Let me tell you a story. Not a fictional story but a true story (cross-fingers). Once upon a time a student studying to become an environmental scientist was having a few qualms about what he was being told. He cared passionately about the state of the planet but was unable to correlate all the data of the time into the sorts of facts that would gain him a straight A or whatever the award is for being very good at university level. Seeking the truth, he decided to e-mail 300+ of the world leading climate scientists to ask them if they believed in the climate change narrative. Of that number less than 90 chose to reply. Of that 90, 95% were in complete agreement with the official climate warming narrative. That is where the 'nearly every climate scientist in the world is certain of climate warming' narrative came from. Of course, all those 200+ scientists who did not reply to the e-mail may also have believed in the official narrative. But with no definitive proof either way the climate warming narrative is rather like Schrodinger's cat, being both alive and dead at the same time.

But let me be clear: I am aware that weather patterns in Britain have changed over the past decade or so. Whether they have changed in other countried I cannot say as I have no experience of living in any other country. But nowadays it  is almost like in Britain we now have only two seasons, one of those being summer. For Britain, if this means hot summers and less cold winters, I can live with it, if only narrowly. And a warming planet will mean more food can be grown so less people will starve to death and less people will die of the cold. That does not imply we should not take action to save water and to be economical with fuel and other resources.

The director of racing at the B.H.A. has dropped a hint that because of climate change we must rethink the summer racing programme and indeed the whole of the National Hunt season. Obviously his comments have fallen like jelly from an umpire's chair with the National Trainers Federation who view his comments as a threat to its members ability to turn a profit at the end of the financial year. In the south, the south-east and the midlands of this country, there was without dispute a long period of drought that began prior to Royal Ascot and continued throughout all of the summer festivals. The rest of the country, and Scotland, were not so badly affected that it made headline news. The Ayr Gold Cup meeting was held on soft ground, for instance.

Of course, the B.H.A. must give consideration to the possible threat of further summer droughts and it makes obvious sense for all of the country's racecourses to undertake work to ensure they save every drop of rainwater throughout the year, to have it all flow into a reservoir for purposes of irrigation. But there should not a knee-jerk reaction to one hot, rainless, summer. What the B.H.A. and climate scientists have not factored in to the weather of this year is the effect of the worse El Nino in living memory which is threatening hurricane's of record proportions for the Carribean and South America. El Nino always has a bearing on the world's weather. Next summer the weather in Britain could as easily be as wet as this year it was hot.

The summer jumps programme does need a rethink, with the B.H.A. perhaps considering mixed meetings so that irrigation can be used for both codes at the same time, with 4 flat races and 3 jumps races per fixture. Change is necessary, though it has been necessary for several years.

David Jennings has announced that he will no longer be writing for The Racing Post. No warning from the editor that Jennings was leaving to soften the impact of his loss from my life. Just bam! Jennings no more. Obviously, I will miss him as I have admired his writing and always looked forward to his Saturday column and his sparring with Johnny Dineen. My faltering heart must absorb this blow as it absorbed the deaths of so many great racehorses recently. A man of my age can only suffer so many blows as low as this one.

You see, I do not think this year's Arc is as full of quality as years gone by. It is high class, of course it is, but all Group 1's are high class to one degree or another. It is just this year's renewal has only a limited number of possible winners. I do not include Maltese Cross in that number, for instance, for all he is one of the favourites. He may be working brilliantly at home but I have seen nothing on the racecourse to suggest to me that he is better than Darys or Kalpana. If the ground should be soft, and who can say, I might switch my allegiance to Thundering On but if the ground is good or good-to-firm, I now allign with Kalpana to beat Friendly Soul and Darys.

Surprisingly, at least I am surprised, Ryan Moore has chosen to ride Benvenuto Cellini over Diamond Necklace and Minnie Hauk. It may simply be that he doubts that Diamond Necklace will stay 12-furlongs in a strongly run race or he may have deserted her due to her outside draw. I doubt if Ryan will make public his thoughts until after the race. But as long as she gets an unchecked run, I cannot see any reason why Kalpana cannot win the Arc. The value bet is, in my limited estimation, Friendly Soul.

If I could choose one winner tomorrow it would be Naana's Shadow in the Abbaye.