"It will be staged at Ascot on 15 Oct 2011, with a six-race card that officials hope can be built into an extravaganza to rival the Breeders' Cup and Arc day." It's about "branding," of course. Also includes British Champion Series, a familiar sounding faux scheme for "newcomers."

"For the second successive Saturday, women trainers saddled the winners of the day's two biggest horse races. This weekend it was Venetia Williams and Henrietta Knight, the week before it was Williams and Sue Smith who snaffled the major prizes on a day when Mary Reveley sent out her 1,000th winner. Such success invites little comment these days; after all, women trainers have won races as diverse as the Grand National and French Derby, with many a canny handicap success in between. However, the extraordinary fact is that just 33 years ago there were no women trainers. Back in 1966, when Jenny Pitman was a harassed housewife raising two sons, women were not permitted to hold licences to train racehorses." (The Independent, 1999)

On Denman and Kauto Star at Cheltenham. "As with all seductions, however, the more pulsating the anticipation, the greater the potential for disillusion. It's no good for racing to hitch up its skirts so provocatively, if it turns out that a couple of oranges have been tucked into its bra."

"The British Horseracing Authority has made tremendous strides with its website, which is now very usable. But it is a long way from being ideal and I would suggest that the BHA's money would be better spent, in the first instance, on improving the service it provides to existing fans of the sport, before it worries about bringing in new people whose attention it will not then be able to keep." Offers five excellent suggestions for improvement, including the addition of a "well-maintained statistics section to rummage through."

"Now the mere fact that an idea is embraced beyond its boundaries does not guarantee the slightest profit to the horseracing parish. But the reception of the story implied that it had been broadcast on a fresh wavelength."