The turf
Where's the justice?
Robin Oakley
The one thing that surprised him when he moved into the White House, said Presi- dent Kennedy, was that things were as bad as he had been saying they were. I can only hope for the sake of racing that things aren't as bad as the sport's administrators are suggesting they could be. For the first thing to remember about the arrest of the three jockeys Jamie Osborne, Dean Gal- lagher and Leighton Aspell, amid allega- tions of the doping of horses and the fixing of races, is that the case was handed over to the Metropolitan Police last summer after the Jockey Club's security department had made some preliminary enquiries of its own.
The security department are not bum- bling amateurs. They know that much money is won and lost betting on horses and there will always be a few wanting to tamper with the odds. They do not take actions of this sort on a whim. The Jockey Club spends £14 million a year on 'integri- ty services' in racing — surveillance, stable security, camera patrols and the like because it knows how vital it is that punters who have many other things these days to bet on believe the sport is straight. (Well, more or less straight anyway, because part of racing's appeal is that little tinge of dis- reputability on the fringe, the hope of tap- ping into the knowledge of someone better connected than you are who has an extra degree of information about a trainer's intentions and a horse's chances on the day.) There is far less fixing, and certainly far less doping than the conspiracy theorists who need to find someone to blame for having done their money on a disappoint- ing favourite like to imply. Former champi- on jockey Peter Scudamore is convinced that he never came across a fixed race in 13 years riding. And there cannot be much point in anyone trying regularly to dope horses when blood or urine samples are taken from the first three in every race plus any other horses considered to have run unaccountably badly, a total of 7,500 sam- ples a year.
Significantly, Scudamore says that if any- thing is proved in the end against the three jockeys it will be racing's greatest betrayal, and he is right. People in racing love the Tou spoil those dogs.' animals who give them their living. Jockeys who ride half a ton of horse at speed across a series of obstacles take their lives in their hands. Motor racing is the only other sport whose participants are followed by an ambulance. Dopers physically incapacitat- ing a horse risk the lives of both horse and rider. That is why most of us in racing find it impossible to believe that the three jock- eys could have been involved in any con- spiracy which resulted in Avanti Express (ridden by Osborne at Exeter last 7 March) and Lively Knight (ridden by Aspell at Plumpton last 29 March) being doped with the stopping drug acetylpromazine, a tran- quilliser in use in many yards for vets exam- inations and the like, and commonly known as ACP. That is why the trainer Oliver Sherwood, to his eternal credit, says that he will give up the game if Jamie Osborne should be found guilty of any offence. What seems so incomprehensible about the alleged involvement of jockeys is that not only would they be putting their own lives at risk, but ACP needs to be adminis- tered an hour or so beforehand to have maximum effect. At that stage the riders, who do not meet up with their mounts until the parade ring, simply would not have physical access to them.
Not only is most doping likely to be picked up by the testing process but there are so many other, easier ways of restrict- ing a horse's chances than by involving phials, syringes and needles or an ACP tablet lodged in a Polo mint. You can run the animal on the wrong course or on the wrong going. You can fit it with the wrong shoes or simply give it d bucket of water at the wrong time. You can ride it against its natural characteristics or contrive to be hampered in running ...
But whatever kind of case the Jockey Club and the Metropolitan Police believe they may have against the three jockeys, one an established star, one a middle- ranker and one an advancing youngster capable of making the big time, there is no justification for the denial of natural justice which they suffered last week in having their permits to ride removed by the Jockey Club's licensing committee. At Cheltenham last Saturday I could not find a man, woman or boy who agreed with that action. For where do we stand? The three have been released from custody on bail until 29 April. No charges have been laid against them and yet they have been denied the capacity to earn a living.
As Newbury's Liberal Democrat MP David Rendel has pointed out, in other walks of life people stopped from doing their jobs pending an enquiry are suspend- ed on full pay while enquiries proceed. But jump jockeys are mostly freelancers paid by the ride and by the percentage of the prize money they win. In British courts you are innocent until proven guilty. In Portman Square, it seems, you are treated as being guilty even before a charge has been laid. This article will go to press before a renewed Jockey Club hearing this week at which the jockeys will plead to be allowed to go on riding. The footballers Bruce Gro- belaar and Hans Segers were allowed to go on playing for their clubs, earning wages and bonuses, when they faced actual charges. Racing should do no less for the bailed jockeys. The licences were with- drawn on the grounds, we understand, that public confidence in racing might weaken if the trio were to ride on. But I simply do not believe that racing folk are less open- minded than football crowds, and I hope sincerely that by the time this article has appeared the authorities will have relented. Natural justice demands no less. But they might remember, too, that the last time anybody was successfully prosecuted for nobbling in Britain was in 1963. And, if Osborne and co do come through this affair with their heads held high, then the bill for compensation could be a hefty one.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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