Worldwide Sports News

• Forty-one of the top 60 in the weights trained in Ireland
• BHA handicapper calls for ‘English challenge’

The steady evolution of the Grand National into a contest dominated by runners from Ireland seems certain to continue in April. As few as a quarter of the runners in the world’s most famous race may arrive at Aintree from British stables.

Ireland supplied a majority of the field for the first time last season, with 21 of the 40 starters and after Tuesday’s publication of the weights to be carried in this year’s race on 15 April, 41 of the top 60, and all but one of the top 10, are Irish-trained.

• BHA panel found Brock deliberately stopped horses
• Case concerned three races in late 2018 and early 2019

Danny Brock, a jockey on the Flat from 2009 to 2021, will face a significant ban after the British Horseracing Authority’s independent disciplinary panel decided on Tuesday he had deliberately stopped three horses as part of a conspiracy to profit from betting on their races.

The BHA’s case against Brock and five other individuals, including Sean McBride, the son and assistant of the Newmarket trainer Philip “Charlie” McBride, concerned three races at all-weather tracks between December 2018 and March 2019.

Authority may be ready to make adjustments to proposed regulations after recent lobbying from jockeys

The British Horseracing Authority indicated on Friday evening that it will look at amending its new rules on the use of the whip, which are due to come into force in February next year, following “public and private representations” from riders in recent days which focused in particular on a proposed ban on use of the whip in the forehand position.

The BHA published the amended rules in mid-July, following an extensive review and consultation process which included two senior jockeys, Tom Scudamore and PJ McDonald.

New structure to run the sport could end the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the Turf for decades

British racing took a significant step towards what it hopes will be a brighter and more harmonious future on Monday, as the British Horseracing Authority unveiled a new governance structure for the sport which Julie Harrington, the BHA’s chief executive, insists will “enshrine the BHA board as the ultimate authority for the sport as a whole.” If the new structure works as planned – which, of course, remains to be seen – it could finally end, or at the very least significantly reduce, the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the sport for decades.

The new regime, which was finalised when the Racecourse Association signed up at an EGM on Monday morning, means an end to the previous “tripartite” structure in which the BHA tried to balance the interests of the racecourses, on one side, and the Thoroughbred Group (ie. owners, trainers, jockeys and stable staff) on the other.

Simply throwing money at the top tier of Flat racing is likely to have unpredictable and irreparable consequences

Several months after the first rumours of its existence emerged in the Racing Post, some fairly sketchy details of Peter Savill’s latest scheme to transform racing’s fortunes emerged this week, suggesting that Savill and a number of other “industry heavyweights” want to “restructure” the Flat and boost prize money and field sizes at the highest levels of the sport.

Savill, for the benefit of younger readers, was a very hands-on chair of the British Horseracing Board, the forerunner of the British Horseracing Authority, from June 1998 to July 2004, a six-year reign that was never dull and, at times, highly controversial.

Although disqualification for excessive whip use is now on the table, its enforcement is likely to be vanishingly rare

David Jones, the chair of the British Horseracing Authority’s whip consultation steering group, was keen to stress on Tuesday that its 20 recommendations on one of the most vexed issues in the sport should be seen as “a package” of measures, and one that all of its members – including those opposed to use of the whip for encouragement – could support.

None the less, two proposed changes in particular inevitably leapt off the page when the group’s report was published on Tuesday: disqualification of horses when riders commit an “egregious” breach of the rules, and a ban on using the whip in the “forehand” position.