other than the fact that I would like to put on record my sympathy for the vet's plight, the other point which I feel ought to be made is that apparently the claim has been made during the trial that giving injections of this drug on race-mornings has been standard practice in numerous stables. I would like to take this opportunity to make one statement, lest we all be tarred by the same brush: not in this stable it hasn't been. Nor is it. And nor shall it be. Here endeth the lesson.

Milestones, ups and downs - and that ubiquitous Festival!

I've been pleased to note two milestones in jockeys' comebacks over the past two days. More recently, Adrian McCarthy, who seemingly jacked in the jockeying last summer, had his first ride for six months or more this evening, partnering Chez Vronny for Dave Morris in the 6.40 at Kempton Park. Adrian's too good a jockey to have retired himself at the age of 32, so I'm very pleased that he's back in action. His main job is riding out for Ed Dunlop, but he rides out for Dave at the end of the mornings and, wild though he might have been as a youngster, he's certainly a hard worker nowadays. And an invariably cheerful one too. So let's hope that he enjoys a good degree of success henceforth. I'd hope that we'll be able to put him on something at some stage as he certainly has a very good record for this stable, having won on Brief Goodbye (pictured before the race) at Windsor a few years ago (giving the horse a faultless ride) from only a very small number of rides.

A similarly chirpy (even chirpier) hoop is Peter Hutchinson, who paid us a visit last summer when making a long overdue return to the UK, where he spent much of his upbringing. He was nursing a broken elbow at the time, which was well on the way to recovery after a very bad break in a fall at Geelong in the first half of the year. He did resume race-riding towards the end of last year but has not been finding rides plentiful at all since his resumption, which isn't surprising I suppose, bearing in mind that comebacks in one's mid-40s are never going to be easy, especially when one had been struggling for rides even beforehand. I was, therefore, delighted to note that Peter (pictured, bottom left of picture) returned to the winner's enclosure on board the Robert Smerdon-trained Olympic Win in the Marong Cup at Bendigo last Saturday. Let's hope that it can be onwards and upwards for him too henceforth.

Two of our other former antipodean visitors enjoyed contrasting fortunes last weekend. Clare Lindop has enjoyed a cracking start to 2011 thus far and duly saluted the judge yet again at Morphettville on Saturday afternoon. She's averaged more than one winner per meeting at which she has ridden so far this year, having ridden plenty of doubles and having rarely come home empty-handed, and I'm sure that I'd be correct in saying that she's ridden more winners in South Australia this year than any other jockey. After a relatively slow start to the season, she's now lying second in the Adelaide premiership, two winners behind Paul Gatt, so let's hope that this momentum continues; if it does, it would surely see her champion jockey again. Michelle Payne, on the other hand, won't be riding anywhere for a couple of months, having broken a bone in her neck in a fall on Saturday in the Blue Diamond Fillies' Prelude at Caulfield. She was in Newmarket at the same time as Clare a couple of summers ago - as this photograph shows, with Clare on Rhythm Stick and Michelle on Douchkette - and there will be plenty of people on this side of the world wishing her well in her recovery.

Mention of Adrian McCarthy's come-back, by the way, prompts me to issue a plea to the producers of Racing UK: please, please, please remember that the Cheltenham Festival isn't the only meeting being held in Britain this year! I know that Racing UK, understandably, make a big thing of Cheltenham, but even so it was a shock, when I turned on the TV at 6.31 this evening to watch Adrian ride in the 6.40, to hear Lydia's voice saying something like, "So you think that the Queen Mother Champion Chase might, in fact, be the race for him?". The pictures on the screen were of the runners for Kempton's 6.40 walking around the parade ring with the jockeys about to mount, but the discussion between Lydia and Steve was revolving around whether some novice chaser (I left the room before discovering which one) should be running in the Arkle (27 days hence) or the Queen Mother (28 days) hence - while the race in which anyone watching RUK at that time was most interested was 9 minutes away, and being ignored. Unbelievable. Discussion then moved on to what might be a fair ante-post price for this horse for these races, until eventually the horses reached the start, and the discussion reluctantly moved on to the race in hand. I'm sure that the last thing that Steve and Lydia wanted to be doing at that time was pontificating yet again about races four weeks away, analysing the chances of horses who very possibly won't even run in them, and that they must have been getting as bored as the audience was by all this nonsense, but the producer had clearly instucted them to spend as little time discussing this evening's action as possible and as much on events four weeks away (yet again). I say this as someone who loves jumps racing, so I'd hate to read a review of the programme by someone who has a strong preference for Flat racing - and I'd imagine that plenty of the few people who would switch on the TV midway through a February evening to watch Kempton AW might fall into exactly that category.

