Bronwen's Blog-in which the housekeeper at Grange Hill Farm brings you all the news and views from racing's hub.

Tues Aug 25th: - when I was a girl in Builth Wells there used to be frequent breakdowns in television transmission that were accompanied by the on air quote, "there will now be a short intermission". Well, the Blog equivalent is that there's just been one - with the promise of more to come. There's been a bit of plague in the house you see. Not this one, although there's always something vaguely bubonic about living around Nigel. No, it's my dear old mum who's a bit below par and I'm going to have to drop everything here for the next few days and pop down to administer my healing touch. With so little going on with the horses at the moment you'll probably hardly notice I'm gone.

Before I disappear though, a couple of observations. Firstly, I see that Yorkshire based Flat trainer and full time misery guts, Mark Johnston, isn't overly impressed with Racing For Loose Change either. Mark's never one to mince his words and despite many of these being of the withering variety he can generally be relied upon to spout a modicum of sense. So when he despairs of Loose Change's call for bookmakers and racing administrators to work together as being the height of foolish optimism, it's a view that's at least based on northern realism. Bookmakers have, and always ahve had, their own agenda and the chances of them working with anyone, let alone an unwieldy and pontificating layer of committees, is somewhere around zero.

I was slightly more amused by professional punter, Dave Nevison's quote that, "I am not the snappiest dresser on the track, but if someone comes up with a tip, I look at their shoes; if they are wearing a £250 pair of Church's I might pay attention". So I think we can safely assume that he won't be taking any tips from here........

Fri Aug 21st: - one afternoon watching the cricket and I now understand the game. The convicts, aided by some dodgy umpiring, are sent off at regular intervals as retribution for their ancestors' misdemeanours. Easy! They batted with all the style and grace of the Yes No Wait Sorries.

I was hoping to get off to the seaside tomorrow for a plate of cockles and whelks, but with no runners for us at Newton Abbot's big summer weekend meeting I'll be touching up my tan in the garden instead.

Thurs Aug 20th: - a big day for A-level students across the country with the publication of results which, for the 27th year running, produced record grades. Now, it's been suggested once or twice that I'm a touch cynical and maybe this is true, but just reflect for a moment on the statistical likelihood of 27 successive years of educational improvement and ask yourselves how plausible is this? Exactly! Fortunately the Twiston-Davies offspring are not yet of an age to be worried by such things. Indeed Sam, currently 16, took himself off to Stratford today and duly landed a bit of a touch for the stable by winning the claiming hurdle on Nez Rouge who, I believe, is named after a number of the patrons of The Hollow Bottom. It was a good day for us as Billie Magern made it a double under Tom Molloy, at the same time registering his own novice hurdle hat-trick. He's really getting his act together and we're hopeful that he could follow a similar career path to big brother, Ollie.

Fortunately for Sam and his ambition to pursue a career in the saddle, he would appear to have inherited his mother's trim figure as opposed to the Pickwickian girth of his dad. His ability to do the minimum weight together with his 7lb claim are likely to see his services widely sought after in the months ahead but I'm sure his A-level studies won't suffer.

There's a bit of a fuss being generated by a cricket match being played at The Oval, but being Welsh I don't understand it. However, I might try to sit down with a coffee tomorow and ask Nigel to unravel the game's mysteries. Or perhaps I'll ask Fergal. No, on second thoughts I think I'll just try and work it out for myself........

Weds Aug 19th: - to start with some news that you'll barely be able to believe, namely that general enquiries around the yard would seem to refute my supposition that Stinker is named after the trainer. Allegedly Stinker owes his handle to some vague affinity to his sire, Shinko Forest, so although it would make more interesting copy to promote the trainer connection, sadly we'll have to file it under "likely but untrue".

Hot news from the stable is that Kayf Aramis, a Cheltenham Festival winner this year and talented stayer on the Flat, has joined us from Venetia Williams. A valuable addition to the yard, he'll be aimed initially at long distance hurdles and we'd hope he'll be good enough to compete with the top stayers over timber.

Other news, which I find particularly exciting, is that Carl's bought a place in Guiting Power and should be out of my hair in the next month or so. This is expected to bring about a 33% reduction in my workload, an estimate based on the fact that Carl is only 2/3 the metabolic volume of Nigel and therefore wears smaller clothes.

