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Horse Racing: Let's take our lead from the French resistance(The Racing Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) LOVE them or force-feed them with grain, if there's one thing you've got to admire about the French, it's their ability to slice through the most convoluted of Gordian knots with the trusty sword of belligerent militancy. Not for our Gallic friends the tiresome round of claim, counter-claim and shuttle diplomacy; give them a sniff of a perceived injustice and they're in like Alexander the Great. Tell a French lorry driver that he'll no longer be able to eat his baguette while driving at 150kph down Rouen high street, and before you know it you've got a roadblock stretching from Margate to Marseille. Knock their rugby team out of the World Cup, and they'll shut down their rail network as quick as you can say "Jacques Robinson". The thing with Johnny Gaul is that he defends his territory stoutly and without needless resort to compromise, whether that territory be the cab of a camion, a piece of pongy fromage, or even a betting monopoly that has long had about it more than a whiff of un-European unconstitutionality. Yes, the latest battleground for the French reactionaries, it seems, is horseracing; more specifically, the Pari-Mutuel-Urbain, the sole punting medium on the Gallic turf, that has been picked up on the Euro-radar and summoned to Brussels to justify itself. The exact nature of tomorrow's debate has yet to be established but, given that both government and sport in France profit mightily from the monopoly situation, it can be assumed that there will be no place for shrinking violets in the visiting camp. Already, the mood has been set by Criquette Head-Maarek, doyenne of the French training ranks, who has offered her full and frank views on the matter to readers of Figaro magazine. And when I say frank, I mean frank. Head-Maarek does not believe that allowing bookmakers to infiltrate the monopoly system would be good for French racing. In fact, she believes it would be very bad, in the same way that some supporters of British racing feel it has been bad for 46 years. But where our negotiators have long danced the annual levy dance, circling the ring for 12 ineffectual rounds before declaring a draw and a rematch, the opening shots from the other side of the Channel suggest a rather more bloody battle. Criquette says that bookmakers are dishonest. Some men, she believes, become dishonest and some have dishonesty thrust upon them, but bookmakers are born dishonest. The trouble, according to her, is that they take bets and give nothing back. Bookmakers are crafty, she claims, which is the closest she comes to a compliment. She doesn't trust them 2.54 centimetres. It can be safely gleaned that Head-Maarek's entente is anything but cordiale. She exhibits the kind of relentless brutality that makes Paul Dixon look like Dixon of Dock Green. While British racing's most vigorous champion launches his attacks with a rolled-up copy of the 46th levy agreement, she opens negotiations with a Thompson sub-machine-gun and a cheroot clamped between her teeth. In the unlikely event she doesn't win, at least she won't die a slow and lingering death, so, given the painful and protracted nature of the current levy wranglings, isn't it time this policy of unfettered aggression was adopted over here? Months of predictable preamble would be bypassed by means of a couple of verbal hand grenades from either side, and we could cut quickly to the artillery bombardment that would soon establish who has rights to the economic high ground. And then, when the French ride roughshod over Brussels, we could have a brawl to sort out a return to a pre-1961 British Tote monopoly. Wouldn't that be fun, like a prequel to Life on Mars, with Dixon as Gene Hunt, ploughing into the ABB headquarters in a mark II Ford Zephyr, leaving Nic Coward to handle the paperwork while he goes hammer and tongs, knees to the knackers, with Chris Bell to settle things once and for all. And with no need for government intervention. Copyright 2007 MGN Ltd, Source: The Financial Times Limited |