OF RACECOURSES AND SUGAR PUFFS... BUT IS WORCESTER TOAST?

The fifth and final article in a short series Betfair commissioned from me in recent weeks covers some familiar That Racing Blog subject matter, not least Worcester and Ffos Las racecourses, but a newer idea I have had about the future of the currently for-sale Ayr may delight and horrify in equal measure;

http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/general/jeremy-grayson-ayr-essentials-010309.html

THE HUNTERS STILL GO PAST THE PUNTERS... BUT ONLY IF THEY'RE NOT TOO GOOD AT WINNING

Finding new ways to monkey around with terms and conditions of hunter chases has almost assumed the role of an annual task for the BHA - maybe someone has it permanently written into their annual appraisal targets.

My irritated response to the "three wins and out" rule now applied to certain hunter chases will surprise few, much less the few words scribbled down about Lough Derg to cheer me up again;

http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/general/bha-bumbles-while-lough-lifts-the-spirits-again-220209.html

THE HUNTERS GO PAST THE PUNTERS... SO TRY TO WIN SOME MONEY ON THEM, THEN

One of Mark Johnson's most enduring catchphrases seems as apt as any to usher in this third article of the five recently commissioned by Betfair.

A fair few hunter chases have been run since I wrote this, and Paul Nicholls has done his best to undermine my nomination of his runners in the sphere as decent lay material by scoring four wins from four with them, but I remain unbowed, if a little bloodied. There's still the return to Towcester of Caveman to look forward to, though...

http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/general/be-a-hunter-not-prey-when-it-comes-to-betting-on-hunter-150209.html

OF SALT SHORTAGES, SOAP STARS, AND STRIPPING SANDOWN

Proposals to change the end of the National Hunt season, in the hope of bringing it to a more thundering climax, exercised my time and patience in the second of the five recently-commissioned Betfair articles;

http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/general/horseracing-betting-wheres-all-the-bleedin-salt-gone-080209.html

WHERE PRODIGIOUS YOUNG WELSH TALENT AND FAKE INDIE SNOBBERY MEET

The more astute among you will have noticed that updates to this blog have been few and far between in recent months.

Initially this was due to a major change in personal circumstances, but more recently on account of Betfair securing a number of articles from me for its betting.betfair.com website.

Several of these were pertinent only to the given week's racing, but the most recent five have concerned subject matter that I would have had every intention of raising on That Racing Blog in other circumstances. As such, I have little hesitation in posting links to them on this site.

(Well, obviously I do have some hesitation, as the first was published six weeks ago, but you know what I mean...)

Anyone who listened to Timeform Radio's start-of-"proper"-season podcast back in October will have been left in little doubt whom I regarded as the jockey to follow throughout 2008-9, and so far this term I don't think I have been proven too far wrong by what I have seen of him. The "fake indie snobbery" bit probably needs a little more explanation - read on;

http://betting.betfair.com/horse-racing/jockeys/ladies-and-gentlemen-meet-the-next-great-jumps-jockey-r-010209.html

WORTH THE LONG WAIT TO WADE INTO THE SOLENT

Some things in racing take rather longer than others to come to fruition.

My "Out in the Sticks" columns for the monthly edition of Racing Ahead magazine exist principally to outline performances that have caught my eye at some of the country's smaller National Hunt tracks, with a view to finding readers as many next-time winners as possible (NB in answer to a question I found in my inbox recently: the concentration on smaller venues is partly due to them being what I know and understand best, and partly due to fellow contributor Andrew Ayres already covering the "bigger stuff" during the rump of the jumps season).

For the greater part, and especially with summer jumping, I don't have to wait long to find out if I am right, given that most horses will run again within two months. That said, I had to wait over six months before Tamarinbleu's reappearance resulted in a Boylesports.com Gold Cup win at wonderfully rewarding odds, and I fear the wait for late 2006 selections Sexy Rexy and Solid As A Rock to reappear may not actually come to an end.

In a similar vein, about nine months ago I was one of several regular contributors to Betfair Radio to take part in what ultimately proved to be an exhausting but terrifically fun two-hours-and-then-some podcast for that station (mercifully edited to a length manageable for human consumption subsequently), in which our thoughts, betting strategies, tips and bismarks for the forthcoming winter's action were shared.

The suggestions for big race honours we made then have subsequently proven to be about half-right and half-wrong overall. Most of us, myself included, thought something would emerge from leftfield to steal the Champion Chase crown from a fallible title-holder in Voy Por Ustedes. If Master Minded were allowed to drink, we'd buy him a pint. Unfortunately, I was also one of a couple of contributors keen to nonsense Denman's aspirations for the Gold Cup - my assertions that the hanging left and jumping errors of his novices' chase wins as Exeter and Cheltenham in late 2006 would be ruthlessly exploited in senior company looked very silly indeed after his Hennessy win, and had practically gained a red nose and deely-boppers come March 14th of this year.

Away from the Championship races, my selections had a mixed time of it. Iktitaf and Granit Jack, regrettably, were both taken from us too soon, and Nevada Royale's season was best described as abortive; but the likes of Newbay Prop (when he was clearing his fences rather than intent on taking them home with him) and Bible Lord (eventually) did me a couple of timely favours. As with the "Out in the Sticks" examples I cited, however, some tips have come home to roost rather later than others, and none more so than Solent.

