The new whip rules are to undergo a fundamental change, as they have been a thorn in the side of both jockeys and the British Horseracing Authority since their introduction last October.

The changes will come into effect before the Cheltenham Festival preventing a public relations disaster and horse racing’s showcase meeting being overshadowed by conspicuous whip bans.

From the beginning of March, jockeys who exceed the stipulated number of strikes (seven on the Flat and eight over jumps) will only trigger stewards’ interest in their ride and the manner of their use of the whip; it will no longer result in an automatic suspension.

Rather than it being an automatic breach when a rider uses the whip eight times on the Flat and nine times over jumps, the figures become the trigger point for the stewards to review the ride in question.

Stewards will then consider how the rider has used the whip in the course of exceeding the allowed number before deciding whether a breach has occurred and a penalty is warranted.

The news was welcomed by the chief executive of the Professional Jockeys’ Association, Paul Struthers. “This recognises that a ‘grey’ issue cannot be proportionately and fairly regulated by a ‘black and white’ rule,” he said.

“Jockeys will not be punished for genuine, wholly unintended mistakes nor otherwise perfectly acceptable rides.”

While pointing out that in their four months of existence the new rules had met some of their objectives, Bittar said: “A rule which polices the use of the whip based solely on a fixed number of strikes is fundamentally flawed.

“In practice it has repeatedly thrown up examples of no consideration for the manner in which the whip is used.”
Bittar reserved the right to make revisions if necessary.

There has long been a train of thought amongst many Grand National pundits that a smart two-and-a-half-mile performer can often be the ideal type for the four-and-a-half-miles of the Aintree marathon, and based on that criteria Moore’s charge certainly ticks the right boxes.

A decent handicapper at close to the minimum trip, the seven-year-old had run well at Leopardstwon in January in finishing third behind Rare Bob in a competitive event before getting his name on the score sheet on his subsequent outing at Clonmel when powering through the heavy ground to beat Mr Warbucks by a length-and-a-quarter. Anyone thinking about making an ante-post Grand National bet online certainly cannot rule him out.

A short-head defeat over the bare two-miles at Gowran Park in March at the hands of Ruler of All was hardly an indication that he was crying out for the staying trip of the Irish Grand National, but Moore has long been regarded as one of the shrewdest trainers in the business and clearly had it in his head that a big step up in trip could be the making of the gelded son of Laveron.

Ridden for the first time by Nina Carberry, Organisedconfusion was settled towards the rear of the leading group in the 28-runner field before making smooth headway to lead at the second from home, from where he stayed on strongly to score by an impressive five lengths from Western Charmer. A horse who could well step up considerably again when next tried over a trip having been campaigned this term over a mile shorter than the Irish National distance, Organisedconfusion looks a potential ‘dark horse’ at Aintree and could prove good value in the ante-post market at current odds of 33/1.

The former point-to-pointer has carried all before him since switching to race under rules for the King yard and has rattled up a highly impressive hat-trick of successes that have made him one of the most popular choices in the ante-post market for the ‘world’s greatest steeplechase’. A weight allocation of an eye-catching 10st 7lbs was more or less as the Barbury Castle handler had anticipated, but he insists he will not make any decision about running the nine-year-old until his next outing which could well be in the Grade 3 Racing Plus Chase (formerly the Racing Post Chase), at Kempton Park on February 25. Those looking at the latest ante-post Grand National betting should remember this.

The winner of a Kelso hunter chase last spring, the gelded son of Blueprint joined King during the summer having previously been trained by Vicky Simpson and made an immediate impression when slamming the fair sort Earth Planet by 11-lengths in a three-mile Sandown handicap chase in early-November off an initial mark of 117. The handicapper reacted by raising Hold On Julio by 16lbs to a new rating of 133 but that did not stop him putting up an even better display when despatching some useful opposition to win the 32Red.com HBLB handicap chase over the same course and distance in January, handing out a nine-length beating to the formerly high-class Neptunes Collonges.

Set to run at Aintree off an 11lb higher mark of 144, Hold On Julio may still be a step or two ahead of the handicapper and is now a top priced 25/1 shot to win the historic Liverpool race and complete a real rags-to-riches tale.

In beating Brilliant Barca by 11-lengths at the Berkshire track the four-year-old was doing no more than the market had anticipated in sending him off a red-hot 30/100 favourite, but the French bred gelding certainly impressed plenty of layers who were quick to reduce their potential liabilities on the horse for the Triumph Hurdle by cutting his ante-post odds to as short as 16/1 in places, although some still offer as big as 25/1. People following the online Cheltenham betting odds will be wondering if there is any value there.

