The best policy?

I'm probably not in the best frame of mind to review last night's 'Panorama' programme, so if I had any common sense I'd wait a few days before giving my carefully considered (ie diplomatically editted) opinions. But what the hell? There's no time like the present, so here goes (although I will just firstly explain why I'm in such a sour frame of mind).

Unfortunately we had to draw stumps on Polly's career today. Don't worry - there's nothing wrong with her: she's just terribly slow. We've actually known that for quite some time (or more or less known that) but one can find oneself in a situation where one's gone so far down a road that, although one's pretty sure that there's nothing at the end, one might as well go to the end just in case. (Lest, by the way, you should form the impression that I've been stringing this out at anyone else's expense, I should add that I have been responsible for the lion's share of the cost, and that I've been very vocal for quite a while now in making my doubts about the wisdom of prolonging the agony known to my partners: in fact, prior to this afternoon, James Daly, the minority share-holder in whose colours she has been running, had been berating me in a very jocular manner for my negativity in writing her off too soon, as had Emma). Anyway, even though I've been at least 90% certain of her lack of talent for quite some time, today was still rather a sad day as the final nail was hammered into the coffin of our hopes and dreams as, having been tried at short and middle distances, today she tackled a long distance with similarly unspectacular results.

So that's another dream which has died. And an expensive one too. It's my own fault because Polly didn't even make my long-list of yearlings at the 2006 October Yearling Sale, as she failed my number one Golden Rule. (I know that one shouldn't have a Golden Rule, as every year there are champions who break every rule in the book; but when one is going to the sale just to buy one or two very inexpensive yearlings, one knows that one isn't going to buy all the champions there - in fact, one is very likely to buy none of the champions there - so one does't mind missing champions, but what one wants is to miss the duds, and my Golden Rule signficantly reduces the chance of my buying a dud). Anyway, Polly's pedigree didn't pass my Golden Rule, so I had no interest in her - plus she was by Polish Precedent from a Spectrum mare, both stallions being ones which I had learned the hard way to avoid. However, her breeder still owned her because she hadn't attracted a bid and, against my better judgement, I agreed to lease her. The fact that I somehow got the impression that he had pledged to take a share in her if I did lease her was a factor in my taking her on, which was a pity as I must have misheard him when I thought that he said that. Anyway, we took her home and broke her in before she went back to the stud for a break before rejoining the stable in the spring of her 2007 - and, roll on 16 months, today was the final confirmation that I've wasted a lot of time and money (having been responsible for at least 90% of her expenses) on a project which was, it now transpires, doomed to failure from the start. So that makes me feel rather an idiot, as well as a little sad. But, to look on the bright side, she's a lovely, sweet-natured filly with whom it's been a pleasure to work, if an expensive one.

Anyway, I digress. Panorama. I thought it a much better programme than previous ones, because it didn't fall into the trap of being sensationalist and side-tracked. But wasn't it depressing? Leaving Kieren aside, who just had a cameo part in the show as he had no contact with the Mr Bigs and consistently won on the horses which they wanted to see beaten, haven't the stars of the show been lucky to get off so lightly? I feel that the sport's rulers have a lot of questions to answer, because this really should not have been allowed to go on. I hadn't seen Legal Set's race at Lingfield before last night, but really things should have been knocked on the head there and then: the jockey should have got life for that. If it is established that jockeys can get away with riding horses in a way which makes it appear to any impartial observer that it was 'overwhelmingly unlikely' (good phrase which I have borrowed from a previous Jockey Club press release) that they were doing anything other than trying to ensure that the horse didn't win the race, then there is no hope of keeping the sport clean, because it basically means that would-be crooks know that they can get away with virtually anything. I am aware that the regulators are ham-strung by the modern-day philosophy that nobody is responsible for their own actions, that nothing is ever anyone's fault, that the law is generally more effective at protecting the guilty than the innocent, dot, dot, dot - but nobody, not even the Jockeys' Association and certainly no journalist, could have quibbled with Legal Set's jockey getting a very long ban indeed for that ride. And if he had ... well, we mightn't be in this mess we're now in. And don't play the 'depriving the poor soul of his livelihood' card - there are plenty of ways of someone who rides horses to earn a living without riding in races. That's what racing lads do. Heaven forbid that someone might have to accept the consequences of his own misdemeanours and end up working for a living!

