The Neverending Story

Paul Kimmage’s ‘part 2’ of the Stephen Mahon story published in last weekend’s Sunday Independent was very disappointing on several different fronts. Firstly, it was billed as the piece that would lift the lid on the drugs issue within racing but instead focussed almost entirely on the relationship between the IHRB’s head of anti doping Dr Lynn Hillyer and a key witness in the animal welfare case against Mahon.

I find it deeply disturbing that Kimmage would drag this witness through the whole ordeal once again when it is clear from the transcripts of conversations she had with Hillyer and other information known to many involved with the original case that she has suffered severely with her mental health. This girl was in a very fragile state after the case last year and dragging her back into it cannot be in her best interests. Presumably it was on the back of legal advice that her name was changed in the piece to protect her anonymity, but her real name is already in the public domain following the original hearings.

Kimmage wrote 7,000 words printed over four pages in the newspaper yet said nothing new about drugs in the sport. The underlying inference from the article is that Lynn Hillyer, and perhaps some of her colleagues at the IHRB, put undue pressure on this witness to form a case against Mahon. With the benefit of hindsight there is probably a grain of truth in that assertion, but in the context of the wider drugs issue within the sport, so what? Are we really expected to believe that this represents a massive conspiracy to tear Stephen Mahon’s already tattered reputation to shreds because he was a whistleblower against ‘Trainer X’?

Despite Kimmage’s best efforts to discredit Hillyer in the article, my overriding take from the piece is that she was at all times sympathetic towards her witness and had her best interests at heart despite being involved in a major investigation.

One of the final interactions that Hillyer and the witness had in a series of text messages which were published in Sunday’s article is particularly relevant -

The witness says to Hillyer: “I’ve never used it as an excuse before and I hate that I’m planning to, but I’ve had some issues with self harm for a long time, and the past 10 days it’s been bad again, which Stephen knows, so I’m just going to say the stressful situation has taken its toll on me and I don’t feel like I can be involved in it anymore.”

Hillyer messages back: “it’s not an excuse, it’s the truth and you need support not someone making it worse... Charges will issue tomorrow and you shouldn’t be there.”

I fully concur that this girl needs support and not someone making it worse.

Yet again no smoking gun. No hard proof of anything. At the rate Kimmage is going Stephen Mahon will be back training before we get to the end of the story.

This Bolger initiated witch hunt into drugs within Irish racing is like a festering boil which, excuse the pun, needs to be ‘Lanced.’ If there is categorical proof somewhere that any trainer, no matter how successful they are, is doping their horses we need it out in the open, but Kimmage’s death by a thousand cuts is causing far more harm than any eventual good.

I’m not sure if Kimmage himself wrote the headline that accompanied Sunday’s article but using the tagline “the truth is out there” from the 1990’s TV series The X-Files is bizarre. For those unfamiliar with the hit show it was set around the exploits of a conspiracy theorist Fox Mulder and his sidekick Dana Skully. I wonder if Kimmage sees similarities between himself and the David Duchovny played lead character from the show. Hopefully not, as aside from the fact that the TV series was a work of fiction, it also ran for 11 series and 218 episodes.

There was no sting at the end of Kimmage’s latest article to say ‘tune in next week for part 3’ so I presume that’s it for now. Unless of course he intends having another go at the Industry Sunday week on the eve of Cheltenham. Good luck with that strategy as it will take one almighty bombshell to register on the day the final declarations for the opening day of the Festival are revealed.

Looking ahead to Cheltenham I found it funny that Ruby Walsh would produce a piece for Paddy Power during the week talking about how he expects the English-trained horses to win far more races than they did last year. Overall the Irish challenge at Cheltenham looks stronger if anything than twelve months ago and the majority of that strength is concentrated in the very yard Walsh is attached to - Willie Mullins.

Maybe Walsh was simply stirring it up to get a bit traction for his paymasters in the run-up to the Festival but his opinion carries weight and it would be a worry for the prospects of Mullins' battalion of ante post favourites if the former champion jockey truly believes the English can beat some of them.

The Irish had 23 winners at last year’s Festival and the current spread is more or less evens your pick at 19 winners which looks tempting to me.

Whatever about the number of Irish vs English winners in two weeks I’d be a buyer of the number of times the Ukranian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is quoted by beleaguered punters during the Festival with his classic one liner “I need ammunition, not a ride.”