King, (always keen to keep punters informed about his plans for runners), was quick to warn that the son of Goldneyev may not even head to Cheltenham and instead may be trained with a view to racing at the Aintree and Punchestown festivals later in the term. Pointing out that his charge has only had three races in his life whereas many of those competing in the Triumph Hurdle come to the race after being experienced Flat campaigners, King will give Balder Succes another outing before deciding whether or not the horse is up to holding his own in the hurly-burly of the always fiercely contested 28-runner two-mile contest.

Prior to his fluent Ascot win Balder Succes had made an eye-catching British debut when easily accounting for the opposition at Plumpton at the beginning of January on his first start for the yard since being transferred from his native France, where he won his only race for his previous connections at Auteuil in late-October.

Pius Heinz who used to play online as MastaP89 defeated 6,685 entries on his way to not only winning $8,715,368 but also placing Germany firmly on the poker map for 2012. Heinz, who was snapped up by PokerStars on the eve of his final table appearance, will have to ditch his PokerStars moniker MastP89 for the more refined Pius Heinz after securing his sponsorship deal. Although clearly his Texas Holdem skills will not suffer as a result.

It is not just Heinz who has helped place Germany on the map with Martin Finger, Martin Schleich and Benny Spindler all winning major live titles in 2011. Germany currently lie in 6th place in the PocketFives Online Country Rankings and are the second highest ranked European country behind the UK.

Germany’s current top ranked pro is Giuseppe Pantaleo and he celebrated the New Year in style by finishing 3rd in the PokerStars Sunday Million for $114,000 on the 22nd Jan 12 increasing his online poker earnings to $1.9 million.

The aforementioned Spindler, who has an EPT and SCOOP titles to his name, continues to prefer the cash game scene to the tournament scene dominated by Pantaleo. Spindler, who plays under the username toweliestar, started playing the online game of Starcraft before turning over to poker. HighstakesDB have the 26-year old with a profit of $946,606 so we think he made the right decision!

Somehow, even surprising those looking at best mobile casinos, they managed to mess it up, being bowled out for the embarrassing score of 72 – not quite half way to their target.

It is remarkable to think that less than six months ago we were hailing this as supposedly the greatest test cricket team England had ever had – the finest in the world right now. Well, here’s a bit of news: they absolutely are not.

There is no point being the finest team on home soil ever to have played if trips to the sub continent continue to end as embarrassingly as this. For some reason, they seem utterly incapable of adapting to the conditions, and that needs to change.

Former England opener, Geoffrey Boycott summed it up quite nicely for me, describing the latest England collapse as a load of rubbish.

“They will be known as great at home, but no good in the east,” Boycott wrote in his column for the Telegraph. “So do not tell me this is the best England side ever, or is even fit to be No 1 in the world.”

It might well sound harsh – but it is true. You would never have seen the great Australian or West Indian sides performing so poorly away from the comforts of home. The only conclusion is that England are mentally weak. They just do not seem to learn their lessons.

Boycott rightly added: “In the World Cup they batted badly and lost to Bangladesh in Chittagong. They batted poorly in the quarter-final against Sri Lanka in Colombo and lost.

“And this year alone they have seven more Test matches to play in these conditions – one more in Dubai, two in Sri Lanka and four in India – so they need to find an answer quickly.”

It was so easy to criticise India when they came over here in the summer and got beaten so resoundingly, but the fact of the matter is that England will take a much heavier beating in India if they do not learn from their mistakes quickly.

For all India have struggled lately, it is more or less universally accepted that they are a much better side than Pakistan, yet England find themselves being torn apart by the latter.

The pitches England have played on so far this tour have hardly been the toughest you are ever going to face. They have been relatively flat, and the ball has not been doing anything overly unexpected.

England need to sort out the problems they have quickly, or they can soon wave goodbye to their number one ranking.

Champion Trainer Nicholls has surprisingly never won the steeplechase in Merseyside but wasn’t too far away last season as Niche Market finished fifth and completed the course for the first time in his career. 12 months earlier he was forced to pull up on his debut in the race after failing to see out the marathon trip of 4m4f in the race won by Don’t Push It, who gave Tony McCoy his first Grand National win. Those looking at the Grand National betting odds bookmakers are offering will be wondering if he can improve again this time around.

21-year old jockey Harry Skelton has ridden Niche Market in both of his Grand National runs and is expected to be on board once again in April, unless there are any setbacks for either horse or jockey. Skelton is regarded as one of the finest young jockeys around and is being given his fair share of opportunities by Nicholls, who has faith in the young rider.

