STARTING

The Grand National Fall-Out has yet to hit the ground. A Disciplinary Hearing is due on 11^th June. It would be nice to find it applying itself to improving a starting system which is flawed and, where large fields are involved, responsible for an unacceptable number of unfair starts and false starts. That seems unlikely, however, judging by Director of Regulation Mr Jamie Stier’s Press Release, issued 21^st May 2014. He seems determined to restrict the business of the Hearing to a very limited issue: was a rule broken by the jockeys? That matter is of minimal importance compared with deficiencies in the system; deficiencies caused, not by the jockeys, but by the BHA.

In the penultimate paragraph of the Press Release, Mr Stier refers to “amendments to procedures successfully implemented for the 2013 running [of the Grand National]”. The only amendment that contributed to the wonderful start of the 2013 race was the complete absence of the perverse complications inflicted on the system by Mr Stier, and which reappeared in all their ugly and malignant glory immediately after the Aintree meeting.

He then goes on to refer to “procedural improvements across all Jump starts introduced last season.” If he is referring to the 2013/4 season, that season featured as many unfair starts as in the previous years of Mr Stier’s involvement, and as many false starts, notably those before the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Grand National and the Scottish Grand National.

I suspect there will be no improvement in the quality of starts under NH rules without a change of management. What we are looking at is an important but fairly elementary part of the racing process which is simply being conducted in a fundamentally inappropriate fashion. That’s all.

I must express my deep dissatisfaction at the time it seems to be taking before the top brass address a state of affairs which is in my opinion far more damaging to the sport of racing than was the disastrous 2011 attempt to update the Whip Rules. That crisis was dealt with as a matter of urgency. This one seems to drag on for ever. A pity.

CIRRUS DES AIGLES

The other day I played some very bad golf and then hastened to the betting shop. There on the big screen was this Nureyev of a horse, floating on air, gliding down to the start in the most delightful fashion: quite keen, superbly balanced, long-striding, clearly enjoying himself.

It was CDA (as us fans call him). In the race he set off in front, went exactly the pace Monsieur Soumillon requested, and when asked to accelerate changed gear like “Va –va-voom!” and the race was over. The race was the Group 1 Prix d’Ispahan.

This phenomenon (a respectable second to Frankel in that horse’s final race) is eight years old and has run fifty-seven times. Yes, fifty-seven! Earning a dividend of approaching £4 million. He deserves every penny because he has always challenged the very best, and has very, very often trounced them. “Generations” of racehorses follow each other quite quickly on the flat. CDA has held his own against the best of two generations and may well be around long enough to square up to a third.

This brings us to his trainer, Madame Corine Barande-Barbe. Clearly she has supernatural powers, one of which enables her to bestow eternal youth on thoroughbreds, and she then trains them extremely well. All I can tell you is that her television persona is intelligent, attractive, humorous and good-natured, and that she has been a trainer since 1991. Merci bien, Corine. Merci bien, CDA.

BOOKS

Thanks to the Chelsea and Kensington Library, I have got hold of a copy of “My Kingdom for a Horse” by William Allison, and have read it twice. Born in 1851, the son of a wealthy Yorkshire solicitor, educated at Rugby and Balliol College, Oxford, he was mad about fox-terriers and racing from an early age.  Later on, as editor of the St Stephen’s Gazette, he was the first man to commission articles from George Lambton, at that time recovering very slowly from the fall that ended his career as an amateur rider. Later on still, George Lambton referred to Allison in his book “Men and Horses I have Known” as the best man who ever wrote about racing.

Allison wrote poetry (in Latin as well as in English), songs sung by music hall stars, and the libretto to at least one musical. In other fields he wasn’t so clever. He was sued rather more often than was comfortable, and his ill-judged investments severely diminished the considerable fortune which he inherited.

The only fault I found in his book was his habit of apologising for failing to make more of a success of his life. When he eventually found his metier and was universally admired for his racing journalism, he wasn’t at all pleased: he hated the fact that he should have ended up misusing (as he saw it) his talent and his passion for the Sport of Kings for the sake of a few quid each week.

Perhaps one should give him the benefit of the doubt. Throughout his life he had something wrong with his health which he never says much about. He never makes excuses.

His account of Sandown Park’s origins is fascinating. In 1875 or thereabouts, Lord Charles Ker and a Mr Millward, as they travelled on the train to Esher from central London, noticed the relevant plot of land and discovered that it was for sale. Thinking that it had potential as a racecourse, they bought an option for £1,500. They didn’t pay for it – simply gave a promissory note. The option persuaded a mortgage company to stump up the whole purchase price, plus £4,000 working capital, which enabled the partners to float an enterprise which attracted all the best and richest investors. The result was o-be-joyful from the word go: in its first year the top steeplechase at the course was worth double what was on offer in the Grand National, and the Eclipse Stakes was the first £10,000 race ever run in England. As it started, so it has continued – a jewel among racecourses.

