Leaving home

I've had a couple of days off since I last posted on this blog. As it was half-term, I took Anthony down to Devon to stay with his grandfather for two days (Wednesday to Friday) and all three Berrys seemed to have a mighty time. We let the train take the strain, which is always an enjoyable (but not inexpensive) way of travelling. Still, I suppose that the cost of fuel makes all travelling very costly, but even so running a railway ought to be a license to print money, as tickets are very dear and all trains nowadays seem to be full or nearly full. But train travel is such fun: it's an adventure, as well as a very easy way to go. We only had one full day down there, and that day was one of pretty much constant rain, but the rain didn't dampen the enjoyment - despite the fact that the highlight of the day consisted of standing on Exmoor, which is an activity which is much more enjoyable in dry weather than wet. Happily, the rain was only light at the time, so we really were able to enjoy spending an hour in the company of a man called Nigel Penfold and of his two Harris hawks, Cassius and Lady Macbeth (whose names would appear to suggest that Nigel is an enthusiast of Shakespeare as well as of hawks). This was really good fun, even if Anthony's comment halfway through that he was "living the dream" suggests that perhaps he doesn't take the English language quite as seriously as he should. Mind you, he is only eight, so that's forgivable. This treat took place out on the moor above Withypool, and the getting there was also a delight: a drive to and over the moor is always a pleasure whatever the weather, and this drive was made all the more pleasurable by the sighting of a couple of herds of magnificent Exmoor ponies.

Although our full day down in Devon was one of inclement weather, this month's weather is largely remaining very good right until the end of October (which ends tomorrow). Our train journey down from Paddington to Tiverton Parkway had taken place on a lovely golden sunny autumn dusk, and the day on which we departed was even more special. We really did see the Devon countryside at its best as we left it, all the more spectacular for the heavy mist resultant from a day of rain having fallen on warm soil being followed by strong morning sunshine. I'm not at all good at leaving home (I think that those two nights represented only the second and third nights which I have spent away from home this year, their predecessor having been when I stayed at Aintree after Alcalde had run there in the last race at an evening meeting in the spring, and on that occasion I'd been home by about 8.30 the next morning, so that hardly counted as an extended absence from home) but I always surprise myself by finding that I do actually enjoy being away, however much I dread it in advance. I think it's the leaving home which I so dislike, rather than the being away from home.

I'll next be leaving home tomorrow, but then I'll only be away for six hours of so: Kadouchski (pictured enjoying his roll in his stable after exercise this morning) is set to contest his second steeplechase when he runs in the third race at Kempton tomorrow afternoon. Fingers crossed he ought to run well, as he did in his first steeplechase nearly three weeks ago when he finished second at Huntingdon. Tomorrow's field looks very similar, so I would imagine that he should be one of several chances in the race. On my return I will leave home a second time for the day: that will be to head to London for ATR's overnight coverage of the Melbourne Cup, when Matt Chapman and I will brahmaize the night away while Flemington's 10-race (or possibly 9-race, I haven't yet checked) card takes place. So tomorrow night will be my fourth night away from home of the year, although again I'll be back in the yard by 8.30 the following morning. Regarding the mildness of the weather, I've clipped (admittedly only trace-clipped, as that's as much as I ever do) Kadou in advance of his race tomorrow. I don't like clipping horses any more than necessary as I think that they appreciate a long coat when it's cold, but it's so mild at present - still shirt-sleeves weather, which is amazing - that I think that Kadou would get too warm on the journey down and in the preliminaries tomorrow with his long coat, and I don't like to see a horse sweating before his race. So he's had some of his hair removed, and I think that I'll also clip Alcalde (pictured yesterday ridden by our visitor from Stockholm, the trainer/jockey Annika Kallse, who was over for the Horses-in-Training sale) before his outing at Sandown on Saturday, as his coat is even longer than Kadou's.