My logic for choosing him at the time seemed copper-bottomed enough to me. He appealed as one of the classier Flat recruits likely to take his chance over timber last autumn, what with an Official Rating of 100 and a brace of personal best Racing Post Ratings of 108 to his name. He had signed off his time as a Richard Hannon inmate with a grinding dead-heat in the Listed Fenwolf Stakes at Ascot in September, and in so doing reiterated his effectiveness around a stiff track with an uphill finish. That would come in handy at Cheltenham.

Further, whilst that Ascot race over two miles had been run at a numbingly slow early pace, his efforts in truer-run contests at up to 1m6f around the likes of Ascot again and Haydock previously underlined to me that this would be one former "Flattie" who would have no trouble at all seeing out the minimum trip over hurdles, or in all probability a fair bit further, thereby increasing options.

Last of all, and by no means any less significant, trainer John Quinn had been prepared to go to 155,000 guineas at the Tattersalls sale last October to secure the Montjeu gelding's services. That needs putting into context. His high 90s-rated Cambridgeshire aspirant Mastership cost him 67,000gns, subsequent dual Diomed Stakes winner Blythe Knight 90,000gns and future Grade 2 Elite Hurdle victor King's Quay 110,000gns. After Solent, the last-named is the most expensive animal the Racing Post's bloodstock search facility credits Quinn with ever having bought through a recognised sales ring, and cost all of 45,000gns less.

Price-tags don’t win races, of course but it still read like a serious statement of belief in the horse’s ability to take top rank as a hurdler that the Settrington handler was prepared to outlay quite such an amount on him.

So, with the credentials of Solent well enough established in my mind to have put him forward, all that was needed now was for the gelding to make his debut over timber and hopefully prove me right.

So I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

And then the season finished.

By the end of April Solent had still not appeared, with nothing in the trade press to suggest he had met with a training setback, but at the same time nothing to suggest he was being kept for a summer novices’ hurdle campaign.

When he did finally reappear it was on the Flat at the start of July, over nine months since last seen. However, two quick appearances in the Old Newton Cup and York’s Silver Handicap Stakes appeared to confirm that his current rating, some way in excess of the 90 of his best ever handicap win, was now prohibitive. Even attempting to boss things from the front was no longer going to yield wins in handicaps barring some significant clemency, and he faded to be beaten an aggregate of 99l over the two runs.

Surely, now, unless attentions were turned exclusively to conditions races, we were going to see his attentions turned to the increasingly inaccurately-titled “winter code”.

Indeed we were. Three weeks later, a Solent visibly rippling with good health and looking every inch primed for the job in hand stepped onto the course at Bangor-on-Dee ahead of his hurdles debut. The tapes went back, Solent took the lead immediately, and that was effectively the end of the race as a contest.

Given his previous exploits on the Flat over as little as a furlong shorter than the 2m1f of this race, Solent was always likely to need to scorch off here to make it enough of a stamina test for himself, and he did just that en route to a really taking triumph, in which he never led by fewer than 10l and could have humiliated his rivals by far more than the ultimate 12l verdict had he or rider Dougie Costello wanted to.

It was a performance that the harder-bitten analyst may still want to crab to a degree. It is hard to argue against the claims that Solent probably beat close to nothing, with runner-up Wood Fern still to reappear at the time of writing but the 19l third Hernando Cortes having been soundly beaten in three subsequent hurdles starts (including an awful 80l drubbing at Southwell just this afternoon). Further, whilst his jumping was absolutely spot on, so well it might have been with all his rivals too far behind throughout to put it under even the merest scintilla of pressure.

As the familiar maxim goes, however, you can only beat what’s put in front of you – Solent beat little but achieved plenty at Bangor. Whilst acknowledging that harder tasks will undoubtedly follow (not least with the penalty), my Racing Ahead write-up on this performance concluded that for all it was a bloodless win, he exhibited enough class and professionalism to suggest he would be able to do himself justice in whichever of the better (eventually Listed or Graded?) novices’ hurdles this autumn he may be aimed at.

With some very interesting fellow former Flat recruits having their first try over timber in the same race, chief among them the 2005 Derby seventh Unfurled, I hope that last bold statement doesn’t have me reaching for the metaphorical red nose and silly headgear again after his appearance in a much tougher Market Rasen contest this afternoon.

Even if it does, though, at least I was proven right about Solent for one brief, fleeting, long-delayed five-minute spell. Eventually.

A SUNDAY OF JUDGMENTS - HERE ARE SOME OF THE WRONG ONES

The Old Roan Chase. The Summer National. The Greatwood Hurdle. The Becher Chase. The Grand Sefton Chase. The National Spirit Hurdle. The Perth Gold Cup. The Borders National. The Newton Abbot Summer Festival Handicap Hurdle. The October Hurdle at Aintree. The Independent Newspaper Novices’ Chase. Listed novices’ hurdles at Kempton and Exeter. The Coors Cumberland Handicap Chase. A couple of dozen class 3 - or better – handicaps, including many throughout the summer months and two last Sunday.

Proof in spades that Tom Segal’s assertion in the Post four days ago that, “the two jumps meetings are, as usual, of very low quality – it is a Sunday, after all”, won’t necessarily rank among the most accurate he will commit to print this year.

