B.H.A. VERSUS PUBLIC OPINION, CLASSICS AGAIN FOR EXPORT, EPSOM & THE PAST.

The B.H.A. are standing their ground on the controversial decision by the Epsom stewards to declare Benvenuto Cellini a non-runner in the Derby due to the horse playing silly buggers in the stalls. Public opinion is seemingly to a man against them. Who will win? Will the B.H.A. sees sense and ignore the ways of the East where punters are first, last and central to the sport? Or will, as unfashionable as it has become under a Labour government, democracy win the day?

I do not remember the ins and outs of the Harry Angel incident, though I think it resembled Saturday's incident. The other incident of renown when two of the stalls were slow to open in the Dash a few years ago was clearly a mechnical issue and resulted in two horses losing all hope of winning. In the latter incident it was obviously correct to declare the horses involved non-runners and the rule brought about by the incident should only cover similar failings of the human element of the sport. Would a goal in football be disallowed if the wind played a part in diverting the flight of the ball, thereby putting the goalkeeper at a disadvantage? At Epsom, the whole affair was constructed by the horse, as it would be if it had reared as the stalls opened or stumbled on exiting the stalls. If you take this philosophy to the extreme, a punter should have his bet declared void if the horse in question refused at the first fence or run of the course by a loose horse.

The camera, fortuitiously placed on the front of the stall of the favouite, clearly shows a stalls handler alerting Ryan Moore that he was sitting on a three-legged horse. Ryan looks back, sees the problem and as he tries to draw the attention of the starter to his plight, at the same instance the starter engages the mechanism and the Derby is in motion. I am the first to criticise starters, especially over jumps, but on this occasion I do not think any blame can be attached to the starter. This situation was caused 100% by the horse, with even Aidan O'Brien brushing the incident away by saying, with the majority in agreement with him, that this is how racing goes sometimes.

What has been overlooked due to the cocked-leg incident is that two more English classics have gone for export. That is 3 out of four, with the St.Leger to come, a race which Ballydoyle will doubtless supply half the field. In National Hunt, if only we could overcome Willie Mullins, British trainers would win back their dignity. On the flat, there is a Willie Mullins times two, plus a mini Willie in Joseph O'Brien. It is an inconvenient fact that top suppliers of Grade I horses, as with Juddmonte adding Joseph to their roster, are slowly but surely moving horses across the Irish Sea.

The Epsom Reinvigoration Plan should not be judged on the two-days just gone. The race programme looked good, though I believe £500,000 was wasted boosting the prize-fund of the Coronation Cup as it made no difference to either the number or quality of the field. I do think, though, they should look at both the idea of a three-day meeting split over 3-days, with musical events in the days in between and the suggestion of holding the meeting over the Whitsun Bank Holiday or staging the Derby on Whit Monday, with the Oaks on the following Saturday. Staged over  6 or 7-days, whether for a 2 or 3-day meeting, would give Epsom more chance of at least one-day of racing under a cloudless sky.

The past, as is now frequently said, is a different country. I was reminded of this when re-reading Bill Curling's biography of Captain Cecil Boyd-Rochfort who trained at Freemason Lodge, now owned by Amo Racing. Boyd-Rochfort won the 1924 Irish Oaks with Amethystine, a filly considered as nothing more than useful by her trainer and certainly not good enough for the English equivalent. As a 4-year-old, and this would never happen now, she was prepared for the Great Jubilee Handicap at Kempton Park where she was given 6st 7Ibs by the handicapper. Amongst the opposition were two French challengers, one of whom, Tapin, had won the Lincolnshire Handicap, as the Lincoln was titled back then, the other, Irismond, the first to carry the colours of M.M Boussac in England. The top weight Twelve Pointer had won the previous year's Cambridgeshire, who had to give weight to the previous year's St. Leger winner, Salmon Trout. It was classy handicaps like this that the European Pattern destroyed. Amethystine won, by the way.