Anticipation is climbing the steps of a venerated football stadium for a night game to find the floodlights blazing and the grass slick and lush.

It's the bounce of the England cricket team down the pavilion steps to start an Ashes series. It's checking your tickets the day before Wimbledon tennis starts or standing just after dawn beside the first tee at an Open Championship or Masters.

It's not about what you know. It's about all the things you don't know. Or don't know yet, because there is no script. A venue, a tradition, a hum of expectation, yes, but no script. Unlike cinema or the theatre, nobody wrote what you are about to see. You scan the horizon of pleasures still to come with a preferred outcome, certainly, but no guarantees.

In books and films the whodunnit is already decided. In sport the who-will win-it is a thing of intrigue. It's the unknowable.

What I'm describing here, in racing terms, is 'Craven week,' the Newmarket fixture that ends the strange hiatus between the Lincoln meeting at Doncaster and the 'real' start of a Flat racing campaign, on the Rowley Mile course. 

It's not about what you know. It's about all the things you don't know. Or don't know yet, because there is no script.

The Grand National meeting bisects the cutting of the start-line ribbon at Donny and the unleashing of the first wave of Classic contenders at Newmarket, in a week when everything feels possible, and dreams are unbruised by reality.

And in Flat racing, anticipation week is centuries old. The Craven was first run in 1771 and evolved over two hundred years into the pre-eminent 2,000 Guineas trial. In 1869 it was reduced from 10 furlongs to eight. Eight years later it was restricted to three-year-olds. 

Modern training is a scientific, data-driven trade, so colts often go straight to the Guineas without a prep run. City of Troy and Rosallion – the first two in the market – will arrive on May 4 without form in the book as three-year-olds.

Yet the Craven is still the race that tells you spring has sprung, the Classic race scramble has begun, and that 2024's contenders are about to be reclassified as champs, nearly-horses and also-rans.

In the history of the colts' Classics, the evidence trail still starts with the Craven. Six years ago Masar beat the odds-on Roaring Lion and went on to win the Derby. Roaring Lion proceeded to win four Group 1s. Curiously the last horse to compete the Craven-2,000 Guineas double was Haafhd in 2004, an anomaly that is due correction. Eminent (2017), Native Khan (2011) and Adagio (2007) are among those for whom winning the Craven was largely an end, rather than a beginning.

No modern Craven meeting has produced a more lasting declaration than that of Dancing Brave in 1986. His defeat of Henry Cecil's pair Faraway Dancer and Mashkour was emphatic enough but the ground was too soft to offer a promise of the beauty to come: victories in the 2,000 Guineas, Eclipse, King George and Arc to earn an official rating of 141, the highest ever awarded to a horse at that time.

The first big fillies' trial of the season, the Nell Gwyn Stakes, can also be revelatory. In a mini golden era from 1984 to 1986 it was won by Pebbles (1,000 Guineas, Eclipse, Champion Stakes, Breeders' Cup Turf), Oh So Sharp (1,000 Guineas, Oaks, St Leger) and Sonic Lady (Irish 1,000 Guineas, Coronation Stakes, Sussex Stakes, Prix du Moulin.)

The British crave spring and hints of summer delights particularly keenly. It feels as if it has been raining in the UK since November. Racing folk ask Craven week to lift the grey blanket off their heads. They want equine coats to gleam and the sun to glint off silks. Trainers, stable staff and jockeys will see hints from the gallops tested on the racecourse. Lazy types will be transformed and 'morning wonders' may flop when they step on the track.

With Craven week, there are clues and promise but no certainties. After Newmarket the auditions roll on to Newbury, to the Greenham and Fred Darling. The two Guineas races come less than three weeks after the Newmarket and Newbury trials – a timetable more compressed than you might imagine, considering that these are three-year-olds emerging from hibernation.

Everything is up for grabs, and everyone wants to grab it, especially after a gruelling, soggy winter. The not knowing is part of the thrill. There are champions on the scroll of Nell Gwyn and Craven winners but there are also winners you struggle to remember. It's not possible for a 'bad' horse to win either race, but eminently possible for the victory to lead nowhere. Twelve months ago Indestructible beat The Foxes in the Craven but has not won since.