Sad Saturday

I enjoyed my trip to Lingfield yesterday, notwithstanding the fact that Asterisk (pictured walking dreamily around the parade ring before yesterday's race) ran badly. Part of what made the trip so pleasant was, of course, the warm sunny weather, but another part was the horrific reminder which we received from elsewhere of what a bad day at the races really is: any day at the races from which all the horses return home safely and at which none of the jockeys are hurt is a good day. If a horse runs badly but walks away happy and unharmed (as Asterisk did) and the jockey strolls back into the weighing room, then any problems or disappointments which one might think one has endured aren't matters of life or death. Sadly, the tragedy of those two poor horses who were electrocuted at Newbury, the fatal injuries to lovely old Money Trix (pictured looking over the door of the stable in Abington Place which he occupied for a time last winter while escaping the Cumbrian arctic) in the Irish Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown and to Kilmurry in the Grade Two novice chase at Warwick, and the death of Glencove Marina after the Irish Hennessy Gold Cup, reminded us of the sadness which can ensue from a day at the races. (And it is possibly worth reflecting that, on a terrible day for National Hunt racing, none of the casualties were fallers). I feel so sorry for the connections of the horses who lost their lives yesterday, and particularly feel for my first employer Andy Turnell and his patrons and staff who lost Marching Song at Newbury, and for Nicky Richards and his team. Even with such a special horse as Monet's Garden in the string which had come down from frozen Greystoke to Newmarket, it was clear when they were down here last winter what affection, respect and admiration Nicky had for Money Trix, whom he is seen riding here just after dawn on the Heath one winter's morning last year (the poor light being my excuse for coming up with such a terrible photograph).

Asterisk's performance was rather frustrating because she was so calm beforehand, really good at the start (I went down to the start and loaded her myself, as I generally do as she was formerly very difficult with the stalls) - and not in the least bit tired afterwards. That last bit gives some hope for optimism as she is clearly capable of better - but at the same time it is rather frustrating to see her under-performing. We'll see what the future holds, even if, on the face of it, it's hard to justify running a horse again after such a weak performance as she put in yesterday. If only she could have taken inspiration from her travelling companion: she went down there with the Gay Kelleway-trained Layline, who won a very competitive 81-95 handicap which was clearly the best race on the card and which, by a bizarre piece of race-programming, was the last race (after which Jamie Spencer is seen unsaddling him in the twilight and his warm black breeches, which probably aren't really necessary on a very mild and spring-like afternoon like yesterday's). That was clearly the best race of the day, but arguably the highlight was the win in a low-grade sprint handicap of Waabel, who provided Paul Doe with his first ride since 10th June and also his first winner. Paul has featured in this blog recently when we were discussing jockeys on the side-lines so it was good to see him back from his back-trouble-enforced absence - not that it looked, as one watched the race, as if he'd been away, as he'd clearly been working hard on his fitness to ensure that he would be ready to do himself and his mounts justice on his resumption.

So that was all very pleasant at a spring-like (although not yet leafy) Lingfield, in marked contrast to the awful events at Newbury and elsewhere. Newbury's card will, of course, be remembered as the day of the electrocution-enforced abandonment, but it will also be remembered as the day which put the nail in the coffin of any attempt by the Horsemen to make a meaningful demonstration of our feelings over the tarriffs. Last week was the first week since the introduction of the tarriffs. (I am aware that that last sentence doesn't actually make any sense, but I think/hope that you may know what I mean). The feature meeting on the first Saturday of the first week was always going to be the highest-profile demonstration of the fact that either people weren't going to run in races of less than the demanded value or that people were going to run whether or not the races met the requested levels. As it was, Newbury, a track which has spent the last several years consolidating a reputation for parsimony as regards prize money, provided the perfect demonstration: the Tote Gold Trophy (which was worth roughly twice the hoped-for amount) was the only race to meet/exceed the tarriffs' figures, while the remaining six races collectively fell short by 68,278 pounds. (Strange but true). This obviously set the scene for a clear-cut demonstration either way - and sadly the demonstration which we got was that, it seems, people are going to race whether or not the tarriffs are met.

