Debacle in the sun

Plenty happening, so let's start with the easy stuff.  Two bits of easy stuff, in fact, and one's the weather, which has been lovely for five days now (ie Saturday through to today, Wednesday).  And it's set to remain nice for a few more days, even if I see that a week hence we are forecast a daytime top of 9 and a night-time low of 3.  So I haven't been bold enough to jettison the longs in favour of shorts just yet.  Anyway, several photographs of the recent beautiful mornings illustrate this chapter.

First, though, we have four pictures from our trip to Newbury on Saturday, which was a lovely outing.  The sunshine and warm weather arrived right on cue - well, almost right on cue, because it was heavenly to be at Newbury, but the ground still had not dried out to good.  Anyway, once again Ethics Girl made a very bold start to her year, as she had done at Epsom and Sandown in the previous two years.

This time her bold start saw her run one of the best races of her life to finish an excellent third of 13 in a decent 10-furlong handicap, ridden very well by Noel Garbutt, who is such good value for his 7lb claim that I'd say she would have run worse had any senior rider been in the saddle.Ethics is such a bold little trouper that it's always a pleasure to take her to the races - and it's a particular pleasure to do so when that is on a beautiful day and when one's going to a Grade One track with three Group races on the card.

It's unlikely that we'll have seen a British Classic winner contesting either the Fred Darling or the Greenham, but Maureen (winner of the former and pictured in the previous paragraph) ought to give a good account of herself in the 1,000 Guineas, while Olympic Glory (winner of the Greenham and pictured here) seems at present to be the most likely winner of the Poule d'Essai des Poulains, which he will contest while his stablemate Toronado, winner of the Craven Stakes three days previously, goes to Newmarket for the same stable and connections as the obvious second favourite for the 2,000 Guineas.  Ah, the excitement of the new season!

Right, we've got the easy stuff out of the way; so on to the hard stuff.  I hadn't really been planning to touch upon the Mahmood al Zarooni debacle as really it's a problem for the BHA, Sheikh Mohammed and his subjects, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and possibly DEFRA and/or the police (depending on whether or not it is legal to give anabolic steroids to an animal for reasons other than healing the sick, which I suspect it might not be) to agonize over.  I took the view that the problems of disciplinary action and damage limitation is theirs and not ours, so I'd leave them to get on with it.

However, it has become plain that this is a problem for all of us, because clearly we're all faced with the task of damage limitation.  I was interviewed yesterday afternoon for the Al Jazeera TV station (strange but true) and that interview, along with the Channel Four news last night, made it plain that the public perception of this is not so much of a drug problem in Godolphin in particular, but of a drug problem in racing in general.  And that, of course, is a problem for all of us.

The Al Jazeera discussion revolved solely around whether this is a sign of a drugs problem in British racing, and I'm very pleased that I gave the interview so that I could do my bit to explain that 11 horses testing positive to anabolic steroids from one stable is a very, very different situation from 11 horses testing positive to steroids from 11 different stables.  Anyway, lest there be any misunderstanding, 11 horses have tested positive to anabolic steroids in Mahmood al Zarooni's stable, but the vast majority of stables, including this one, wouldn't touch such substances with a barge pole, and have nothing but contempt for those who do use them.

It is our problem that we might be tarred with the same brush with which those responsible for veterinary policy in al Zarooni's stable have chosen to tar Godolphin - and, unfortunately, seem to have tarred British racing in general.  It behoves us to do what we can to point out that bad apples such as they are the exception, rather than the rule; and so I'm taking the opportunity provided by this blog to do my bit - over and above what I have already done via At The Races, Al Jazeera and the Newmarket Weekly News - to get that message across.

Sheikh Mohammed's problem, of course, is clearly harder still.  For years he has made two things plain: (a) that Godolphin is an ambassador for Dubai, helping to promote the country's position as a respectable, successful, progressive and fashionable member of the 21st-century international community and (b) that he is not merely the proprietor of Godolphin, but its driving force, overseer and hands-on leader.  For Godolphin thus to be so tainted in the eyes of the world in an era in which public opinion (beyond the racing press, who have hitherto been disgracefully apathetic on the subject of drug-use within the sport) is strongly opposed to drugs within any sport is disastrous; and the place which the Sheikh has always portrayed himself as holding within Godolphin makes this a proper double whammy.

He has already declared himself to be appalled, and he clearly now faces the task of demonstrating that he wasn't previously the hands-on leader of Godolphin that had previously been claimed, and that cheating is not his way and is not the Dubaian way; and of proving that, despite the evidence which this week has presented, he is indeed the sportsman and Godolphin, and by extension Dubai, is indeed the respectable member of the international community which we had previously believed.  His trainer has done him and British racing a colossal disservice this week, but the form-book suggests that both the Sheikh and the sport will weather the storm and emerge stronger as a result.  Let's hope so, because we wish both our sport and its most generous patron well.