Flat racing is in dire need of rejuvenation; it requires a spark to reignite interest. My former boss at Timeform, Phil Bull, is often misquoted for saying, "Racing is a great triviality." What he actually said to me was, "Racing is a great triviality – in the context of life." In India, where racing holds a minimal role for most people, its significance has diminished so much that it is almost seen as dispensable. Racing is an activity focused on the present, which leads many to consider it unworthy of their aspirations.

In a recent interview I was asked what had most influenced my life – half a century in racing or my time spent in India? I didn`t hesitate: India – and Indian racing!

My old boss at Timeform, Phil Bull didn`t say perhaps his most famous attributed phrase “Racing is a great triviality”. He actually said (to me) “racing is a great triviality – in the context of life”. In India this life, in which racing plays such a minor part for the vast majority, has been downplayed to the extent it has become virtually ‘expendable`. Racing is all about the here and now, so many people regard it as unworthy of a place in people`s aspirations.

Arguably racing`s greatest brain, Bull was wrong insisting racing wasn`t an industry while at the same time calling it an “entertainment industry” – he could be as contradictory as the next man so when he finally relented and got his hands ‘dirty` accepting chairmanship of the Horseracing Advisory Council in 1980, it wasn`t going to work – he resigned after six months.

He`d harboured ideas of being the next Admiral Rous or Lord Bentinck (former Governor-General of India), dictators of the Turf in the nineteenth century, revered as titans when racing was little more than an aristocratic pastime; they were challenged by ‘Confederacies` – our nearest equivalent would be syndicates – which were unions of gamblers, often on the wrong side of the law.

They were halcyon days for the Turf, good times that lasted well into the twentieth century. In the modern age racing is under greater strain than it has previously known through cost, public infatuation with other sports and forms of gambling, horse welfare fanatics who call for racing`s elimination – and dangerous politicians who see votes in racing`s eradication. The departing head of the British Horseracing Authority offered her valediction that “racing was now speaking with one voice” as her great achievement. It is hard not to laugh or weep at such pretension.

Antipathy to racing in India seems to have reached new heights, or depths whichever way you look at it. Indian racing has ‘dried up` from a time when there were over a hundred racecourses. It is now a small pond which too many people of influence regard as a swamp. Every week I get e-mails from Indian stable staff hoping for employment in this country – at a time when we have a critical shortage of workers. (It took an unconscionable number of years before an Indian national won the Stable Staff of the Year Award). The flood we need is kept to a trickle by our discriminatory immigration laws and staffing is the outstanding problem of British racing. That might suggest racing in Britain is healthy - if there are more horses than people capable of ministering to them but that`s a naïve view indeed. Following the Indian example if betting is to be further curtailed in Britain by what is known as “affordability checks” then it will go as deep underground as it has plunged in India – to nobody`s benefit.

Phil Bull was right to say “Racing is about betting” and the levy on bookmakers turnover sustains British racing – it is one of our very few hypothecated taxes. Restricting betting, dressed up as the panacea for social problems caused by gambling, and the whole edifice collapses. Those adversely affected by the impulse to gamble has actually declined to 0-2 per cent of the population.

I`m repeatedly told, and I have no reason to disbelieve, twenty-eight betting per cent tax is throttling racing in India. Powers that be the world over seek to dictate people`s betting habits. Restrictions are edicts that strike at the essence of ‘having a flutter`: what`s the difference between that and our democratic elections which are a ‘flutter` on which set of politicians will do us the least damage? Certainly they will not fulfil their promises – fortunately, so far, the ones involving dismantling race which have come to naught.

CREAM OF THE CROP

Phil Bull was, usually, a stickler for the verity of words and when he insisted, “There is no such thing as a vintage crop: every year is a vintage, some good, some bad, some indifferent” he was stating no more than the obvious.

Halfway through this British season and opinion is divided on the quality of the sprinter, milers, stayers, and two-year-old categories – about the only thing that the racing fraternity is agreed upon is that racing is in a mess. And many are beginning to wonder if this vintage is symptomatic of racing`s malaise - ‘corked`, tainted, undrinkable.

That assessment may change as the championship races and forthcoming clashes of the generations – King George & Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Juddmonte International, Champion Stakes - gain momentum. The two-year olds title races - the Dewhurst, Middle Park, Cheveley Park and Futurity are approaching. Then the Prix de l`Arc de Triomphe, championship of Europe in October, awaits our delectation.

For the pundits this has been a puzzling season. Arguably the best of our classic generation of colts, Economics (Night of Thunder), Arab-owned, won the Dante (Gr2) by six lengths on just his third outing but we are still awaiting his next, fourth, appearance.

