​I would imagine Jo Mason lights-up any room in which she enters. In silks, she is a largely undiscovered talent, even if she is presently challenging Holley Doyle as leading female professional rider. Jo Mason would not be one for blowing her own trumpet, leaving her riding to do all the talking on her behalf.
I, on the other hand, will blow my own trumpet as, unlike Miss Mason, I have no talent to talk on my behalf. I have trumpeted the riding ability of this Yorkshire lass since she won a race at the Shergar Cup meeting for William Haggas and I am astonished she is not in greater demand for the lower weighted runners in the Royal Ascot handicaps this week. For her weight, I doubt if there is any male jockey better than her.
Her winning ride on Hucklesbrook for Roger Teal at York yesterday in the big sprint handicap was a typical no-nonsense ride that is her trademark. She can use the whip all-right but it is a last resort. Finesse and perseverance are her style and I doubt if Hucklesbrook had too hard a race yesterday and actually won quite cosily. Though she will not figure too much in the conversation with Dancing Gemini’s owner as to who will ride the horse in the Queen Anne of Tuesday, I suggest she is now higher-up the pecking order for Roger Teal when it comes to rides on his lesser horses. Mind you, if I owned Dancing Gemini I know who I would be putting-up, even if Oisin Murphy was clamouring for the ride.

As Miss Megan Jordan was pulling-up after being first passed the post in the big ladies amateur race at York on My Dream World, I was telling no one in particular – I was alone, except for one of the cats and she had no interest in anything I was saying – that she was at risk of being disqualified. Which is a pity as she is Dancing Gemini’s work-rider – she works for Roger Teal – and while he is attempting to bring another Group 1 success for Roger Teal, the whip review committee will doubtless have already disqualified My Dream World, how ironic a name, and given Miss Jordan a rather long suspension. For example, if her boyfriend David Probert were to be given, say, a 21-day ban, that would be the period he would be off games. But for an amateur, 21-days represents 21-days in which there are amateur races on a race-card. In effect Miss Jordan might not ride again in public until the autumn at the earliest. And this after demonstrating her survival skills in the saddle when losing both an iron and her whip, miraculously retrieving both without the horse losing its position. Life can be unfair at times.

When I was searching my memory for popular handicappers of the past, and failing miserably – Morris Dancer is another that has come to mind – I should have used Copper Knight as an example from this day and age. Yesterday at Chester he won for the 17th time, running in his 107th race. A true hero of this racing age and a tribute to Tim Easterby and his staff in a week when the greatest Easterby of them all left us for eternal peace. Jo Mason, too, is part of this legendary family.

Royal Ascot next week. The sodding fashion, the high society, the once-a-year racegoer just wanting to be seen amongst the big-money set, the champagne, the stupid morning suits and top-hats, the sweating brows and arm-pits and no doubt the heavy stench of perfume of every hue and aroma, yet some of the most fantastic racing anywhere in the world. What a contrast! What a week to look forward to from my comfortable armchair. No, there is no incentive sweet enough to persuade me to involve myself bodily with Royal Ascot. It is not me and it is not the image we should be giving to the outside world. Everyday horse racing is not pomp and ceremony, haute-couture, silly hats, Pimms, strawberries and money, money, money, but working-class hard work and dedication to the cause. I love Royal Ascot while resenting it with passion at the same time. 