Notwithstanding, and being a magnanimous soul, I will of course gladly mention that Segal remains a tipping titan at his very best, as the finding of Regal Parade ahead of his win in the Ayr Gold Cup, and two wins out of two on Sunday with Lord Ryeford and Always Bold, have most recently attested to.

***

In all honesty it was a bad Sunday for anyone to choose to pick a fight with the racing calendar, as the two jumps cards in question at Plumpton and Uttoxeter had a greater concentration of genuine puzzles between them – as opposed to races which looked mere formalities for just one, or certainly no more than two, of their competitors – than most of what had preceded them in recent weeks.

This corresponding Plumpton card, its first for four months, has additionally enjoyed a burgeoning reputation in recent times. The presence of a near-£11,000, 0-125 class 3 handicap hurdle has played some part in that, for sure, but so too have the two novices’ hurdles, one juvenile and one 4yo+, which both increasingly attract some decent types either on debut or just a race or two into their new careers. King’s Quay was sent on the monster round trip from John Quinn’s yard in Settrington two years ago to make a winning start in the latter race, and last year’s winners of each contest, Hypnotic Vibes and – the eventually 141-rated – Alsadaa, have both certainly proven to be very capable animals indeed.

Mention of these contests cannot pass this year without namechecking Wyeth, winner of the older horses’ contest for the dominant local force of Gary and Jamie Moore. Timber-hopping in Sussex surely wouldn’t have been on anyone’s minds when Wyeth was foaled and then sold for 420,000gns as a yearling, what with the Group1-winning quality of his by then six year-old full brother Grandera having been well established and the also appreciable talents of his half-sibling George Washington about to be.

The 2 ¼l win here, and the one in a Bath gentlemans’ handicap that preceded it, probably don’t as yet go anywhere close to meeting the likely lofty expectations of yore. However, after eight mostly underwhelming performances previously (all bar one for first trainer James Fanshawe), which to me looked to have exposed Wyeth as clumsy, backward, and even on occasion a bit thick (hence my passing over him when tipping on the race for Betfair Radio in favour of the eventually well-beaten Muraco), these recent gains have to go down as a triumph for Team Moore. Having proven wrong to have written him off all too soon, I shall watch whatever continued development follows hereafter with great interest.

***

The recurring theme of getting it wrong brings us neatly to Uttoxeter, and to the most high-profile incident over the jumps on the day (in another class 3 event, incidentally, just to labour the point made earlier). The returning Paddy Merrigan, partnering Bill’s Echo on his first ride for nine months following his well-documented self-imposed hiatus, thinks he might have got his timing slightly wrong on Alistair Whillans’ gelding – I happen not to agree, as even with an earlier move, and without a blunder two out, nothing on the day was going to master an Alphabetical free at last of his wind-based infirmities.

What has been got wrong, majorly so, is the decision of the stewards at the Staffordshire track to impose a ban upon him, and one to the tune of seven days at that, for an ill-judged ride. That Bill’s Echo came late and hard, having been put into the race as far on into it as three fences from home, is not in dispute, but there were sound reasons for doing so which should have prevented any steward familiar with them from acting as punitively.

To this pair of eyes the race certainly seemed to be run a deal quicker throughout than the attendant post-race analyst suggested, as evinced, perhaps, by the way all the front-runners barring the operation-enhanced winner were swamped by the more patiently-ridden late on; and as such Paddy Merrigan’s opting to keep Bills' Echo away from the worst excesses of that pace seemed entirely sensible.

As the gelding’s co-owner Charlie Byers told the Post subsequently, Bill’s Echo had similarly come from a different parish when winning a class 2 Huntingdon 2m handicap chase for Richard Guest almost exactly three years previously. It’s also worth pointing out that not only was Paddy Merrigan engaged at Guest’s yard at the time, but he also finished 7l second behind Bill’s Echo in that race on stablemate Wet Lips. Further still, Bill’s Echo and Merrigan’s subsequent tenures with Paul Nicholls also coincided, and they teamed up for a Newbury 2m chase in early 2007 – they recorded a nearest-at-finish fifth place, achieved by exactly the same method as in the other two examples given.

Simply put, Bill’s Echo and Paddy Merrigan go back a long way, and the latter knows what makes the former tick as well as, if not better than, most riders in circulation. Sunday's ride was palpably imbued with that familiarity.

Keep in mind also that Bill's Echo had only once raced over further than 2m4f before this race (2m5f), pulling up over 3m at Aintree in May; and whilst he had admittedly won over 2m4f at Uttoxeter 18 months ago, that was in a more muddling, small field contest - and with the inspiration of first-time blinkers - when at the height of his powers for Paul Nicholls, rather than a big-field speed-fest like Sunday’s whilst at a lowish ebb (his four previous runs for Whillans this year having been universally poor).

Heaven knows it has not always been easy to love Merrigan. It is hard to forget the staggeringly miserable response to perfectly reasonable interview questions from Mike Vince in the winners’ enclosure at Market Rasen last September, following what was back then the biggest win of his career aboard Iron Man in that course’s big autumn chase. It is probably also fair to say he is unlikely to pick up rides from certain yards again as a result of more than one mysterious or untidy split in what has already been a turbulent short career.

However, whilst I'm not sure I would quite describe the Uttoxeter stewards’ actions as agriculturally as he did in the press, on this occasion Merrigan is certainly the wronged boy rather than the boy in the wrong.

And about that much, I’m sure I’m not wrong.