In Anticipation Week stars will emerge, reality checks will abound, hopes will be dashed and question marks will be scattered. But the 2024 Flat season will be in full swing. It's not just the horses who burst from the stalls at Newmarket. We do too.

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There were 390 fixtures scheduled for 2023. All of the 2024 fixtures have been allocated barring four, and horses-in-training numbers are up 2%. Six turf fixtures have been added to the 2024 fixture list, initially on a one-year basis, and will held at Punchestown (Bank Holiday Monday, Feb. 5), the Curragh (Saturday, Apr. 6), Bellewstown & Down Royal (both Sunday. Apr. 14), Wexford (Wednesday, Aug. 7) and Roscommon (Monday, Oct. 14). In addition, The Flat winter break has been extended by nine days, from Dec. 22-Jan. 12. The summer break in the National Hunt season has also been extended by two days. The six blank Sundays will be on Apr. 28, June 23, July 14, July 28, Sept. 8 and Dec. 22.The Flat season will also begin slightly earlier at the Curragh on Mar. 18 and will end at that racecourse on Nov. 3. Some of the major racing festivals are as follows:

• Dublin Racing Festival: Feb. 3-4
• Cork Easter Festival: Mar. 30-Apr. 1
• Fairyhouse Easter Festival: Mar. 30-Apr. 1
• Punchestown Festival: Apr. 30-May 4
• Killarney Spring Festival: May 12-14
• Curragh Guineas Festival: May 24-26
• Down Royal Ulster Derby: June 21-22
• Curragh Derby Festival: June 28-30
• Bellewstown Summer Festival: July 4-6
• Killarney July Festival: July 15-19
• Curragh Oaks Festival: July 20-21
• Galway Festival: July 29-Aug. 4
• Tramore August Festival: Aug. 15-18
• Killarney August Festival: Aug. 22-24
• Irish Champions Festival: Sept. 14-15
• Listowel Harvest Festival 22-28
• Down Royal NH Festival: Nov. 1-2
• Navan Racing Festival: Nov. 16-17
• Punchestown Winter Festival: Nov. 23-24
• Fairyhouse Winter Festival: Nov. 30-Dec. 1
• Leopardstown Christmas Festival: Dec.26-29
• Limerick Christmas Festival: Dec. 26-29

Jason Morris, HRI's Director of Racing and Strategic Projects, said, “HRI is very conscious of the extra demands being placed on all those working in the industry by the increasing fixture list and hence why, following consultation, the Fixtures Committee has extended the break periods under both codes. There will now be a three-week gap over the Christmas and New Year period for the Flat, and a full two week break for the National Hunt sector in June/July. We have also retained the number of blank Sundays at six.”

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Consigned as lot 449, the 98-rated 4-year-old was most recently fourth in the G2 Grand Prix de Chantilly. The other wildcards are lot 495, Full Of Shade (Fr) (No Risk At All {Fr}), who was second over hurdles in her second start; the placed hurdler Sun Joy (Fr) (Hunter's Light {Ire}) (lot 496); and Le Grande Yves (Fr) (Triple Threat {GB}) (lot 497), a two-length winner over hurdles at Vichy.

The juvenile breezes will take place at Deauville at 1 p.m. on July 4, with both the 2-year-olds and stores set to go under the hammer beginning at 11 a.m. on July 5. There is also a breeding stock portion and horses-in-training session starting at 11 a.m. on July 6.

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Making The Great Leap Forward

Following the Cheshire Oaks, the story of this year's Epsom Classic is the race just to stay in the relative vicinity of the newest and potentially greatest middle-distance filly Rosegreen has produced in the Aidan O'Brien era. Her incredible closing sectionals, fascinatingly compared with Shergar's in Simon Rowlands Sectional Spotlight blog on the At The Races site, mean that all remaining trials for Epsom will have to pass the clock's inspection. One who has the potential to put up a big figure in that respect is another who recently received the TDN Rising Star honour in Linda Shanahan and Emily Magnier's 9 1/2-length Newbury maiden winner Gather Ye Rosebuds (GB) (Zoffany {Ire}).

