Time for a shake-up

Clare Balding13 April 2012

Street Cry's victory in the richest race in the world, the $6 million Dubai World Cup, kept the prize money at home and in the coffers of Sheikh Mohammed but I got the sense that he would rather it hadn't happened that way.

He has always been an advocate of running the best of his own horses against each other, as shown by Sakhee and Street Cry's presence in the same race, but without the two of them, there would have been no "best" horses at all.

There is a danger, and this fiercely competitive and independent minded of men knows it, that Sheikh Mohammed's brainchild, a race meeting where the best in the world gather to race for the biggest prize money on the globe, will turn into a Godolphin benefit evening.

Two decent horses from Japan who ran below par, one ordinary pot hunter from the United States, one mediocre animal from France, two trying their luck from Saudi Arabia and three others from the United Arab Emirates making up the numbers hardly constitutes a world-class field.

Without the Godolphin pair of Sakhee and Street Cry Saturday night's race had a distinctly runofthe-mill look to it and was actually easier to get placed in than the supposed supporting races on the card, as the 66-1 shot Sei Mi proved by running on into second place ahead of the weakening Sakhee.

The energy that was put into attracting the top-class American horses when the race was first launched in 1996 has waned slightly as it has been spread thinly across the evening.

The number of thoroughbred races has expanded to six, the Americans are more interested in winning the Sprint because their speed horses are so superior that it's easy for them, the Europeans focus on the two turf races and the UAE Derby is viewed as a public Kentucky Derby trial for the Godolphin horses.

Sheikh Mohammed is a colossus of the racing world but without proper competition, there is no sport and for the general racing public there is no joy in watching his own horses try to beat each other.

Rather like the stilted atmosphere on the tennis circuit when Venus and Serena Williams play each other and no one knows which one they should be rooting for, there is a sense of confusion when Godolphin overpower a race.

The crowd in Dubai went berserk but they always do when their own Royal Family beat off the rest.

For the watching world, it was less stimulating.

The joy of last season in Europe was that Aidan O'Brien and his team at Ballydoyle were serious and often superior opposition to Godolphin. They loved it, Sheikh Mohammed loved it and the public revelled in each one pushing the other to even greater heights. Johannesburg, leading twoyearold in the world last year and en route to Kentucky, should have been running in the UAE Derby. The Sheikh's eyes lit up when he contemplated what a race it would have been with Johannesburg in it, despite the fact it may have prevented him from winning it with Essence of Dubai.

The sport is everything to him and the joy of victory is only shortlived if he does not feel that he and his horses have had to work for it.

The post-mortem into the meeting as a whole may be less comfortable for the team who work on it than they anticipate.

Sheikh Mohammed's pleasure at winning two races on the night will not cloud his vision as he examines the strengths and weaknesses before him. The fragile quality of the World Cup may have been a blip but he will not allow the mistake to be repeated.

Sven'smotive is far from friendly

It's an interesting philosophy, but, evidently, it renders the game meaningless. If winning does not matter, the match against Italy last night was basically a public training session.

In racing terms, as the trainer, he would have been hauled before the stewards for schooling in public.

England may have been unlucky not to hold on for the draw, but the friendly fact remains: if we lose, the match is irrelevant, if we win it acquires a disproportionate significance.

All of the expert advice for gamblers preparing to risk a few quid on the match was "don't do it".

Friendlies are dangerous affairs because, as the second half England team proved, too many players are trying not to make mistakes rather than play aggressively to their strengths. Then when they try to get noticed, they merely look desperate.

England are now a best price of 12-1 to win the World Cup behind France and Argentina at 4-1 joint favourites, Italy at 6-1, Brazil, Spain and Portugal.

Bookmakers may not know everything about sport, but they judge it with the unbiased eye of the businessman doing a deal rather than a fan believing in a dream.

More active is the market on who will make Eriksson's squad for Japan, in which Darren Anderton is a somewhat surprising even money favourite, ahead of Darius Vassell, Wayne Bridge, Danny Mills and Joe Cole.

Whether Eriksson is any closer to making his mind up than he was a week ago can only be surmised.

Kieron Dyer's fragile fitness makes him a 1000-1 shot, not a bad little wager when you consider how much Eriksson has admitted he thinks of the Newcastle midfielder.

Added to that, there is a chance that the players who weren't on parade at Elland Road may just have done themselves more favours than those who were.

It's a darn tricky business, this friendly lark.

Hollioake's living legacy

There is something so immensely shocking about the sudden ending of the life of one so young and with so much to offer. It takes time to accept the news, to digest its meaning and to react in a way that is both appropriate and significant.

The England cricket team deserve great credit for the way they have handled themselves.

Nasser Hussain has once again shown himself to be caring and statesmanlike, with genuine compassion for Ben's family and friends for whom his loss is almost unbearably heartbreaking.

Hollioake achieved more in 24 years than most of us could in 64. The greatest memorial the rest of the sporting world could possibly pay is to consider the short time he had with us, to praise his achievements and to ensure that we, like him, do not waste a single opportunity thrown our way because the one thing that can never be taken for granted is life itself.

McCoy takes Spanish steps back

He is only five wins short of setting a new record for a jockey in Britain and can attack it with renewed vigour and relish, recapturing some of his love for the sport that got him going in the first place.

When and, as he keeps saying, if it happens, he will fully deserve every plaudit coming his way. Comparisons with Sir Gordon Richards, who set the record of 269 over half a century ago, may be misleading but McCoy will have earned his place in history and after the month he's had, it can't happen soon enough.

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