Martin Hannan: Focus on the courage, not convictions

JUST AFTER 9pm on Wednesday, I was watching a race from Kempton on TurfTV. It was a one-mile apprentice handicap, and seemed like just another race until the field began to turn into the straight. Caught in behind the leaders, Kaballero, ridden by Jamie Jones, clipped the heels of the horse in front and went down in a heap. What followed was one of the most horrific things I've ever seen on a race track.

As well as Kaballero, four more horses and their riders went flailing and flying, cartwheeling and somersaulting before pitching sickeningly into the unforgiving artificial surface.

I was convinced I had seen death taking place in front of my eyes, and sadly I was proven correct. Two horses, Touwy Girl and Arctic Desert, were killed, while Kaballero was badly injured. By some miracle, all five jockeys escaped death, but Jamie Jones and Mark Coumbe both broke vertebrae in their spine. Thankfully both appear to have escaped paralysis.

I then turned over and watched BBC's Panorama programme on 'Racing's Dirty Secrets'. It was exactly as I predicted last week, a re-run of the Kieren Fallon trial with the BBC and the prosecuting authorities conspiring to 'prove' the guilt of the accused who, lest it be forgotten, are innocent under law.

It was all old hat, regurgitated because the BBC managed to get hold of surveillance tapes which, if they proved anything, showed that the so-called criminal conspirators were absolutely useless. The best bit was when businessman Bruce Bennett, who was alleged to have risked £1.3m on 43 races where he was supposed to have prior information, was shown booting reporter Paul Kenyon in a place where the sun doesn't shine. I suspect there were more than a few people in racing who cheered at that point.

Panorama should accept that they did their job six years ago and racing is a cleaner sport thanks to the new hard-line British Horseracing Authority inspectors. No jockey should be allowed to cheat, but at the same time, we should remember that, as the Kempton race showed, every time they go out on the track they are risking life and limb for sport and our pleasure. The courage of horses and jockeys, and not a few dodgy dealings, is the real spirit of racing.