Today's racing at York didn't have quite the class of yesterday but the Ebor is always worth an interest as it's a proper stayer's race over a trip as opposed to the ten-a-penny 5 and 6 furlong sprints.More like a Jumps race in a way. I must say, however, that the sponsorship of Channel 4 racing is beginning to grate, so corny and numerous are the "Come to Dubai" slots. Racing generally, specifically the Flat, has much to thank the Arabs for and presumably the investment money alone is sufficient to excuse the unpronounceable names of their horses.But really! The thought of poor old Peter O'Sullevan locked in a studio prostituting the voice of racing by producing this load of cobblers is an assault on the senses. Some things appear well matched in theory but don't in fact deliver in practice. Sir Peter's attempts to put a racing voice over on Dubai as a destination fall squarely into the latter camp.One can only hope that they change tack by the time proper racing is back on our terrestrial screens....

Tues Aug 18th: - you may have gathered that I'm no great fan of Flat racing, but everyone loves the opportunity to watch a great horse in action so this afternoon I set the ironing board up in front of the telly and watched the action from York. Sea The Stars appears to be acquiring the same sort of superstar status as the likes of Mill Reef and even Nijinsky and his performance in winning another £340k in the Juddmonte did nothing to diminish his fan club. For a stride or two at the 2 furlong pole I thought the latest equine Pegasus was in trouble, but in the end it was comfortable enough although John Francome's assertion that he could have won 6 lengths seemed to be straight from the pages of The Dandy. The reception for Sea The Stars when he returned to unsaddle was something rarely heard following a flat race, being both generous and genuine. The horse does indeed appear to be that rare genuine article and it's to be hoped that we all get further chances to see him in action as a 4YO. A somewhat vain hope I fear.

The end of Channel 4's coverage gave those still interested the chance to view the last two races from York on Racing UK, whose new subscription rate is £20 per month. Leaving aside any comment on the sanity of the lame-brain strategist who came up with this amount, the thought occurred, not for the first time, that if ever a scenario effectively encapsulated racing's malaise it is the fact that we have 2 dedicated channels fighting with each other over the right to broadcast the fare from Britain's racecourses. What price there ever being a move to unification? Pretty long odds it would seem.

When I'd finished the ironing I put my feet up and watched the proper evening racing from Worcester where we had a couple of runners. I was particularly keen to see how Stinker got on in the 8.10 as he's the latest in a growing list of horses named after people with "form" at the yard. The likes of Grumpy Stumpy (local gamekeeeper) and Easy Squeezy (stable lass with a soft centre) spring to mind and I'm trying to work out who the inspiration is for Stinker. Not surprisingly after a lengthy absence Stinker ran as his name implies, but doubtless his rose-scented day will come - but it would help if he doesn't find out who he's named after......

Mon Aug 17th: - nothing much happened today, the highlights being all-weather meetings at Wolverhampton and Kempton plus the indescribable mediocrityof evening cards at Windsor and Yarmouth. On reflection bugger-all happened today.....

Sun Aug 16th:- difficult as it is to believe the indications are that somebody, somewhere, is actually reading this, for no sooner do I suggest that retirement for Redemption is well overdue than connections belatedly do the decent thing and pension him off. On the other hand maybe it was just some sort of psychic telepathy that prompted the decision. Yes, that must be it- there can't be anyone out there who's sad enough to tune in and take notice of Aunty Bronwen.

Queen Victoria was here again today delivering another dressing down to Nigel on the subject of his unequal struggle to dress himself up. I was boiling up the weekly mountain of pants at the time but felt moved to interject with the thought that maybe Queen Vic could follow the lead set by the car scrappage scheme and find somebody who'd do a trade in on a complete new wardrobe. Queen Vic's not as daft as she looks though, because as she succinctly pointed out the only chance we'd have of getting somebody to take Nigel's clothes away is if we paid them. Probably quite a lot too.

The week ahead is another quiet one on the jumps front but at least there's the prospect of York to look forward to, one of the better Flat tracks that's always worth the journey. We'll probably be aiming slightly lower, however, with Worcester's evening meeting beckoning for Tuesday - always assuming they get the water balance right.....

Sat Aug 15th: - a pretty sombre mood here this morning and undoubtedly right across the country too, with the news that fatalities in Afghanistan have reached the 200 mark. Losses have now risen to the level where many communities across the U K will have been directly affected by loved ones killed or wounded and our local village of Guiting Power has been added to the list. Readers of the Racing Post would have been moved by Alistair Down's interview last week with Guy Disney, son of our local G P, who was the victim of a Taliban bomb and lost a leg as a result. An accomplished amateur jockey, that aspect of Guy's life has presumably been placed at the very least on hold, but there came a cross a typical stoic acceptance of his lot - almost that he was one of the lucky ones. A very rare breed, our Armed Forces,and the current hostilities and losses give our Racing world some much needed perspective. Is the Levy that important an issue by comparison?