“It was a great result first time and she put in what looks like an outstanding performance,” trainer Jack Channon said. “I feel like, mentally and physically, she's improved from that run. She's a big filly that's maturing day in, day out. She hadn't quite lost her coat at Newbury, but she's really shining now. She's started to flourish in the last three weeks and I couldn't be happier with the way all her work and everything like that's gone.”

The Yardsticks

Every Classic trial worth its salt needs proven performers and the Musidora has those thanks to the presence of Roisin Henry's G3 Oh So Sharp S. winner and GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf fourth Midnight Mile (Ire) (No Nay Never), Sheikh Mohammed Obaid Al Maktoum's G1 Fillies' Mile runner-up Novakai (GB) (Lope De Vega {Ire}) and Weldspec Glasgow Limited's G3 Prix Penelope runner-up Sea Of Roses (GB) (Sea The Moon {Ger}), with the latter having beaten Infinite Cosmos last term. Richard Fahey is happy that Midnight Mile, a relative of Sadler's Wells's Oaks winner Quarter Moon (Ire) and runner-up Yesterday (Ire), will be more at home racing further than a mile for the first time.

“She has wintered extremely well and we are very happy with her,” he said. “She has filled out and I should imagine this trip will probably suit her well, but this is a good Musidora, a very good race and it will be a good filly who wins it. She started late last year and she took a little time to come to herself, so I haven't rushed her this year. She got some nice experience last year and we've always felt she would make a better 3-year-old, so fingers crossed.”

 Welcome Back, Princess

In the day's feature G2 1895 Duke Of York Clipper S., Highfield Princess (Ire) (Night Of Thunder {Ire}) makes her keenly-anticipated return to action in the race that saw her reputation take off towards the stratosphere 12 months ago. Those expecting a repeat would be well-advised to remember that the G1 Nunthorpe S., G1 Prix Maurice de Gheest and G1 Flying Five heroine came into the 2022 renewal on the back of an all-weather campaign consisting of four races and is under a Group 1 penalty this time. That may tell with the likes of Bennett Racing's improving G1 Al Quoz Sprint runner-up The Astrologist (Aus) (Zoustar {Aus}) and Nick Bradley Racing's high-class 3-year-old Marshman (GB) (Harry Angel {Ire}) in attendance and race-sharpened.

John Quinn is aware of the different task this time. “She had a break after America, but she's been back in a while,” he explained. “We're pleased how she's training, but all of her life she's been getting the mares' allowance and now, with her Group 1 penalty, obviously she's giving weight to colts which won't be easy.”

Marshman took part in just about the best 2-year-old race over this six-furlong trip in 2022 when second to Noble Style (GB) (Kingman {GB}) in the G2 Gimcrack S. at this track's flagship Ebor Festival and will be primed after his return win in Chantilly's G3 Prix Sigy last month. “If you look at the horses behind him in the Gimcrack, Cold Case was four lengths behind him and Royal Scotsman was six lengths behind,” Nick Bradley said. “I think that was a really, really good race. What I was impressed about at Chantilly was the way he accelerated away from the field. We expected him to get tired and he did, but he's come out of the race really well and it should put him spot-on for this.”

A Star At Vichy

Meanwhile in France, Vichy stages its first Flat meeting of the season and plays host to Europe's second juvenile black-type contest of the year. The Auvergne track's highlight is the five-furlong Listed Haras de Beaumont-Prix des Reves d'Or-Jacques Bouchara, which has attracted seven fillies and features Craig Bernick and Haras d'Etreham's TDN Rising Star Les Pavots (Ire) (No Nay Never). Out again quickly for Francis-Henri Graffard following her deeply impressive debut effort over six furlongs at Chantilly earlier in the month, the half-sister to the dual Group 1 hero Sir Dragonet (Ire) (Camelot {GB}) descends from the great Urban Sea (Miswaki) so this drop back in trip is revealing. She encounters Amo Racing's similarly unbeaten Redcar novice winner Komat (GB) (Cable Bay {Ire}), more of a dyed-in-the-wool sprinting type from the Dominic Ffrench Davis stable.

