Simon Cox, head man at the B.H.A. (there is something wrong with 'chair', don't you think, almost derogatory, the chair of the B.H.A.. I was about to write that it is not as if the people who assemble with him around a table and called tablers. Then I remembered they are referred to as 'the board', which is what a table is, in effect. So, egg on me).
Anyway, to begin again. Simon Cox certainly talks the talks and we must all keep our fingers and toes crossed that he can also walk the walk. He does not want to be a dictator and he thinks being a dictator will not help racing's cause. Yet many good people within the sport seem to think a benign dictator is exactly what the sport needs to be able to get its ducks in a row. I just hope Cox believes that the B.H.A. should run the sport from A-to-Z, not the stakeholders, and as head man he should hold a deciding vote on matters that are tied.
My instincts tell me that we are approaching the last chance saloon and that it befalls Simon Cox, if not to be the sport's saviour, to be the architect of it's survival. I am fairly confident that he will be able to talk to government ministers and have them accept the good that horse racing brings to the country, not only in revenue but in the employment of young people and the pathways that exist for them to have long and successful careers, not only working alongside horses but elsewhere in the industry. Where I am less confident is whether he can persuade racing's stakeholders to play ball, to shift their long-held positions and to shake-off their traditional self-centred bargaining attitude.
For now, though, it must the mantra of 'in Cox we trust.'
Alphonse Karr once wrote 'The more things change, the more they are the same.' I was reminded of this when reading a book published in 1934, 'Paddock Profiles', where J Fairfax Blakeborough refers to an age before his own time. 'Although thirty-years-ago trainers were no longer officially described as 'training grooms' and they had years before ceased to wear the livery of those who employed them ...' Yet over a hundred-years later, there is not one leading racehorse trainer who does not wear the branding of a sponsor, branding being today's equivalent of livery. I don't know how Alphonse Karr made his reputation but he was bang on the money with the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I was concerned that after so long on the sidelines that Hollie Doyle should have foregone riding in Hong Kong this winter and forged new associations by riding on the all-weather. Well, when you are wrong, you should be quick to admit your ignorance. On her first day back riding Hollie and her agent secured eight rides, even if the meeting was abandoned after only three-races, and she is quite busy all this week. So no worries about being forgotten about, Hollie.
I think her short-stay licence issued by the Hong Kong Jockey Club is for six-weeks, so she will still, I assume, unless she accompanies Tom on his winter travels, be seen on the all-weather through to spring. She will be joined in Hong Kong by Saffie Osborne, Dylan Browne McMonagle and Rossa Ryan, so along with the resident Brits it will be like a home from home for her.
As much as I have wanted Andrew Balding to become British champion trainer I cannot see how it is possible for him to claw back the £175,000 deficit between him and the perennial champion of champions, Aidan O'Brien. To stand even the smallest of chances he would need to win all three of the bigger pots at Doncaster this Saturday and hope that none of O'Brien's entries sneak any prize-money. If Balding comes out of the weekend only £75,000 behind he will still have hope of lifting that anonymous trophy. (As anyone actual seen the trophy?) It is not going to happen, though, is it? And there is no point anyone asking what Balding must do to out-do O'Brien because as we all know that whatever he does, O'Brien will simply deploy his regiment of equine stars in the direction of Britain's Group 1's and it will again be game over. Even with their firepower, Balding and the Gosdens are trying to down the Ballydoyle maestro with pea-shooters, compared against the equine ground-to-air missiles at O'Brien's disposal. Nobody comes into this world with a document claiming the world is a level playing field. With the possible exception of Aidan. For him, the world of racing is a very level playing field.