JOHNNY MURTAGH LETS RIP

NO SPORT can sustain top-quality action at the highest level indefinitely.

That's why we have Wimbledon fortnight not month and five-day rather than 55-day Tests. Even the Premiership has a rest, if only to give the players time to count their money and catch up on court appearances.

While the Flat does not stop over the next two weeks between Goodwood and York's Ebor Meet, the standard is middling to dire.

Deeply ordinary meetings, staging characterless events for horses that are not even household names in their own households.

It is a reminder British racing devotes far too many resources staging egg and spoon racing for bad horses and that nobody has the courage to get the message over that more can be less.

One class act who won't be in action until September is this week's vastly impressive Sussex Stakes winner Rip Van Winkle.

He put the big race to bed when kicking on at halfway and made class horses like Paco Boy and Ghanaati look almost second rate.

Rip had been lame the night before and sore the day after but it was the in-between that counted. On his previous run in the Eclipse, he was just behind awesome Derby winner Sea The Stars.

Conduit, since winner of the King George at Ascot, was four lengths back in third so Rip's Sussex Stakes win was overdue. Irish jockey Johnny Murtagh was delighted. But he also said he is limiting his visits here because of the stewards.

JOHNNY BE GOOD - Murtagh salutes the fans after Sussex Stakes win

At Epsom he got a ban ruling out the last two days of Ascot and, on the opening day there acquired two suspensions that put him out of the Eclipse. You can see why he's got the hump.

He has not suggested it himself but you can be sure a saloon bar philosopher will whisper 'British stewards have got it in for you'. Tripe. There is no more trenchant critic of stewards than me but they are vastly improved from the blimpish coots of my childhood.

Sometimes jockeys just get out of step with the rules. It is not so long since AP McCoy couldn't get on a horse without getting a ban. It drove him close to despair. But the Jockey Club went out of their way on the quiet to help him.

So if Johnny wanted an off-the-record chat with the powers that be on how to keep out of trouble, he would, I'm sure, be welcomed.

Read Alastair Down every week in the Racing Post

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