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It features a trio hailing from the Fabrice Vermeulen yard, including €10,000 Arqana September graduate Bad Boy (Fr), who will become the first representative of Haras de Saint-Vincent's freshman sire Fas (Ire) (Fastnet Rock {Aus}). The February-foaled bay is a son of Listed Prix Caravelle third Queendara (Fr) (Kendargent {Fr}), herself a daughter of Listed Prix Occitanie victrix and G3 Prix de Royaumont placegetter Dance In The Park (Fr) (Walk In The Park {Ire}).

Europe's second juvenile event, a €23,000 4 1/2-furlong test for newcomers, will take place Sunday at Lyon-Parilly. Pre-declaration entries include standard-bearers for first-season sires Calyx (GB) (Kingman {GB}), Donjuan Triumphant (Ire) (Dream Ahead), Inns Of Court (Ire) (Invicible Spirit {Ire}) and Palace Prince (Ger) (Areion {Ger}).

Ireland is slated to get underway on Mar. 25 at the Curragh, with its usually informative opening five-furlong maiden for youngsters, while Britain waits an extra week for Doncaster's £35,000 Apr. 1 Brocklesby, won last year by subsequent G2 July S. victor and three-time Group 1 placegetter Persian Force (Ire) (Mehmas {Ire}).

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Last year was Varian's best to date. There haven't been many seasons during his term as a trainer that he hasn't secured a top-ten finish in the championship. In 2022, he was fifth overall, his highest place yet, with a domestic prize-money haul well beyond the £3 million mark for the first time. 

A British Classic winner, Eldar Eldarov (GB), who also won the G2 Queen's Vase at Royal Ascot ahead of the St Leger, was one of the headline acts, along with the smart juvenile Sakheer (Ire) (Zoffany {Ire}), winner of the G2 Mill Reef S. and now a leading Guineas contender. Another exciting two-year-old, Charyn (Ire) (Dark Angel {Ire}), won the G2 Criterium de Maisons-Laffitte and, to cap off a great turf season, Bayside Boy (Ire) landed the G1 Queen Elizabeth S. on QIPCO British Champions Day before joining his sire New Bay (GB) at Ballylinch Stud.

Now, along with a raft of well-bred two-year-olds to have boosted the string for 2023, Varian has taken charge of the G1 Prix de l'Abbaye winner The Platinum Queen (Ire) (Cotai Glory {GB}) following her purchase at the Tattersalls December Sales by Katsumi Yoshida of Northern Farm for 1.2 million gns. The high-class sprinter has also been joined at Varian's Carlburg Stables by last year's G1 Preis der Diana (German Oaks) winner Toskana Belle (Fr) (Shamalgan {Fr}). Again, highlighting the value placed on European race form by Japanese breeders, Toskana Belle was bought by Katsumi's brother Teruya Yoshida of Japan's other major powerhouse operation, Shadai Farm.

“It's great to have the support of both Shadai Farm and Northern Farm,” Varian acknowledges, while also crediting his Japanese wife Hanako, who is a key component in his stable's set-up and has a good relationship with both operations from her time spent working in racing and breeding in her home country.

He is also quick to credit The Platinum Queen's former trainer, Richard Fahey, for whom she won four of eight races, including her big strike on Arc day, and was runner-up in both the G1 Nunthorpe S. and G2 Flying Childers S.

“He was very much a gentleman, as you would expect from Richard,” says Varian. “He was very helpful with telling us all about her. She looks very well and she's obviously a Group 1 winner, so I hope I can add to her CV, but in a way her CV is already there. The programme can be tough for the sprinting fillies at three, but hopefully she trains forward nicely. She looks a real speedball. Five [furlongs] looks her trip; maybe she's good enough to run in a King's Stand. She's quite a spicy character, but she's very talented and it's nice to be training these good animals.”

