Juliette's weekly frolic
Apart from one blissful, baking afternoon at the Derby, last week had little to recommend it. Winners are what's wanted and the losing punter is notoriously uninterested in excuses. Where 1 for instance, to point out that for a 150-1 shot Sea Pigeon ran a notable race in the Derby, coming from last to first in the Epsom straight, or that another lost cause, Crazy Rhythm, performed quite admirably to finish fourth in Friday's Weetabix race, you would be bored, irritated and unconsolecl. Anyway, as far as the Oaks is concerned, I paid the penalty for greed and ask for no sympathy, but the fall and subsequent putting down of Christmas Post at Haydock on Friday evening is an entirely different matter. For all that this was the much-heralded first televising of an evening meeting, you would not have discovered the fate of either horse or jockey from the box. The media have a reputation for sensationalising such incidents, but this time they went to the other extreme, continued with their presentation ceremonies and ignored it altogether.
The month of June is something of a problem for the dedicated fol lower of racing who is also trying to earn his living by more conventional methods. A severe bout of summer 'flu struck the poor fel low down last week and the hay fever's already coming nicely to the boil for Royal Ascot. But his imagi nation must continue to work overtime, for sandwiched in between Newbury offers one of her rare midweek fixtures. At least absence won't be so painfully obvious on this occasion and the Berkshire
course won't be short of an audience for the middle leg of the three seasonally-titled handicaps. Doubles are a rarity and Mon Plaisir having taken the Spring Cup for the second successive year, it must be very long odds against Malleny doing likewise ,in Thursday's Summer race. especially as he got hopelessly left behind in his last effort. Still, the grey carries 3Ib less than when beating Knockroe in '72 and having already collected Kempton's ' Rosebery ' can hardly have deteriorated in the interim. Montmartre is a first cousin on the female side to Oaks winner Mysterious; he finished a head !cond to Cavo Doro on his debut last August and might have gone near to beating Natsun in the Dee Stakes, but for running all over the place round Chester's bends. However, his winning prize money has yet to reach £1,500 which make him eligible, and very much so, for Wednesday's Hermitage Stakes. An even sounder case can be made out for another semi-classic three-year-old, Harry Wragg's filly, Istiea. She figured prominently in the Winter betting on the ladies' classics, when under by half a length to subsequent Irish Guineas winner Cloonagh in May. Dad won the English Derby, mum the Irish Oaks, yet her maidenly status sees her getting all the allowances from her contemporaries in Kernpton's Rosemary Fillies Stakes on Saturday. She's also marked down for Newbury's last race on Wednesday where the opposition is likely to be considerably inferior.
Assets E82.78. Otitlay: £3 to win Malleny, Montmartre and Istiea. to Christopher Fuller, our reporter who ran the campaign.
The Post opposed the Midland Electricity Board's system of obtaining and executing entry warrants in connection with overdue electricity bills. The result — a change in the Board's policy and the award of Provincial Journalist of the Year 1971 to Barry Lloyd-Jones, the assistant editor who masterminded the campaign.
This particular affair raised an interesting point with regard to the so-called " pressure from advertisers." The Electricity Board spend a lot of money annually with our company. Their officials never once, at any point, attempted to bring pressure to bear on us to desist nor did they vary their' advertising appropriation. For my own part, I can only say I have never experienced pressure from any advertiser in any way whatsoever.
This newspaper is currently campaigning against pyramid selling and we have a not altogether unsatisfactory record of exposing frauds. In the last few years, two people in this city have been sent to prison as a result of exposure of their activities by the Post.
If this sounds ridiculously self-congratulatory, I apologise. It is not meant to be, for what we do is certainly not unique. The same sort of thing happens in all the cities which Mr Jones mentions in his article, and he notably fails to take account of the wonderful campaigning record of the Telegram & Argus at Bradford under its then editor-in-chief, Peter Harland.
Finally it was the editorial staff of the Sheffield Telegraph who, in 1962, were responsible for bringing to light the notorious "rhino whip" case involving the Sheffield police.
I have no doubt at all that the "al
ternative " newspapers which Mr Jones mentions are vigorous and wellrun, but he must not assume that the longer established newspapers are moribund. The facts !which journalists deal in, even if Mr Jones does not) do not bear this out.
David Hopkinson Editor, The Birmingham Post, P.O. Box 18, 28 Colmore Circus, Queensway, Birmingham.
Previous page