Obviously one is never going to get unanimity among trainers, but jumps racing is in a strange situation in that the majority of horses, and the vast majority of good horses, are clustered in a handful of stables - even more so than on the Flat, if that's possible. The top 11 stables in the (financial) table have each run more than 100 individual horses this season, with Howard Johnson in 11th place being the least significant numerically, having 'only' run 112 horses. (These are the only stables seemingly to have massive strings, and beneath them in the table there is a yawning numerical gap, with 12th placed Peter Bowen having run 64 - which, of course, until recent years would have made this stable far and away the biggest in the land! - and 13th placed Nick Williams having run 30). Jonjo O'Neill (9th) is the biggest player numerically, having run 174 individual horses under National Hunt rules this season, followed by Nicky Henderson (165), Paul Nicholls (163), Nigel Twiston-Davies (159), Alan King (153), Tim Vaughan (148) and Philip Hobbs (138). As these stables collectively provide such a large percentage of the runners, and particularly of the more talented runners, how this handful of trainers reacted to the introduction of the tarriffs was going to be crucial. So what happened? Leaving aside the Tote Gold Trophy, in the six races below tarriff levels Paul Nicholls was set to saddle runners in all six races, Nicky Henderson and Philip Hobbs in four of the six, and so on. Last year (when the meeting came shortly after a prolonged freeze-up, whereas this year it came several weeks after a freeze-up, so that the backlog of horses waiting to run has had time to be dispersed) the six races had 12, 18, 6, 5, 3 and 11 runners - this year the numbers of horses declared were 10, 14, 7, 6, 3 and 11, so two of the races this year had slightly fewer runners, two had slightly more and two were set to have the same. So, all in all, I am afraid that we, the "Horsemen", collectively have managed to give a clear-cut demonstration that we will continue running the horses whether the tarriffs are met or not. Previously the racecourses would merely have suspected this to be the case; now they know it.

Doors close, doors open

One of the nicest results of this week was Brendan Powell's 16-year-old son, Brendan jr, riding his first winner, with the proud father being the trainer. It was lovely to see the pair of them interviewed at Southwell on ATR together afterwards. This would have been a lovely moment under any circumstances because Brendan sr is one of life's good guys (and I'm prepared to bet that it will be a case of like father, like son) but it was particularly nice to see it happen when it did, following so soon after Brendan being declared bankrupt. We're getting quite accustomed to trainers giving up the unequal struggle; but, even so, reading of Brendan's financial woes was rather a shock. It is not that long since he retired from race-riding, and after a very successful career as a jockey he must have retired with quite a lot of money in the bank, particularly as he has always been a prudent and unextravagant man. And, on top of this, he has actually become a very successful trainer anyway. It appears that his problems might not be as serious as the fact of being declared bankrupt would immediately suggest - witness the fact that the BHA has given him permission to continue training - and let's hope that that is indeed the case.

We have, of course, read recently of Hugh Collingridge and Paul Howling both calling it a day here, and of Brendan Duke being forced into insolvency in Lambourn. Paul remains on the scene, having transferred his string to Jane Chapple-Hyam's stable and having joined it as assistant, which is nice because he is a very pleasant part of Newmarket's furniture; but Hugh, I believe, has moved to take up premature retirement in Norfolk, and Newmarket (and particularly Exning) won't be the same without him. It was thanks to Hugh's kindness that I was emboldened to take the plunge to start training. He trained the first winner I whom owned, Witchway North who won at Fontwell in February 1994 and whom I used to ride out from Hugh's stable every morning before I went to my day job at Wood Ditton Stud, and it was thanks to the confidence which I had gained from her victory that I was rash enough to quit that job at the end of that year and apply for a trainer's license. And now I'm training in Hugh's old yard, into which I moved in 1997 when he moved out to Exning. Hugh has been a large and benevolent presence for most of my racing life so, while the announcement of his retirement didn't come completely out of the blue, it was certainly news which came as a bit of a jolt.