This week

We're still getting more than our fair share of magnificent mornings (such as Monday, as seen here, looking over Long Hill and then the Severals) and warm sunny days this week. So far, anyway. However, before I move on to this week, I should just revert to last week. No review of last weekend should have concluded without my saying how much pleasure I received from two victories at Doncaster on Saturday. Well, three really, because everyone loves to see a really good horse; and Camelot certainly is that. Most likely he won't win the Triple Crown, but we can use the thought that he might to keep us warm over the winter. There has been a Triple Crown winner in my lifetime, but I hadn't yet started to pay attention to racing in 1970, so within my conscious racing lifetime there has been none. And I really hope that that omission will be rectified before it's too late. Anyway, leaving Camelot aside, I was delighted by the victories of Mia's Boy and Direct Answer. Mia's Boy is a grand horse, as admirable as his trainer and owner, Chris and Shelley Dwyer (pictured on him early last month). He hadn't won for a couple of years (in fact, not since that same race two years ago, I believe) but he races at a very competitive level, and he'd run some terrific races in the interim. He really deserved that victory, and so did his connections. I'd been very pleased too earlier in the afternoon to see Direct Answer, a horse who has featured in this blog in the past, win a handicap. He's a son of one of my favourite stallions (Dynaformer) and I'm always pleased to see him and his lad Umar Saleem on the Heath (as here on Long Hill in a wet week in August) - well, almost always. I'd had a cock-up a couple of weeks previously when Kadouchski and I had overtaken him on the Al Bahathri when we were galloping and he was, to my surprise, doing pacework. Everyone involved had got their wires crossed, particularly me, so I was pleased when I waited at the end for Umar to apologise and explain that I hadn't meant to muck his exercise up, to find that he didn't mind and said that the exercise hadn't been spoiled anyway. Because all three people involved (Umar, Michael Stoute and Tony Crombie, the head lad who had been at the bottom of the gallop) are people whom I like and respect, I emailed Michael Stoute to reiterate the apology which I'd given to Umar. The reply was a brahma: that it was good of me to have written, that I had nothing to apologise for, that the misunderstanding hadn't been my fault, and that "anyway it was good to see you ride another winner in such a short space of time"! The fact, of course, that I was on Kadouchski made this brahma particularly good.

Moving on to this week, the most note-worthy event has, unfortunately, been the departure of Rhythm Stick. It's a fact of life that horses don't stay here forever, so there's no good in worrying about it. And we had reached the obvious time for Rhythm Stick's breeders (who had bred him to sell him, but hadn't done so when he was a yearling, as had been the plan, because he was still too backward then to be offered for sale) to sell him - and, while they would have loved to have kept such a lovely horse and found it a wrench to make the decision to do so, it was an economic fact of life that it behoved them to do so, as long as they were offered a good price. So he headed up to Tattersalls' Horses in Training Sale yesterday, where he duly fetched a very good price (35,000 gns). It was a sad moment for us all to bid him farewell, but there's no reason to suppose that he won't be in safe hands with his new keepers. He leaves us with many happy memories, and he departs with our very best wishes. Life goes on - and in this particular case the circle continues as we've recently welcomed a lovely Tiger Hill yearling filly (pictured being lunged by the photographer on the Severals on Monday) from his breeders Louise and Peter. She, too, was too backward to attract a buyer at the yearling sale, but she too surely has potential. So let's hope for lightning to strike twice. If she is as obliging a horse as he proved himself to be, I'm sure that she'll do very well. She has big shoes to fill. More immediately, we must hope for a good result at Kempton this evening when Hotfoot (pictured in the field a few weeks ago) runs at 6.05. It's hard to be too optimistic about a horse who has disappointed sorely in the past, as she has done on three occasions, but she seems well - and seems to be in a suitable race, bearing in mind that, despite her poor record, the Racing Post has put her in as the second favourite. She'll (like all our runners) be doing her best, so let's hope that her best is good enough.