Skelton rode Niche Market to success in the Irish Grand National in 2009 at Fairyhouse over the trip of 3m5f. It was the youngsters’ first big success of his career and also turned Niche Market into a potential winner of the big race at Aintree for the future.

If Nicholls can win the Grand National this year, he will add the success to his achievements which include wins in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, King George, Queen Mother Champion Chase, World Hurdle and many other top class races.

It’s been a big season for Nicholls so far, he has managed to reignite the career of Kauto Star who has picked up big race wins in the Betfair Chase and the King George at Kempton.

The fair middle-distance handicapper has looked a real find in the hurdles sphere since switching codes in December where he received rave reviews following his debut over timber when slamming the useful Ted Spread by 14-lengths in a Taunton novice hurdle. It would have made people looking at the 2012 Cheltenham betting sit up and take notice.

On the back of that success and following heavy ante-post support that saw him jump to very close to the head of the market for the Triumph Hurdle on the basis of that one effort, King’s four-year-old headed to Newbury in mid-January where he was sent off a warm order for the Berkshire Stand Bookshop Juvenile Hurdle, a race that appeared to be well and truly in safe keeping as the son of Sakhee was still eight-lengths clear and travelling powerfully when stumbling on landing at the second last flight before slithering to the ground.

It seems those looking ahead to the Betfair Cheltenham festival 2012 were not too worry and despite that odds-on loss, punters were quick to support Grumeti again and he is now co-favourite at 8/1 in some lists for Cheltenham along with Baby Mix and Sadlers Risk. King is keen to get a couple more runs into Grumeti before sending him to Prestbury Park to go for the big one and could well run him at Cheltenham on January 28 in another novices’ event before finding a race a few weeks later to put the finishing touches to his preparation. The Barbury Castle based handler is clearly to keen to ensure that Grumeti’s confidence will be fully restored before asking him to try and win one of the toughest races of the while National Hunt season.

Third to Al Ferof in last season’s Supreme Novices Hurdle at Cheltenham on what turned out to be his final start of the campaign, the son of Network has produced two scintillating performance since switching to the larger obstacles this term, jumping like an old hand and cruising to victory on his debut over fences at Doncaster where he beat the decent previous winner Lightening Rod by an eased down 24-lengths. Immediately stepped up to Grade 2 company Henderson’s charge took on the highly regarded Peddlers Cross in the Wayward Lad Novices Chase at Kempton’s Christmas meeting and dealt Donald McCain’s smart performer a significant blow in slamming him by 16-lengths to usurp last season’s Champion Hurdle runner-up as favourite for the Arkle Chase at current odds of 5/2 – Peddler’s Cross is now a 5/1 chance and Al Ferof is offered at 7/1 in the online Cheltenham Festival betting markets.

Henderson has marked out the Game Sprit Chase as a potential pre-Cheltenham contest for his very exciting young horse and reasons that hacking around against lesser opposition is unlikely to teach the gelding very much and that a real race against seasoned campaigners should give him the match practice he will need to be on his mettle for what will surely be a red-hot race for the Arkle Trophy. The Seven Barrows handler reports his horse to be so well in himself that he is having to canter him every day in order to stop him proving too much of a handful at home.

Reports of Hurricane Fly having worked well on the Leopardstown gallops recently having missed two intended engagements during December have seen Willie Mullins’ charge cut to a solid 9/4 favourite (from 5/2) with bookmakers offering 6/1 bar, but the 12/1 currently available about Christmas Hurdle runner-up Rock On Ruby appeals as amongst the best value in the market for a horse that is on a steep upward curve this season. Those looking for Cheltenham tips should bear this in mind.

The Paul Nicholls-trained seven-year-old, a short-head second to Ireland’s First Lieutenant in the two-mile-five-furlong Neptune Investment Management Novices Hurdle at last season’s Cheltenham Festival, went on to run third to Spirit Son over a similar trip in Grade 1 company at Aintree a few weeks later on his final outing of the campaign. Dropped back in distance to two miles this season the gelded son of Oscar put up a tremendous performance on his return to action at Newbury in November when carrying 11st 12lbs to a smooth as silk victory over the useful Empire Levant (received 26lb) in landing the listed Gerry Fielden Hurdle by an impressive six-lengths. People placing Betfair Cheltenham 2012 bets need to remember this.

On the back of that fine effort Nicholls decided to pitch Rock On Ruby in against former champion hurdler Binocular at Kempton on Boxing Day, and had he not made a slight mistake at the final flight there are many who believe he would have won the day instead of going down to a battling neck defeat. Apparently improving with every run, 12/1 looks a cracking each-way bet for a horse who could give even Hurricane Fly a ‘run for his money’ on the big day.