Club gives rebuff to TVclaim

The Jockey Club said yesterday that it expects a forthcoming television programme, dealing with the problem of non-triers, to be "an over-hyped mixture of fantasy and history".

An edition of the investigative sports series Fair Game, to be screened on Channel 4 a week tomorrow, will feature an unidentified jockey giving an "insider's guide to non-triers".

The programme's aim is to highlight the perils of betting, but the Jockey Club insisted that the practice of stopping horses from winning had been virtually eradicated.

David Pipe, the Jockey Club's director of public affairs, said: "Clearly as the programme has gone on, the momentum has taken it in a slightly different direction. Normally such claims are an over-hyped mixture of fantasy and history.

"When we discover who the jockey or ex-jockey is we would like to talk more about his claims in detail.''

Pipe added: ''The chances of stopping a winner without being discovered nowadays are very slim. I hope that the programme makers are not going to be presenting non-trying as a bigger problem than it is because that would not be in the sport's best interests."