Looking elsewhere, there's one happy story and one very sad one, each concerning one of Newmarket's finest horsemen and nicest people. Ray McGhin's tale is a good one. Ray (pictured early in the summer on Lucy Wadham's stakes-winning filly Dorcas Lane) had a terrible fall at the bottom of Long Hill a few weeks ago. We saw him lying there receiving attention from the medics on our outward journey one lot, and he was still there on our return, not having moved at all in the interim. That didn't bode at all well, and it turned out that his injuries were indeed severe. Anyway, the happiest sight for me this week was bumping into him and his wife Lynn in the High Street a couple of days ago. They had just got off the 'bus from the airport, having returned from a holiday in Ibiza, where his convalescence had clearly continued apace. Other than having lost a little bit of weight, Ray looked pretty much back to normal, which was as cheering a sight as I could have asked for. At the other end of the scale, the saddest news of the week was the death of George Winsor. Look at any photograph of a Henry Cecil horse returning to the winner's enclosure in that stable's golden era, and George will be alongside in his role as travelling head lad. He left Henry's stable when Julie started training. He served as Julie's head lad throughout her training career (which was when I first got to know him well, as I was training for a time - 1995 and '96 - in the neighbouring stable) and subsequently worked for Nick Littmoden and Jeremy Noseda. Anyway, George had a terrible fall on the Al Bahathri last year when the horse he was galloping, I think, dropped dead. When the surgeons were investigating his many injuries, they found, shockingly, that his battered body also contained fairly advanced, but still undetected, terminal cancer. I'd say that it was only George's toughness which kept him alive for as long as he did, but sadly he finally lost the unwinnable battle a couple of days ago. There will have been more famous men move on during the past year, but no better one.

Could do better

We've had three runners over the past week, and the reports have to read, 'Could do better'. And, I hope, they can read, 'Will do better'. I hadn't really been expecting Dr Darcey (pictured enjoying the Kempton afternoon sunshine prior to heading home after his race) to be beaten nearly as far as he was, but under the circumstances his run was very excusable: he took a while to find his feet, in which respect he certainly wasn't helped by a horse falling in front of him at the second hurdle. But his confidence seemed to pick up again as the race progressed, and it certainly wasn't a dispiriting National Hunt debut. Kempton, incidentally, deserve high praise for having produced very good ground (albeit ground which, by National Hunt standards, one would have to call good fast ground) and certainly did considerably better in this respect than Cheltenham had done a couple of days previously. Conditions had and have been dry and bright (and, earlier in the month, extremely warm) so it certainly has not been easy for these courses. Certainly Gus was happy enough with Kempton's circuit - and all the more so for bumping into William running around it before racing, as this photograph shows.

After Kempton, our show rolled on to Newmarket on Wednesday. As mentioned in the previous chapter, I never expect much from horses in their early races, but I must say that I did expect a bit more from Zarosa than she showed on her debut. Grand Liaison (pictured before the race) had run adequately earlier in the afternoon when finishing towards the back of the main pack in what was probably a very hot maiden race, contested largely by horses who are more forward than she is and who, ultimately, will prove to be less unsuited by shorter-distance races than she. She'd clearly progressed from her debut, so is evidently going the right way. Let's hope now that Zarosa will also progress from her debut, as her debut showed no immediate promise. That, though, is actually no surprise at all. She's such a baby in her head as well as in her body, and her babiness was evident before the race, never mind in it. She can be a bit of a livewire, who 12 months ago was a real handful to break in, so I had it in my mind that she might play up in the parade ring, notwithstanding the fact that she'd had a dress rehearsal visit to the races for her stalls test last month and hadn't put a foot wrong. With this in mind, I voiced a cautionary, "Just watch out that she doesn't jump around" prior to legging Hannah aboard - and within a few seconds both Hannah and Terri (who was leading her) were rolling around on the ground, Hannah having spent about two seconds on the filly's back in the interim. No harm was done, but this meant that by the time the partnership was ready to head out onto the track, there were no other horses around. Still, she made her way to the start, albeit hesitantly and inelegantly, on her own (second picture in this paragraph) - and then was still, unfortunately, on her own as she passed the post (third photograph in this paragraph) a few minutes later in the other direction, her fellow competitors again having left her behind! Still, it was a start and, looking to the future, I'd still be very happy to say, "She'll be right, mate".

Other than that, what's been happening? Well, we've had some magnificent weather still, as this photograph of some of Luca's horses at the bottom of Long Hill yesterday morning shows. It is starting to get quite cold, and it's going to be a struggle to maintain my shorts dress code until the end of the month, but we've had some lovely skies with plenty of sunshine, and we're still getting a few days like today of more or less unbroken blue skies. Clear skies, of course, can mean low temperatures, and Gemma's first morning (Thursday) of riding out since giving birth a couple of months ago coincided with the first proper frost of the autumn, which was hardly the perfect welcome-back gift from the weather gods. Still, I'm sure that she would have been pleased to get back in the saddle, and it was certainly great to have her back in the string. This photograph of her and Rhythm Stick cantering up Long Hill is far from a good one, but that was simply because it was still quite dark (considerably darker than one would guess from the photograph) but the one thing which it does show is the frost.

