The turf
Just desert
Robin Oakley
Instead of heading for Sandown on Sat- urday I was bouncing across the Kuwaiti desert past the tented encampments of so many Bedouin Pop Larkins. Corrugated iron corrals sheltered a few sheep or camels beside the tents, the pick-up trucks and the satellite dishes.
The nearest I got to a gamble was when we took side-bets on whether or not Prime Minister Tony Blair would be able to resist the lure of climbing into a Tornado cockpit at the Ali Al Salem airbase for the benefit of the photographers. He couldn't, any more than Margaret Thatcher or John Major could when offered the chance of climbing into a desert tank turret. In poli- tics as in racing, it pays to know the form book and I collected. It is the Defence Ministry's secret in continuing to win a hefty share of the nation's pocket money. Prime ministers can rarely resist the chance to play with big boys' toys.
What intrigued me in the desert as we passed a camel racing track was the note in the Kuwaiti pocket-guide which informed me that camel races often involve 60 of the foul-breathed beasts in races up to six kilo- metres. It added cryptically: 'Most of the events usually include some horse-racing and shooting, though the shooting is often cancelled before it can begin.' Eh?
What inspires such cancellations? Is it fear for the life of some hapless rider who has failed to bring home an odds-on humped favourite? Is it alarm that some desert David Nicholson or Nigel Twiston- Davies will overdo the reaction to an offending paragraph from some Kuwaiti commentator?
Had they been racing that day, I have to say, the going would have been sticky. It was raining hard and when it rains, locals informed me, the desert sands turn rapidly to a kind of slushy porridge. But I doubt if the Kuwaiti formbook is too informative about soft ground specialists. It was the first rain since the previous March. Sadly, it seems to be an effect I can have anywhere. It rained continually when I was in sunny Mauritius on holiday last year. In San Diego once, no sooner had a local informed me that we could count on a rain- free vacation than the heavens opened with such a deluge that cars simply had to drive off the road and stop. I am thinking of hir- ing myself out to those who urgently need rainfall. Perhaps French Holly's trainer Ferdy Murphy would like to note my avail- ability in a suitable Cotswold hostelry for the week before the Cheltenham Festival . . .
While I was away I caught up with the cuttings on the controversy about the grow- ing use of tongue straps on horses which have a tendency to 'gurgle' or 'swallow their tongues' and as the part owner of an animal which was to be fitted with a tongue strap for its last outing I feel I must add my two penn'orth. A number of horses have won recently when wearing a tongue strap for the first time. Since the current rules only require declaration of the device 45 minutes before the start many with punters' interests in mind are urging, quite rightly I believe, that they should be declared overnight along with blinkers or visors, which can also transform a horse's prospects. But I must add a cautionary note. While it was intended that our Rhapsody in Blue should have run his last race at Worcester in such a device, he had other ideas. Watching trainer Andy Turnell trying to fit it in the saddling box I had to say I would rather have tried catching snakes bare- handed in a barrel of olive oil. By the time he arrived at the start, Rhapsody had dis- entangled himself from his tongue strap and, although efforts were made to refit it there, they failed. Racing's director of regulation, Malcolm Wallace, has warned sensibly: 'We have to determine whether it is possible to ensure that horses declared to wear a tongue strap will definitely still be equipped with them when they are racing.' So the rules will have to be changed with care. If punters are going to be told that a horse is wearing such a device they will have to be told when it has become dislodged before the race. And trainers may need to be given the option of withdrawing a horse when that is the case. It means new duties both for starters and for racecourse commentators if there really is to be a benefit for punters. As for racing's latest depressing round of arrests, I can say only that I hope pro- foundly they result in the clearing of those concerned. In the case of Charlie Brooks and Graham Bradley it looks like the rehash of an event in a small race which Was investigated long ago. For me, Brad is not just one of the best riders available and a man who looks after his horses. He is a character whom racing would sorely miss. But I suspect he will bear his ordeal with the kind of cool he showed when a light aircraft in the West Indies carrying a num- ber of top riders was enduring a battering. As other passengers yelled and created, Brad could be heard outlining the silver lining: 'Now come on, lads. After all, if this little lot goes down there'll be a lot of spare rides going for the lads back home.' I hope he emerges from his latest turbulence with equal dignity.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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