Horseplay has us choking on our sugar cubes

OLYMPIC TV VIEW:BEDECKED IN our jodhpurs and hard hat, whip in hand, with a bowl of sugar lumps all set to nibble on, we were warming up in front of the telly for a glorious horsey-leaping day. "Tonight it's the individual showjumping finals," said the BBC's Jake Humphrey. "Whoo-hoo, sure is," said we. "But," he said ominously, while waving a sheet of paper in his right hand.

Something about that "but" filled us with foreboding, so we dismounted the piano stool just in case we fell off. "The build-up has been somewhat overshadowed by the news that," said Jake. "Some horses have," he added . . . "failed drug tests."

It was a "you're having a laugh" moment of Olympic proportions, but we tried tremendously hard not to fear the worst.

"Four riders," said Jake, "including," he added . . . (forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who . . .) Ireland's Denis Lynch, have been banned from competing in today's finals."

Honestly, the woman in the Psycho shower was less traumatised by her shock.

Facts, though, were scanty enough at that stage, but it didn't stop us rushing to judgment. We don't mean to be controversial, and we stress that we believe there's no room for cheats in sport, but part of us actually pitied Lantinus when we first heard the news.

Maybe, we wondered, he turned up for competition after winter training and noticed how the other horses had bulked up and were jumping six inches higher than they used to.

Maybe he was just tempted because he decided it was time for a level jumping arena. Now? He would, we feared, leave Hong Kong, his hoof covering his face, in disgrace.

"What about all the little foals in Ireland who have you as a role model, who love you?" Tommie Gorman might well have asked him, but Lantinus would have had no answer.

The day wore on, Jake spoke live to Rishi Persad in Hong Kong. "This is history revisited for Ireland, isn't it?" said Jake. "Yes, indeed," said Rishi. With that we flushed our sugar lumps down the lavatory.

Peter Collins was ashen-faced over on RTÉ. He spoke to Justin Treacy in Hong Kong and we thought Justin said this was "very embarrassing from the FAI's point of view", at which point we expected John Delaney to call a press conference in Abbotstown to declare: "Listen, lads, you can blame me for lots of things - and you do - but Lantinus is a world-class horse who makes his own decisions."

Justin, though, had said "FEI" (Fédération équestre internationale), so Delaney was in the clear. As was Lantinus, it turned out.

"One thing we can say for absolute certain is that the horse didn't apply the product himself," said Peter, as he asked Sonia O'Sullivan, Jerry Kiernan and Eamonn Coghlan for their views on an animal that had failed a drug test. They looked at each other in a slightly frightened way, having assumed they were there to discuss speedy humans, but they gave it a lash anyway.

"Like Caesar's wife, you have to be completely and totally beyond reproach, so to give horses some stuff, knowing it's on the banned list, that smacks of stupidity," said Jerry. "It's cheating, that's exactly what it is really."

Sonia agreed, expressing sympathy for our boxers who "will be out there trying to win medals and we're here talking about people interfering with horses".

Meanwhile, Marty Morrissey had tracked down Dermot Henihan, chef de mission of the Olympic Council of Ireland, their rowdy exchange concluding with the chef admitting "it's a pill we have to swallow and move on". An unfortunate choice of words.

On the news at six, we saw Lynch protest his innocence, but then Bill O'Herlihy and Avril Doyle, the former president of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland, set about debunking his defence over on RTÉ 2, suggesting the use of the banned substance in question was a "chemical form of rapping", that delightful practice where horses' forelegs or underparts are whacked as they jump so they will be rather keen to clear the fence. No pain, no gain, it seems, in this lucrative little corner of the sporting world.

Bill played a blinder, informing Robert Splaine, chef d'équipe of the Irish equestrian effort, on the line live from Hong Kong, that the defence of "I've been doing it for years" was a touch flimsy seeing as they've only recently come up with a test to detect the offending substance. Which was why Lantinus had been in the clear until now.

"I'm not condoning it, Bill, this is a disaster for everyone involved," said Splaine, who sounded like a man who'd had enough.

No more than Lantinus and the rest of us.