I was also astonished to discover that before the 1880s racecourses were not “enclosed”: no walls, fences, barbed wire, no turnstiles. Result: no revenue from the massed ranks of the unwashed, and far too many “racegoers” from the criminal classes.  So it must have struck our entrepreneurs on that train to Esher that a mile of railway line would not only bring the respectable and wealthy classes from London to the track; it would also deter undesirables from seeking free access across one long stretch of the course’s boundary. The prospect of sudden death in a cloud of steam tends to have that sort of effect. Clever lads.

About twenty years later, ex-trainer John Porter had the same Eureka moment as his train to London left Newbury Station. With the help of Edward VII, he persuaded a reluctant Jockey Club to give its blessing to the creation of Newbury racecourse. He also persuaded the GWR to build a platform at the course, and to provide a service to and from Paddington that would take not more than an hour each way. That service survives to this day.

The book also contains a fascinating one-page “snapshot” (in Chapter 30) of the manner in which very rich but utterly charmless amateur rider George “Abington” Baird terrorised polite society with his gang of bare-knuckle bruisers. Incidentally at one stage the charmless one used to beat up Lily Langtry, which cannot be forgiven. Happily he was carried off by pneumonia at the age of 32.

For anyone interested in that era, this book is fascinating. And it has a happy ending.  But there are chunks which are quite heavy going.

 

OBESITY

Granted that the paladins of the Donec boardroom are clear-eyed and built like greyhounds, it was predictable that we would respond to the national emergency.

You only need a pair of comfortable trainers, and an area that is four yards by four yards (a tiny room), or nine yards by two yards (a short passage). This enables you to do the business indoors when it’s snowing, but by all means go outside if outside is available. I mention the minimum requirement in case you are in prison. In a confined space, open the windows. You also need ten minutes, in the morning, preferably early, while you’re feeling miserable. Just ten minutes.

PART ONE (of four)

Jog very slowly up and down the short passage or round the tiny room. 100 paces. Every 25 paces, jump high enough to clear a (horizontal) shoe box. Alternate the leading foot for the jumps.

THEN STAND WITH YOUR FEET TOGETHER AND MARCH ON THE SPOT, LIFTING KNEES SO THAT YOUR THIGHS ARE HORIZONTAL. 1,2,3,4,5,6!  THEN PIVOT THE TRUNK ROUND TO THE RIGHT, THEN ROUND TO THE LEFT… and again…. and again. THEN TRY TO TOUCH YOUR TOES, ONCE. DON’T FORCE IT – BEGINNERS MAY TAKE THREE WEEKS TO ACHIEVE MEANINGFUL CONTACT.

Repeat the above section in CAPITALS six times.

What have you achieved? You have jogged, using legs, feet, heart and lungs. You have even jumped. All very gentle. You have simply required various components of your body to work a little. You have pivoted your trunk. Both ways, three times. Very good for the spine, which is a vital part of the machinery. You have attempted to bend at the point where you are likely to be chubbiest. You have struck the first blow in the battle for health and beauty.

PART TWO

Walk backwards 100 paces in a circle. 50 paces clockwise, 50 paces anticlockwise. At regular intervals glance over your shoulder to avoid collapse or collision.

Now return to Part One, and repeat the instructions in CAPITAL LETTERS six times.

What have you achieved via Part Two? You have given your sense of balance a wake-up call and those glances over the shoulder will have started to free-up the vital neck/shoulder area.

PART THREE

Jog a hundred paces, leading with a hip, changing hips every three or four paces. A favourite practice for footballers preparing to go on as substitutes.

Now return to Part One, and repeat the instructions in CAPITAL LETTERS six times.

What does Part Three add to the mix? It makes the pelvis area more flexible. Of course it does! First the spine, then the neck, now the pelvis. You know it makes sense.

PART FOUR

March on the spot and high kick. Count “One, two, three, Kick! One, two, three, Kick!….”  That rhythm should facilitate lofting the left foot, then the right, and so on… left, right, left, right!  May take a moment or two to work out the choreography. 6 kicks with each foot.  Gently does it. Don’t overdo the height of the kicks, or you will land on your bottom.

Now return to Part One, and repeat the instructions in CAPITAL LETTERS six times.

What’s good about high kicks? They are invariably a sign of joie de vivre, and you can’t get too much of that.

 

LAST WORD

I have no doubt that the above routine will make you a happier person (at earlymorningcupofteatime) than you would have been without it. A very wise old gent told me that the blood flow slows down while one sleeps, which is why one sometimes wakes up feeling like death.

Introduce ten minutes of gentle exercise, and the world immediately becomes a vastly more attractive place. It also gives invading rust less chance of establishing itself on our physical machinery. Finally I am inclined to think that it (the ten minutesworth) will be of longterm benefit as a springboard towards bigger and better exercise.  

Feedback, please!

Further suggestions and elaborations will follow on a monthly basis.

Good Luck.