None the less life goes on for the rest of us and our runner at Bangor left a rather large hole in my housekeeping kitty, so the boys will be on frugal rations for the rest of the week. I'd always worked on the basis that a single runner from a yard was almost a tip in itself, but I think I'll put a line through that one for the future. And there doesn't seem to be much happening over the next week that offers a chance of redemption.Talking of which, how sad it is to see Redemption, our former classy inmate, being flogged round the gaff tracks in sellers at the age of 14. The words "honourable retirement"obviously don't figure in some people's vocabulary, sad to say.....

Fri Aug 14th: - back again from my Norfolk knit feste with an offering that seems to have hit the spot with Nigel. The gin and soda diet hasn't done much for the trainer's figure so I had to knit a few extra rows into the shoulder straps when he tried it on, but by and large he deems his new swimsuit to be a complementary addition to his wardrobe and he can't wait to give it an airing amongst all the other poseurs when he's next mixing it in the South of France.

Not a lot seems to have happened while I was away and we didn't improve our tally of winners in a quiet week that saw a 2nd spot for Civil Servant at Stratford as our best shot. On the broader front Paul Dixon, aka Mr Bumble, has been at it again imploring punters to "bet British" and desist from wagering with the offshore Levy dodgers. It's an admirable enough sentiment and a posture that he probably felt obliged to take in his ROA capacity, but if he thinks the average punter is suddenly going to adopt the moral high ground before choosing who to bet with then he's on drugs of a halucinatory nature. It simply isn't going to happen so Mr Bumble might as well keep his head down and carry on eating for a living.

Meanwhile, the cavalry is starting to muster in the shape of Racing For Loose Change who have revealed their blueprint for the future of the sport. Short of inventing a new buzzword in "premierisation" as the thread which attempts to stitch together a miscellany of proposals that don't initially excite, it seems to be primarily fodder for the various racing committees to chomp on and regurgitate over the months ahead. Bizarre ideas to tinker with the stucture of N H racing when it doesn't need it are tacked on to what seem to be half-hearted attempts to inject more life into the Flat, when the core problems are much more basic. Funding and the general Racing experience for the consumer at large are such elementary first stages that the concept of £250k's worth of "premierisation" is just an insult to the intelligence. Whither Brian and Ben, I ask myself?

A quiet weekend with runners for us as it's in the singular at Bangor where Desert Fever debuts over timber for local underwear philanthropist Raymond Mould. Nigel's hoping that he'll hose up............

Thurs Aug 6th: - Well, it's warming up nicely, isn't it? After yesterday's scathing criticism of  Racing's high and mighty, today Hills' boss R.Topping Esq turned his ire on the Govt. One positive sign has emerged, though, in this escalating drama, namely that at least Racing's "rabble" are showing a rare semblence of unity in their rebuttal that they've all emerged from the same numpty jar.The counter claim by BHA chairman,Paul Roy, is that Topping is "irresponsible and ridiculous" so there's obviously plenty of mileage left in this spat and I await an on-going trading of insults and apportioning of blame.

Reasonably enough Topping has now taken dead aim at racing's ruling bodies and the Govt, but hopefully he won't forget to take a lingering look in the mirror when sharing out the blame for the Levy's increasingly parlous state. For I don't think I'm alone in thinking that bookmakers' financial contribution to Racing's pot, be it via the compulsory Levy contribution or sponsorship, has the miserly touch of Lester Piggott or Ken Dodd. Frankly they get away with as little as they possibly can, with only Totesport a possible and noteable exception. Frankly their attitude to supporting the product that is still their business core is a disgrace.

So against a backdrop of a rabble of numpties running Racing, the Govt continuing to give a passable impression of an ostrich and bookmakers funding making a duck's arse look well lubricated by comparison, where do we go?

Probably nowhere, but well nourished ROA president, Paul Dixon, appears to think that the Govt in isolation should act to save the day. It's not a bad thought, but much like an appealing theory that has no earthly chance of becoming practice, it's mere verbage in the debate. For if Dixon thinks that Gordon Brown's Govt, with it's consistent failure to do anything for racing, let alone anything constructive, is likely to act then he himself would be a cracking bet to carry off the Slimmer Of The Year title. A change of Govt might help, but that's still the best part of a year away by which time Dixon's "third world" prophecy could be a reality.