We shall not see the Oaks (Gr1) winner Ezeliya again as she was injured and retired afterwards. The daughter of Dubawi was the Aga Khan`s first winner of the race since Aliysa in 1989. She was disqualified in a controversial drugs case.

Next year bookmaker Betfred will take over sponsorship of all five Classics. The debate over whether this year`s Derby winner City of Troy (Justify) is ‘the next Frankel` has been resolved – he`s not, despite following in his stablemate and last year`s Derby winner Auguste Rodin`s hoof prints - dismal in the Guineas, redemption in the Derby. But City of Troy was no more than ‘average` in the Eclipse. And after last season`s up and down exploits Auguste Rodin was overtaken by White Birch (third behind him in the 2023 Derby) in the Tattersalls Gold Cup (Gr1) and then scrambled home in the Prince of Wales`s (Gr1) at Royal Ascot. To be fair that was Auguste Rodin`s sixth Group One victory.

Justify has been groomed as Coolmore`s ‘next Galileo`, the sire to dominate the ages. Coolmore`s search for Galileo`s successor has extended worldwide. – Justify, from America, and Auguste Rodin (Deep Impact) out of a Galileo mare, may be ‘the future` for the breed but for now that is mere circumspection.

Coolmore will need to decide whether to keep them apart or create a showdown in the Prix de l`Arc de Triomphe where one or both will encounter Look de Vega (Lope de Vega), the French Derby winner since purchased by Arab interests.

Godolphin`s Notable Speech (Dubawi) just held Rosallion (Blue Point), also Arab owned, in the Two Thousand Guineas but couldn`t repeat the dose in the St James`s Palace Stakes (Gr1) where Rosallion had his revenge, narrowly holding Coolmore`s Henry Longfellow (Dubawi) who could yet prove the best of the Irish Consortium`s Classic generation legions.

You will have noticed the predominant name of Dubawi among this year`s top stallions – except that Dark Angel, now approaching his twentieth birthday, has maintained a steady flow of winners which currently have him top of the lists. The sire of former champion racehorse Battaash will probably be overtaken as the biggest prizes have yet to be decided. Frankel having taken two of the last three sires titles (Dubawi slotting in between) will need his progeny to garner some of the forthcoming ‘big ones` to lift him from his current, uncharacteristic, seventh place.

The return, from death`s door, of deceased Galileo`s son Kyprios to win the Ascot Gold Cup (Gr 1) was a reminder (were it needed) of the most influential sire of our time`s enduring legacy. Training feat of the season surely goes to Aidan O`Brien for bringing back Kyprios to win his second Gold Cup having missed last year – though some would argue it was raising City of Troy from a spent ninth in the Guineas to glory in the Derby.

Among the mile fillies Elmalka`s (Kingman) One Thousand Guineas victory was overturned by Porta Fortuna (Caravaggio) in the Coronation Stakes (Gr1). Both are Arab owned. The fillies of this Classic generation have much catching up to do in the second half of the season to be rated anywhere near the colts.

The melee that is the current state of the two-year-old division was exemplified by Royal Ascot`s Coventry Stakes (Gr2) traditionally the mid-season ‘lighthouse` directing us to the future. Little clarification was shed on the merits of the youngest generation when Rashabar (Holy Roman Emperor) at 80-1 led home a 50-1 shot and two at 40-1. In the Norfolk Stakes (Gr2) only short odds were available about Coolmore`s Whistlejacket (No Nay Never) but he could do no better than fourth to American-bred Shareholder (Not This time). Whistlejacket, named for probably the most famous horse painting in the world, by the master artist George Stubbs, repaid punter`s faith when an equally short-priced winner of the July Stakes (Gr2) at Newmarket.

Even at 92,000gns Arabie (Dandy Man) looked cheap when leading home six British challengers for France`s first prestigious race for two-year-olds, the Prix Robert Papin (Gr2) at Chantilly where Arabie had already won the Prix du Bois (Gr2). Arabie`s northern trainer Karl Burke is having a stellar season, fourth in the trainer`s table but Aidan O`Brien with over £4million in stakes won already, has nearly the double the amount of next up, John Gosden. Where are Coolmore`s traditional rivals Godolphin and Charlie Appleby?

Shareholder`s victory in the Norfolk arguably held greater significance even than downing Whistlejacket - along with the victory of Leovanni (Kodi Bear) in the Royal Ascot juvenile fillies` equivalent, the Queen Mary (Gr 2). Their purchase prices 460,000gns and 190,000 gns respectively, were just a sample of the money new kids on the block Wathnan Racing are prepared to go to attack the higher echelons.

Wathnan Racing is the brainchild of Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar. In this same season another Qatari enterprise, Qipco, withdrew their leading sponsorships. Wathnan Racing have bought themselves a seat at the top table in just two years. From a standing start in 2023 they have fifty horses in training with sixteen trainers.

