THE LION IN WINTER, ANCIENT MINING, NOT EVERYONE CAN MAKE IT PAY & ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BRYNES BAN.

I never took to the Aiden O'Brien trained The Lion In Winter, but that does not mean I am not saddened to discover that he has suffered a catastrophic injury on the gallops resulting in him being euthanised. He was never going to be as good as his trainer made him out to be in his classic year, as seemingly will be the case with Albert Einstein, though I suspect he was one of those horses who did not have a distance he could excel at, stamina but not speed to be a 7-furlong/10-furlong horse and the speed but not the stamina for 12-furlongs plus. But no horse deserves to die at 4, especially when they are healthy and yet to reach their prime.

The Haydock hole situation continues to result in meetings transferred to other courses. Nottingham have inherited two days and Newmarket one, the Old Newton Cup meeting, with a further day's racing not yet assigned. Investigations as to the exact cause of the hole or perhaps subsidence are on-going, with Haydock officials awaiting the results of ground penetrating radar scans. What is concerning is that mention has been made of ancient mining in the area and if this is the cause of the problem to my untrained mind this could, and I stress this is guesswork on my part, put the racecourse at the risk of closure, either short-term or forever. Ground conditions at Haydock can change from one extreme to the other quite quickly and if this be because of holes or depressions deep within the subsoil, the problem might not have a quick and ready solution. I have been surprised that racing, as was the case on the day when Haydock's troubles began when Friendly Soul nearly met disaster, cannot be held on the inner course, which suggests the problem may well extend beyond the outer course and towards the in-field. Cross fingers and hope for a resolution before the start of the new jumps season.

As a non-betting racing enthusiast, I have no need to read the columns in The Racing Post dedicated to giving advice to readers on how to bet more smartly. Today's banner headline 'How To Make It Pay Next Week' reminded me of similar articles in literary magazines that give advice from A to Z on how to 'write better' and become a published authort. It is all based on the fallacy that every punter and every wannabe writer can win at the game, when the truth is that only a very small majority of readers will become winners and even those will require a large dollop of luck along the way. It is the same outlook for wannabe writers. My best advice for making it pay at Royal Ascot is this - if you back the winner of the Queen Anne just stop betting for the week as you have already made the week pay. Stop while you are ahead. As for becoming a big-name author - forget it as it is a closed shop, with who you know in the business worth thousands to you, while great talent or innovation is as great a stumbling block as an anchor is to a ship in a storm.

To ride for Charles Brynes is to put yourself in jeopardy of a ban or at least might risk your reputation as a sound and honest fellow. I wrote yesterday on how certain people in the sport can have their careers taken from them through no fault of their own. In Ireland, it seems, 'they' are out to get Charles Brynes out of the sport any way they can. He might be a black sheep for all I know. He might on the other hand simply be another Captain Ryan Price, a man with no truck for authority, a man who speaks his mind and cares nothing for what stewards and others think of him. But there is certainly smoke around his reputation at the moment, with yet another of his runners deemed to have not run on its merits, with its young jockey, Tom Kelly suspended for 14-days and the horse excluded for 60-days. This follows on from Phillip Brynes, son of Charles, justifiably suffering a 21-day ban for forcing another jockey off the course at Limerick. To many, including myself, I thought Philip Brynes got off lightly.

If Charles Brynes is a villain, he should have his licence revoked. If he is simply a modern versian of Captain Price, then I say leave him alone and to have stewards treat him the same as any other trainer. It is not a good look for Irish racing to forever have Charles Brynes featuring in the Racing Post for reasons nefarious and his reputation shredded by over-zealous stewards seeing what they expect and wish to see.

In 1964 and 1967, stewards of the National Hunt Committee wrongly pursued Captain Ryan Price for misdeeds they seemingly wanted him to have carried out. When his innocence in the Hill House was proven, those who accused him of wrongdoing continued in their positions of authority.  It seems all these years later Ireland has found its own Captain Price and I hope Charles Brynes, if he is wrongly pursued, possesses a similar level of courage and steadfastness as Captain Price.