Lessons of harsh winter advocate that bumper cards should be a fixture

Unsurprisingly, Kempton is to the fore with proposals. If temperatures had not risen in time, the Polytrack here could have been employed uniquely on Saturday, with a Flat card for jumps horses. A staggering entry of 392, including many high-profile horses, testified to the need.

Barney Clifford, the clerk of the course, would like to have carried the card forward to yesterday - but the prior booking of Kempton for a meeting of 1,500 British Airways cabin crew put paid to that.

Now, Clifford has longer-term plans. “I’ll be suggesting that we implement all-bumper cards here on Wednesday evenings through January and February next year,” he said. “We can provide a kind surface for young horses and it would take the strain off turf courses that might be chewed up at that time of winter.”

This is such a sensible idea that the British Horseracing Authority should adopt it with the same speed and enthusiasm it must now direct to sanctioning extra jumps fixtures for the neglected North.

Newcastle, tomorrow, will be the first jumps fixture in the North for five weeks. Trainers have gone to remarkable lengths to keep their horses active - several ferrying them to the nearest beaches and Nicky Richards even temporarily relocating Money Trix and other marquee horses from Cumbria to Newmarket. Track action is overdue.

Kempton, meanwhile, deserved the attention that came through restarting turf racing on terrestrial TV. It did not happen without Herculean efforts. Amy Starkey, the managing director, said: “Last week, we had everyone out of the office helping the groundstaff to shovel snow from the public areas. We hired a JCB and eventually the site was cleared.”

Starkey wears her passion for Kempton vividly. She knows it can be drab, especially when close to deserted for a winter all-weather card, and has some novel ideas to improve the experience.

Certain schemes are working well - admission charges have been slashed for mundane meetings and an affordable bistro menu introduced in the Panoramic restaurant. Kempton is looking ahead with imagination. Clifford’s anti-freeze plan should be acted upon gratefully.

There will be more than just a landmark to celebrate when Timmy Murphy ticks off two more winners to complete 1,000 over jumps in Britain. Plenty of jockeys have reached that figure before him but none had to navigate such a stormy passage, none needed to reform their personality as well as that of their riding.

When he emerged from Wormwood Scrubs in October 2002, Murphy feared his career would die of alienation. Indeed, during his 84 days in prison, for aberrations in an alcoholic haze, Murphy convinced himself he would be “too embarrassed” to ride again.

This is worth repeating, not to agitate old wounds but as the most candid guide to the road Murphy has travelled in the past seven years. He has needed and acknowledged the help of some trusted friends but, in the final analysis, only he could effect the changes that have made him what he is today.

Once, by his own admission, a whip-happy rider who “spent most of my time suspended”, Murphy has become the very opposite. His virtues now are tenderness and timing, a capacity to bring the best out of horses without abusing them. When it all comes together, he is poetry.

Since David Johnson took a chance on him as retained jockey, Murphy has been free to express himself on such horses as Our Vic, Comply Or Die and Well Chief - and how appropriate it would be if the last-named brought up the 1,000 at Ascot on Saturday.

But Murphy has also become a more approachable, likeable character. He is a husband and father again and the smile that seldom dared show its face is now a fixture. At 35, he is thinking about a future out of the saddle, possibly training. Enjoy his talents while we can.