Chris McGrath: 'Grubby auctioning of the Tote should unite all factions within racing in disgust'

British horseracing has long been accustomed to scavengers. In fact, those once routinely depicted as parasites are nowadays embraced as symbiotic partners. The sport's administrators candidly resolved that if they could not beat the bookmakers, they should join them. Now the more bookmakers win from punters, the more they will pay racing.

To others, of course, punters are the sacred cow, and they have their high priests, who conduct themselves with due pomp. According to their champions, it is punters who keep the show on the road. And, whenever trainers or jockeys betray the reality that their first duty is instead to the owner of a horse, the dogs are loosed. At best, you have lacked respect for the punter; at worst, you have shown contempt.

Of course, the bottom line is that almost everybody has contempt for some of them. Never mind sacred cows, go into a betting shop nowadays and you will see punters at their most bovine, credulously pouring money into slot machines or, a greater indignity still, betting on cartoon races. You hope they (and their families) can afford it. With ruthless pragmatism, racing has decided that it makes more sense to arrange the real thing in a manner that suits the bookmakers.

In some ways, after all, these punters are beyond protection. The reality is that the guardians of "punters' rights" – principally, the right to know everything they consider relevant, rightly or wrongly, to a horse's likely performance – instead defend those sophisticated enough to cherry-pick odds from a teeming credit marketplace, whether on the phone or online. And it is, to say the least, questionable to what degree such people "keep the show on the road".

Even if they contributed every last farthing of prize-money contested on British racecourses, of course, they would not prevent owners haemorrhaging three-quarters of their costs. The fact that owners can demonstrably afford these losses, in pursuit of pleasure, does not remotely disqualify them as the clear priority of those professionals hired in their service.

That does not excuse any deviation from basic integrity; nor does it exonerate trainers and jockeys from an obvious duty to meet contemporary standards in engaging with the public. But it does justify a certain pique over the way the ostensible interests of punters are presented as inviolable in the debates over, say, 48-hour declarations, or big-race reserves, or indeed Jim Bolger's right to change his mind.

All these quibbles, however, should be put to one side as a ghastly new vulture circles over the rock. For the grubby auctioning of the Tote should unite us all in disgust.

Seven years after the Government pledged to sell the Tote in the sport's interest, there are those who believe that its disposal in such volatile economic waters would be too reckless, and recommend another postponement.

Either way, far too many avaricious hands have already fondled the booty for the Government to countenance abandoning the project. Its very claim to "own" the Tote is, of course, pretty larcenous. The good intentions initially professed towards racing have been drastically adulterated, first by European regulations against state aid, and then by an extraneous political agenda. For instance, if another bookmaker such as Gala Coral won the auction, as seems likely, they might well close the Tote's headquarters in Wigan, causing job losses in marginal constituencies. At the same time, the Treasury salivates over money for nothing. Racing's own dividend, meanwhile, seems likely to dwindle into a one-off windfall, funnelled away into innocuous causes.

The Tote is good for punters, its pools being the nearest simulacrum to a betting exchange run in the interests of racing. And it is good for racing, as a wholehearted source of sponsorship and investment. It only ever made sense to sell the Tote as a mechanism for loosening the sport's bonds. The way things are looking now, it may instead end up being lobbed on to the rock like so much carrion.

Well handicapped Yes Sir gets the nod

With Duke Of Marmalade on the menu at Ascot next weekend, and a banquet at Goodwood the following week, we are left with some thin gruel today. Indeed, there is a strong case for saying that the most interesting card is at Market Rasen, where the flourishing William Butler seeks his fifth win in a fortnight.

As you might expect of a prize as valuable as the Toteswinger Summer Plate, however, he meets far better horses this time, and off a mark fully 34 lb higher than when he began this spree for his remarkable new trainer, Evan Williams. Another Welsh raider, Yes Sir (3.40), could prove too tough on these terms, having tumbled back down the weights last season. He had previously crowned a prolific novice campaign in this race, and is ridden for only the second time since by Tony McCoy. After a couple of recent spins on the Flat, he is primed to retrieve his best.

In fairness, there is kudos as well as cash in the big one at Newbury, which rewards trainers with an eye for a bargain. The weight carried by each runner in the Weatherbys Super Sprint reflects its cost at the yearling sales, being reduced by 1lb for every 3,000 guineas under 48,000 guineas. As such, the record of Richard Hannon (below) in the race reflects handsomely on his knack of finding precocious animals at a fair price.

He has won three of the last five runnings of this event, and his team today includes Penny's Gift, a 10,000-guinea filly who has already been placed at Royal Ascot. She drops back a furlong, however, so preference is for Infamous Angel (next best 3.25) who cost only 9,000 guineas herself but showed a lot of speed over this trip on quick ground at Bath.

Heavily backed that day, she can prove another feather in the cap for the prolific young stallion Exceed And Excel.

Corrybrough (2.20) is being kept in the shallow end by his patient trainer, and remains well within his depth today, while MAGHYA (nap 2.50) is another who has taken a forward step with every start.

Montmartre first impression beguiles

On the face of it, the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe looks a very different race today, compared with this time last week. First Curlin, testing the water for an audacious transatlantic challenge, was beaten on his turf debut at Belmont; and then Montmartre won the Grand Prix de Paris, over the Arc course and distance, with staggering ease.

Montmartre's poor run in the Prix du Jockey-Club was attributed, rather exotically, to the volume of the public-address system. This time it was his own performance that seemed to drown all dissent, but it remains possible to offer one or two caveats. For a start, he gained first run on most of his serious rivals; and one or two of them, who had run in the Irish Derby, probably found this race coming too soon. Visually, however, he could not have been more striking, and it should certainly concentrate minds in less productive racing empires that it has fallen to the Aga Khan himself to come up with a feasible French rival for his magnificent filly, Zarkava.

Curlin, meanwhile, was hardly disgraced behind a Breeders' Cup winner in Red Rocks, who was restored to his best by blinkers. Less adventurous owners might now be twice shy, but it would be no surprise to see Jess Jackson persevere towards new horizons in Europe.

Counterfeit concept of Sovereign Series

Doubts whether the recent launch of the Sovereign Series opened up a brave new world for racing have not been confined to these pages. Its backers, however, have been rising superbly above all challenges, condemning "the cynics" for an automatic reluctance to give the concept a chance.

But who are the true cynics? Are they not the people who are trying to deceive broadcasters that the most cherished Flat races in the calendar would gain dazzling new stature from their random realignment? Only the cynical, presumably, would try to stimulate competition between terrestrial broadcasters with a ruse so clumsy that it might well cause one of them to walk away in disgust? Only the cynical, or the hopelessly naïve.

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