How depressing it all is. So depressing in fact that I'm going to get away from it all for a week in Norfolk. With so little jump racing on at the moment Nigel has given the green light to another well earned break so for the next 7 days I'll be gazing out to sea from my deckchair doing some knitting. He wants me to knit him a swimsuit - one of those 30's style one-piece jobs with shoulder straps - as apparently the one that he got off Raymond Mould keeps falling round his knees whenever he goes in the water. So I'm off to Blakeney and Morston to knit for Wales and remind myself of Derby winners of yesteryear and the incomparable Arthur Budgett. Now there was a trainer who knew the time of day- and he wasn't even Welsh.........

Weds Aug 5th: - this morning I plucked up courage and asked Nigel if I could have a broom. His face went the colour of the tomato ketchup that he'd just anointed his breakfast kipper with and after calling me a wizened Welsh witch (he has a quaint turn of phrase) he enquired what was insufficient about the dust pan and brush that he'd so kindly already provided.I explained that it was quite a big house and I was spending too much time on my knees, but he seemed unmoved until Carl sided with me and my wish was granted. Next thing's a dishwasher, but I'd better wait until we have a few winners before putting that request in.

He wasn't in the best of humour anyway, this down to the news that Hills are moving part of their business offshore, a move which Ladbrokes are expected to follow. So the Levy looks like being even smaller with the knock on effect on prize money and trainer's percentages following inexorably. So getting clearance on the broom was a real result.

From a business perspective the decision by Hills' chief executive, Ralph Topping, is simple enough - the company gets to save £10m-£15m - so why wouldn't he? To prove that he also has a perceptive eye he described Racing's hierarchy as a rabble which has provided "no effective leadership for 200 years". Say what you mean, Ralph! So the call to punters by outgoing Levy Board Chairman, Rob Hughes, to boycott offshore bookmakers if they don't pay the full levy is hardly likely to have the bookmaking fraternity quaking in their boots. A toothless body impotent to the end.

Where does this leave the sport, I ask myself? Well, unquestionably in an even sorrier state than before, which takes some believing, as Racing's factions, egos and self interest meander on their merry, disjointed way. But wait! Surely this new committee, Racing For (Loose) Change can come galloping to the rescue as co-ordinator of "the rabble" and provide a focal point for resolving the Govt/bookmaker/Levy issue once and for all. Don't be holding your breath. The chances are much the same as Carl's when he put his little hand on my knee at supper recently. "You've got two chances", I told him. "A dog's chance and F--- all chance". I think a fair and  reasonable Levy, like my dishwasher, is looking a forlorn hope.....

Tues Aug 4th: - as you might well imagine there are few perks attached to this position. Getting to read the Racing Post free of charge is possibly one of them, as is the sight of Sparky's alluringly pert buttocks going up the gallops in the morning. Yachy dah, but he could put a spring in my step! Best of all though, is the amount of time off that I get. Not because I've a particularly caring and considerate employer you understand, it's more a case of nobody knowing whether I'm in or out - mainly because they're all over the place too. So when the chance came for me to tack an extra day onto my weekend away I didn't need to think twice. Monday's don't see me at my best, anyway,so my week started today.

One of the first things I did on getting back was to check out Nigel's website where, not for the first time, I pondered aloud whether the person who writes the Today's Runners slot had their brain in gear. Today the site proclaimed that we had no runners - in which case I need to ask who saddled Weather Front and Nudge And Nurdle at Newton Abbot ? Actually Carl did, but he probably wished that he hadn't bothered after both sank almost without trace in the mud of Devon's riviera. Very much a case of the horses going from full to empty in a matter of strides on ground that didn't suggest much of a barbecue summer!.

Any disappointment was offset by a squint at the Trainer's Championship table which shows Taffies holding 5 of the top 10 places. Although the master of Grange Hill Farm is comparatively slow into his stride, Nigel still sits at number 9 in the rankings surrounded by such illustrious names from the valleys as Evan Williams, Tim Vaughan, Peter Bowen and Alison Thorpe. Near neighbour from the Celtic fringe, Jonjo O'Neill currently sits in pole position and his fellow Irishman, the marauding Gordon Elliott, help keep the number of English training names to a beggarly three. Thus far only David Pipe, some bloke by the name of Nicholls and the comely Emma Lavelle, who fills a pair of jodhpurs almost as tantalisingly as Sparky, make the frame. How long can this wonderful situation possibly last, I wonder?.Here's hoping......

Bronwen - in typical housekeeper pose.