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.