A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD STILL BE A CHAMPION... BUT OF WHAT?

I am no more in the habit of taking the Racing Post's Alastair Down to task over articles than I am any other of the industry's foremost writers and columnists, especially as my fields of expertise would not be as all-encompassing as many of theirs. However, I found myself adopting a contrary position to Mr Down on a couple of occasions at the end of May, albeit, I suppose, over relatively small matters in the global scheme of things.

The first of these concerned an otherwise very fair and - if it isn't too inappropriate a term to use, given the course's 2007 misfortunes - watertight piece on Worcester (published May 25th), a racecourse which has been the subject of more regular discussion than most on these pages. Mr Down's suggestion that hunters' chases don't feature at the Pitchcroft venue was true to a point, but I felt compelled to don my hunters' chase anorak in writing to the Post and confirming that the intention was to run one such event at the April 23rd meeting of this year.

This would have been the first since the last edition of a hitherto long-running novices' hunters' chase on April 24th, 1999. In the event, this resumption had to be delayed by another year, as the steeplechase course was deemed still not quite fit for purpose.

The second of these occasions was partially related to the first, concerning as it did Mr Down's reaction to the outcome of the amateur riders' jumps title - I say partially rather than wholly, as the chief protagonists in the title race had gained many victories outwith hunters' chases as well as in them.

The reaction was one of dismay that Rose Davidson had been accorded the title of champion woman amateur rider, rather than of the outright champion amateur, despite having ridden more victories than every male counterpart between early June 2007 and the end of May 2008 - 21, compared to the 20 of nearest pursuer Nick Scholfield. Mr Down's opening salvo of, "When is the jockey who has ridden the most winners not a champion? When they are a woman, according to the Amateur Jockeys' Association", leaves little to the imagination.

On an immediate, gut level, I found it hard to disagree with him. He and I would both, I suspect, regard ourselves as equalists, if not necessarily out-and-out feminists. Strictures of time currently prevent me from checking his previous utterances on the matter of, for example, more female presenters and pundits meritocratically added to both the specialist television channels and Channel 4, Carrie Ford's participation in the Grand National, and so on; an old-school sexist in the John McCririck mould, however, I trust he is almost certainly not.

Having thought a little harder and longer, though, I wondered whether this response was at least partly predicated on the belief that the champion woman amateur was referred to as “outright champion” rather than just “champion woman” the last time she rode the most winners in an amateur riders’ season. Further, I also wondered whether there was any belief on Mr Down's part that the amateur ranks cultivate an expectation that a woman with the most wins would be crowned as anything other than just "champion woman".

The answer to the first of those queries is a straight "no". Rose Davidson's achievements made her the first female amateur ever to ride the most Rules jumps winners in a year, so no precedent exists there which opponents of the decision can cite. Pre-emptively, perhaps, Sarah Oliver of the Amateur Jockeys' Association (AJA) reaffirmed in the Post on the morning of Saturday, May 24th (the last day of the season) that the men and women's titles are very much regarded as separate titles. This appears consistent with previous statements from her and the AJA on jockey awards - "It's good for Tom [O'Brien] and excellent for Rose", is how the paper quoted her summary of 2005-6's respective, separate title winners.

In light of this, she was if anything probably a little too generous when suggesting of this year's events that, "Any confusion probably stems from the fact that the winner of the gentlemen's title usually rides about 18 winners, while the winner of the ladies' title rides seven or eight, and the person with the most gets described as champion". Less charitable proponents of the AJA's stance may suggest that any confusion had and still has actually only stemmed from there being no greater familiarity with the Association's long-held position on the matter.

As regards the second query raised, the notion that the amateur riders' jumps championship should comprise one mixed-sex contest under Rules lays contrary to the practice maintained in point-to-points, a sphere of racing in which essentially all of the main protagonists concerned here were still very much active participants right to the end of May (and beyond, in all bar Scholfield's case).

The champion female point-to-point rider has ended the season between the flags on the same or a higher tally of wins than her male counterpart five times since the riders' titles were established after World War II - Polly Curling managed the feat in three successive seasons from 1993 to 1995 alone, comfortably outscoring Alastair Crow (twice) and Nibby Bloom. Yet on none of these occasions has the woman in question been regarded as anything other than the champion of her sex. There just isn't an expectation there to be so, and as such it seems odd to presume that there may be one among - broadly speaking - the same pool of women for the equivalent Rules title.

Does that damn the amateur ranks as backward in their attitude towards their female achievers? Quite the opposite. Point-to-pointing is a medium of the sport in which, as mentioned previously, champion female riders have been identified as such for over 60 years now (and champion female novice riders as well, albeit only more recently), and in which equality of opportunity has been so long established (with hardly any meetings hosting a Men's Open but no Ladies' equivalent any more) that instances of several victories for female riders at any given meeting raises no eyebrows at all.

The silence on the matter of the AJA's amateur Rules champions from nearly all of the tough, phlegmatic women who populate pointing should be taken not as a meek acceptance of the status quo, therefore, but rather as an acknowledgement that there are almost certainly more important things with which they concern themselves.

It is only right of me to mention that just about the only dissenting voice to be heard from the female amateur ranks over the whole affair has been that of Rose Davidson herself, who described "not actually being called champion" (which isn't semantically accurate - she still is being called champion, as we've discussed) as something "a bit silly" and "sexist", but even so appears not to be so exercised by the decision to argue the case for a combined title any further than that.