In 2023 they bought their Ascot Gold Cup (Gr1) stayers title through Courage Mon Ami, from former Derby winning (Golden Horn) owner Anthony Oppenheimer. That purchase was for an uncharacteristically undisclosed sum and they are not shy of flexing their financial muscle allegedly outbidding Indian connections for the purchase of Jersey Stakes (Gr2) winner Haatem (Phoenix of Spain), stable companion of Rosallion and narrowly beaten by him in the Irish 2000 Guineas.

An interesting feature of the purchase of Shareholder and Leovanni is that they came from the unlikely source of the Breeze-Up Sales. Youngsters are wound up for these Sales in the Spring, when they are timed sprinting a couple of furlongs on Newmarket`s Rowley Mile before reappearing in Tattersalls Sales Ring. But then have to translate that glimmer of possibility to the racecourse, no longer performing against the clock but against their peers, for real.

In a wide open sprinting division a potential champion, Inisherin (Shamardal) winner of Royal Ascot`s Commonwealth Cup (Gr1) for three-year-olds was overturned in the July Cup won by the older horse Mill Stream (Gleneagles) – a regular contender in top sprints but winning at Group One for the first time. The sprinters are at sixes and sevens – the ages of most of them - and the division needs new blood: we welcome Australian sprinters that are much better than ours – Black Caviar, Choisir, Winx were true champions. But Asfoora is now where near Australia`s best, yet beat ours comfortably in the Kings Charles`s III Stakes (Gr1) formerly the Kings Stand Stakes.

Wathnan could be a ‘force` to take on Coolmore and Godolphin, though while Frankel and Kingman are still fathering winners for Juddmonte they will have ‘skin in the game`. This would suggest that at the top end of British racing all things are fine and dandy. But scratch the surface and the problems fester. Apart from lack of staff and poor prize money besetting the sport, British Racing Authority (BHA) boss Mrs Harrington`s parting words that she has “overseen racing speaking with one voice” makes all the multiple conflicting voices wonder why she had hung around so long (four years) and intends to stay another six months “to smooth the transition”? That is definitive hubris. Most interests are at one another`s throats – pleading the same slogan “my begging bowl is emptier than yours”.

Of course Coolmore and Godolphin have a head start on Wathnan (and Juddmonte have Frankel) in that they have breeding operations that obviate the need to trawl the market. And continued jousting in the Sales ring helps maintain the illusion that racing is flush with money. All the while the foundations are crumbling and the building blocks that the BHA insist are in place to take racing forward seem to be made of the same cheap, temporary material Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac) which has caused the collapse of buildings nationwide.

How easily one is diverted from the events on the track. Godolphin are, despite considerable success overseas (and a refusal to admit they are changing emphasis to places where racing can be made to pay – America?) they are struggling to keep pace with Coolmore who are as content to win ugly – see City of Troy and Auguste Rodin - as they have always been to win in style.

Epsom is unloved and where once the crowds were too big to estimate – some suggested 250,000 at peak – this year you could knock a nought, almost, off that figure. Racing only retains its place as the second most attended sport behind football because there are far far too many meetings, many of them staged as betting dross. An Indian friend asserts that racing crowds at home have been swamped by “the chappal and t-shirt brigade”. Our equivalents are covered in tattoos (female as much as male) and drink themselves to oblivion before racing gets under way.

Oisin Murphy has been running away with the jockey`s title which bizarrely, inexplicably, only stretches across the six summer months. Jockeys aren`t allowed to ride at more than one meeting a day – even when Race Programming has scheduled Windsor, Ascot and Kempton – twenty-five minutes at most between them - on the same day. Murphy makes every meeting his own: past travails are common to top jockeys through the ages, in conflict with authority or their own demons, or both. The formerly wayward, hopefully reformed Murphy held the title 2019-21 and is currently operating at a near twenty-five per cent strike rate.

Aidan O`Brien, cruising to his sixth trainer`s title which would put him sixth in the list of all-time top trainers yet still behind the ‘knights` Sir Henry Cecil and Sir Michael Stoute. Already, a year ahead of next year`s Derby (first run in 1780), he has the favourite The Lion in Winter (Sea The Stars) after the colt made a winning debut in a maiden race on the Curragh. The ante-post odds look more like a bookmaker`s stunt than a serious punt.

Racing`s politics and those of the country run parallel. Both will no more be decided by change of personnel at the top than they have been by recent elections and defections. Crowds are falling; staffing is desperate; prize money derisory. And still bookmakers rule the roost. Yes, Phil Bull was right, racing is about gambling – but we are currently gambling with its future.