More positive news from this parish, though, is that we'll soon be welcoming a new trainer to Exeter Road: Charlie McBride, who has hitherto being training in Hamilton Road. This is extremely good news as he (pictured here this morning in Rayes Lane, alongside former long-time Geoff Wragg employee Neil Robe, who is a member of Charlie's small but extremely good team) and his wife Bev are just the sort of people one wants as neighbours. They have bought Exeter House from the bank which repossessed it when Jonathan Jay disappeared off the face of the earth last summer, and they are currently busy getting the 17-box yard and house ship-shape enough so that they and the horses can take up residence. Their task is not quite on a par with cleaning out the Augean stables, but it wouldn't be far behind - but work seems to be continuing apace, so I'd imagine that they might have moved in by the start of the new Flat season. Charlie's stable has fared extremely well in recent years, most notably in 2010 when he trained his first Group winner, Miss Starlight winning a Group Three race in Germany at Hamburg. She was one of three stakes-class horses whom he trained last year (Audacity Of Hope and Blue Maiden being the others) which is a remarkable achievement for a very small string of inexpensive horses. I hope and expect that he will continue to flourish from his new base because his success is nothing more than a fair reflection of his skills - skills based on a thorough grounding with Bruce Hobbs, for whom I believe he looked after Scintillating Air, third in Shergar's Derby in 1981. Bruce Hobbs had retired by the time I came to Newmarket in 1987, and Charlie was at that stage working as head lad to Hobbs' former assistant Lord John Fitzgerald in Albert House. He subsequently started training for a while, jacked that in and became head lad in this street for Willie Musson (next door, of course, to his new home) and then resumed training, with remarkable success. You'll have gathered from previous chapters that I get pleasure from any success for our little enclave (Dave Morris, Don Cantillon and Willie Musson being here in Exeter Road, and Mark Tompkins being just around the corner in Rayes Lane) so I hope that our little corner of town will have even more regular causes for celebration once Charlie has joined us here.

Let's hope, in fact, that we have cause for celebration when Asterisk runs tomorrow afternoon. However, with a maiden jumping from stall 16 in a 16-runner handicap around Lingfield's tricky AW circuit, one can't be any more than hopeful. But travel in hope we shall.

Balmy and barmier

Our prematurely spring-like conditions have been continuing to such an extent that today's Racing Post contained the surprising announcement that the going at our local jumps course, Huntingdon, was set to be good, good to firm in places today. That, though, proved not to be the case, as the forecast rain did indeed arrive both there and here, and the ground there ended up being called good to soft and looking much softer than that. Even with a day of steady rain, though, the temperature remained very mild, and it was almost like a day of summer's rain. So that wasn't too bad, even if we seem to have lost the beautiful conditions of the first half of the week, best summed up by the scene up at the Links on Tuesday morning, where we met our Tommy Keddy-trained mate Archie Rice for a bit more jumping practice. Conditions in the stable have been equally splendid, even though our field out the back remains very boggy: it always takes a lot longer to dry out after its winter of discontent than does the remainder of the property. The field is actually at its worst at this time of year. As it dries, it becomes very holding indeed and the mud becomes very clinging, so just now we aren't putting the horses who are close to running in it at all, as I've got enough to worry about without the likelihood of something pulling a plate off a day or two before a race. What is fortunate, though, is that instead we can use the pens down in the yard for turn-out for horses whom I don't want to put in the field. Normally these pens would be very boggy in February and I wouldn't be using them, but the recent warm dry spell has seen them dry out so much that they're getting plenty of use now, with Alcalde seen here enjoying a roll on some very dry earth. And, of course, there is always the yard itself, now that it's not so wet that one wouldn't want horses at large on what I laughingly call the 'lawn'. Only those who can be trusted not to do anything stupid, of course, are given this privilege - so here we have Ex Con and Alcalde both mooching around very sensibly earlier this week.

