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Compiled by NIALL KIELY

Racing authorities must get to grips with whip issue

MUCH FOETID hot air pullulates from horseracing in Britain after a Grand National that left two horses dead.

So what, you ask, isn’t that just once-a-year punters and Peta/animal rights loopers letting off annual steam?

Not quite, because both lots – and some racing apostates – have managed to conflate the tragedy of the equine deaths with the issue of The Whip.

A few things merit elucidation here.

First, the Aintree National is not the Velka Pardubice, nor are the fences remotely rock solid. In fact, the Liverpool course has over the years been given a Brazilian in terms of trimming its most risky elements.

Secondly, the modern jockey’s whip is a cushioned and gentle yoke compared to some of its undoubtedly nasty predecessors, and what looks like a whaling by a rider driving a flagging mount to the finish is nowhere as severe as it may look to those who’ve never even thrown a leg over a seaside donkey.

And there are strict guidelines and penalties for those who offend against the very clear guidelines.

In the thruppenny place, the debate is itself being driven now every bit as much by PR imperatives as it is by notions of animal welfare, but that’s a fact of modern sport life in the age of multi-camera TV coverage and at a time when every idiot’s e-comment seems to carry the same weight as the judicious views of expert opinion.

The Brits already have some “hands-and-heels” races, flat and jumps. In them, jockeys are allowed to carry whips for their essential purpose of safety and steering; basically, riders are not allowed to hit their mounts forehanders on the neck, or to strike behind the saddle.

And now Lord Hesketh proposes to make all races from October hand-and-heels at his Towcester track – a circuit with the stiffest finishing climb in that country.

The entire furore badly needs the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) (if ever there was an oxymoronic title . . .) to do something and be seen to do something intelligent, but nobody in racing is holding their breath for that unlikely outcome.

This is the organisation that gave Jason Maguire a five-day ban for his use of the whip in driving Ballabriggs home at Aintree, a perfectly fair penalty given his unforgiving treatment of the horse but also a perfect illustration of the fact that the system’s deterrent impact is close to zero when it comes to a big-occasion race.

But the BHA is also the institution which saw Maguire recently banned for 10 days for taking the wrong course in a three-miler at Wetherby.

He’d steered his mount off track so that he’d avoid forcing other runners in the direction of a first-circuit faller who was being treated by ambulance paramedics on the ground.

It appears nobody asked Maguire why he acted as he did. He won his appeal, admittedly, but not before the BHA’s barrister made the argument that the jockey had plenty of room to pass on the correct side of the rails without risk to the fallen rider.

Maguire disagreed, and vehemently. Who would you instinctively back in that argument? A senior jockey, or the sapient m’learned friend?

Horseracing badly needs a carminative solution to the latest contretemps about use of The Whip.

Redknapp strips away the romanticism

AND FINALLY . . . has there ever been anyone in English soccer for calling a spade a digging device like current Spurs boss Harry Redknapp, practical wheeler-dealer supreme?

He was at his Essex wide-boy best again this week when brusquely rubbishing the notion that Tottenham Hotspur might have hassle signing big names if the club failed to qualify for the Champions League.

Quoth ’Arry: “We kid ourselves, ‘I’ve always wanted to play for Tottenham since I was two, had a picture of Jimmy Greaves on my wall’.

“It’s a load of bollocks. Here’s £80,000 a week – lovely jubbly. If you pay them the wages, they’ll come.”

Harsh . . . but true.

Cork revel in an embarrassment of riches

THE VOLUNTARY absence of Cavan’s hurlers from this year’s Lory Meagher cup is a sad reflection on the state of hurling outside the strongholds, made all the more pointed in pure hurling terms by that county’s under-21 footballers reaching tomorrow’s All-Ireland final.

Not that there’s much future cheer on the football front either, even for that game’s traditional heartlands, on the evidence emanating from the Deep South.

Most commentators on last weekend’s NFL decider, in which Cork broke metropolitan hearts with a remorseless traffic of long-range points and their steely sangfroid, remarked on the remarkable spectrum of talent across this Cork generation.