​Commentators on the sport, especially the writers in the Racing Post team, when controversy is hard to find, will often give their take on how National Hunt racing can be fixed, made better by either tweaks here and there or a widescale overhaul of the race programme. I am not saying they are often wrong; many a time they are bang on the money. What surprises me, though, is that no one seems to believe that the flat is also either in need of tinkering with or perhaps given a widescale overhaul.
National Hunt racing has a clear and defined narrative, a winding road that leads to gold and the sort of treasures we ordinary folk can only dream or fantasise about. The dreamed-of destination is the Cheltenham Festival and the Aintree National meeting, and for the Irish Fairyhouse and the Irish National, with the culmination of the whole season at Punchestown. Winter may cause bumps in the road and the lack of suitable novice chases can give the top trainers sleepless nights but on the whole the narrative is compelling. Yes, I forever call for the Betfair Chase to be either discontinued or altered so that it becomes a race for last seasons novices but I would not advocate too much disturbance to the set programme.
The flat on the other hand has no clear and defining narrative. Where does it begin; where does it end; where is the climax to the season? It is a dumb scenario. Because the Guineas are in late April/early May, the classic generation are rushed to fitness, with half the field for both races comprising horses having their first run of the season. Aidan O’Brien has come to the conclusion that the Guineas are an impediment to getting a horse to last the whole season and is beginning to prefer keeping his top 3-year-olds for the French and Irish Guineas.
As a staunch royalist it behoves me to make even the weakest criticism of our king and queen, and certainly not the monarch who went before them. But too much of the flat fixture list is designed around the centuries-old royal summer social merry-go-round of Royal Ascot, Henley, Wimbledon, etc.. It is a frantic gallop from the Guineas Meeting, to Epsom, to Royal Ascot. It is a quarts and pint-pots conundrum. Those with only one morning suit hardly have time to have it dry-cleaned after Epsom and to have the creases razor-sharp for the marathon that is Royal Ascot.
After the Royal meeting, it is one summer festival after another. Too much, I say. And do not suggest the climax to the flat season is Champions Day back at Ascot. Because no it is not. Whether we like it or not, the flat has no climax, and, yes I will say this again, it is utterly ridiculous to crown the champion jockey weeks before the season has ended. Try explaining the rationale for this silliness to someone with only a passing interest in the sport.
I hope if, when and if again, he takes up office, Baron Allen will crack his whip and set in motion a review of the flat narrative. Personally, I would like to see the turf season begin no earlier than the day after the Aintree National, though having said that I am reminded of my support for Dan Skelton’s proposal to stage the Aintree National later in the season, as the last meeting of the season. If that should come about, I would suggest the flat season should start no earlier than the first week in April. I would have no two-yar-old racing until May. I would have the Guineas meeting in mid-May at the earliest, with Royal Ascot before the Derby and Oaks. I would instigate a Triple Crown for sprinters, milers, middle-distance and stayers, and I would delay the Eclipse until a month after the Derby and upgrade it to classic status. It makes more sense in this day age for the Triple Crown to represent the type of horse that is now bred, with a Guineas, Derby, Eclipse, a far more appropriate modern-day Triple Crown than with the St.Leger, a race run 4-months after the second leg of the series. Personally, I would open-up the St.Leger to older horses and have it as the third leg of the middle-distance Triple Crown.
Three Group 1 sprints should be chosen for the sprinters Triple Crown and 3 for the stayers and middle-distance Triple Crowns. This proposal is based on trying to persuade owners to keep their best horses in training as 4-year-olds.
I would also limit the number of Group 1 2-year-old races to one for colts over 6-furlongs and a mile, with the same for the fillies. 
Though I would scrap Champions Day as it makes the summer schedule too top-heavy, if it should remain in the calendar perhaps, though I would not approve, the final leg of a couple of the triple crown races might be staged at the fixture, so at least it might live-up to its title of ‘champions day’.
I would bring the season to a close at Doncaster on the day of the St.Leger, even if that is in November, though I would prefer it to be in October, with the November Handicap re-named the October Handicap, and as close to the last day of October as possible.
If my proposals were adopted, which they will not be, the flat would still be a messy affair, though I would contend that the invention of triple crowns for sprinters, milers, middle-distance and stayers would provide flat racing with an on-going narrative that is something similar to which National Hunt enthusiasts enjoy.

​Chris Cook in his column today is 100% right in his opinion that the Derby is not respected within sport for no other reason than the leadership of racing does not respect it. Since the race was ripped from its traditional place in the racing and sporting calendar, the first Wednesday in June, the Epsom Derby has a wanderer, a vagrant in search of place in time. It must fit in with the needs and wants of other sports. It has lost its place, its history has become meaningless, it must learn to know its place in the sporting hierarchy, and that is no place at all. As Chris Cook writes, any time of day will do. From the lunchtime of Auguste Rodin to the early tea time of whoever won that year. Oh, and England were playing Andorra last Saturday. Andorra was considered more of a catch to I.T.V. than the Epsom Derby! That is what racing is up against.
Chris Cook is right. Though he will not agree with me that the day should be the first Wednesday in June and the time should be thirty-minutes past three. If the Cheltenham and Ascot Gold Cups can be staged on a weekday without any fall in betting revenue, then why can’t the Epsom Derby be staged on a Wednesday?

Mr Jonathan Smith, a retired French teacher from Surbiton, home of the Goods (The Good Life) takes umbrage in a letter to the Racing Post on the mispronunciation of the names of horses blemished by having the French language used to name them. Seemingly, no one, perhaps not even French-speaking Sally-Anne Grassick, pronounce these names correctly and Mr. Smith is unhappy about it. My solution is simple, when horses cross the channel to be trained in Britain and Ireland translate their names into English.