It was still dark enough when we headed up to the Links this morning, but it was a very clear morning so visibility was improving by the second, and by the time the horses which we took up there (Kadouchski, Dr Darcey, Frankie, Asterisk) started jumping, everything was grand. Unbelievably, there were three jumps meetings today and William didn't have a single ride, so he called in here which was very good of him. (Things aren't actually as dire as that implies because William was meant to be riding at Aintree, but he got the message at midday yesterday that he'd been 'jocked off' his mount there, leaving him with no chance of picking up any rides elsewhere as it was already a couple of hours after declaration time - but even so William's lack of patronage never ceases to baffle me). William's nephew Jamie jumped Asterisk (pictured here walking back from the hurdles alongside William on Dr Darcey) and William jumped the other three, and all went very well. Anyway, that was a lovely start to the day, and one enabling us to continue to travel full of hope. This was the first time that Kadouchski and Dr Darcey had jumped since their chasing and hurdling debuts respectively, so it was very good to see that they are thriving for the experience. (Hard to believe, incidentally, that the second and third photographs in this chapter were taken ten minutes AFTER the first, but there you are: Dr Darcey, Asterisk and Kadouchski, ridden by Terri, Jamie and William, cantering home after the schooling session, the fourth horse involved in the session, Frankie, obviously not featuring in the photograph as he was the photographer's mount).

Otherwise, one of the week's highlights (over and above these lovely morning skies, two more pictures of which adorn this chapter) has been the series in the Racing Post of great bookmakers. These articles were really well written and very entertaining. One came away with great admiration for the subjects, in particular my hero Freddie Williams, who always got along so well with the late Joe McCarthy at the Scottish tracks. The only disappointment was the Victor Chandler article, which posed more questions than it answered, and overall was as anodyne as those awful Victor Chandler ads on Racing UK. It was remarkable that the move offshore could have been so prominent a part of the article without any mention of the issue of levy being paid or not being paid by offshore bookmakers - while a really tantalizing wasted opportunity was the partially-told tale of the man who'd apparently won eight million pounds off Victor in one afternoon and then put it all on the favourite in the concluding novice hurdle who duly got turned over at four to one on. A bit more detail on that saga really would have been interesting, particularly bearing in mind that someone of a cynical frame of mind might suggest that the true odds about a horse in a novice hurdle on whom there had been a bet of eight million pounds would be something like 33/1 against rather than 4/1 on!

Looking ahead

It's another lovely day (albeit a lovely autumn day which started cold and dark) and it's an exciting one too, as we run two two-year-olds at Newmarket this arvo. Grand Liaison will go first (1.30). She's already had a run, but for our second runner (Zarosa, 4.45) it will be a debut. I never expect a lot of horses in their early races, particularly not when they are aged just two, and I'm sure that we won't be catching any eyes today, but they are both fillies who ought to have a nice future in front of them, so I hope that things will run smoothly and that they won't disgrace themselves. It'll be particularly exciting for Roger Vicarage, owner of Zarosa, as he will see his colours carried for the first time, which is an occasion which he has anticipated for a long, long time. So it's lovely that this occasion is happening at Newmarket, and lovely that it will be doing so under blue skies. One never knows what the weather is going to do from one hour to the next, but the day was brightening up nicely earlier this morning when Kadouchski and I followed (left to right) Asterisk, Karma Chameleon and Rhythm Stick on to Long Hill AW, and it was bright when Gus was doing his little-prince-in-the-tower act wishing that he could be coming out to the Heath too. So, fingers crossed, it ought to remain bright through the afternoon.

I must get ready to head up the Rowley Mile shortly, but I can't end without saying how much I enjoyed doing the International Review Show on ATR yesterday. It's always a pleasure to be on that, but particularly at this time of year when the racing in Melbourne is so good. If you saw it, you'll have heard that I believe that Bauer can win the Melbourne Cup - if only he can get a start in the race. His Geelong Cup run this morning has done nothing to shake my confidence in his potential - but sadly it has also done nothing to alter my fears that he won't get in the race. Let's hope that he does. If he doesn't, the Geelong Cup winner Dunaden will do for me at this stage.