It’s evident already that Cork have a panel of more than 30 footballers who’d be first-choice in most other county’s teamsheets, with another 20 or so county-level players who’re busting a gut just to get onto Conor Counihan’s championship panel.

And that’s not including the under-21s. Their dismantling of Kerry in the Munster final – by a scarcely believable 2-24 to 0-8 – was as satisfying for Cork folk as it was demoralising for their neighbours.

It’s accepted with good grace in Cork that the under-21s may have gone on from that game to meet Galway in the All-Ireland semi somewhat complacent, and got ambushed by a good western side who merited the win. That sometimes happens with young men, not long out of minor ranks.

Cork, like the Democrats in US national elections, should really win far more titles than they do, given the raw talent at club level in both codes. And Rebel Óg passed without much fanfare earlier this month when it was launched. Headed by Aghabulloge’s estimable Mark Sheehan, chairman of Coiste na nÓg, it’s the most ambitious and significant programme undertaken to develop underage levels of the games in Cork. Other counties should be very afraid.

PS. I noted towards the end of that Munster Under-21 semi-final that, with Cork leading by 18 points, a mellifluous Cork accent announced by tannoy that “in the event of a draw, extra-time will be played”. The man should be ashamed of himself – but I’ll bet he hasn’t had to buy a pint since.

Buzkashi-watching induces a real high

AT ONE point during the last century I found myself working in northern Pakistan, reporting from the tented cities in which millions of Afghans displaced by the then war were eking out a miserable existence.

During a trip up the Khyber Pass, near the Afghan border, I spent time in a village called Landi Kotal where the sole items in the busy market were opium, heroin, hashish and hand-made guns. Surprisingly quickly, the weirdness ceased to amaze. All locally grown, processed or manufactured; they were nothing if not supporting local industry.

So I was far from surprised when the Wall Street Journal reported this month from Mazar-i-Sharif, in Afghanistan, on the local sport of buzkashi. It translates from Dari as “goat grabbing”, and involves hordes of men on horseback trying to grab a headless carcass and drop it into a central goal.

And each Friday in Mazar, thousands gather to witness the spectacle, according to the WSJ, “eating red-dyed hard-boiled eggs and sharing bags of opium and joints of hashish . . . (with) children with handfuls of 50 and 100-dollar bills from wealthy spectators placing bets with a bookie”.

Can Olympic status be far behind for such a thrilling spectacle?

Perfect pack of urban and rural

WHITHER IRISH rugby? Has it ever been in better health?

And has the future ever looked rosier?

Let’s be neither presbyopic nor pusillanimous here.

On a weekend when our two strongest teams enter the semi-finals of Europe’s biggest club competitions with decent prospects of winning both, we should also take enormous pride in the under-18s, effectively the Irish Schools side, winning the Fira Eurotitle.

And they beat the best the French and the English could muster.

Mind you, under-age teams have been doing the country proud for years now. Personally, I took even greater satisfaction in Bruff’s Bateman Cup win. The rural Limerick club epitomises everything that’s promising about the rude health of the amateur game. And just one look at the physiques of many of the Bruff players would convince you that the perceived dearth of serious Irish props is far from a famine: these are big, strong lads, with the look of farmers about them.

I remember playing for UCC against Bandon one late-1960s afternoon when a late arrival, delayed by farm work, took to the field for them. His name was Tadhg Twomey, and he almost single-handedly out-muscled our pack of ephebes.

Built squat like a brick outhouse, and well over the six-foot mark, he was a phenomenal athlete. He was then Irish champion and record-holder with the 56lb weight, both over-the-bar and for distance.

Yet at athletic meetings I saw him also win high jump and 120-yard hurdles prizes. What a magnificent prop he’d have made, given coaching and conditioning!

That’s the dream combo: well-drilled city boys from the school and college system, leavened by autochthonous brawn a la Bruff.

So. The clubs are recovering well from the initially deleterious impact of the professional game. The schools continue to buttress provincial academies. Each province is in good nick this year, and we’re set fair for the collaborative genius of Brian O’Driscoll’s cadenza and Declan Kidney’s antiphon to meld sweet music in New Zealand.

It doesn’t get much better than this.