Robin Oakley

The magic of Veterans’ Chase Day

A few hours at Sandown Park reminded me of why I love racing

Jack Andrews and Xcitations clear the last to win the Unibet Handicap Chase at Sandown Park. Credit: Photo by Alan Crowhurst/Getty Images 
issue 14 January 2023

Like most people in racing I began 2023 down in the dumps, moaning about insufficient prize money, small fields and declining crowds. Gloom only intensified with racing’s administrators, the British Horseracing Authority, yet again forced into a humiliating U-turn on new rules it had proposed governing jockeys’ use of the whip, doing so just days before the bedding-in period for their implementation began.

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