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For the attention of France-Galop
Dear Messieurs
We British have use of a cliché when we are truly offended - we write letters to the newspapers (courrier des lecteurs) always signing off, “Yours truly, indignant of Tunbridge Wells”.
As though anyone in Tunbridge Wells, a small sleepy town located in the soft underbelly of England, would ever be indignant. But euphemism saves us from expressing our true feelings which would surely be censored.
The Lloyd-Webbers, residents of leafy Berkshire, controlled themselves (admittedly in a pressure cooker) when their Dar Re Mi was heinously disqualified from last year’s Prix Vermeille after beating Stacelita and Plumania – fairly and squarely.
The Longchamp stewards decreed the Lloyd-Webber filly had interfered with the fifth horse, Soberania (German for goodness sake).
Yet stewards at Saint-Cloud for the Grand Prix didn’t apply the same rule when Plumania nodded on the post a fraction ahead of Youmzain. Plumania had balked fifth home Pouvoir Absolu.
Youmzain has finished runner-up in the last three Prix de l’Arcs. Why he wasn’t given it by Longchamp stewards the day Dylan Thomas mugged half the field is one of racing’s great mysteries. What have you French ever given us? Nicholas Anelka - merci beaucoup. Did the referee, England v Germany, have more than a squirt of French blood?
Youmzain hasn’t won for two years – then it was the Grand Prix de Saint Cloud; it is his day and he was robbed this time. His trainer, the combustible Mick Channon, got himself worked up – though surprisingly not with the stewards.
“Just when you think you’ve got life sussed,” he said, “it bites you in the arse”.
Indignant? Your correspondent is reminded of the gorilla who was asked if he was wild about being captured. “Wild? I was positively livid.”
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Frogwatch, by Rolf Johnson 
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