It's as well that the weather has been so balmy because quite a few of the town's concerned citizens found themselves killing time outside the Forest Heath District Council offices in Mildenhall at dusk yesterday. That wouldn't have been much fun in typical February temperatures, but as it was it wasn't too bad. This was the latest saga in the barmy Hatchfield Farm debacle. As you might know, Lord Derby, who remains steadfast in his believe that he is the only soldier in step on the parade ring and that he alone knows that Hatchfield Farm being turned into a 1,200-home + industrial and retail estate suburb won't do anything to add to the town's traffic and thus make the passage of horses through the town more hazardous. Unfortunately, Lord Derby seems to have got himself a couple of staunch allies in the shape of the FHDC planning officers, who thus provided us with a great 'Yes Minister' moment, Sir Humphrey once again trying to wrest power away from Jim Hacker. In this instance, it was an attempt by the officers to ensure that the elected councillors were taken out of the loop as regards fighting Lord Derby's appeal against those councillors' unanimous decision last year to reject his planning application. Yesterday evening saw the councillors set to vote on whether to hand over their own power to the council officers to handle the appeal as they see fit and without recourse to the councillors' opinion. It takes a lot to get a bunch of trainers to agree on anything, but the prospect of this was enough to get many of our number over there just to be present at the meeting as observers, hoping to remind our elected representatives that they are the people for whom we have voted, not their supposed servants. As it turned out, our presence was probably unnecessary as the councillors gave the officers' proposal very short shrift indeed, but it never does any harm to remind our rulers that we do care about the decisions which they take on our behalf and that we do pay attention to what's going on. And if nothing else, the evening did serve to remind us that we are lucky enough to have some very good and honest councillors acting on our behalf, who genuinely do care about the welfare of this town and who are not going to be brow-beaten into doing what isn't right simply because it's easier that way.

T-day tomorrow

Digging out those photographs of the pre-Christmas frozen conditions (of the Norfolk roads in the previous chapter) provided quite a shock: the bad winter really does already seem a surprisingly long time ago. I know that we're only still in the first week of February, which is very often the coldest month of the winter, but this really feels (almost) like spring; while winter already seems like a distant memory. Let's hope that this isn't a false dawn - after all, we did have a fresh dose of snow last year in March. However, what we have got now (drying conditions with temperatures in double figures during the day and not far below them even at night) really is rather pleasant. Relatively speaking. We haven't had many of the blue skies which one likes to associate with spring, although we were blessed with clear conditions on Thursday, as this photograph shows. For those unfamiliar with this stable-yard, I can assure you that to have in winter underfoot conditions here as un-wet as they appear in this photograph is very unusual. The photograph, incidentally, contains the four National Hunt winners who currently live here: Ex Con (who can be trusted to wander around the yard freely without doing anything more sinister than breaking into the feedroom) is outside the pens, which contain Alcalde (next to Ex Con) and Kadouchski, while the head of Anis Etoile (who is no longer in training) can be seen poking over a stable door above and to the left (as we look at things) of Ex Con's head. Otherwise, though, we're 'enjoying' cloudy skies, which don't look so nice as what was above us during the days in December when the pressure was high and the temperatures low, but which are doing a good job of keeping the frost away. And that rather boring ramble is my excuse for publishing a photograph of the yard, taken on a frosty morning (December 12th) just a day or two before the snow arrived, which is of no relevance to anything, but which, I think, is rather nice to look at.

Contrastingly, what is of relevance at present is the great tarriff debate. Time will tell where this leads us, and probably by the time that we reach that point we'll all be sick of hearing and reading about the subject. If we aren't already. Basically I think that the tarriffs are a good thing, even if I have some reservations about their implementation. I will probably go into these anon, but I don't have the energy for that at present (nor can I guarantee that you'll have the energy to read such a boring monologue). What I will do, though, is to make a few observations on the historical background, which I think is something which deserves a bit of coverage. So far there has been no attempt to put the current situation into context, so I'll now try to redress that omission.

