Farewell Nic

It is worth reading the pieces in today's  Guardian and  Telegraph in which Nic Coward gives his view about his tenure at the BHA. I have often said to people that Nic reminds me a great deal of Tony Blair in many ways, not least of which is his single-minded pursuit of a goal once he has weighed up the facts as he sees them and decided upon a given course; and for better or worse, he confirms that view in my mind in these articles. I read them both with two thoughts in mind. The first was how wonderful it must be to have that level of self-assurance. I can't say I look back on my last four years, or indeed any stretch of four years of my life, with quite the same confidence in my own success. The second - perhaps unsurprisingly given our different takes on the focus of the last few years - was that it brought to mind the time when one of racing's (now fully united) CEOs told me how Churchillian Nic was . He was referring, cheekily, to his rhetoric; but it seems he could have meant other ways too. Recall Winston's House of Commons speech of January 23, 1948, which I suspect you will remember in its shorter, misquoted form. The full line was this: "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history."