Furlong Factor

Third day of the month, second blog chapter of the month.  This is too good to be true.  If I can just knock some nonsense out on Tuesday too, I'll be able to take the rest of the month off.  Seriously, though, we'll have to find something else to discuss because I think that we collectively have done Ralphgate to death since the story was broken by the Sunday Telegraph last weekend.  (I will just stick with it for another two or three paragraphs before moving on, though).  I was interested to learn that Matt Chapman, in his column in the Sun yesterday, raised what I thought was the most interesting aspect from the start, ie how on earth did the contents of an email from Ralph Beckett to Annamarie Phelps end up in the paper.

At the BHA's end, I presume that Annamarie Phelps would have shared it with the rest of the BHA board, bar Nick Rust.  At Ralph's end, I gather that he copied some other trainers in.  It seems fair to assume that the leak to the Sunday Telegraph, the most troubling aspect of the story, has to have come from either of those two small groups.  The leaker has a hell of a lost to answer for, bringing racing into disrepute at the top of the list.  (Not to mention causing a lot of harm for Ralph).  The leaker should be charged with bringing racing into disrepute and there would be a strong possibility of a warning-off penalty ensuing.

But that, in all likelihood, is not going to happen.  Ralph's email should not have ended up in the public domain.  It is important to remember that this hugely damaging debacle was not triggered by the email, but by the leak.  The leaker really should be brought to book, but it's hard to see how he or she will ever be unveiled unless volunteering his/her own identity.  And the ironic thing is that leakers in general justify their actions by citing the importance of openness, transparency and honesty - but the usual pattern is that they generally seem to think themselves exempt from this principle!

Funnily enough, this week I've read something which reminds one of the unlikelihood of a leaker owning up to it.  I'm reading the excellent 'The Great Romantic - Cricket and the Golden Age of Neville Cardus', by Duncan Hamilton.  We all know about the famous observation of the Australian captain Bill Woodfull (I think during the Adelaide Test) during the 1932/'33 'Bodyline' series to England manager Pelham Warner, that 'there were two sides out there today, but only one of them was playing cricket'.  But we shouldn't know it.  It was a private remark, and its leaking caused a huge amount of trouble.  (Even more than this more recent leak!).  Apparently the Australian player Jack Fingleton was given the blame, and suffered a lot as a result.  But, according to Hamilton, "The real culprit was Bradman, who never owned up to it."

That's enough of that.  On the subject of this terrific book, though, I was hoping to spend more time reading books and watching television than normal during lockdown as I thought that I'd have time on my hands.  This hasn't turned out to be the case, which is great news as I count my blessings every day still to be fully occupied at a time when tens of millions of Britons must be tearing their hair out from boredom.  One thing which I have done, though, is follow Racing Welfare's Furlong Factor on the internet.  It's really good.  We have one or two heats still to go and then the final, contested by the winners of the heats, next Saturday evening.

We've had a heat-winner in this street, Exeter Road.  James Ferguson has made a great start to his training career down the road in Savile House, Willie Musson's yard.  But we've now found that he has another string to his bow.  Well, two really, because he doesn't just sing; he plays the guitar too.  And he did both to win his heat with a terrific rendition of 'Starman', a song the original of which is so iconic that I would otherwise have said that covering it would be a major mistake.  We saw something similar last night when 2019 Jersey Derby-winning rider Freddy Tett superbly sang and strummed his way through 'Candy', another song which was originally recorded so perfectly by its author (Paolo Nutini) that, unless one had heard Freddy Tetts' version, one would have said that it too would be best left alone.

James isn't the only winner from Newmarket.  Lilli Hines works in Godolphin's pre-training complex in Hamilton Road and she won her heat by singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' as well as Judy Garland sung it.  She's an outstanding singer.  I'd heard her sing previously at Chris Hinson's funeral, and that was very special.  If it was just down to singing, one would have said that she would be unbeatable, but you'd have to mark James and Freddy up for providing their own musical accompaniment.  The final is going to be very entertaining and extremely competitive, so that's next Saturday evening taken care of.

While we're on the subject of Hamilton Road, I should just touch upon Frankland Lodge, where the late Pip Payne trained and in which Pip's widow Linda has two new tenants this year.  We've already mentioned Joseph Parr, who began training at the end of January following the retirement of his grandfather Alan Bailey.  Joe, who is already off the mark, isn't, though, the yard's newest trainer.  Terry Kent, who rode Julie Cecil's jumpers when she was training and who has since then had long spells firstly with Godolphin and then as assistant trainer to Roger Varian, only got his license at the start of March.  That was great new for him - and then lockdown struck two weeks later before he had even had a runner.  This hold-up is frustrating for all of us but it must be particularly frustrating for Terry (pictured in this final photograph, a couple of weeks ago).  But he's spent over 30 years working up to becoming a trainer so let's hope that an extra few weeks or months to get off the ground do not present an insurmountable hurdler.  He has everything that it takes to make a first-rate trainer, so let's hope that for him it is only progress postponed.