​I am ashamed to say that I was no admirer of Crisp when he came to this country from Australia. I am prone to xenophobia and whatever the sport I am always firmly on the side of English or British participants. For instance, I am always more interested in the first week of Wimbledon than the second and the only finals I have ever watched were those which involved British players.
Crisp’s victory in the 2-mile Champion Chase at Cheltenham I cannot recall as no doubt I was too disappointed he was able to defeat the English contingent. Back then the Irish were small-time players at the National Hunt Festival, though doubtless most of the winning horses were Irish-bred, with a good number of them ridden by jockeys born and raised in Ireland.
I suspect I believed Crisp to be a good horse, though not the great horse he was to become. I get such things wrong ever now. The year before he had gone off favourite for the Cheltenham Gold Cup only to finish fifth behind Glencaraig Lady, Royal Toss, The Dikler and L’Escargot. By nature, Crisp was a front runner and in the Gold Cup he could not dominate and ran a lacklustre race, though at the same time determining how he should be ridden in the Grand National the following season.
So, when he lined-up with 12-stone on his back and with 4-miles and 4-furlongs in front of him, I dismissed his chances from my mind. Not that I considered Red Rum’s chance to be any better. I cannot say with any certainty the horse I backed that day, though as Spanish Steps was in the race and he was and remains one of my favourite horses of all-time, I cannot believe I placed my small bet on any horse but he. 
As I have said many times, I have a poor memory, even for events in the past, though this race, perhaps more than all the thousands of races I have witnessed in the raw or on television (the 2016 Champion 2-mile Chase may be the exception) remains clear in my mind’s eye. I must add, though, that I have stopped watching replays of the race on YouTube as even 52-years later the last 100-yards of the race remain as heartbreaking as anything I have experienced on a racecourse.
I recommend that anyone too young to have watched the race in 1973 should seek it out and enjoy the greatest performance any horse, flat or jumping, has ever produced on a British racecourse, perhaps on any racecourse around the world. From the Chair onwards, I went from disparaging Crisp to worshipping him as a horse from the gods. What he done that day, not that we knew it until four Grand Nationals later, was to very nearly (3/4’s of a length, to be precise) achieve the truly impossible. Arkle could not have achieved what Crisp so nearly achieved that day.
Crisp did not merely just jump the fearsome fences, and back then the fences were still fearsome, he took them on as if they were a mere inconvenience, demolishing in the process history’s perception of Aintree as a test too severe to be ever conquered. To say he jumped from fence to fence would be an under-estimation of the achievement. He gained a length or more on his rivals at every fence. By Bechers second-time around, the cameras could not keep Crisp and his toiling rivals in the same shot. Julian Wilson exclaimed he had never seen a horse so far in front at that point in a Grand National. If Brien Fletcher had waited one moment longer to go in pursuit of Richard Pitman, he would not have won. What is ¾-of a length timewise? Is it even measurable?
And never criticise Pitman’s riding of Crisp, even if he blames himself for the defeat for picking up his whip going to the elbow and allowing the horse to wobble off a true line. On that day, Richard Pitman possibly experienced the greatest ride any jockey has had at Aintree. He knew that to get the best out of Crisp you had to allow him free rein to go his own pace.
And the reasons I voted the 1973 Grand National as the greatest race in the history of the sport were the following. No horse in the history of National Hunt racing would have been able to give Red Rum, the greatest Grand National horse of all-time, 23Ibs and beat him. Not even Arkle or Golden Miller in his heyday, I believe. Also, not only did Red Rum shatter the course record, so did Crisp, and though they were 25-lengths in arrears, both L’Escargot and Spanish Steps were inside the old record time, the third carrying the same weight as Crisp, with Spanish Steps 1-Ib less.
Not surprisingly, Crisp was never the same bull of a horse after his run at Aintree. The 2-miler who so nearly won a Grand National, died peacefully in his stable after a morning out hunting. I believe he made it to 20 years of age and had, I hope, as many years in retirement as he did as a racehorse. Red Rum, being the indomitable force of nature that he was, lived into his thirties.
Wouldn’t the sport be grateful to have two such horses in training now? 