So I just found the whole programme sickening. Of course we know that crooks will always try to find an opening, and of course we know that racing attracts, in addition to the many really nice people one is fortunate enough to meet as one goes through a life in the sport, the likes of Miles Rogers and that horrible man who owns the factory in Stevenage, but to have confirmation that the authorities have failed so badly in their duty to keep them in check really didn't make for pleasant viewing. Funnily enough, most people on the programme - bar the subjects, obviously - came out if very well (didn't the Betfair man play a blinder?), although Ben Gunn seemed extremely unimpressive. It really wasn't good enough that, when questioned as to why the Security Department hadn't done anything about the activities of the horrible man from Stevenage, he couldn't come up with an answer, instead saying that he couldn't comment as they hadn't yet decided what action to take - these events were up to seven years ago, so why on earth has that not been long enough to take such a decision? From my point of view, the programme did sort of answer one question which has been bugging me: why had some of the races originally on the list of Miles Rodgers' lays been swept under the carpet? (Well, it didn't answer the question at all, but it did point out that the original list had been much longer than the final list). The original list caught my eye because I trained one of the horses on it, Diamond George. That was an odd one: George had run second at 33/1 on his debut at Lingfield, and we sent him up to Musselburgh for his second start and - you've guessed it - he started at a much shorter price (despite drifting markedly) and ran considerably worse. I must say that I wasn't too worried, because George basically just wasn't good enough at Musselburgh, and subsequent events showed that he had been flattered first up and was basically just a very ordinary horse. Admittedly Robert Winston didn't ride him particularly well at Musselburgh, but that was totally academic as far as I was concerned, because he wouldn't have won however he'd been ridden. The funny thing was that Steve Goodwin, organiser of Diamond Racing, was adamant that Robert had stopped him, and seemed very loathe to accept my view that the ride wasn't a factor in the horse's defeat. Obviously Steve had the advantage of me in making educated guesses as to what had or hadn't been going on that day as he had been monitoring the market on Betfair, but as far as I was concerned I had no complaints about Robert. So I was rather taken aback to find a couple of years later that this was one of the runs under the spotlight (and even more taken aback subsequently to see Robert as Diamond Racing's regular jockey for a period, which was about as bizarre as you could get).

So anyway, God knows what has or hasn't been going on. All one can do is reflect that many of those who cling to the belief that honesty is the best policy might have found their faith shaken further by the fact that both Fergal Lynch and Darren Williams rode a winner today!

And, lastly, to go from the serious to the inconsequential, what on earth has the BHA names czar been up to? We are three days into Glorious Goodwood. On the first day the horse who ran second in the 1970 Derby won the last race, and on the second day the sire of the 1973 Derby winner won the last race. Shame on those who applied for Gyr and Firestreak (oh dear, that was the Queen), but further shame on whomever allowed them: if a name which is written into Derby history isn't sacrosanct, then what is? For today's howler, I can't really blame the authorities, but really it isn't clever that there have now been two horses called Yeats trained in the same stable (just as Kevin Prendergast has trained two horses called Exdirectory - although I'm assuming that he'd have taken over the 1978 Irish Derby place-getter on his father's retirement). Perhaps I'm being too harsh in blaming the names czar, as people should know better than to want to re-use them (Prolific, placed this season in both the Norfolk Stakes and July Stakes, incidentally has Photo Flash as both his dam and his fourth dam, which isn't very good). One could understand it if the original Yeats had been a dud, but he wasn't: he was a good horse, and a good stallion too. I know that we're told that the first Yeats was named after Yeats the poet (or I assume that, being the sire of (Our) Poetic Prince, he was) while the second is named after Yeats the painter, but - honestly!

And now Angry From Newmarket is off to write to 'Points Of View' to complain about all the repeats on TV (or to complain that Channel Four's coverage of Goodwood contains a 'lifestyle section'). Bah, humbug!