Industry can survive another TV expose

RACING is set to be put under the microscope by the outside world again shortly and the industry is quaking in its collective boots. An advance raiding party from the lightly-armoured Kenyon Confronts programme has been seen off with just a few wounded but, as racing closes ranks and heats up the boiling oil on the ramparts, the heavy cavalry is lined up outside the gates, awaiting the order to charge.

Two weeks tonight, the BBC will air a 45-minute Panorama invest- igation into the sport entitled The Corruption of Racing, a programme which has been in production for more than six months.

The producers of the corpor-ation's flagship current affairs vehicle are hardly noted for a lightweight approach to any subject and it is most unlikely they would have gone any further than their initial investigations if the matter wasn't worth pursuing.

After Kenyon Confronts, leading trainers Ferdy Murphy and Jamie Osborne were told by the Jockey Club they would be charged with bringing the sport into disrepute. A third trainer, David Wintle, has been told the same. The cage has been rattled and, despite the fact that these three volunteered the comments which have landed them in trouble, there is a view being perpetuated by apologists that the poor mites were duped in some way and must be protected.

The Panorama broadcast will appear on the same day as the BBC's racing team present live coverage of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe from Longchamp. A live celebration of all that is good, closely followed by an edited expose of everything bad. Fair enough in any other sphere, or so you might have thought.

A close examination of cosy rel-ationships between certain racing personalities on different sides of various fences is already known to be on the agenda. Ladbrokes PR "guru" Mike Dillon has been informed that his relationship with top jockey Mick Kinane has been monitored by the team. Again, you would have thought that this was fair enough, but apparently not so.

If he wasn't so ensconced with three-quarters of the racing press and worshipped as "bloodstock adviser" to Sir Alex Ferguson, the relationship could have been investigated by the written media themselves. Indeed, some editors may well be asking questions of their racing hacks after the broadcast to find out just how cosy their rel-ationships have been with Dillon, never mind his with Kinane.

Racing Post writer Alastair Down, himself a part-time TV presenter, warned this week that television can: "Contort and twist reality beyond recognition, fiction can be made fact, honesty can be rendered duplicitous and white transformed into black. This is particularly the case when a programme has an agenda to fulfil - an ethos that has to be adhered to at all costs, a party line to be held."

Presumably he'd have been happier if his own Channel 4 team had been in charge of the documentary. No nasty, investigative journalism, no "door-stepping" of trainer chums as they emerge for first lot and no question that a sport which has betting as its lifeblood might be ever so slightly susceptible to illegal activity.

Instead we'd have lots of misty shots of early morning gallops, lovely pictures of best-dressed ladies, free plugs for the Tote Scoop6 and attheraces, and gormless interviews by Derek "really?" Thompson. All would be rosy in the garden and the bad guys would chuckle and drive off in their Mercs.

One man sure to feature on Panorama is the now retired jump- jockey Graham Bradley who was, for years, openly referred to as "Bad Brad" by on-course punters, long before Inspector Knacker took an interest in possible irregularities in betting patterns on certain races he was riding in.

In 1987, he was stood down for three months for "not trying" in a race at Market Rasen. In 1996 there was controversy when fingers were pointed after a defeat on an odds-on favourite in a two-horse race at Warwick. That ride, on a horse called Man Mood, led to an arrest and subsequent charge of conspiracy to defraud in 1999, but the charges were dropped and Bradley returned briefly to the saddle before quietly retiring.

He quickly became one of the boys again as bloodstock agent to the stars, principally Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler, and his autobiography entitled The Wayward Lad made reference to a friend of his called Brian Wright.

A later court case in June this year involving drug smuggling and money laundering allegations revealed Bradley's links with the fugitive Wright were closer than he'd revealed in his book and the stain has returned. Bradley is to appear before the Jockey Club on November 27 following his court admission that he passed information to Wright for money so it's hardly surprising that others have realised that if this Gold Cup and Champion Hurdle-winning jockey might not be whiter than white, then it could be worth digging further.

All smelly stuff and there is sure to be more. The programme might convince a few more outsiders that racing is completely bent, but there's no reason to pull up the drawbridge and fill the moat with alligators.

ONE of this column's biggest disappointments last season was the performance of my Tote Cesarewitch fancy, Taffrail, in finishing only 22nd at Newmarket.

Taffrail has progressed phys-ically and mentally it seems and, after three fairly "quiet" runs, the four-year-old picked up a 5lbs penalty for the big race on October 19 when winning at Pontefract the other day. That will take his weight up to 9-0, the same as my other main fancy for the race, Ranville.

The big race might be a month away and the Cambridgeshire has to be solved in the interim but each-way ante-post bets could prove worthwhile.

Copyright 2002
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