Flat Trainers Join Tariff

It seems that the flat trainers are going to go along the same lines as many of the leading jumps trainers by shunning racecourses that do not meet the minimum recommended prize money levels as laid out by the Horsemens Group Tariff.  Richard Hannon is the latest high profile name to his support to the action - I am saddened that we are not going to see any more of his good-things on a Monday night at Windsor...you could almost always rely on a Hannon hotpot obliging at one of his favourite tracks!

Mick Channon is another that has voiced his support of the tariff, while Godolphin racing manager Simon Crisford also warned that Godolphin and other Maktoum runners will not be participating in races that fail to meet the tariff.  You will find that more and more trainers and owners will want to run their horses in France or Ireland where the prize money is so much better.  Someone is making money out of racing and they must be made to put more of it back into the sport.

These measures can only work if everyone works together...if trainers boycott a meeting they need to do it on mass - if there are no horses competing, there will be no paying customers and there will be no betting in the bookmakers shops up and down the country.  It is certainly a difficult effort to co-ordinate (I noticed that a couple of the leading jumps trainers (no names mentioned) broke ranks from the tariff at Newton Abbot last weekend) - in order for these measures to succeed everyone needs to stick to their guns.

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I enjoy looking through the stats pages of the Racing Post and I was quite surprised to see Peter Bowen's name on the cold trainers list.  He has now gone seven weeks without a winner, so his is probably a yard to avoid for betting purposes at present.  I thought that Conor O'Farrell would be appearing on the hot jockey's list but surprisingly he isn't - they don't come much hotter than our young Irish conditional, so the jockey's on the list must be positively on fire!

Hot jockey, Conor O'Farrell