EVERYONE loves a horse racing quiz, so here’s my pre-Christmas version – all the questions relate to recent Grade 1 Cheltenham Festival winners, so it won’t be too testing; I’ll trust you all to mark your own work.

Who owned the winner of the 2017 Arkle Challenge Trophy?

Who owned the winner of the 2017 RSA Chase?

Who owned the winner of the 2016 RSA Chase?

Who owned the winner of the 2016 World Hurdle?

Who owned the winner of the 2016 Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle?

The answers are at the bottom of this article if you need to check, but I’m sure you don’t because when a horse wins a big race at a televised meeting, its owners are paraded in front of the television cameras and interviewed ad nauseam, telling us about what attracted them to the Sport of Kings, how they found their champion, and what a massive thrill it is just to be there, let alone win one of racing’s most coveted prizes.

When the horses concerned win multiple races at the highest level, the blanket coverage means that even casual viewers must be familiar with the names of the owners, surely? Well, the test of that theory is whether you got five out of five in the quiz, and if you did, you’re smarter than me, because I’ve had to look a couple up.

The bottom line is that while it’s almost impossible to be an occasional viewer of televised racing and not know of Altior and who trains him, there tends to be only passing mention of the actual owners of horses, unless they are big players in the game.

GIMCRACK DINNER

This was a point raised at the annual Gimcrack dinner, a traditional event where the owner of the winner of York’s historic Gimcrack Stakes is invited to give a speech, one of the few extra privileges granted to owners and a throwback to a different era.

It’s tempting to ask who gave this year’s Gimcrack speech, and I’d bet correct answers would be very thin on the ground, but in this instance the deed was done by Abdulla Ahmad Al Shaikh, the son of winning owner Ahmad Abdullah Al Shaikh (10 bonus points if you gave either of those as your answer).

In his speech, he praised British racing and its traditions, its fairness and the way it is covered in the media, and naturally singled out York as being a track which offered a warm welcome and racing of great quality, but he did raise two questions.

The first was the issue of prize money, and why many group races were worth less than handicaps which were usually won by horses of lesser quality, although that hoary old chestnut will have to wait for another day.

His other gripe was that in the aftermath of big races, both the trainer and the jockey receive lavish praise, and are sought after for interviews, whereas the winning owner, who has paid for the horse’s purchase and stumped up tens of thousands in training fees, tends to get a passing mention at best. He’s not wrong.

It’s true that people come racing to see the horses primarily, and autograph seekers are more interested in jockeys than trainers, and in trainers far more than owners, but neither the horses nor jockeys would be there to marvel at without the investment of the boring old owner.

It’s true that the most charismatic of owners, or perhaps the most enigmatic, will always be sought out for interview post-race – who could let a Gigginstown winner go by without giving Michael O’Leary the chance to call it “a rat” or “the worst horse I own” to add a bit of spice to the occasion.

But if the owner is Joe Bloggs (no points if you guessed Joe Bloggs for any of the quiz questions, by the way), then he or she will be lucky to get in camera shot at all.

It’s somewhat ironic that ITV Racing have made a huge effort to know the names of all the lads and lasses leading up on a raceday, but the men and women who pay the bills are still largely relegated to the role of extras. In an era where we are trying to attract new owners to the sport, the prospect of paying hefty sums in return for anonymity isn’t going to appeal to many.