The turf
Raising questions
Robin Oakley
What odds would you have got ten years ago against John Major having had an affair with Edwina Currie? The same sort of price, I suspect, as those wagering that Elvis Presley would be found alive, on the moon. Perhaps, though, I should have had an inkling of his form with the ladies from the way in which the then Cabinet minister once seized Mrs Oakley at a Jeffrey Archer party and swung her off her feet in a circle before a startled Sunday newspaper editor and a leading actor. The latest 'revelations' about racing on Panorama come as somewhat less of a surprise to those who have anything to do with the sport. We knew that the disgraced ex-jockey Dermot Browne, warned off years ago, has claimed he doped 27 horses for alleged drug baron Brian Wright and that a number of jockeys, out of naivety, greed or a combination of the two used to accept hospitality from Wright, known as 'Uncle'. We have heard of other top jockeys being seen in the company of known criminals and of bookmakers giving certain trainers 'no lose' accounts to ensure a good flow of information.
But the rich will always be with us in racing and they will continue to enjoy drawing sportsmen into their social circle. The rich include those who turn out to have acquired their riches by less conventional means.
Panorama's case, impressively presented but short on names and pack drill, rested too much on the testimony of suspect witnesses like Browne and potential axegrinders like Roger Buffham, the Jockey Club's former director of security, who left after an investigation into allegations of gross misconduct. (Since the ineffective Buffham came from the security services, and Panorama made a complete idiot, too, of his successor as security director Jeremy Phipps, formerly with the SAS, I am left worrying more about the security of the country.) But Panorama's montage should not be brushed aside simply because it depended on Buffliam, It is bad for the image of racing and it did raise questions which need to be answered about the painfully slow procedures of a self-perpetuating oligarchy in keeping racing clean. The Jockey Club needs to sharpen up. Perhaps its licensing and disciplinary functions need to be taken over by a more independent body, less inclined to try to tackle problems with a quiet word in an influential double-barrelled ear. The government needs to help by giving the club access to criminal records to help them keep out the undesirables who will always be attracted to a sport dependent on gambling. It needs, too, to pass legislation to ensure that they and other gambling regulators get access to bookmakers' records to follow the money trails.
There will, however, always be a raffish fringe in racing. Indeed, there is probably something a bit dodgy about all of us who prefer spending our Saturday afternoons on the racetrack to washing our cars, tidying our gardens or playing porter to the astute Mrs Oakley on an antiques-buying expedition. But some people will always have more information than others, there will always be some manipulation of form and half the fun is deciding when a particular stable's horse is 'off'. Hanse Cronje hasn't killed Test cricket, the Grobelaar case hasn't stopped people watching football and I'll lay a shade of odds that the crowds turning up for racing this winter won't be any fewer than those who came last year.
In a week which has put the focus on racing's bad guys it is handy to be reminded that racing is also stacked with some of the most decent people you will find anywhere, and that fairy tales still happen. This column remains a fervent admirer of Sir Michael Stoute's filly Russian Rhythm. I still believe she will win the 1000 Guineas over a mile next spring. But when she was beaten in the Of Cheveley Park Stakes last week by Henry Candy's Airwave, I was still happy to cheer home the winner. Airwave is a specialist sprinter who is never likely to tackle more than 6f and she is clearly something special to note for next year.
At Newmarket she showed blistering speed to go past Russian Rhythm and become the first Group One winner in a 20-year career for Chris Rutter, who had signed up already to start a new career as a stewards' secretary in November. He would have retired there and then, but with a stack of race meetings the next day Candy insisted on his stable jockey riding one more time at Sandown on Saturday. There the loyal, hard-working Rutter had the perfect send-off. with Candy providing a final day winner for him in the shape of Catmint. As the jockey dismounted and headed off to weigh in, Henry joked that he'd just taken a message for him: he'd been offered a spare ride in the 9.30 at Wolverhampton. He received a colourful expression in reply, one known both to barrack room and, it seems from Panorama, to the Jockey Club. Asked what his friends in the weighing room thought of him enlisting with the stewards, Chris Rutter replied laconically, 'I haven't got any friends in there any more, have I?' He has, of course, but good luck in his new career to a straight jockey who has ridden for 20 years for the most honourable of trainers. There are plenty more like them, too.
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