​The County Cricket Ground in Derby used to be known as the Racecourse Ground. The reason is obvious; it is the site of the old Derby racecourse.
Now staged at the Cheltenham Festival, The National Hunt Chase was run at Derby 5-times. In 1887, the race was won by the famed amateur rider Roddy Owen on Monkshood. Owen won the 1892 Grand National on Father O’Flynn and the following day he applied for national service and was posted to the Gold Coast and Egypt. During the Dongola expedition in 1896 he heard that Father O’Flynn had finished second to The Soarer in the Grand National of that year and was reported upon hearing the result to have said. “Damn it! Why wasn’t I there and not on this infernal expedition?” He died four-months later of cholera.
Racing in Derby boomed as the racecourse was situated close to the Midland Railway station which had a horse dock, as did Nottingham Road close by. It was a racecourse in the right place at the right time.
Derby was right-handed and oval, with a wide-open straight mile. The National Hunt course was a system of concentric circles and was not as popular with trainers as the flat course. As was usual in days gone by, it was not an over-used racecourse, with three two-day fixtures over the jumps and four-meetings on the flat, two single day fixtures in the spring and two three-day fixtures in the autumn, with the main meeting being in November, the Peaks of Derbyshire meeting, with the highlight the Derby Cup.
Hackler’s Pride, winner of the 1903 Cambridgeshire, will ever be famous for that victory as it was one of the greatest betting coups ever to be successful on a British racecourse. Hackler’s Pride had made her British racing debut the year earlier at Derby, and here is the point of bringing her to your notice, winning the Chesterfield Nursery, backed from 100/8 to 9/2 she beat a field of 28 by 4-lengths. The race was worth £1.000 to the winner. That is the equivalent of £157,000 in today’s money. Seems absolutely ridiculous, doesn’t it? And I find it hard to believe myself. But that is the amount the calculator answered when I submitted the question.
The best flat horse ever to make an appearance at Derby was The Tetrarch when winning the Champion Breeders Foals Plate.
The best steeplechaser, and the greatest horse ever to run at Derby, was the mighty Golden Miller. In 1935, at odds of 7/100 on, he won the Breadsall Chase and took home for his connections the less impressive sum of £68.
The 1930’s seem as far back in time as the dark ages and it is surprising to see that the Peveril of the Peak Handicap was won that year by Doug Smith on a horse owned by Tom Blackwell, two names that may be unfamiliar to anyone twenty-years younger than my age but two names that were part and parcel of my early years following the sport.
A race at Derby in 1938 should be a lesson to everyone about coming out-of-retirement for one more stab at glory. The owner of the winner of the 1937 Grand National, Hugh Lloyd Thomas, a former successful amateur rider and formerly private secretary to the Prince of Wales, decided, against the best advice of his friends, to come out of retirement, perhaps to ride Royal Mail in that year’s Grand National. He was 50. Sadly, on 22nd February at Derby he had a fall in a Hunters Chase and was killed.
The 2nd World War stopped racing at Derby, as it did for many of our racecourses. At the last National Hunt meeting amongst the winning riders were Fred Rimell and George Owen, both of whom went on to become leading trainers, and the hunter chase winner was ridden by Reg Tweedie who will forever be known as the owner and trainer of Freddie, twice runner-up in the Grand National in the 1960’s.
After the war the Council refused to renew the lease of the ground to the Derby Recreation Company, preferring to enlarge the cricket ground which was inside the old racecourse. The area around the County Cricket Ground as it is now known is still referred to as Racecourse Park.
Derby racecourse has not existed in the whole of my lifetime and until I read Chris Pitts wonderful book ‘A Long Time Gone’ (a book every racing enthusiast should have on their bookshelves) my knowledge of it was zilch, and yet whenever I read a biography of a jockey who once rode there or a great horse that forged its career there, I get sentimental for it and wish it were still a viable racecourse. I get soppy like that, believing racecourses, those green oases of fresh air and green habitats should be preserved, as are cotton mills and stately mansions, especially in urbanised cities like Derby and Birmingham.

​This is not an obituary. I am not skilled enough to do justice to the life and career of someone of the magnitude of Peter Easterby. He died yesterday, aged 95. He lived a full life and leaves us a revered man, a successful and doubtless wealthy man. He was, it seems, a decent, honourable man. His attributes are what we all should strive to achieve.
Why he was always called Peter I do not know. He was christened Miles Henry, not born Miles Henry as so many people will write, as if when out of the womb he introduced himself. ‘I am Miles Henry and you must be my mother.’
The list of great and good horses he trained is long, with Sea Pigeon and Night Nurse always the first two be written down or spoken about. He was also the first trainer to train a 100-winners on both the flat and National Hunt and until Nicky Henderson came along, M.H. Easterby held the record for Champion Hurdle winners, the aforementioned legends winning two each.
His wife determined before she died that she would not be buried in a churchyard but beside the two great horses who her husband had laid to rest in his garden, and I would bet a pretty penny that is where his son Tim will have his father buried. A great man, a great wife (his words) and two great horses resting close to one another in a squared-off patch of Yorkshire earth.

