Having spent most of my life among politicians I guess I have become unaccustomed to candour. The only example I remember was the Danish prime minister I interviewed for CNN before his country’s referendum on joining the euro. ‘Prime Minister, the trouble with referendums is that people often don’t answer the question. They vote on the popularity of the person asking it. Are you popular enough to win this referendum?’ ‘Probably not’, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen replied — and was proved correct when the Danes voted to stay out.
In racing too we have all grown used to jockeys and trainers making excuses. ‘The ground didn’t suit him’, ‘He was short of a gallop’, ‘I was cut up round the bend’. On winners who have had to dig deep to get out of trouble they will pretend that was always the race plan.
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