Racing: Challenge to Jockey Club credibility intensifies

On Monday it was the worry of a bookmaker consorting with a leading jockey. The following day came confirmation that three trainers are to be charged with bringing racing into disrepute. Yet the examination of racing by the beady eye of the outside world is only just beginning.

Over the next two months, there is potential like never before for the ransacking of the Jockey Club's reputation in particular and the sport of racing as a whole.

At the end of November, Graham Bradley, the ex-jockey who has already admitted that he has passed on "privileged and sensitive information", will appear before the Club's disciplinary committee. The recipient in question of these favours was Brian Wright, a man alleged to be the leading figure in an international cocaine smuggling ring.

Bradley continues to protest his innocence and his lawyers will mount a vigorous defence as their client fights consequences which include a ban from the sport which has fed him since he was a young man.

Before then though will be the screening of a Panorama programme on 6 October which threatens to finger a number of racing's biggest names and humiliate the Jockey Club.

Earlier this week came notice that Mike Dillon, the public face of Ladbrokes, is named in documents to be used by Panorama. There is no charge against Dillon, rather an examination of his relationship with Ireland's leading jockey, Michael Kinane.

Since last year it has been an offence for jockeys to associate with bookmakers on the racecourse. "There was [in the past] some surveillance done on Mike Dillon and his association with Michael Kinane," John Maxse, the Jockey Club spokesman, said yesterday.

"There was no evidence of any breaches of the rules of British racing, but it was considered an example of how a jockey and a bookmaker having a close and public association at the racecourse could cause problems for the perception of the sport.

"What we are asking, is that when they're on the racecourse each individual acts in a professional manner and respects the rules. This is a grey area. We accept that."

Ferdy Murphy, Jamie Osborne and David Wintle have already appeared on the BBC, none too flatteringly in Kenyon Confronts. In the next few weeks they will have to answer charges they have brought their sport into disrepute. Wintle faces additional charges regarding the running of Seattle Alley twice in March and behaviour of a "violent or improper manner"at Stratford.

Yet it is the Panorama screening which holds the greatest ramifications for the Jockey Club and racing during this definitive passage for the sport. "It's going to be a significant period," Maxse added yesterday.

''No organisation is perfect but if you're being examined in detail I think it's fair to ask for it to be done in an objective manner rather than just taking one person's word for it, that one person being a former employee who was dismissed after an investigation into gross misconduct."

Roger Buffham, the former head of security at Portman Square until he was sacked last year, has, for Jockey Club purposes, defected. Much of the Panorama material will lean on his experience and documents he has legally fought to use.

It will be an unpleasant tune played by the whistleblower, and the Jockey Club hope it will be recognised as an old one.