Mike Cattermole column on the death of Robert Armstrong and praise for the BHA

AFFORDABILITY CHECKS THE LEAST OF RACING’S CONCERNS

I wrote last week that there had been an overreaction to the talked about affordability checks being mooted by the Gambling Commission in its efforts to oversee and restrict those with a gambling problem.

It’s not simply just because of the bureaucratic issues involved as well as the threats to personal freedom but because the figures being bandied around of limiting losses to £100 a month would make no sense to the government.

I stressed that the treasury makes too much from racing and betting for it to be so compromised by such a suggestion. Any potential massive reduction in turnover could not be tolerated by a sport already facing financial hardship, with the additional risk of the loss of thousands of jobs in already difficult economic times.

That said, there is a big problem behind all this and racing does need to get pro-active and quickly.

With the explosion of on-line betting over the past few years, the Gambling Commission has hardly been ahead of the curve.

In fact, their talk of affordability checks across the board over the huge range of products available to bet on, is naïve in the extreme.

This is what racing’s rulers should be picking up on.

With gambling’s image tainted at best, racing – and indeed other sports – must find a way quickly to convince both the GC and the anti-gambling lobby that sports betting is a world away from betting on on-line slots, casinos and bingo, etc, which have been largely responsible for the addiction issues.

Most of the time sports betting is a test of knowledge, feel and skill, not merely of pure chance with the odds deliberately stacked against you.

I say this with the obvious irony that it was on the back of the real-life slot machines, the FOBT’s in the betting shops, that were largely responsible for the rocketing of bookmaker profits from which racing happily took its share.

It was significant that Flutter’s executive chairman, Ian Proctor, weighed in with his views this week about the affordability levels being set too low.

I suppose he would say that, wouldn’t he? But if racing and betting can come together and present a united front to both the GC and a government already busy with a gambling review, that would be no bad thing.

The sooner, the better.

BHA DESERVES CREDIT

The weather has played havoc with not just the jumping programme this week but the all-weather too.

I heard some mocking the description of “all-weather” after the loss of Newcastle and Chelmsford but nobody can do anything when the track is covered in snow and the record freezing temperatures don’t allow any chance of thawing.

The east of the country has had it the worst and in spite of working on the track after 4cm of snow fell at Chelmsford, the wind chill meant temperatures were down to -12C and there was no way the surface would be free of ice.

Meanwhile, with superb cards being abandoned and saved at both Newbury and Warwick, you have to give full credit to the BHA for being so light on its feet with the rearranging of both fixtures.

Newbury’s outstanding Betfair Hurdle card will be run in front of the ITV cameras next Sunday while Warwick, weather permitting, can have another go on Monday.

ROBERT ARMSTRONG

The racing community has been shaken by the loss of yet another big name this week. Just days after both Sam Vestey and Pat Buckley had passed away, we heard that former trainer Robert Armstrong had also left us, at the age of 77.

Robert, whose sister Susan married Lester Piggott, retired from training in 2000 and settled in Jersey for a quieter life with his wife Jane. By then, he had certainly made his mark, thanks to the likes of Sparkler, Moorestyle, Be My Native, Never So Bold, Shady Heights and Maroof.

I had got to know him in my days as agent to Willie Carson when Robert was training a decent number for Sheikh Hamdan, Willie’s boss, so contact with him was quite frequent. (Actually, Robert’s connection with Willie went back a long way as his father, Sam, had mentored the young Scot as an apprentice).

Mind you, our relationship did not get off to the best of starts. In my first year, very much with my “L plates” on, I was perhaps a little too keen to make an impact.

One morning, Robert’s response to yet another call from me was: “Mike, you and I are going to get along perfectly well if you don’t keep shoving Willie Carson down my bloody throat!”

I certainly got the message! After that, we never had a problem and I grew to know him and was fond of him. I discovered that Robert was a proper 'petrolhead', being into his racing cars in a big way and I got the feeling he would have preferred to have raced them, not horses, for a living.

That said, he will always be remembered as a top trainer, especially in the 1980s when both Moorestyle and Never So Bold were the best in Europe. Moorestyle, usually ridden by Lester, was a personal favourite, being equally brilliant between 5f and 7f.

I know Robert was very satisfied about Maroof’s shock 66/1 victory against a star-studded field in the 1994 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes. He knew the colt’s family well as he had trained the dam Dish Dash to win the Ribblesdale and his father had trained some of the ancestors too.

He afforded himself a wry smile that day as Willie had preferred to ride Sheikh Hamdan’s unplaced filly Mehthaaf, leaving Richard Hills to make all the running for one of the biggest upsets in Group 1 history.

Robert never considered it a fluke and indeed, there were too many good horses like Barathea, Bigstone and Distant View behind Maroof for it to be anything than won on merit.

Thinking back, the best horse that Willie rode for Robert and Sheikh Hamdan was probably Mujtahid who looked an exceptional two-year-old until his shock defeat behind Generous when odds-on for the Dewhurst of 1990. He didn’t race again.

Years later, I enjoyed catching up with Robert and Jane over dinner in Jersey and I was genuinely sorry not to repeat that. My sympathies go to his family.

LEON SPINKS

Maroof was something but the man who created one of the biggest upsets in sport, Leon Spinks, also died this week after a long illness. He was 67.

In just his eighth professional fight, Spinks defeated Muhammad Ali to win the undisputed world heavyweight title in Las Vegas in February, 1978. I will never forget the shock of listening to it live on BBC radio as I lay in bed in the early hours with my adrenaline on full flow. I just couldn't believe it.

That moment has never left me and I can tell you with certainty that after the boxing broadcast had finished, the first song played was Abba’s “Take A Chance on Me”. It’s strange what sticks with you and whenever I hear that song again now, I go right back there.

When I saw the fight the following evening, Ali was clearly not in the best shape and had given himself too much to do with his by now familiar “rope-a-dope” tactics.

To his credit, the gap-toothed Spinks claimed that “Ali was the greatest, I am the latest.” Ali of course won the rematch the following September to become the first three-time champion but that was more down to Spinks not training seriously for the bout.

Although Ali was fitter physically, his skills had deteriorated further even in those few months (little did we know he was already ill and, notably, his speech had long been getting slurred) but was still able to eke out a workmanlike points win.

Spinks, who had come from the humblest of backgrounds, never reached those heights again and it was sad to hear that ill health had plagued him in his later years when life was again not easy.

Still, he had proved his father, who had abused him both physically and mentally, very wrong as he made his mark on the world. We certainly won’t forget him.