"Embarrassed for British racing"

If there's one thing which really pisses off racing's professionals, it is the fact that the authorities are so quick to dish out stern punishments for minor misdemeanours (such as the trigger for my most recent three-figure fine, which came from my having presented a horse at the races whose vaccination records were out of order by the fact that a vaccination which should have come within 215 days of the previous one had actually come 217 days after the previous one, the result of an innocent miscalculation on my part - so that's the type of crime and punishment we're dealing with) while making far worse blunders themselves. This a particularly appropriate observation this week, which has been one of the most blunder-strewn weeks in the history of racing administration and which has been highlighted not by a tremendous day of racing at Ascot, as should have been the case, but by the fact that the Ascot stewards were obliged to give Christophe Soumillon what I believe amounts to easily the highest fine ever issued by the British authorities, and for a virtually non-existent offence.

I was in the At The Races studio when the new whip rules were announced, and I had a minute or so to digest them before giving my views. At first glance, they appeared sensible and I said as such on the TV. However, a more detailed perusal has revealed a major flaw in them. I welcomed the new rules for their seeming clarity, their black-and-white lack of grey areas. However, it turns out that for those trying to adhere to them, their clarity is much less easy to establish. While I stick to my basic precept that it is up to the competitors to learn the rules and play by them, it transpires that playing by this new rule is easier said than done. The problem comes that not only is there a maximum number of strokes per race, but there is also a maximum number in the last furlong. So what this means is that a jockey has to start counting when he hits the horse for the first time, but then has to start another count as he passes the furlong pole, the problem being that he has to recalculate the total below which he has to keep on this second count, a total which will vary dependent on how many times he has hit the horse thus far. There is a further complication that knowing exactly when to start this second count is not easy: if he is on the rail it should be fairly straightforward, but if he is out in the middle of the track with a bunch of horses between him and the furlong pole, knowing the exact split second in which he passes the furlong pole is difficult. The stewards, in establishing whether a stroke was applied a metre before the furlong pole or a metre after it, have the benefit of video replays, repeated as often as they wish and run in slow-motion if desired, while the jockey only has one stab at it, in real time and in the heat of battle. Any reflection on the subject at all makes it clear that what the rider is being asked to do is very much easier said than done.

The upshot of this - which would have been apparent in advance as an inevitable consequence of the new legislation to anyone who had given any thought to the subject - is that jockeys who are riding responsibly and clearly making a serious effort to stick to the new rules are copping serious punishments. And they are understandably really pissed off by this. Richard Hughes, while riding within both the spirit and the letter of the law in every other respect, has fallen foul of the final-furlong booby-trap on two occasions, thus earning 15 days of suspensions. Hughes is one of the sport's greatest ambassadors (as anyone who has read his weekly Racing Post column will know), is a wonderfully sympathetic rider, a true horseman and a perfect role model for any budding jockey - and yet he has felt obliged to surrender his riding license, feeling that the regime as it stands is one under which he has no wish to ply his trade. That fact alone should cause some serious soul-searching among those responsible for the creation of this ill-thought-out rule.

This lamentable situation would be bad enough had it happened in just any old week. But it hasn't: it has happened in the week of QIPCO Champion Day, the day for which the racing calendar has been restructured with the aim of making a flagship day for racing to take us from oblivion onto the front pages and into the mainstream of public consciousness. Well, we've got there alright, but no thanks to Champions' Day. In fact, the timing of the introduction of the new rules has totally undermined Champions' Day: we're on the front pages but Champions' Day isn't, and we aren't there for hosting a wonderful sporting event, but for being a sport in disarray. To give you an example of what I mean, I was contacted today by a woman called Laura Makin-Isherwood, a producer with Anglia TV. Her company is set to run a feature on racing on Monday. This is great, you might feel, just what Champions' Day was meant to achieve: two days after Champions' Day and there's going to be a racing slot on the TV news. The only problem, of course, is that the programme isn't going to be about Champions' Day; it's going to be about the debacle of the new whip rules.

