Fair minded

One of Alan Bennett’s characters once lamented, ‘We tried to set up a small anarchist community …but people wouldn’t obey the rules.’ Perhaps he should have found a job within horse-racing. Just look at the aftermath to this year’s St Leger. I was at Bath Races that day when the authorities thoughtfully broadcast the Doncaster Classic on their big screen, and I am not writing without prejudice. Some near the Bath screen endured the undignified spectacle of a tan-trousered spectator, now well qualified for his bus pass, giving a passable imitation of a whirling dervish while shouting home Ralph Beckett’s filly Simple Verse as she flashed first past the post after a battle with Bondi Beach. Your correspondent was celebrating an 8–1 winner who had shown courage in driving through a gap and resisting a rival who challenged her again in the final strides. But then came the bing-bong announcing a stewards’ inquiry. ‘Thank God it wasn’t in France,’ I told Mrs Oakley on the phone as we anticipated a good dinner out. ‘French stewards are very tough — any hint of interference and they chuck out the winner. Here the race nearly always stays with the horse who went first past the post unless its rider has committed a really blatant offence.’ I was too hasty. The Doncaster stewards deliberated and decided that Simple Verse’s jockey, Andrea Atzeni, in forcing his way out had bumped Bondi Beach and had done so again during the last half-furlong. Bondi Beach and jockey Colm O’Donoghue were awarded the race and it was back to scrambled eggs in front of the TV reruns.

Many were surprised, including André Fabre, the nearly perpetual champion trainer in France. He declared, ‘I agree very much with the British stewards as they always let the best horse keep the race.