Colin Keane is to become the retained jockey to Juddmonte. No surprise as one of the behemoths of the sport were always going to get his name on a contract at some point. The only element of surprise is that the man has got to 30 before being handed such a prestige appointment.
Today would be the day to back Billy Lee to be champion jockey in Ireland this year as though Keane will undoubtedly continue as Ger Lyon’s first jockey, his first commitment from now on will be to go where Juddmonte need him and that will be as likely in Britain or France as it will be in Ireland.

I have mulled over the possible solution that might haul the problem child back to health and will in due course write to Jim Allen to give him the benefit of my proposals.
First, it should be titled The Derby Week Festival. Three-days of racing, three-days of music and entertainment. Every festival needs a mighty finale and Epsom can only pull that off if all three Group 1’s, the Coronation Cup, Oaks and Derby are run on the same day, the third day, obviously.
The Jockey Club should transfer a race like the Temple Stakes to Epsom to be the feature race on day one, either the Saturday or Sunday. The Northern Dancer Handicap should be upped in value and provide the main supporting race along with a female professional jockeys ‘Derby’. The first day does not need to anything grander. Just good, competitive races allied to some form of bet that rolls on to the second and third days of the racing part of the festival. 
The second day should be on the Wednesday and could involve some sort of jockey challenge or team event. I would like see a pairs event, where teams comprise of two jockeys and perhaps six-teams. Buick/J.Doyle, for instance, Moore/Lordan, Marquand/H.Doyle, Soumillon/Barzelona, Keane/Lee and then an all-girls team of Osborne/Mason.
The third day would be the bonanza of Derby, Oaks, Coronation Cup, Diomed, Woodcote, etc.
On three of the days between the racing, The Hill should be used for a Glastonbury style music festival, with people camping on The Hill and with the fun fair and everything else normally attached to such events.
I will update you on how my proposal is received. Perhaps one-day I will be lauded as the man who saved the Derby. I will never be, though, a man as easily remembered as the incomparable M.H. Easterby.

​Editor’s Choice, an e-mail Ultimate readers of the Racing Post receive every morning, is written at the moment by John Hopkins, head of content. In today’s e-mail, the topic of interest was the racing calendar, with focus on the B.H.B.’s presumed contentedness with the fare presented to the racing public on Saturdays.
My take on this issue is that we, racing enthusiasts, are too spoilt when it comes to big races and big meetings. It was never like this, you know, wall-to-wall major events. There were periods when all the enthusiasts could do was content themselves with two ordinary meetings a day, no racing on Sundays, and long-for the next big meeting, which might be a month away. If I had any influence I would reduce the number of big-money-small-field Group races on the flat, races like the John O’Gaunt or Temple Stakes, just to name two races that come quickly to mind.
The flat caters not so much for trainers and owners as for breeders. The cart, these days, is put before the horse, the horse being horse racing and the cart being the breeding industry. When there are innumerably more handicappers in training than ‘Group’ horses, why allow Group races to boom whilst allowing our historic handicaps to diminish into secondary status?
To return to Haydock, present home of the Temple and the John O’Gaunt Stakes. Back in my youthfulness days, there was race at Haydock titled the Cecil Frail Handicap. I believe it was for three-year-olds. I have no idea who Cecil Frail was and why he was honoured in this way but it was always an important and influential race and, I dare say, added more to betting turnover than either of the two races I am currently disparaging. Haydock is very good when it comes to valuable handicaps, yet these days they are masked by a Group 2 or 3 of little importance except to breeders and which betting turnover hardly notices.
In the days of my youthfulness, handicappers were star turns, rather like Hamish is today. Petty Officer, Be Hopeful, Baronet, Mon Plaisir and a hundred others I cannot recall as I write but one by one will come back to me as I wend my way through another Monday.
Saturdays should be the day of the big-field, valuable, handicaps. The Cambridgeshire and Cesarewitch, for example, should not play second fiddle to small field Group races, even Group 1’s, the winner of which will be owned and trained by people never short of a Group winner year-by-year. Handicaps will provide better stories, with more romantic narratives, than any winner of a Group race. Bury the Group races, especially the 2’s and 3’ away mid-week, and give the every day, the weekend or professional punter a race to get the juices flowing and the bookmakers busy.

