More debacles

We'll start with the easy stuff.  Well, it wasn't that easy, as running well in the Flat Jockeys v. Jumps Jockeys handicap at Sandown on Whitbread Day proved a much more difficult task than I'd imagined.  It's lovely to go to Sandown on Whitbread Day, but it's considerably less lovely when one's horse runs badly than when one's horse runs well.  I'd expected a good run from Grand Liaison, but sadly we didn't get that, as you'll know if you've read the results.  And if you've read the Racing Post analysis of the race, you'll know that her jockey James Doyle reported that she lost her action.

That's always a worry, but thankfully there appears to have been no significant harm done.  James said that she stumbled just inside the two-furlong mark, possibly through putting her foot in a hole, which would have been easy to understand as the track was as you often get in the spring: it felt good walking it, but the post-winter moisture farther down meant that it was softer than it appeared, and it was fairly chewed up by the last race, so it would have been very uneven.

I, though, felt that the damage was done as she jumped out of the stalls as she suffered a hefty 'coming-together' with the horse on her inside.  That really knocked her out of her stride and she never looked her usual strong-travelling, powerful self after that. James felt that she lost her action because she sprawled, while I felt that she sprawled because she was never travelling on an even keel after the first metre of the race.

Whatever - it was a disappointing run, but she lives to fight another day and she'll bounce back.  So that was disappointing - but I'd already had a 'result' for the day as I'd had the thrill of patting the best steeplechaser in training (Sprinter Sacre) and the horse from whom he inherited that mantle (Kauto Star, whom I was able to spend a couple of minutes idolizing, as he came out earlier than he needed as he was going on the truck last).  They'd been there to take part in the end-of-National-Hunt-season-champions'-parade, and I happened to find myself in the box park when they were preparing to head home.  Unbelievably, I didn't have my camera in my pocket at the time, so my phone had to do, which wasn't ideal but was better than nothing.  My Kauto Star photo was easily the better of the two pictures, which explains why my Sprinter Sacre shot is not on display.

So that was that.  And another easy thing is the weather, which has reverted to being fairly good, particularly in the mornings as the last two days have started with splendid sunshine, as four photographs from today will show, after this paragraph's and then next paragraph's illustrations (taken yesterday).  These next two show our two runners at Yarmouth tomorrow - or the first one shows much of Wasabi and also Gift Of Silence's ears, as the two of them bowled around Bury Hill AW yesterday morning; while the second one, taken only a few minutes later, shows Wasabi, on her way to a  (satisfactory) reminder of what starting stalls are.

Right, so looking outside this stable we have the anabolic steroids debacle rumbling on.  I'd remarked in an earlier chapter that the BHA probably wasn't the greatest of al Zarooni's worries as the police could be a bigger problem for him; so it was interesting to read in today's Racing Post the penalty for importing, possessing and administering illegal drugs (and the drugs which he used are not licensed for use in the EU) is a jail sentence of up to two years.  So it's going to be interesting to see how this aspect pans out - just as it's going to be interesting to see how the whole thing pans out.

It would actually be very difficult for the BHA to know what to do next.  They've stated, wisely, that they're only in the early stages of the investigation; but that assertion, of course, does not answer the question of where they go from here.  The blood tests of the Moulton Paddocks inmates were being taken today.  These will, presumably and one would hope, come back clean.  And what is the next step?  Interviewing Sheikh Mohammed is the obvious starting point, as the BHA laboriously works its way round to confirming that al Zarooni did indeed take the bizarre decision to start using these drugs off his own bat, without reference to his boss, his boss' representative or his (boss') vets.

It will be a tedious and baffling project, but it's got to be done, because for the good of racing, of Sheikh Mohammed and of Dubai, it is important that the world is able to see something rather more substantial (or 'robust', as the modern way would have it) in exoneration of the Godolphin hierarachy than the rather unlikely stories which al Zarooni has told the disciplinary department so far.  And then, by way of light relief and by a terribly unfortunate coincidence, we've had Gerard Butler's woes.

Under normal circumstances, poor Gerard would have attracted nothing more striking that three sentences of page 17 of the Racing Post.  As it is, though, he's likely to be front-page news tomorrow, as the man on the Clapham Omnibus - who is not being encouraged to differentiate between illegal anabolic steroids (which are body-building drugs) and legal cortico steroids (which are anti-inflammatory drugs) - digests another horse-racing steroid scandal.  I don't use cortisone, but plenty of trainers (to my silent disapproval) do as it's legal, as long as it is administered far enough in advance of the race so that it doesn't show up in the bloodstream on race-day.

Why Gerard has been so unlucky is that his vet has seemingly recommended a cortico steroid which other trainers had been using, which Gerard has taken at face value as a cortico steroid and has used as such in the belief that it was a legal cortico steroid - without realising that its ingredients included an illegal anabolic steroid.  The BHA seemingly knew that he was using it, but its vet too didn't know of its one illegal ingredient - but when some of his horse were tested in training and were found to have an anabolic steroid in their system, the sh*t has hit the fan at the very worst possible time.  Gerard has done nothing wrong other than take bad advice in good faith, but he might pay a hefty price for it - while racing too is paying a hefty price in the form of negative publicity.  Very sad.  All in all, whoever decided to stick the anabolics into the Moulton Paddocks horses has a lot to answer for.

But at least, as you can see here, the leaves are starting at last to appear on the trees.  So that's good.