Set minimum prize-money levels are are neither new nor unorthodox, despite the fact that the John McCriricks of the world are trying to give the impression that the racehorse-owning classes have suddenly been hit by an attack of greed. All racing nations (apart from, it seems, this one nowadays) around the world recognise, and have more or less always recognised, that a certain level of prize money is essential for the health of the sport. Basically, racing as we know it dates from the second half of the 19th century. Prior to that, it had been run regionally (albeit with some central control) on a fairly haphazard basis. However, the introduction of railways meant that people and animals could travel around the country relatively easily, enabling racing to become a national sport as we now recognise it. Furthermore, this also coincided with huge changes in society consequent to the industrial revolution, which saw increasing numbers of people with the time and the money to own racehorses, something which had previously been the preserve of a handful of aristocrats, who would basically compete against each other in private. Nothing better illustrates the change than the creation in 1875 of Sandown Park, the first racecourse built to be part of the changed sport and the first built as a commercial venture, with enclosures which the public could pay to enter. The sport thus entered the commerical era and thus became a sport organised for the public as well as for its participating patrons. It also created the situation where both public and patrons were essential.

This period saw a new era in which, for the first time, racing had various 'stake-holders' whose interests would not necessarily coincide. The Jockey Club seized the nettle which had thus been presented. It began to license trainers (firstly at Newmarket and subsequently nationwide) and jockeys and to set national standards. Some of these applied to racecourses. It was felt - and still is felt today by racing authorities around the world - that there had to be some recognised links between those who provided the players in the show (the horses) and those who provided the theatres (previously the racecourses had not been theatres, but had been private play-grounds run by the players more or less for the sole benefit of the players). For the sport to thrive on a large scale, it was felt that there needed to be some incentive for people to own horses: it was no good just relying on the fact that people had always done so and possibly might always do so. It was no longer enough just to rely on racing taking place effectively for side-bets, so in the 1880s (I forget the exact date and I forget the exact sum) the Jockey Club issued a rule that any race-meeting, to be officially sanctioned, had to put up a certain figure in stake money. Within a decade, roughly half of the country's racecourses closed, while the other half became part of the modern commercial sport of racing as we know it today.

Minimum prize money levels then persisted for the next 12o years or so, the levels obviously being altered (usually upwards) from time to time. I'm told that in the 1960s the minimum value of a race was 200 pounds (the winner to receive something like 136 pounds) while when I started following racing in the late-'70s I'm sure I remember something like 404 pounds being the minimum value of the lowest class of race. Throughout history, incidentally, the minimum values have always been, in real terms, significantly higher than the sums now specified in the tarriffs for low-grade races. Anyway, this situation continued into the 21st century, and it continues around the world. This latter point is well made by Racing Post editor-in-chief Alan Byrne in the current edition of Thoroughbred Owner & Breeder. In his position, Alan has no axe to grind in favour of any particular faction, the Racing Post being a paper for all involved with racing, irrespective of their standpoint; and thus he isn't speaking from a vested interest when he observes that it is a generally held axiom that for racing's future to be secure, there has to be a solid prize money base to underpin the sport: "I am not aware of any racing nation that has made significant progress without addressing the average return to owners via prize-money".

Unfortunately, the current century has seen racing's administrators abdicate the responsibility for setting the guidelines. A few years ago, the BHA (or BHB as it was probably called then) decided to scrap its minimum prize money levels - and from that day onwards, the current impasse became inevitable. I don't know why the BHA/B took this viewpoint, but I suspect it was simply laziness, taking the easy way out. It remains feasible for the BHA to set levels if it were to chose to do so. No restriction of trade issues apply because the BHA wouldn't be saying that a racecourse couldn't hold race-meetings if it didn't meet the required standard; it would merely be saying that those race-meetings wouldn't not be run under its auspices. There are already umpteen costly hoops through which racecourses have to jump to be licensed to hold meetings (just as there are umpteen costly hoops through which trainers have to jump to be licensed to run horses at such meetings) so this would merely be one further addition to the list. There is, of course, the fear that one could get break-away courses (especially now that there are racecourse groups) who would negotiate with the bookmakers and form a breakaway league, and the Jockey Club (and its successors) have always been fearful of losing their monopoly. However, in practice, this is a groundless fear. To attract the owners and trainers necessarily to stage a break-away league, the racecourses would obviously need to be putting up good prize money - and if they were doing that anyway and thus fulfilling the statutory requirements in this respect, why would they have broken away? Furthermore, who would run a horse at one of the breakaway tracks, bearing in mind that any horse who ran at an unlicensed meeting would become permanently ineligible to run at official meetings anywhere in the world, and no trainer who ran a horse at one of these meetings would be permitted to run any horse at any official fixture anywhere in the world? A break-away league just wouldn't get off the ground, just in the same way that the programme of unlicensed meetings which has long existed in a parallel to the Jockey Club-recognised meetings (these 'flapping' meetings take place mainly in Wales and southern Scotland) have never posed any significant threat to official racing and have never looked likely to usurp official racing from its position of dominance.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the BHA (unnecessarily, in my opinion) washed its hands of responsibility for setting the standards in this area a few years ago. Since then, prize money has inevitably been going down and down. It was thus inevitable that a time would come when a significant number of the participants would say, 'Enough is enough', because otherwise one could be sure that the prize money levels would continue to fall, as racecourses saw that they could fill their races come what may, and that as this country, unlike virtually every other country in the world, lacked a leadership prepared to take responsibility for providing the guidelines. It seems that the time has now come. Whether this is the right time, and whether the levels demanded are the right levels, remains to be seen, but that is the background behind the new tarriff levels. The stand-off starts (under National Hunt rules) tomorrow, so time (and probably only a fairly small amount of time) will tell what happens next. We'll see.