Ignorant me! I thought one of the key selling points of horse racing was that under 18’s are given free entry to all our racecourses. Not so, and I have the impressive Oliver Barnard to thank for lighting the darkness of my knowledge of the sport. In the ‘Another View’ column of the Racing Post today Oliver Barnard (remember the name) exposes the actual cost of getting a child into Epsom to watch the Derby. Horrific, unforgivable, makes one realise why Epsom and the Derby is in decline. £135 for admission for a father or mother with a child!!! It does your nut in, does it not, realising how broken our sport really is?

Epsom, the problem child of Jockey Club Estates. Jim Allen, presently in the hot seat when it comes to turning around the fortunes of this leviathan, has said he is looking and learning (he is new to the job) and will go back to basics to help him find solutions as to why the ship is sinking.
His predecessors floated the idea of modelling the Derby meeting on Flemington and the Melbourne Cup and making the meeting fun, a celebration and having non-racing days where the local community can come together and party. Three one-day meetings spread over one-week. Tick. Concerts on the Hill on non-racing days. Tick. One super day with the Derby, Oaks and Coronation Cup run on the same day, preferably the second Saturday so the meeting heads in the direction of a grand climax. Tick. Focusing publicity and marketing on the local population. Tick.
But please, Mr. Allen, get rid of the stuffiness, the morning suits in the Queens Stand and for pities sake, free entry for under 18’s. You cannot party in top hat and long-tailed coat. But just make sure you do not alienate the social class who would normally give the Ascot-ware a day out at Epsom before the main racing social event. Cater for them, but in casual-wear, and for the younger generation, who are, remember, the future.

​The person I will feel pity for is the one chosen to replace Aidan O’Brien at Ballymore when Aidan decides to ride off into the sunset with one removal van allocated for all his trophies. If Manchester United have found it impossible to find a worthy successor to Sir Alex Ferguson, how easy will it be for ‘the lads’ to find a similar level of achievement with somebody else?
The ’somebody else’ is easy to predict and all the available evidence suggests that son Joseph will step into his father’s shoes with the ease in which the father has won classic races. Even so, the weight of expectation will be a heavy load to carry even for someone who has thus found it an easy experience to train in the shadow of a father who finds training classic winners as easy as shelling peas.

Of course it should be remembered for all his classic wins, Aidan O’Brien has doubtless trained more also-rans in classics than any other current trainer. He throws more darts at the dart board than most trainers would dare, each one of them with a pedigree to die for and he is not ashamed of doing so. It must be remembered his job description is not so much to roll-out classic winners but to produce stallions, some for Coolmore to keep, others to sell on breeders all around the world. 
Yesterday, Delacroix, for all the trouble that befell him in running, finished only ninth, though even if he were ten-lengths closer to the eventual winner going round Tattenham Corner, I do not believe anyone would be thinking this morning that he would have won the race given a clear passage. And The Lion In Winter is a horse going nowhere. If City of Troy was an example last year of Aidan’s ability to turn water into wine, The Lion In Winter is in need of a much more spectacular conjuring trick by his trainer. But who would bet against the horse winning a Group 1 by seasons end? Aidan is racing’s own David Blaine, where nothing, even making the Statue of Liberty seemingly disappear, is beyond his magical powers. I would love Aidan to train a horse rated in the low 40’s just to witness how much improvement he might eke out of it.
That is the thing, you know. Although all horses, blue-blooded or rag ‘n’ bone bred, go through life in want of making the lives of their trainers as difficult as can be achieved by laming themselves for no apparent reason, as many ‘miracles’ are achieved by trainers in the lesser profitable grounds than were Aidan operates, winning with horses of limited ability, limited enthusiasm for the job, and with limbs unfit for purpose.

Already labelled a ‘stayer’, as if being stoutly-bred is some sort of stigma, Lambourn was a worthy winner of the Epsom Derby. Wayne Lordan had a plan and he executed it to the minutest detail, making virtually every yard of the running and never at any moment in danger of being conquered.
This is the truth, cross my heart and hope to die, when Ruling Court was scratched from the race, I replaced him in my top three with Lambourn, and I had earlier in the week selected him as the best of the Ballymore three.
I think a few good horses will come out of this year’s Derby. Lazy Griff, obviously, and if Lambourn went for the Arc instead of the St. Leger, he would be in with a sound chance of giving Charlie Johnston and Yorkshire a famous classic success. Tennessee Stud got going late and should improve for the run and Stanhope Gardens would have finished third if the camber had not caught him out, ensuring he ran off a straight line in the dying breaths of the race. New Ground behaved appalling on the way to the start, sweating and pulling and almost plunging and in the race was too eager for speed, yet ran on from the back to finish an honourable fourth. And Delacroix is obviously much better than his run yesterday.
And it is always newsworthy and worth celebrating when the second jockey to a powerful stable wins the Derby and Lordan seems a fellow deserving of the laurels. It can often happen at Ballymore, the more workaday riders prospering when the first jockey errs in his choice. 