Opinion will inevitably continue to differ as to whether it is silly and sexist, or anachronistic, or just an extension of the way amateur riders' achievements are quantified at a lower level of racing than Rules racing; but what it certainly isn't is a device dreamed up relatively late in the day just to spite Rose or any other high-achieving female amateur, and nor must it be thought as such.

A THREAD ABOUT CARTMEL
(“What took you so long to get round to it?”)

Regular visitors to a certain quartet of internet racing fora will have known, without needing to ask, where I was most likely to have spent at least one day of the Bank Holiday weekend just past. And once again, they would have been absolutely right.

I have never yet managed to attend all six days of racing at the magical Lakeland venue of Cartmel in a given year, nor am I likely to any time soon. Financial constraints prevented this in the past, and the not unwelcome freelance racing engagement or two elsewhere during the Bank Holidays do so nowadays (a Hammersmith studio one day this year, a jaunty but rain-sodden point-to-point in Bonvilston, South Wales, one day last). If all else fails, though, I will make sure I’m a permanent fixture at the course one day in the dim and distant future by instructing my next of kin to have my ashes scattered over it.

I am, truly, madly, deeply, that big a fan of Cartmel, and my only real regret about the place is that it took 26 years before I finally managed to get there for the first time, back in August 2001. I’ve not missed a year since, and my return two days ago took my number of visits into the teens.

No enduring love affair is blind, though, and it often surprises people to find me happy to spend time candidly discussing Cartmel’s shortcomings on the aforementioned fora around the time of each meeting, rather than simply maintain that these don’t exist.

Of course, there is often little dissuading anybody who has already decided, some without ever having attended, that Cartmel is merely an overpriced, inaccessible gaff at which plating-class animals occasionally appear from behind a funfair to the indifference of a racing-illiterate crowd left entirely at the mercy of the elements. That’s their loss, especially as some of the points they raise deserve looking at in a little more detail than these detractors have been prepared to afford them.

***

Cartmel is an expensive course to visit for what you actually get in terms of facilities. Given the increases to the admission price for the paddock / grandstand from £12 in 2002 to £18 in 2006 (the latter figure the same as for the better-endowed equivalent at Cheltenham), it would serve me no purpose to try to argue otherwise. However, Cartmel is refreshingly candid about to what use income from the above-average entry fee is put.

Over the past few years racecourse chairman Lord Cavendish has frequently and admirably explained in both the Cartmel racecards and the wider media that the money is required first and foremost for the "fighting chest" with which the course can bid, and bid successfully, to retain its coveted Bank Holiday fixtures. It may well have surprised many of those that bought a racecard at last August’s meeting to learn that the first ever Bank Holiday meeting at Cartmel, from which maps and contents had been reproduced inside the card, took place as recently as September 1st 1969, so synonymous has the Lakeland track become with racing on Whitsun and August Bank Holidays since then. Now nearly 40 years on, and in a prevailing environment of competitive and hostile bids for many of the calendar’s most lucrative racedays, few other courses can be so dependent as Cartmel on so few days' worth of racing, the days they take place on, and the money they bring in.

Continuity is a valuable asset here, and for as long as the sizeable holiday crowds continue to flood in on these most bankable of racing dates (Monday accommodated over 20,000 racegoers, or I’m a Dutchman), so improvements to the assorted facets of the racing experience can be furthered. Having replaced the stands and commentary box and added a restaurant in recent years, in 2007 it was the turn of the race programme and prize fund to reap the benefits, albeit to a lesser extent.

The number of Class 3 contests run at Cartmel annually increased from one to three last year, though Richard Ford’s attack on the prizemoney for the hunters’ chase he won on Monday, which has actually lessened in value since he first won the corresponding race in 1987, serves as a reminder that there is still quite some way to go to bolster the entire programme.

Whilst many of the races still offer ordinary or worse prizemoney, then, the patronage of those races remains high enough to keep punters happy, even in an era where BHA-imposed runners-to-stabling-capacity limits prevent more than a maximum of 75 runners from taking their chances on any given Cartmel card. Races of 16 runners or more are appreciably rarer than previously, but framing of field limits by the course executive where deemed necessary has ensured that only 12 out of 95 races run since May 27th 2006, the first day of that year’s Whit meeting, have featured fewer than eight runners – the July meeting last year, for example, was neatly divided into five 11-runner and two 10-runner contests quite deliberately.

Further, regardless of the small number of meetings at Cartmel each year, and of the changes to the shapes and sizes of fields, trends of benefit to the punter have emerged over time and continue to do so.

For example, the wins of Cashari and Chabrimal Minster at this year’s Whit meeting took the aforementioned Richard Ford’s track record to nine wins from 37 runners (a 25% strike-rate to all intents and purposes) in the last five years. Cashari’s win at 16-1 bolstered the Cheshire handler's level stakes profit to 16.25 points, which detracts from the fact that blind-backing him at the course had not been an especially lucrative strategy hitherto. However, the remaining eight winners were drawn from just 15 Ford horses to be sent off at odds of 6-1 or shorter, and the combined profit of this smaller pool of runners totals 21.25 points.

