NO DRAMA THIS END, WELL DONE, DAN, THE G.O.A.T. IS A MATTER OF OPINION & AL KAZEEM

 I am prepared to stick my neck out and suggest all four of the horses that ran in The Rising Stars Novice Chase at Aintree yesterday will all win races this season. Will any of them win an Arkle or Brown Advisory at the Cheltenham Festival? I will say no. The winner, Taurus Bay is obviously a top-notcher, yet already Ben Pauling is saying he does not really know if he is a 2-miler or a stayer and given there is no 2-mile 4 novice chase at the Festival outside of the handicap for novices, I am also prepared to guess that he will not win another race this season. I am firmly in the camp of a horse running throughout the season at one distance. If Taurus Bay keeps to 2-mile 4, I think he will do better than going down in trip, which seems the most likely route given what his trainer said after the race.

Talk To The Man, to my mind, will improve as the season progresses. He is a big horse in need of filling his frame. I would think he needs further and might, come the Festival, fall between the stools of the Arkle and Brown Advisory. Favour and Fortune will perhaps win more races than any of the other three this season. He looks a handicapper and could easily be the only one of the four to win at the Festival. The disappointment yesterday was obviously No Drama This End. I was surprised by his lack of scope. He lost ground with his erratic jumping, which was no help when his fitness ran low in the straight. To me, he needs big, open galloping tracks like Newbury or Cheltenham, and 3-miles. Expectation yesterday far outweighed his form. It is what I keep saying, just because No Drama This End has a Grade 1 to his name does not necessarily make him a Grade I horse. The Challow should never be a Grade 1. I actually think there should be no Grade 1's for novices until the Cheltenham Festival as every horse that runs in a Grade 1 before March is but 'a hopefully he or she is a Grade1 horse', with virtually all of them proving not to be.

I wish to congratulate Dan Skelton for informing the public about the injury to L'Eau Du Sud that will keep him off games this season. The horse has a strained tendon and by what Dan said about the injury it is a strain of the minor kind with the horse still sound. Too often, and Ben Pauling is guilty of this, trainers hide all injuries under the phrase 'a minor injury, 'a slight knock', etc. The Jukebox Man has 'a slight knock' but not so slight that there is any likelihood of seeing him on a racecourse this side of next November.

Ian Wood, former trainer, has an article masquerading as a letter published in The Racing Post today on the subject of the Greatest Of All Time. Obviously, as they are before his time, and before the time of anyone living today, he does not mention Fred Archer, Frank Wootton or Steve Donoghue, all of whom should be referrenced when determing the G.O.A.T. of flat racing. Understandably, Mr. Wood comes down firmly on Lester Piggott as his greatest of all time. Lester is the greatest legend of the weighing room on the flat. And though I can be accused of recency bias by preferring both Ryan Moore and Frankie Dettori over the great man, it is only my opinion, and everyone is entitled to their opinion, not that anyone can prove they are right and the rest wrong. I am aware that of now, 2026, far more people would agree with Mr.Wood's opinion than mine. In thirty-years time, god-hope we still have a sport in 2056, the name Loughnane may be included in the debate, with Lester's name diminishing into the fog of long time gone, as has occured with Archer, Wootton and Donoghue. My opinion is not based on classics won or Group 1's on the c.v. but what my eyes and heart tell me. And that is, there never will be a better flat jockey than Ryan Moore. He has been gifted talent, a good body shape and some of the best thoroughbreds to grace the turf. The only natural gift he shares with Piggott is the last one, of course. That admitted, I still think Ryan Moore is the best; the jockey every aspiring rider should try to model his or her style on.

The stallion Al Kazeem, the horse who suffered a bad injury, recovered to win three top Group 's in a matter of months, was retired to stud, proved sub-fertile, returned to racing, won some more races and returned to stud to sire winners, has been retired from active duty. He is nineteen and will spend his retirement with his 'old pal' Avonbridge, 26, and Patavellion, 29, at the stud close to Chepstow racecourse where he has stood as a stallion. John Deere and his wife Eileen and everyone at Oakgrove Stud should be applauded for keeping these old warriors alive and well at the extreme ages they have reached. It always warms my heart to be informed of racehorses that have lived happily for longer in retirement than their years as a racehorse.