He continues, “The programme's quite sparse early season, so she might not run before Royal Ascot. She could run in something like a Temple Stakes, but she's not doing anything fast yet.”

One three-year-old who does have an early season target is Sakheer, who has done little wrong in his three runs to date in the colours of KHK Racing, representing Bahrain's Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa. Whether we see him on the racecourse before the 2,000 Guineas on May 6 remains to be seen, but the Arqana breeze-up graduate is continuing to put a smile on his trainer's face, even after a week of bleak March weather in Newmarket.

Sakheer is very natural…he knows his job and I would have no qualms about going straight into a Guineas without a trial

“We'd be very pleased with his condition, very pleased with his action, and his attitude as well,” says Varian. “He's always looked the part. He was an exceptional workhorse going into his two-year-old races, and sometimes the performance on a racecourse doesn't always match their home life. Some of those really flashy workers can never quite live up to that when they run but, with him, what we saw at home was what we were seeing on the track. He looks like he's training on nicely. He's not a huge horse, but he's big enough and he's very well-made. Touch wood he's in a good place.”

He adds, “I'm not sure if he'll trial or not. I think our trials, the Craven and the Greenham in particular, come so close to a Guineas. This horse is very natural and he didn't have a huge amount of racing last year, but he knows his job and I would have no qualms about going straight into a Guineas without a trial. 

“What's key is the impression and the look he gives us over the next three or four weeks. As we sit here today in a snowstorm, I don't think we're committed one way or the other to a trial. He's training nicely and is on the point of where I think he needs to be, and he still looks the part, as he did last year.”

As members of Bahrain's royal family continue to increase their investment in British racing as well as their domestic programme, Sakheer and his fellow colour-bearer Eldar Eldarov, who, similarly, had been bought by Oliver St Lawrence at the previous year's breeze-up in Deauville, were both significant winners for KHK Racing in 2022, and each has a good chance of enhancing their record.

“The team behind KHK have been big supporters over the last couple of years,” Varian notes. “Shaikh Khalid is relatively new to the international scene of racing, so it's great that he had some nice horses to have enjoyed last year and hopefully to look forward to this year. [The Bahrainis] are very good sportsmen in their own right and have really got behind their own racing scene in Bahrain, but they are also spreading that interest into Europe and America, and I think that can only be good for the sport.”

Eldar Eldarov, whose dam All At Sea (GB) (Sea The Stars {Ire}) is a half-sister to Alwilda (GB) (Hernando {Fr}), dam of the celebrated Alpinista (GB) (Frankel {GB}), owns a pedigree which gives those around him every right to dream of him progressing with age and, potentially, a step up in trip. The four-year-old, who last year became Varian's second St Leger winner after Kingston Hill (GB), is described by Varian as “a bit of a street fighter” and he is clearly a horse held in much fondness within the stable.

“He's not a big robust horse and I think he'll always look a bit like a long-distance runner,” the trainer says. “Last year he took an age to come to himself out of the winter. In fact, we had aspirations of Derby trials having seen him win his maiden as a two-year-old so impressively, but he just didn't really come to hand. I'm not quite sure why, but the earliest we could have run him was when we did run him, which in the end was in a novice at Newcastle, which was probably about three weeks before Royal Ascot. He won there and suddenly started to blossom, just in time for Ascot. I don't think that he's ready to do anything too early this season. I don't know if that's just his make-up, but I wouldn't think we'll be racing him before May.”

 The 'street fighter' Eldar Eldarov

He continues, “We'd dearly love to see him back at Royal Ascot, hopefully in the Gold Cup, I would think, over the Hardwicke. Royal Ascot for us as a training establishment, and for the owners as well, is very important. If we can set up a first half of the season target at Ascot and work back from there, I think it'll only be one run before, so it could be a Yorkshire Cup or a Sagaro.