Wait, though - it gets worse. Champions' Day, unfortunately, probably will feature on the show after all. Not, though, for its sporting glory, but for the fact that Christophe Soumillon picked up a five-day ban (at a time when he is contention for the French jockeys' premiership) and copped what amounts to a fine of nearly 50,000 pounds (and, before you ask, I have not added three extra zeroes onto that figure - he has forfeited his percentage for riding the winner, which is quite a forfeit as the race was the most valuable ever run in Britain) for trying and narrowly failing to stick to the new rules. His ride on Cirrus Des Aigles to win the Champion Stakes was a beauty. He was clearly trying to use the whip sparingly, hitting the horse six times. The first of these, as inspection of video replays revealed, came a couple of metres after the furlong pole. Had it come a couple of metres earlier, he would have been innocent; as it was, he was guilty, so has picked up a suspension which might cost him the French jockeys' championship plus what amounts to a colossal fine. His interview on ATR after the race was admirably measured, in which he explained that he'd believed that he had ridden within the rules, but because he'd had So You Think, a massive horse, on his inner and because there were so many QIPCO advertising hoardings along the rails, and because he was riding at a track which he doesn't visit very often, he had misjudged exactly where the furlong pole was. He didn't rant and rave, and when he said, "I am embarrassed for British racing", he wasn't just striking out in petulance because he had been punished; he was echoing the opinions of anyone who cares for our sport. In one stroke, I'm afraid, we have been made the racing equivalent of some banana republic where no one would go because you'd be frightened that if you inadvertently stepped out of line, the cops would lock you up and throw away the key. What foreign sportsmen would come here if that's the potential welcome that awaits? What future for the Shergar Cup, for instance?

I'd have to say, though, in defence of our rulers that they aren't guilty of all the crimes with which they have been charged. Bruce Millington in the Racing Post today was unduly harsh on Paul Roy. At least Paul Roy, having realised that the BHA which he rules has made a blunder, has had the humility to admit the possibility that he might be in the wrong, and has ordered that the case be re-opened, which shows an admirable ability to eat humble pie - and yet Bruce Millington is slating him for it. Furthermore, Millington has accused the BHA of inconsistency in that its veterinary adviser Tim Morris had said that the rules would not be reviewed one day and that Paul Roy had the next day said that they would; that, though, is not a case of inconsistency as I can't see that the whip rules should have anything to do with Tim Morris, whose brief is equine welfare. The whip rules, of course, have nothing to do with equine welfare at all, but are a PR exercise, designed not for the horses' benefit but to ensure that the man who has alighted from the Clapham omnibus, when he gets home and switches on his TV, doesn't find the sight of racing off-putting. And don't you feel sorry for the Ascot stewards, who were put in an impossible position? Either fail in their duty to implement the rules, or bring racing into disrepute by smacking an absurdly over-the-top punishment on a visiting foreigner, thus bringing international embarrassment to British racing. That would have been a Hobson's choice which I wouldn't have wished on any steward.

However, it's not all bad. The weather's been lovely. When that wonderful spell of glorious weather ended early last week, I thought that we would have had our lot until the second quarter of next year. Not so: the past couple of days have been heavenly. Of course, this far into October means that clear skies brought our first ground frost of the autumn last night, but that was a very small price to pay for wonderful days on either side of that night. I went to Cheltenham yesterday where we saw a sun-beaten Prestbury Park which you'd never expect to find on any day when it was hosting National Hunt racing. The drawback, of course, was that the ground was extremely fast, much faster than I would have expected. It was considerably quicker than it had been at Huntingdon (which had been accurately described as good to firm, good in places) four days previously, and despite walking all the way around I didn't find any of the good patches which supposedly existed - but I judged it to be safe enough so Alcalde ran, and ran well too, even if the lightning fast conditions probably meant that the two miles might not have been enough of a test of stamina for him. I've been to Cheltenham Festivals and found that the supposedly good ground has been what I'd call good to soft, so I was rather taken aback yesterday; and there would certainly be an outcry if they were ever to produce ground as firm as it was yesterday for the Festival. But no harm was done, and the result was that some of Alcalde's owners and his trainer were able to enjoy a heavenly day at the home of steeplechasing, some of the photographs of which adorn this chapter - as do some taken today of scenes on the Severals and the Heath, in the yard and on the market place, where shoppers were treated to a display of falcons and owls. I loved that, and so would Alan Partridge had he been there too.