***

For all that investment continues at the course, as described earlier, some of the remaining shortcomings of the raceday experience at Cartmel are likely to remain insuperable. The most obvious of those is the viewing, and there seems something slightly perverse about the fact that it is only possible to see as much from the grandstands as one can (in particular the top end of the course behind them) because of their lack of any rooves or back walls.

Many of Cartmel’s detractors claim the hulking great fairground in the course’s larger infield area hides the bottom end of the course. In truth, however, the video screen employed by the course would still be required even if these entertainments were banned from the course forthwith. Although not even close to being the worst course in Britain for viewing (not whilst the exasperating Peper Harrow point-to-point course continues to operate), Cartmel is deceptively undulating, with the bottom section especially low-lying. Extensive deforestation and earthmoving would rectify matters rather quicker than decluttering the centre of the course, not that any is being planned.

In any event, the fair serves a vital purpose in keeping that element of the youth in the crowd totally disinterested in the racing – and there are plenty of these - distracted enough not to be causing trouble closer to the action. Increasingly that is a virtue not to be sniffed at!

Finally, the myth of the course’s perceived inaccessibility needs debunking. For all that one does not simply turn off a dual carriageway and straight through the course’s front gates, the flow of traffic in and out of the venue is far smoother than many other racetracks where that is actually the case.

The established and perfectly-executed filtering of traffic along the many country lanes to the track is most effectively performed by local officials and police who know the drill to the letter. Consequently in all my visits to Cartmel to date, I've never yet needed more than 25 minutes to get to the track from the M6 (some 8-10 miles away), and never needed more than 40 to get back to the M6 afterwards.

***

In spite of what I hope has read as spirited a riposte as I intended it to, I still wouldn't presume to be able to convince every last sceptic of the magic of Cartmel, much less try to. However, I know where I'll be again either this August Bank Holiday, or at the very latest next Whistun - piling the cool-bag full of Richard Woodall Cumberland sausages and locally brewed damson ale; threading my way through the forest of barbecues to the bookies' pitches by the run-in; and joining the thick end of 20,000 other punters (and Iain Mackenzie in the box, chances are) in cheering home the winner of a 2m1.5f novices' handicap chase (0-95, Class 5, first prize of little real worldly significance) come rain or shine. If anyone cares to join me, they'd be most welcome.

WORCESTER - IMPERFECT, AND MEANLY-ENDOWED, BUT HOW SUMMER NEEDS IT

After all the flood-induced trials and tribulations at the course in the last 12 months, it was great to see Worcester racecourse fully functional again a week last Sunday, the seven-race card including the first steeplechases at the track this year following two all-hurdle affairs previously.

With neither a cloud in the sky nor a semblance of a puddle on the racing surface, only a Biblical plague of frogs or similar was going to stop this hitherto ill-starred venue proceeding with a meeting as intended on this occasion.

The Pitchcroft course does have its critics, myself and fellow Betfair Radio pundit David Cleary among them - Sportsman readers may remember both of us having taken turns to give the place a bit of a kicking in our respective columns at least once each. Its physical situation, hard up between the city centre streets and the River Severn, inhibits significant outward development of the course’s facilities, and many of those facilities are modest to say the least. Further, judged against some of the other jumps courses in operation during the spring and summer, the prizemoney on offer is regularly dismal – last Sunday’s feature 0-135 handicap chase offered a first prize kitty of £5,850, all of £3,300 less than the equivalent for a 0-130 handicap chase at Aintree on Friday night and just the same as for a class 3 early season novices’ hurdle at Fakenham two nights earlier.

However, to steal a line from the 18th century poet William Cowper, “Worcester, with all thy faults, I love thee still”. Its long straights, sweeping bends and two rows of wide fences ensure that Worcester remains as fair a test of a horse as you will find during the summer season. Indeed, once Hexham and Towcester draw stumps on their respective seasons in mid-June, it becomes the only track in operation over the following three months that can realistically be labeled as anything other than “sharp”.

Simply put, Worcester offers vital variety to the summer jumping calendar and a sole refuge for the longer-striding animal. It would actually rate a more logical place for a proper marathon chase to me than Uttoxeter, home of the Summer National since its inception in 2000; and the resurrection of the course’s King John Chase, a 3m5f handicap run at a March meeting at Pitchcroft until around 20 years ago, as a big-money contest around July or August would certainly meet with my approval.

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Back to the here and now, however, and despite not being rewarded especially handsomely for his efforts in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, the 9yo Kilrogan threw his hat into the ring as a possible aspirant for the “Plate” races – the Galway Plate and Market Rasen’s Summer Plate – with a gutsy display in the aforementioned Worcester feature. Out in front for long enough on a course (ironically, given what we’ve discussed so far) rather more galloping than he prefers, he dug deep close home under Timmy Murphy to record a fourth victory under Rules.

It is exactly a year since he took a maiden hunters’ chase at Folkestone’s all-amateur meeting on his British debut for then handler Bob Lancaster, and he has progressed nicely since then granted good or quicker going and a minimum of 2m4f to travel. A raise for this win is likely to elevate his current mark of 120 to one off which he should be able to sneak into the Summer Plate with an attractively small weight (the bottom one in last year’s maximum-field renewal ran off 126), and Market Rasen will suit his prominent racing style better than Worcester. Along with Border Castle, he is a grand advertisement for the skills of the still relatively new trainer Andrew Haynes.