“We're hopeful that he's of a calibre to establish himself as a Cup horse, though of course Kyprios looks the standout in that division at the moment. But Eldar Eldarov had to dig deep to win the Queen's Vase. He came from a long way back that day and he's got this lovely head carriage. He pins his ears back and he really seems to relish the fights, and I think that's very important in all horses, but particularly in staying horses because they have to dig deep. You do need that attitude.”

Varian also highlights Charyn among the colts he is looking forward to seeing back on the track this season. Nurlan Bizakov's homebred was third to Sakheer in the Mill Reef before claiming his own Group 2 triumph across the Channel. 

“I thought his run in the Mill Reef was good because he was still learning, and was probably on the wrong side of the track, and I actually felt he was second best to Sakheer that day,” he says. “He's a horse with a very laidback demeanour, which I like, and he's another one who hasn't raced beyond six [furlongs], but looks like he's crying out for a little bit further. He might be a horse to look at the Greenham with. He's got a Guineas entry at Newmarket and in Ireland. He's not flashy but he's really a very professional horse who should improve as the year goes on.”

Sheikh Mohammed Obaid's Resolute Man (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}), won a Yarmouth novice last October, and Dragon Icon (Ire) (Lope De Vega {Ire}), the Yoshiro Kubota-owned full-brother to Breeders' Cup wunner Aunt Pearl (Ire) are also singled out as three-year-olds to note for the coming campaign.

“We had some nice horses win novices last year and they need testing in deeper water, but they look quite nice horses,” Varian notes.

As the trainer sits in his office still drying out from a morning of squally snow showers in subzero temperatures, it is easy to imagine that, for him, spring can't come soon enough, but he says, “I actually love January, February and March, because you start counting back from the season. Of course we run horses all year round now, we have winter runners, but the majority of our horses are on that spring programme. You've got targets starting to be set and plans starting to formalise and you really see a change in the horses on a week-to-week basis at this time of year.

“As the better weather starts to come, you can really see them change and develop in a positive way in front of your eyes, and spot the ones that are really starting to shine through early and the ones which have not come to themselves. It's an enjoyable time to be able to start recognising the difference without all the helter-skelter of the season being upon you. I think it's a lovely time of year to be a racehorse trainer because you really can be with the horses every day and see them develop from their winter programme into where they need to be for the start of the season.”

There have been plenty of changes in the 12 years since Varian joined the training ranks. In 2017, he migrated from the Jarvis family's Kremlin House Stables to purchase Carlburg Stables from Clive Brittain, who still lives alongside the yard. Sir Michael Stoute is his next-door neighbour in Freemason Lodge, and from last year the Varian string started occupying Beech Hurst just across the Bury Road, which had been Stoute's original base and had for many years acted as his second yard. The additions of senior staff such as Kate Grimwade as general manager overseeing all aspects of the business speaks to the demands of running a modern-day international racing stable, backed up by the appointments of form expert David Baxter as racing manager and Eleanor Rance as communications manager. 

There are, however, some familiar faces from the days of Michael Jarvis, notably long-term racing secretary Jim Hiner and Jo Fowles, the accomplished horsewoman who oversees Beech Hurst and is one of three assistant trainers, along with Oliver Rix and George Hill.

“It's a really good team, and the results of last season show that everyone's pulling in the same direction,” says Varian. 

“And we've got a good team of jockeys, headed by David Egan. There's no official order of hierarchy amongst the jockeys, but David's at a point of his career where he's been progressive. He's still a young man and he's ready to build on what he achieved last year. Jack Mitchell is a brilliant team player, of course, and Ray Dawson's been in Dubai but will be coming back. Although Andrea [Atzeni] is not employed by Sheikh Mohammed Obaid any more, he will no doubt still ride at times for us. We also train for owners who have their own jockeys.”

Egan, who set another benchmark with his first British Classic victory last year on Eldar Eldarov, has recently enjoyed a fruitful first spell riding in Japan over the winter. A stint perhaps inspirited by his unofficial guv'nor's close ties to the country, it has done his international profile no harm, especially when considering the high-class horses with Japanese links in Varian's stable. Mind you, there is also now no shortage of horses from that country competing at the major meetings around the world.