Thinking on it, the Derby, I mean, apart from those who were on Lambourn who were sitting pretty throughout the race, every other professional punter, racing columnist and racing presenter, were all stuffed a long way out. David Jennings was all in with The Lion In Winter and he must have been hurting for the whole two-minutes of the race. The same with those who put their name to Delacroix as a good thing. Rossa Ryan could not see how the horses that finished behind Pride of Arras at York could finish in front of him at Epsom, yet, with the exception of Damysus, they all did.
Horse racing makes fools of us all, no matter who you are and what success you have achieved in the past. As a sport, it is the greatest leveller. As Dan Skelton, horses and racing puts manners on all us poor human beings. It is why we love the sport, isn’t it?

Oh, and now can Jockey Club Estates revive its problem child? Heavens only knows! They might start by getting rid of the out-dated dress code for the Queens Stand. Men in morning suits at an outdoor sporting event is beyond ridiculous when the women can dress-up in any manner they choose, albeit they too must adhere to some form of dress code. On the Morning Show, messrs Bell, Blake and Persad, dressed in ill-fitting morning dress, and this at 9.30 in the morning, looked like hopeful wedding chasers in need of a wine waiter. Start by making Epsom look fit for all, not just for the aristocracy. And entice the locals to every meeting with free tickets, free travel and entertainment on the hill. Horse racing breaks through all the old social classes and through the television screen the perception can seem the complete opposite. 

​In todays ‘Johnny and D.J.’ column in the Racing Post, Johnny Dineen admits his annoyance of the week was seeing a horse called Meetingofthewaters running at Bangor last week who was not the Meetingofthewaters trained by Willie Mullins that finished fifth in this year’s Aintree National. He is correct to raise this issue, an issue I have pushed and banged-on about for the best part of twenty-years. As Dineen pointed out, the English language is huge. And I would add that there are over 200 other languages that could be utilised to name a racehorse. Meetingofthewaters could be translated into French, Gaelic, Hungarian or Dutch and as long as it does not breach the 18-character rule it would be deemed acceptable by the B.H.A.. Sea The Stars could be translated into Spanish, Brown Jack into Norwegian. Spanish Steps into Italian. 
As I have said many times, it is lazy, ignorant and ‘name two horses of the same name that have won races at the top level on either the flat or National Hunt? To Johnny Dineen this issue is annoying; to me it is exasperating, as vexing as political corruption and the 4-billion quid it is costing the British tax-payer to house and feed illegal immigrants. Yes, it is that exasperating to me!

Johnny Dineen’s foil in his piece in the Racing Post and the ‘Upping the Ante’ podcast, David Jennings, is one of my Racing Post favourites. Occasionally, though, his opinion is at odds with my own. Actually, most of my opinions are at odds with those who earn their living as racing correspondents. But then they are professional and trained, some with a whip and chair, I suspect, and I am unprofessional and untrained since the days of the potty. 
I would prefer it if people of the calibre of David Jennings did not resort to ratings, the opinion of others, when summing-up a race. Even the form-book should be set aside when trying to find winners. I believe, on the day, ground dependency, weight carried and whether the racecourse is left or right-handed, flat or undulating, can be more influential when deciding which horse is more likely to win. It is about feel, instinct, what the heart demands. Going commando, almost.
If ratings are all they are cracked-up to be, the highest rated would win most of the time. Ratings are no more than bollards in the road to either penury or joy. Ratings are a faith that limits freedom of thought, freedom from instinct. Minnie Hauk proved how the faith of ratings can lead the punter down blind alleyways.
For a season, David, Sea The Stars was an unbeatable wonder. He was a nine-month shooting star. Yet people who should know better, who should be doing all in their power to boost our sport, choose to remember a nine-month wonder horse – and I could use Flightline as another example – as one of the greats. Sea The Stars has proved himself a great stallion; if he had been kept in training as a four-year-old he might have proven himself superior to any horse that ever graced a racecourse. He was not kept in training and we will never know where he stands in the pantheon of the greats. What I do know is a nine-month shooting star should not even be nominated for the pantheon.
To me, hard, cold facts, are unpalatable, yet to ‘experts’ they are the ambrosia of their profession.

