Sir, - The conclusion of the 2021 Best Turned Out League may have escaped some people’s attention but I wanted to use your columns to highlight a few notable points.

The participating racecourses tell us the winners of the best-turned-out each raceday. We then aggregate the results to create leagues based on flat/NH and also subdivided by category based on the number of runners from each yard.

The objective is to celebrate the great work of the stable employees day after day but particularly to highlight the amazing standard of care across the industry.

For example, James Fahey (assisted considerably by Heather Heffernan!) had only 44 runners but won the best-turned-out on 23 occasions to win the third NH category.

Another notable but ultimately unrewarded achievement was that of Isobel Ryan in John Patrick Ryan’s yard – Isobel won 72 best-turned-out prizes from 230 runners to achieve an amazing 31% strike-rate.

It wasn’t enough to overhaul the Cullentra team who have many runners, but undoubtedly Gordon Elliott’s team do an amazing job and won the busiest category.

Peter Fahey’s team clinched the middle category Christmas week, crowning a great year for the yard.

Of greater significance is that 73 yards won three prizes or more while 171 yards won a prize somewhere during the year. This tells us so much about the general standards set by our racing yards in caring for and presenting the horses.

We thank the racecourses for their help with this worthwhile exercise which showcases excellence. We encourage all racecourses to come on board this year as we continue to tell the world that the horse comes first. - Yours etc.,

JOHN OSBORNE

Equine Welfare and Bloodstock Director

Horse Racing Ireland