[The Japanese] don't really set their sights on just doing something, they set their sights on mastering something

“I don't think they're about to slow down,” says Varian of the competition from Japanese trainers. “I think they've got 25 horses in Dubai for World Cup night. They had 14 or 15 in Saudi. They're all invited, so they're all good enough to be invited. I think they are really becoming a superpower. They haven't quite had the consistency of winners in Europe like they have done in Dubai, America and Australia, and Europe is probably another challenge for them. We actually hosted some of their horses for Royal Ascot here, and of course the holy grail for them is the Arc, isn't it? It's probably only a matter of time before they win it.”

He adds, “I feel a little bit close to them through Hanako and I think once you delve into Japanese culture you understand why they do very well in racing. They don't really set their sights on just doing something, they set their sights on mastering something, and I think that's very much embedded in the culture of Japan in any form of industry. 

“Obviously they've got quite a lengthy history of racing, but it's nowhere near what we can delve into. But they've been buying some amazing bloodlines over the last 20, 25 years, and they've also created their own. They are no doubt breeding exceptionally talented horses, as they are proving on the international stage.”

Varian, whose brother-in-law is the Japanese champion trainer Mitsu Nakauchida, admits to being able to “fool my way through a few pleasantries” when it comes to speaking the language. He adds, “If someone thought, 'Oh he speaks Japanese, we'll carry on and have a conversation', I'd get found out very quickly. But they're great people, it's a lovely culture, and it's nice to be connected to that side of the world.

“I think what's very nice about the racing industry is that it's quite a niche industry, but it is a global industry, and I love it. We live and train horses in Newmarket, but that opens up a world in itself.”

There has perhaps been no more better time in racing's history to grasp the global opportunities available and, with a client base incorporating owners from a diverse group of nations, it would seem that the Varian stable is already a frontrunner in this regard.

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There will be an educational and transitional period from Mar. 1 to Apr. 30 to allow jockeys to acclimate to the new regulations. The sanctions currently in place regarding overuse of the whip will be applied through Apr. 30. The aim is to gradually reduce the use of the whip, and the system will be reviewed at the end of 2023.

The following are specifications that apply to the manner and the number of times a whip can be used:

• Using the whip on the shoulder or neck of the horse when the jockey does not have both hands on the reins counts towards the permitted number of strikes.
• It is at the discretion of the stewards to decide if a jockey has used his/her whip clearly and unequivocally for safety reasons (correcting the horse's trajectory) rather than misused it.
• The stewards will consider it a misuse offence (according to article 171 of the Racing Code) when a jockey uses his/her whip one or more times even though his/her mount was no longer able to improve or was out of contention (it is a misuse even if the jockey has used his/her whip below the authorised number).
• Using the whip above shoulder height is considered a misuse offence.

Increased penalties will come into effect on May 1, as well, with specific penalties applying to group races. For the full details regarding penalties for whip offences after the new rules come into effect, and for more information on the new rules, please go to the France Galop website.

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The extension, requested by jockeys and the PJA, was granted on account of the number of cancelled fixtures last week due to the frozen ground. The full implementation of the new rules for Jumps racing will begin on Feb. 13. The start of the bedding-in period for Flat racing remains Feb. 27, as does the Mar. 27 full implementation date for Flat racing.

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The change addresses three principal areas:

• Supporting international competitiveness of prize money in black-type races both on Flat and over Jumps.
• Increase prize money levels in Class 2 and 3 handicaps with the aim of improving retention of higher-rated horses in Britain
• Enhance prize money values at the lower levels, with the appearance money scheme to be replaced by a £700 increase to minimum values in handicaps and classified stakes.

Additional changes include the absence of novice or maiden races programmed at Class 6 on Flat and Class 5 over Jumps. This will mean that these races will only be permitted with prize money of at least £5,300 (Flat), £5,800 (Hurdle) and £6,600 (Chase).

The size and shape of the 2023 Fixture List remains broadly similar to that of 2022, with a total of 1,478 fixtures scheduled.

To view the list of increases to minimum race values, click here.

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