Amateur jockeys will have been stung by the BHA announcement, this week, that Hunterchases will only be permitted to take place for the foreseeable future if the runners are ridden by professional jockeys. I think the professional jockeys should be obliged to change in the horsebox and wear a thick woolly jumper…

An acquaintance of mine, who I shall call Fred in order to preserve his anonymity (although she could just as easily be Freda), is frustrated about the closure of betting shops due to lockdown.

Fred, who belongs to a generation that prefers to feel the cool edge of the polymer banknotes as they’re passed over the counter, refuses to open an online betting account for fear of having his bets tracked…

In this week’s Border Post blog we take a look back at all the great things that happened in 2020.

Starting with…

I’m really looking forward to the 50th Covid-tide Celebrations. I remember the days, prior to the start of the mid-winter secular festival, when we used to enjoy something called Christmas…

There’s a rumour circulating in Kelso that Santa Claus is coming to town on Sunday. He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice, he’s going to find out who’s naughty or nice.

When the lyrics to that perennial Christmas favourite were recorded for the first time in 1934, they were an instant hit – selling 30,000 records and 500,000 copies of sheet music in 24 hours. Sheet music! Try explaining that to the Spotify generation.

Standing in the press room at Goodwood one day, I remember the late Christopher Poole, racing correspondent for the London Evening Standard, explaining that he’d been on holiday to Maine in order to determine whether it was possible to eat too much lobster.

The conclusion he came to was ‘no’…

This year, according to the Tesco advertisement, there is no naughty list. Oisin Murphy will be relieved.

As for the rest of us, it’s possible that some will now be wondering whether we shouldn’t have been a bit more daring during 2020. It comes to something when your biggest regret of the first major lockdown relates to the number of chocolate digestives you consumed…

While doing their best to preserve our health, the collective UK governments have attempted to create some simple rules for the facilitation of felicitous festive gatherings.

Unfortunately most of us are still a bit confused and I can’t quite understand why they didn’t simply adopt the new saliva test devised exclusively for us at Kelso Racecourse.

While it’s always good to crown a clear winner, sometimes it’s just as important to ensure that there isn’t an unjust loser.

That’s what happened last Saturday when two horses galloped through the dusky twilight of the final race at Cheltenham. Judge Guy Lewis was unable to separate Elle Est Belle and Ishkhara Lady, declaring a dead heat which led some commentators to declare that racing was stuck in the dark ages.

The Cheltenham November Meeting is a festival which celebrates the victory of light over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance.

Oh no, hold on…. that’s Diwali. The Cheltenham Meeting represents the victory of horseflesh over other forms of beauty, hope over experience and a decent tweed jacket over the nippy November wind. But it’s an easy mistake to make…