Akehursts and others

I'm pleased to be giving Joe Akehurst (pictured in these two photographs on Frankie, ie Douchkirk, about three weeks ago) the ride on Alcalde at Cheltenham tomorrow. Joe's been very good to us over the past year or so. He's from this area, but he works down south now for Gary Moore. But when he's back home, he usually pops in and gives us a hand, whether that be schooling or otherwise. He's a very good rider, but jockeying is a competitive business, and it's probably not that easy getting rides in Gary Moore's stable: although there are plenty of horses there, there are plenty of jockeys too, some of them being some of Gary's children. So it's worked out well tomorrow: it's a conditionals' race so we need to look elsewhere than William, and Joe is an obvious candidate as he rides well and comes with the benefit of a 5lb claim under the race's conditions. It's rather confusing as he is J. Akehurst the jumps jockey, son of J. Akehurst the jumps jockey (Jim the father, rather than Joe the son) but no relation of J. Akehurst (John) the trainer. It was formerly confusing because Jim rode down in the south east on the Plumpton/Fontwell/Folkestone/Lingfield circuit in the '70s and early '80s when Reg Akehurst was a leading trainer in Epsom, and it would have been an easy mistake to make to guess that they were related. Particularly if one knew that Reg had a son called J. Akehurst. Jim is now primarily a flying groom for, I think, Godolphin, but he also has a livery yard, somewhere near Mildenhall I think, and has done some box-driving at various times; in fact, I've been in a box driven to the races by him a few times over the years. So it's good that Joe is riding the horse (who is pictured here early last month looking more summery than is the case now, although his coat isn't yet quite long enough to justify my clipping some of it off).

Someone else who rides for this stable who deserves to be mentioned in these dispatches is Cathy Gannon, but not for good reasons, unfortunately: she broke her leg at Nottingham a couple of days ago, which means that her extremely successful season has been brought to a painful, premature and sudden close. It's ironic that Britain's two most successful female jockeys, Cathy (pictured on Silken Thoughts) and Hayley Turner, should both be nursing broken legs at present, but that does not alter the fact that each has enjoyed a tremendous season with many winners well deserved. The one consolation, I suppose, for each of them in sustaining an injury which will keep them out of action for a few months is that they are both now well enough established to be able to miss a few months and still find plentiful support on their come-backs. For Cathy, in particular, that would have been far from the case a couple of years ago, but happily now she will find once she is mended that all the many stables which had been patronising her before the hiatus, this one included, will be doing so after her resumption.

Someone, understandably, finding it harder to get going is Tony Whelan (pictured a couple of months ago outside Green Lodge on the Severals). Tony (who, I think, served his time with the aforementioned Reg Akehurst, funnily enough - I could be wrong on that one, but it was definitely somewhere down south, I think in Epsom) is a good jockey, but it's understandable that his profile here currently is very low as he's been riding overseas, mainly in Macau, for most of the past 15 years. However, he's been settled back in the UK for a while now and his ever-smiling face (in Rae Guest's string) is a welcome addition to the Heath. I think that he's taken out a jockey's license again and so I think that we should give him a little plug on this blog. It's a recurring theme that there are many more good jockeys than there are successful ones, and that all most of the good riders require is the opportunity to be successful. Tony definitely comes into this category, so if you see him down for a ride on a horse who looks to have a chance, certainly don't be put off by the fact that the jockey is an obscure one.

Jumping thoughts

Good to have got that out of the way: Kadouchski's steeplechasing debut went really well yesterday, much to my relief. He's always jumped hurdles very well (although I was told yesterday that Timeform has him down as a bad jumper, which is bizarre) and his schooling over fences had been plentiful and good, so there was no reason to suppose that he would jump anything other than proficiently when finally he did run in a steeplechase. Even so, it was still a weight off my mind seeing him do so, particularly as when Gus and I had walked the track beforehand we were reminded, on inspecting the fences, that they are nearly as big as Kadouchski, who is fairly small by National Hunt standards. He was sensible and safe, and he put in some mighty leaps as well, and it was certainly no disgrace to finish second, giving weight to the nice steeplechasing mare who beat him. He should become more fluent for the experience, and he should come on as regards fitness for the run too, not having run for a few weeks (although his absence had been shorter than the racecard suggested, his most recent run, in the Town Plate, obviously not having been recorded in the form book). Kadouchski was his usual self - enthusiastic beforehand and tired but happy afterwards (before and after photographs shown) - and the track was in good shape: I'd have liked the ground to have been softer, but that would have been unrealistic after the warm, dry weather, and basically it was a lovely surface for the horses to race on, even if by National Hunt standards one would have to have called it marginally firmer than good.

