Mike Cattermole column on all the hot topics including affordability checks for gamblers

DON’T PANIC! AFFORDABILITY CHECKS WILL NEVER HAPPEN

There was a sense of hysteria pervading the racing world this past week as a result of the Gambling Commission’s priority and eagerness to tackle problem gambling.

The GC is of course to be commended for looking into this, especially during these lockdown times. Without hard cash being handed over, people can easily gamble away millions online and in no time at all. Nobody can deny that it is a massive complication of our times and needs addressing urgently.

However, talks of “affordability checks” on punters sent some into overdrive with huge concern about the ultimate implications on racing’s prize money.

Let’s nip that in the bud right now because any serious consideration of the process of securing affordability checks direct from the customer soon reveals that it is utterly ludicrous.

First, no quango such as this one should have any power to delve into your personal finances, ever. It is nobody’s business other than your own as to what you can do with your “discretionary income”, as it’s been described.

How would you go about operating and then policing this properly among the millions of punters out there? Where would you start? What guidelines would you use? The GC suggest that losing up to just £100 a month will need looking into.

Well, good luck with that! Anyway, it just won’t happen.

The bottom line is that betting yields millions and millions to the exchequer, whether from racing or from online games of chance (where the consumption tax was raised from 15% to 21% from October, 2019).

In these difficult days when much, much more is going out of the treasury coffers than coming in, the government simply cannot afford the risk of the betting tap being turned right down, even though it rightly acknowledges that something has to be done about those with gambling addiction issues.

SHISHKIN NOW NO SHOE-IN FOR THE ARKLE

Shishkin is a very special young chaser, no doubt, but so too is Energumene who made it three out of three over fences in the Irish Arkle at Leopardstown on Saturday.

He looks an absolute monster, finished on the bridle and even recorded a time 1.3 seconds faster than his lauded stablemate Chacun Pour Soi had done under an identical weight in the Dublin Chase 35 minutes earlier. That is significant.

I now think that Energumene is the one to beat in the Arkle at Cheltenham, not Nicky Henderson’s young star.

Willie Mullins’ predicted domination of the Dublin Racing Festival started early on day one with an opening Grade 1 hat-trick and a four-timer completed in the closing bumper with a machine called Kilcruit (wow). I have a strong feeling that Ireland’s champion trainer is going to set new records at Cheltenham next month.

Meanwhile, I have never seen Honeysuckle look as good as she did in taking the Irish Champion Hurdle for Henry De Bromhead and Rachael Blackmore on Saturday. She was absolutely relentless and if she is in the same sort of form next month, she is going to take some catching in the English version.

Indeed, the battle between the supermares, especially as defending champion Epatante is a hold-up specialist, is now setting up very nicely indeed.

SAM VESTEY

How very sad to hear that Lord Sam Vestey has left us, a little over two months after the death of his wife Lady Celia.

I didn’t know him well but well enough to know that, when chairman of Cheltenham racecourse, he seemed to have time for everybody and was universally liked.

Seeing him at Cheltenham, where he was chairman for two decades, was always a comforting sight. He added gravitas when presiding over presentations in the winner’s enclosure and obviously adored the place.

He certainly left his mark there. Along with his managing director Edward Gillespie, it was under their stewardship that made the Festival what it is today – one of sport’s greatest showpieces - and it was under their watch too that it was turned into a four-day meeting. Not that either man was that keen on the plan to begin with, but they went with it and made it work so well.

It helped that they also forged a fine working relationship with Andrew Franklin at Highflyer Productions to enable C4 Racing to best promote the world’s greatest jumps meeting. It was a very happy association on both sides.

Others, such as Alastair Down, have written more personal pieces elsewhere based on a more personal relationship and that will give you more of a feeling of the man who was a trusted friend of the Queen but also to so many others on different rungs on the social ladder.

PAT BUCKLEY

It was indeed a sad week with the passing too of Grand National-winning jockey Pat Buckley.

Pat won the 1963 National on Ayala and was the oldest surviving winning rider of the great race.

He went onto forge an influential and successful career over many years as a racing official and administrator in the middle east where he was hugely popular, both locally and to the area’s many visitors.

I wish I had got to know him as I have never heard a bad word against him.

I have a lot of time for the Buckleys I do know. Pat’s younger brother Seamus is enjoying a well-earned retirement after a long career as one of our leading clerks of the course at both Epsom and Goodwood, while Pat’s charming son, Kevin, is the Coolmore representative here in the UK.

CONFUSION OVER RED CARDS

Is there anybody out there who thinks VAR is working? There seems to be no logic or consistency to the way it is used at present.

The two red card appeals this week, one of them successful (Jan Bednarek for Southampton) and one not (David Luiz for Arsenal), after fouls had been adjudged to have happened and led to (successful) penalties, left us with more questions that answers about the system’s effectiveness and indeed its aftermath.

With the benefit of time and numerous replays, I thought it was odds-on that both cards would be rescinded as neither were intentional fouls and contact in both cases was negligible.

In fact, the Bednarek incident was a sickener at the time as it looked as though Anthony Martial took a dive. Remember, he did this when his team (Man Utd) was already 6-0 up! I can’t fathom or stomach things like that but maybe I’m too soft.

The current rules don’t allow it, but wouldn’t it be great if players could get a retrospective red card for simulation?