Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

in the world of racing silks, notoriously one where patterns are of a strictly plain variety; the spot and the stripe holding sway.   Racing for Change  ran a competition recently for students at Central St Martin's, in which the brief was to design revolutionary new colours.   Henry Griffin it was who won it, with fruit machine designs, and his colours will appear in all their glory at the first race at Ascot on 9th July. I think we can probably consider ourselves blessed that Cath Kidston designs aren't "vibrant and easily identifiable", otherwise I bet some owner would make an essay at those.

There have been mutterings for a while that jump racing would be banned in Victoria, Australia, and now it has been, from 2011. Read the story here . As far as I'm aware, there's no equivalent mutterings here. There are some things I disagree with very strongly in racing: breaking and racing two year olds, for one, and not giving any thought to what happens to the horses after their racing career is finished for another. However, I love National Hunt (as jump racing is called here). Horses do die, and it is absolutely terrible to watch one of those falls when you know the horse is not going to get up. When you make the death or injuring of horses into a welfare issue that you're determined to clear up, I do wonder where it will stop. Horses die eventing, show jumping and hunting, and of course hacking on the roads is not exactly safe. If you take as your premise that the horse hasn't asked to be doing x and that therefore if y can happen you must stop doing x wi...