Let's now hope for similarly safe outings for the week's two remaining National Hunt runners. (Well, correctly one of them will be this week and one will be next week, but the Racing Calendar publishes its meetings Monday to Sunday, so we'll call Sunday the last day of this week, rather than describe it correctly). Alcalde is set to run at Cheltenham on Friday and then Dr Darcey at Kempton on Sunday. I'm looking forward to those two outings. It's always a pleasure to go to Cheltenham, so going there with such a lovely horse as Alcalde, for a race in which he ought to run well, is a recipe for a trip to look forward to. Let's also, of course, hope that it isn't a recipe for disappointment, but time will tell on that one. All the horses are in very relaxed frames of mind, which is just the way it should be. We've welcomed a new inmate (the formerly Richard Guest-trained Karma Chameleon, whom I collected yesterday from his former home after Kadouchski had run yesterday and who seems a lovely horse - and a horse with a bit of form too, which is just as well as I think that one would struggle to do much with a horse who came from Richard who had no form, because it would be a very special horseman indeed who could improve one from the stable of that master-horseman) and Alcalde is pictured at the start of this paragraph getting to know him in the field today, following him around with Frankie completing the trio; Dr Darcey is then shown looking similarly calm, as Gus passes on a few tips after work this morning. And, to complete this morning's photo-essay, Kadouchski's showing that, while you have to get cleaned up to go to the races, you don't have to stay clean, just as long as there's a mud-patch to be found in the field on your return.

In amongst our jumps runners, we'll also have Hotfoot going round at Wolverhampton on Saturday night if she gets a run, which she either will do or won't do. We'll find out tomorrow. I hope that she will do as she's doing everything right and galloped well this morning, so it would be good to see her have another chance to show that her form so far does her less than justice.

Main talking point of the week, of course, remains the whip rules. We're told that the jockeys don't like them, so we'll find out in the next few days the extent of their dislike, because it is, of course, up to the jockeys collectively to decide the fate of these rules: if they all were to carry on as if the rules have not been changed, then the new rules would have to be repealed because within a fortnight there would be no racing as all the jockeys would be suspended. And, as the BHA's aim in framing the rules is to ensure the continuation of racing, then it would have no option but to repeal the rules, unless it were to wish to bring racing to a halt: the jockeys wouldn't be on strike, but if they were all permanently suspended, there could be no racing. As you know, I don't see what all the fuss is about, but it seems that many of the jockeys don't see it that way. This brings us back to a subject on which I was going to touch a while back, prompted by a lovely photograph which the Racing Post carried in the summer of the finish of a race at Hurst Park in, I would guess, the '50s. As the field neared the line, every jockey had both hands on the reins, which brings us back to my point that it is only a recent phenomenon that we have been led to believe that it is essential to hit a horse frequently behind the saddle to make him go as fast as he can. If one watches old films or looks at old photographs, or even digs back into one's memory, one is reminded that many of the great jockeys in history (eg Sir Gordon Richards, Scobie Breasley, Ron Hutchinson, Joe Mercer, Willie Carson, Richard Quinn, Kieren Fallon, John Francome, Richard Dunwoody) relied on the whip to only a very small degree. And I'm afraid that I have to lay the blame on the change in emphasis squarely on the door of the press, which collectively has rammed home the myth of the "strong" jockey: time and again we'll hear and read about the credit for victory going to the strength of such and such a jockey proving decisive, simply because he has visually been very active in the final two furlongs, without any reference at all to how the first 80% of the race had panned out, or even whether this supposedly strong jockey had happened to be on the best horse anyway. The result has been, of course, that jockeys have realised that to win praise from the pundits (which they must do to further their careers) they have to be seen to be active with the whip. Sad, but true. I think if we'd had a better class of pundit over the years we wouldn't be in the jam we are in now - in just the same way that if a more polished rider (eg Dunwoody or Francome, or Fred Winter) had ridden Ballabriggs (pictured) in the National, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in now, because he would still have won the race but he wouldn't have been ridden in a way to incite the supposed ire of the man on the Clapham omnibus in the process.