On a happier note, I would like to salute a few recent winners. The two winners I was happiest to cheer home yesterday were Firm Order at Sandown (because he was - very well - ridden by William Kennedy) and Diplomatic at Lingfield (because he is trained by Michael Squance). Diplomatic has featured in this blog previously because I was at Lingfield in the snow on 22nd December when he made his debut (as a five-year-old). He's very well bred (by Cape Cross ex Embassy) but he's had no end of problems, so one has to salute the patience and skill of Michael (pictured here leading the horse out towards the track before that debut) to get his charge to break his duck on his third start as a February six-year-old. It is inevitable that what we read about are the more popular trainer winning big races with good horses (who are, by and large, relatively easy to train) but it is worth remembering that the majority of good training achievements take place at the minor meetings with low-grade horses. A similar thought crossed my mind when I watched the racing from Cheltenham last weekend. I don't expect ever to see many better winning rides than the one given to The Giant Bolster by Rodi Greene. Had A P McCoy been the jockey and had he done exactly the same thing, the TV pundits would have fallen over themselves in their haste to tell us that that the for ride of the season, and that no other jockey would have won on the horse. As it was, the main thrust of what we are told was that Rodi Greene is a failed farrier. That's the way life works, though: the cult of the celebrity has gripped racing, just as it has gripped the rest of society. I can, though, do a little bit to redress the balance by highlighting from time to time the achievements of some of the unsung heroes. Such as Rodi Greene and Michael Squance.

One foot in the groove

One of the highlights of my trip to Fakenham last Sunday was being interviewed for BBC Radio Norfolk. I say 'for' BBC Radio Norfolk, rather than 'on' BBC Radio Norfolk, because I doubt that the interview actually went out: I don't think that it was being broadcast while it was taking place, and all my waffle was so banal that I doubt that it would have been put out on air once the producer had had a chance to listen to it and discover how boring it was. But, even so, it was good to play a part on my favourite radio station, even if it was probably just a hypothetical part.

I had, of course, been listening to BBC Radio Norfolk on the drive up to Fakenham. I always tune in to it (104.4 FM) any time I'm driving in Norfolk and it never fails to delight. Like so many, I was first introduced to BBC Radio Norfolk during the period when Alan Partridge held court during the graveyard shift, his mythical programme ranking up there with the Larry Sanders Show as the show which any show should become (just as, as we know, Wings were the band the Beatles could have become). The great thing about BBC Radio Norfolk is, as Alan Partridge's and Dave Clifton's appearances on TV used to suggest, that it is everything that local radio should be. Any drive in Norfolk, a beautiful, quiet and rural county, is a pleasure, even when the roads are as iced-over as I found them a few days before Christmas, but it becomes even more of a pleasure when you have BBC Radio Norfolk to entertain you. The news bulletin which we heard not long before our arrival at Fakenham was perfect: the first story concerned the ongoing revolution in Egypt (can we call it a revolution? I suppose we'll have to see how it ends before knowing the answer to that one); the second story told us that Labour's economic spokesman (Ed Balls?) had made a speech saying that the government shouldn't be trying to address the titanic budget deficit which the previous Labour government had bequeathed the country, but should instead, I presume, go on spending money which we don't have until we are so broke that we have to invade Poland, appropriate its assets and execute the majority of its citizens (well, it worked for Hitler - for a while); and the third story was that the butcher in Attleborough had put up the price of his sausages by 4% because the meat which goes into them had gone up in price. Similarly entertaining is a programme which comes on early afternoon during the week, 'One foot in the groove'. As you can probably guess, this show plays great music from yesterday - and surely originally had its title concocted by either Alan Partridge or Dave Clifton. When you're in Norfolk, therefore, 104.4 is the only place on the dial to be - although if I were able to find North Norfolk Digital, particularly around mid-morning, it might be a different matter. I haven't, though, been able to track that one down, other than on Youtube.