Not that we are guaranteed even to see the Summer Plate winner any time before the event itself, of course, with many recent renewals having gone to horses making their seasonal reappearance. However, the Summer Plate and Summer Hurdle trials will continue at a steady trickle until the start of July now - next stop a 0-135 hurdle at Stratford on Friday and a class 2 handicap chase at the same venue 24 hours later.

FLAVIN STILL IN THERE PUNCHING AFTER THE MOTHER OF ALL KICKINGS

I read with interest in the Racing Post earlier this week that jockey John Flavin has announced his intention to return to his native Ireland within the next few days. The 22 year-old, most recently based with Evan Williams, has deemed the move, along with a return to the amateur ranks, as essential if he is to prolong his race-riding career.

At first I found it hard not to be a little saddened by this revelation. Recourse to any such plan of action looked hard to envisage barely two years ago when, to this pair of eyes at least, Flavin was starting to look like a winner-in-waiting of the British conditional jockeys' championship and maybe something better still further down the line.

However, one fateful day at Wetherby in 2006 introduced the young man from Tramore to the highest highs and lowest lows jump racing has to offer, and his subsequent struggle for form and fitness served as a salutary reminder of how cruelly the racing game we love can disregard and even destroy some of its finest young talents. Ultimately, it is a relief that he is still sound enough of mind and body to have been able to make this week’s decision at all.

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Already a winner of a number of point-to-point races in Ireland, John Flavin’s career in Britain was one I followed with a great deal of interest, initially as a by-product of my running the Brancepethfan fanblog concerning all matters relating to Richard Guest’s then Durham-based training operation. Flavin first appeared on British racecards as Mr J P Flavin (5) on October 20th 2005, partnering Beaver in a Haydock hands and heels handicap hurdle for Guest.

This proved something of an inauspicious debut, though through little fault of his own, as the gelding faded into a well-held sixth with a tongue strap failing to counter his well-established breathing problems sufficiently. Either way, Guest had seen enough that he liked about Flavin at home and on the track to offer him paid-jockey terms, and his second ride for Guest was duly as a 10lb conditional at Hexham 15 days later.

With commitments by the trainer to the likes of Larry McGrath, Paul O’Neill and Patrick Merrigan already established, for the next few months it was very much a case of making do with rides on the yard’s less capable or willing beasts. There were a few positive signs notwithstanding the mediocrity of most of his partners, though. He twice got a very good tune out of the veteran hurdler Teme Valley, placing on him around his beloved Sedgefield on Boxing Day on the latter occasion; and then on January 6th he recorded his first victory for Guest when booting home Insurgent, cast off by Darley for just 800 guineas, in a Musselburgh bumper at rewarding odds.

Flavin continued to improve quite markedly with more race-practice as the winter wore on, although the sickness-induced below-par running of many of the yard’s inmates throughout February and March masked to what extent that came across on paper – in all he managed just two wins and five other podiums from 41 rides prior to the Easter programme.

Come Easter, Guest’s horses were starting to perform better, but O’Neill and Merrigan had both severed their ties with the yard by then and McGrath’s personal problems – which culminated in a six-month ban for cocaine abuse – saw his number of rides first thin out and then stop completely by the end of April. The trainer entrusted his improving conditional with more and better rides, and had his faith repaid in spades, with Flavin recording six wins and four more places from only 22 rides in a 15-day period from Easter Saturday.

A broad and pleasing range of riding competencies was exhibited in these latter performances. It was clear from the two hold-up wins gained on Jodante that Flavin possessed a fine clock in his head, and even around the ultra-sharp Fakenham he knew precisely how much rope to give the leaders before reeling them in late on. It was also clear that he knew how to keep a little in reserve on weak-finishing animals, and his skills in getting Guerilla to find more and more right to the end to win a Wetherby 2m4f hurdle when nearly every other rider has failed to do so with him since then – even when Guerilla is dropped to the minimum trip – look all the more impressive now than they did at the time.

It was Flavin’s win on Pass Me By at Carlisle on Easter Saturday that drew the most praise from his boss, Guest describing him in the Racing Post afterwards as, “the best lad I’ve ever had”. However, it was not this win but the one on Red Perk at Worcester on April 26th that will live longest in my memory.

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Another victory for Red Perk on desperate going at Newcastle two months earlier, plus previous failures on a fast surface, had seemed to establish beyond doubt that this was one Executive Perk gelding for whom the word “firm” in the going description was anathema. Quite why he was allowed to take his chance in a 3m brush hurdle contest at the Severnside venue that evening, then, on ground actually riding a touch faster than the official good to firm, baffled this onlooker completely.

It seemed to baffle Red Perk as well at first, almost as much as being asked to make all of the running on this occasion. What then followed, however, was a masterclass in getting a horse to realise that the prevailing underfoot conditions were alright for him after all. Flavin demonstrated a gossamer-light touch on his partner for the first circuit, letting him cover the ground and take the brushes as lightly on his hooves as he wished, and always a couple of lengths in advance of all his rivals so as to let him practice without distraction or panic.

By the time heads turned for home, Red Perk had been so emboldened by this educative ride that he was allowing himself to stride on confidently despite the fastness of the surface, and it was a happy horse as well as a happy rider that crossed the line a length and a quarter in advance of his nearest pursuer.