As a kid, my party piece was to name the last fifty-winners of both the Epsom Derby and the Grand National. It was impressive feat of memory until someone asked me to name the 1958 Derby winner or any single race out of the hundred. I could not do it then and I certainly cannot do it now. Individual years do not register in my memory. I can tell you here and now that Red Rum won the Grand National in 1973 but would have to resort to a book to name the winner of the Epsom Derby of the same year.
I needed my memory jogged to recall that City of Troy won the Derby last year and I had completely forgotten that Continuous won the St.Leger the year before last. Explanation, I suspect, why though bodily I live in the modern age of 2025, my heart, soul and memory live in the days of my youth when life was so much simpler to navigate.

I did not like the Epsom Oaks yesterday. I wanted, nay expected, Desert Flower to win and win like a champion, and whether she did not quite stay the distance, as William Buick seems to believe or whether, as Charlie Appleby suggested, that she did act on either the track or the ground, makes no difference to me. I never have fond memories of races where the horse I wanted to win does not win.

​To let you into a secret, it is two in the morning and I am not snoring. Also, we seem to have a problem with the electricity which is only affecting the lights and an inspection of the fuse box has determined that no switches are in the off-position. I will have to leave it to my other half when she rises from her slumber sometime after the dawn chorus to sort it. So I am operating under torch-light, which is kind of spooky at two in the morning.

Horse racing needs all the good news it can muster and Queen Camilla visiting Hexham yesterday, primarily to open a new stand named in her honour, was definitely good news, especially as she stuck around to ask for views from trainers and racecourse staff on the problems the sport is mired in at this present and pivotal time in its history. It seems both our king and queen have concerns for our sport and though their hands are constitutionally tied, we must hope that behind the scenes they can use their influence in our favour.

It will be disappointing if Elizabeth Gale, who rode her first flat winner yesterday, decides to turn her back on the National Hunt side of the sport to focus on the flat. She is fifteen-winners into her jumps career and though the flat may appear a less hazardous means of earning a living, she is receiving a lot of support from a whole raft of National Hunt trainers at the moment. Perhaps she should consider riding under both codes as Taylor Fisher is doing, though he may be injured as I have not seen him feature in the Racing Post recently. If girls stop hammering at the door, the imbalance between the sexes will never close.

After saying a hundred-times that there will be no Rachael Blackmore legacy if no female jockey is given the opportunity to advance their careers, I have to admit that in Anna McGuiness we might just be seeing the first flowering of Blackmore’s labours. McGuinness is attached, I believe, to Closutton and has already received a couple of rides from the master trainer and quite recently other trainers have started to use her. I also heard Ruby Walsh describe her as a talented rider, which should be endorsement enough for trainers to keep putting her up. And, of course, she will have ridden out with Rachael Blackmore at Closutton and no doubt taken advice from her.
Also in Ireland, a young female by the name of Burns, N Burns – for some reason in the 4-day declarations she is N Burns but on the day of the race she is Nicola Burns – is establishing herself. So perhaps the Rachael Blackmore effect is becoming reality on both codes.

It is a bit of a disappointment to have only 9-runners in the Epsom Oaks today, especially when the Derby has achieved each-way betting with a field of 19, more than enough for an office sweepstake. Why so many of the experts are overlooking Desert Flower on the basis that her pedigree suggests she is a miler I do not understand when Buick’s hardest task when riding her has been to pull her up at the end of a race. Charlie Appleby believes she will stay and so do I. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. 

To me, the names of horses are important. Yes, I have a thing about the French and Arabic languages used for naming a racehorse, though that is about being unable to pronounce foreign words and an inability to distinguish one Arab-named horse from another and the same with jumpers with part English part French names. But I am also all assy about names like Bubbles Wonky and Sugarpiehoneybunch, both winners yesterday, the latter at 28/1. There may be reasonable explanations for why these two horses were given the names they have, though I suspect in both cases a 5-year-old granddaughter was asked to choose a name and once she had spoken, there was no going back. I do though wish people would remember that once named, and once the horse has had its first run, that name cannot be changed. It may be fun to name a horse Sugarpiehoneybunch but this is a serious sport and I believe all aspects of it should be taken seriously.