A blunder by stewards resulted in a horse winning at Lingfield yesterday when it
A blunder by stewards resulted in a horse winning at Lingfield yesterday when it should have been withdrawn. The vets were there and took X-rays and tried everything to save him but they hd to put him down later in the day.``It is a terrible blow for all of us because he was really going well and was one of our main fancies for Cheltenham.''There are still prizes to be claimed before the bunfight at the foot of Cleeve Hill, however, and the betting for tomorrow's Racing Post Handicap Chase was slipped over the gas rings yesterday following the abandonment of the Jim Ford Chase at Wincanton.Barton Bank and Lusty Light, both intended runners in Somerset, are now back among the considerations for Kempton's highlight tomorrow.RACING POST HANDICAP CHASE (Kempton tomorrow) William Hill ante-post prices: 9-4 Unguided Missile, 7-2 Percy Smollet, 9-2 Rough Quest, 11-2 Amtrak Express, 9-1 Big Matt, 10-1 Barton Bank, 12-1 Lusty Light, Young Hustler, 14-1 Egypt Mill Prince, 33-1 Whispering Steel, 66-1 Elfast.. "I was about to pick up his lead horse when That's My Man had his accident. That's My Man, Aidan O'Brien's favourite for the Supreme Novices' Hurdle at the Festival, perished after injuring himself in a routine - gallop."The horse broke his off hind leg about a furlong from the end of a half-speed gallop yesterday afternoon at Ballydoyle," Charlie Swan, Ireland's champion jockey, said. It has rained in Italy, but, on the other hand, they haven't had those awful foggy, freezing nasty days that we've had.''Couldnt Be Better's last appearance on the racecourse resulted in a fall at Ascot, and yesterday came news of a far more serious accident for a Cheltenham aspirant, in Ireland. Further flurries followed as they approached their second harbour, Paris.Those at Uplands believe the return leg will not negate the benefit of the health farm at Pisa, where their horses had the bonus of quarters in the sumptuous veterinary area."Couldnt Be Better has been doing a lot of long, slow exercise, lots of slow and repeat cantering," Miriam Francome, assistant to the gelding's trainer, Charlie Brooks, said yesterday."He takes quite a lot of getting fit but, on the other hand, he does go well fresh, and we're just hoping that when he comes back he'll just have to get the cardiovascular system back into action."The idea was to get away from the damp, cold English winter and to get him warmer and freshen him up.
When they returned by road this week they hit snow before their first stopover in France, at Dijon. His son John also has a sizeable contingent at Pisa.Couldnt Be Better, along with stablemate Padre Mio, has been soaking up the rays since late December, but it did not take long before the weather was trying to knock some of the goodness out of them. Yesterday Barry Hills flew out to the poor man's Dubai to monitor the five horses he has there, including the Cheveley Park runner-up from last season, My Branch. A horse ambled down a ramp in Upper Lambourn last night after a holiday on the Continent It could have been the Gold Cup winner.
While other frost-coated beasts have been falling by the wayside for the Blue Riband, Couldnt Be Better, the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup winner in November, has been topping up his tan at Pisa in Italy's Tuscany region, on the shores of the Ligurian Sea. Punters may now start leaning towards the nine-year-old, as he is reportedly a fresh animal following a health regime that has been established in the racing consciousness for some time.It was almost 30 years ago that Vincent O'Brien, the master of innovative thinking, graced Pisa with his subsequent Classic-winning colt (to this day the best thoroughbred he has ever ridden, according to Lester Piggott), Sir Ivor.Other trainers have not been slow to pick up. Ireland are surprise qualifiers after beating Japan and France, but Scotland are out.Results, Sporting Digest, page 25. "It could be that if Wigan get through to the final of the World Club Championship at the end of the first Super League season, the ARL may interfere again and prevent Connolly, Hall and Jason Robinson from playing."Even without Connolly, England won their three group matches to progress to the next stage of the competition. The Wigan winger, Rob Smythe, scored the only try in a 4-0 win over Italy, while Tonga were beaten 18-4 and Morocco 34-0.Wales are also through after a last-minute try from Allan Bateman beat Fiji 8-6 in their final group match. Their action was clearly designed to disrupt and sabotage the competition."With hindsight, selecting Hall and Connolly for the tournament ran the risk of provoking the ARL "The implications are serious," Lindsay added. "Everybody involved - the players themselves, their team-mates and every other player in the 16-nation competition - is appalled at the obvious contempt shown by the ARL.
The Welsh captain, Hall, and Connolly, of England, withdrew from the tournament in Suva after being threatened with legal action if they played. Both players are contracted to play for the ARL after their current Wigan contracts end, and the move is the latest twist in an increasingly dirty war between the ARL and the rival Super League, which is running the Nines. The controversy comes on the eve of a court decision on whether Super League can start in the Southern hemisphere this season, which is expected in Sydney today."Both players are deeply upset," the Super League chief executive, Britain's Maurice Lindsay, said. The organisers of the inaugural World Nines in Fiji have accused the Australian Rugby League of sabotage in forcing Gary Connolly and Martin Hall to pull out of the event, writes Dave Hadfield. The old-boy syndrome could strike again and wipe away the smug smile the town has worn since Wigan went out.. "There's a sense in which you know what to expect from Wigan, but Saints play so much off-the-cuff stuff. What you have to do is stop them playing.''Nobody will be more eager to do that than Lee and another former Saint, Paul Forber St Helens have been warned.
"But what people don't realise is that we didn't play all that much better than we have been doing for quite a while."Playing St Helens presents Salford with a different set of problems from taking on Wigan, Lee believes. The question now is whether they can do the same to Lee's old club."Obviously we were really fired up for the Wigan game and all we have heard is how inspired we were that day," Lee said. While Lee can produce the goods in the way he did against Wigan, his rivals will have to wait and an unlikely positional switch will continue."A lot of people thought that Mark couldn't do the job," Gregory said. "But if he hadn't been able to, there was no way we would have won the First Division championship.''No way, either, that Salford could have humbled Wigan in the way they did. "I always thought I enjoyed that - but, to be honest, I haven't missed it all that much.''There is, in fact, little time for looking back, unless it is over his shoulder at the players queuing up for his place in the side. He was already a specialist at hooker by that age - something that changed, to his own surprise as well as everyone else's, only last season."Our coach, Andy Gregory, said that he knew I wasn't a half-back, but he wanted me to do a job for him,'' Lee said.It was a request, coming from one of the great scrum-halves of the modern era, that could have been daunting, but Lee has handled the switch with some panache.Always a creative, footballing hooker, he showed in that triumph against Wigan that he could adapt his range of skills to the different demands of the No 7 shirt."It's a bit more physical at hooker," he said. "Then, when we drew Saints in the next round, all they wanted to tell me was that we wouldn't be going any further.'' Lee, whose home is only 300 yards from Saints' Knowsley Road ground, is one of the players who threatens to come back and haunt his old club in the quarter-final tomorrow, just as Steve Hampson et al did to Wigan.After he had battled his way through the colts and reserve sides into the first team, St Helens let him go to Salford six years ago."That always puts a bit of extra spice into it, but you don't really need any motivation when a win will leave you just 80 minutes from Wembley.''It would be a long-delayed return trip to the stadium for Lee, who played there for St Helens Under-11s before the 1979 Challenge Cup final.