Sadly Red Perk was killed in a fall at Hexham two runs later when chasing a hat-trick; but the run in between his final run and this Worcester score, and which set up the bid for the three-timer, saw him record another win on fast ground. It was at Wetherby on April 30th 2006, it was over the West Yorkshire venue’s famously stiff black fences, and it suggested that the lesson Flavin had taught him last time out was one he had gladly kept on board. It also proved to be the last winner the young man was to record until the autumn of the following year.

Confidence could barely have been higher going into the 2m4f chase on the card that afternoon. Having recorded his first double four days earlier at Worcester on Red Perk and Jodante, Flavin had already repeated the feat here with the aforementioned scores on Red Perk again and Guerilla, and was rightly the subject of excited and impressed discussion on Racing UK as the afternoon wore on. Anchored near the back as usual in his race, Jodante popped away contentedly enough early on and all seemed to be going to plan as the even money favourite and his rider approached a fence early on the final circuit.

However, distracted by a faller up ahead, Jodante swerved violently on crossing the fence and shifted Flavin out of the saddle. The young man held on to his partner’s neck rather than let himself fall straight away, and that proved to be the worst possible decision, for on eventually hitting the ground he then received a kick in the face from the gelding, which knocked him unconscious for seven minutes, fractured his skull and cheekbone and ultimately put him out of action for a year.

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Flavin did all the right things he could during his period on the sidelines in terms of working out each day, whilst Guest for his part worked on the mental side of his employee’s rehabilitation and also promised to keep his job open for him. Good as his word, Flavin’s return to race-riding at Southwell on May 4th 2007 was on board a Guest animal, albeit the awful Barney’s Luck; and with Graham Lee and Timmy Murphy taking a lot of the better rides for the by then Nottinghamshire-based operation at the time, Flavin was back in the position of having to make do with rides mostly on the stable’s lesser lights.

In 36 rides for Guest between May and November of last year Flavin managed just four podiums (none of them close finishes except for the last one, more on which shortly) and no wins. The quality of horses alone wasn’t depriving him of winning opportunities, as he performed little better on the few occasions he got to partner decent types like Donovan or Shannon’s Pride (once each) – lack of confidence had plenty to do with it. Hearts must have been in mouths when two of his first six rides back ended in messy unseats, and he looked nervous and ragged on a few other occasions.

Relations between Guest and Flavin – professionally, at least – appeared to change from the end of August, for fully two and a half months elapsed from Bank Holiday Monday until the latter rode for the former once more, and when he did, he did so just twice before the alliance stopped suddenly again. Flavin’s neck defeat on Drum Native at Fakenham on November 20th was regarded as defeat snatched from victory in some quarters, the rider having set sail for home a touch early two fences from home. If that was indeed the catalyst for a split, how ironic that it should take place at a course where Flavin’s judgment had proven so utterly perfect on Jodante previously.

No matter, the light at the end of the tunnel had arrived in the form of a double at Ludlow for Evan Williams five days earlier, and it was with the Welsh handler that Flavin would spend his remaining British days. It would not have mattered one iota that the seller he won on Soviet Sceptre and the bumper taken by Brenin Cwmtudu were both very ordinary contests – they were his first scores for 18 months and something he thought he’d never live to experience again.

Most pleasingly of all, the former knack of extracting extra late on from a generally suspect animal was once again evident in his win on Soviet Sceptre, ordinarily a dreadful rogue at any level but galvanised into action for a rare score here.

Further wins followed for Flavin on Williams animals courtesy of fellow plater Axinit in a Leicester selling hurdle on December 29th and a Hereford claimer on February 10th 2008, and a classier handicap came his way back at the latter venue on Mickmackmagoole on February 25th also. The last-named proved to be his final winner on these shores, and the rides dried up rapidly at the start of March.

Neither injury nor a falling out with Williams knowingly precipitated this sudden end to race-riding, but rather an acceptance that, as a man of 6ft 2ins in height, the rigours of constantly wasting to a minimum weight below 10st was proving too great a burden. A return to the unpaid ranks, and to plying one’s trade off at least a stone more, was deemed the only practicable solution.

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July 6th of this year will witness the third running of the Market Rasen conditional jockeys' handicap hurdle named in honour of Tom Halliday, the Sue Smith-based rider killed in a fall at the track in July 2005 (a race in which Flavin partnered Kidithou for Richard Guest last year). Halliday has also since been immortalised in the name of a young riders' scholarship awarded at the track each autumn by the Northern Racing College. A fellow 10lb claimer, Gareth Horner, cheated death but still attained career-ending injuries in a head-first fall from one of his boss John Cornwall's inmates in a November 2004 Doncaster chase.

Had the cards of fate been dealt only slightly differently, the possibility to ride horses may have been wrested from Flavin as it had these two other young conditionals, and three talents therefore lost to the game, not two. For some time during those black months after the accident it must have seemed and felt like it had, though.

Instead, once he is re-admitted to the amateur ranks back home this coming October, this gifted and above all else fortunate jockey will be in a position to bring to bear in point-to-points and hunters’ chases the experience of riding nearly 175 times under British National Hunt Rules (winning 13 times); of partnering some very reasonable performers inamongst that total; and of course of pulling through a character-testing personal challenge like few others.
Still only 22 years old, he has time on his side more than the likes of JT McNamara, Derek O’Connor, Jamie Codd et al, so maybe a champion rider’s title of some description, albeit not the champion conditional, might not be beyond him some time in the future after all. I genuinely wish him well.