Happy Sunday

Sunday was a lovely day. After the very cold day on Saturday, the weather warmed up nicely so that there were no frost worries and, if one used a little imagination, one could nearly have termed it a spring day, albeit a sunless one. But, pleased though I was to be at Fakenham on a nice (for January) day, I was even more pleased with Alcalde. He had had a fairly rigorous three-season Flat campaign before joining this stable in the summer and he would, therefore, be justified if he felt that racing wasn't really something to enjoy - but everything he did on Sunday he did contentedly and happily, which was just great. It's debatable whether one ought to race horses who don't enjoy it, and it's certainly very doubtful that one can get such horses to fulfill their potential. But when they are as happy with their lot as he seemed at every stage of Sunday - before, during and after the race - then it's a pleasure for man and beast. His was a strange race because they went flat out from the start. I've seen mile races on the Flat where they go off more slowly than the leader did in his race. Alcalde consequently wasn't really travelling that well for the first mile, but once the leader had fallen (well, unseated Tom Scudamore, but it was so bad a mistake that he might as well have fallen) at what would be the last hurdle on the next circuit, the remaining jockeys were able (and presumably relieved) to take a bit of a pull. Thereafter, Alcalde was more or less always in control and he won nicely. It was just really, really nice. Any winner is special, but the first time a horse wins for one is particularly special. And this is a horse I'm particularly fond of -while Fakenham, arguably the friendliest course in England, is always a particularly nice place at which to win. Clerk of the course David Hunter and racecourse chairman Sam Bullard are always very keen to make sure that owners and trainers enjoy their visit - and it was only a shame that Jason Hathorn was the only representative of the Alhambra Partnership able to be present to enjoy their hospitality.

Someone else who must have enjoyed the day was Rhys Flint. I'd spent most of last week assuming that, if Alcalde ran on Sunday, William would ride him. However, three quarters of an hour AFTER declaration time on Friday I took a call from Dave Roberts telling me that William felt obliged to go to Hereford to ride for his former boss Noel Chance. Dave's list of available jockeys included Rhys Flint, who wasn't actually set to be anywhere on Sunday, but whom Dave must have thought should be on the list because of his having won for us on Ex Con in the summer. Bearing in mind that victory, and particularly that there is some overlap between the All Points West Partnership and the Alhambra Partnership, I unhesitatingly opted for Rhys, not wanting to waste too much time on the decision because I was getting ready to leave for Wolverhampton with Ethics Girl. So Rhys at a fairly late stage found that he would have a ride on Sunday after all, and on the day duly headed from one side of the country to the other to take this ride. His winning ride on Ex Con had also been a late call-up as he was only booked for that at lunchtime on the day of the race, subsequent to Peter Toole, who had been going to ride the horse, being injured on the Lambourn gallops that morning. These late bookings must be good for him, though: having gone to Fakenham just for the one ride, he picked up the ride on Tom Scudamore's intended mount (the Steve Gollings-trained All That Remains, pictured in second place as the field come into the straight on the penultimate circuit) in the bumper, Tom having been injured in the fall in our race; and that won too. What a happy turn of events - expecting to have no rides on a Sunday and ending up riding a double. And meanwhile poor William had nothing better than a second on his three rides at Hereford and found himself missing a winner for this stable (for at least the third time). No worries, though: he'll have plenty of other days. God willing Alcalde will do so too.