THE RIBOFILIO MYSTERY

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31988, 15 May 1969, Page 4

THE RIBOFILIO MYSTERY

(Specially written for “The Press" by the former English

jockey.

HARRY CARR)

The mystery over Ribofilio deepens every day. Just why should a horse that has been moving smoothly all season suddenly fade away on Guineas Day? Just why should a horse that has to be pulled up with the race halfway run recover so rapidly . . . leaving the best veterinarians in the country baffled? These are questions which anyone, with the interests of

horseracing at heart, will want to see answered. And until they are answered, forecasts for both the Derby and St Leger will remain pie-in-the-sky stuff. For Ribofilio, remember, is not just another horse. This, on all known form, is the best three-year-old in Europe. I was very close to him before the race and thought he looked a picture. Like Tower Walk and the eventual winner, Right Tack, he was beautifully turned out The only thing giving concern at that stage was the lack of his customary high spirits. He is, by nature, a very playful horse, and inclined to have some pretty robust fun with persons of whom he is fond. The trainer, Fulke JohnsonHoughton—a particular favourite—has more than once made an undignified exit from Ribofilio’s box. But in the paddock at Newmarket, he was quietness itself and, going down to the start, he barely raised his head. Long before they reached the stalls, Lester Piggott knew that favourite or not it was a race he would not win that day. “Normally,” said Lester, “he is a runaway character, and a bit of a handful cantering down to the start. But this time, he never took hold. He just wasn't the same horse.”

The race itself is history now. The favourite simply folded up after three furlongs and Piggott quite rightly pulled him up. “If he hadn’t,” says David McCall, racing manager to Ribofilio’s owner, Charles Engelhard, “he might have fallen down." My first thought when I saw him being pulled up was that he’d slipped a stiffle. He had, after all, done it twice before.

But my reaction was perhaps prompted more by personal experience than anything else. I still have vivid memories of Lionhearted slipping a stiffle coming down the hill to Tattenham Corner in Santa Claus’s Derby.

Bitter Memories Maybe I should say “bitter” memories. For we were going particularly well at the time, while many of those around us were not.

And 1 was beginning to get the kind of feeling that comes to a jockey just once or twice in a lifetime . . . namely that this day the Derby could be mine for the taking. Still, even as that thought came to me at Newmarket, I recognised the fallacies. The stifle is the joint between the femur and the tibia—the equivalent of a man’s knee. It can slip out of joint with one stride and back in with the next. It usually happens on a downhill run or on a sharpish bend. The Rowley Mile is, of course, straight and the damage occurred long before he reached the dip ... in fact, almost certainly before he reached the start. It is possible he slipped a stiffle in his box. But such a dislocation usually leaves its victim very sore . . . and there was no sign of any soreness with Ribofilio. Another Virus Last year, the JohnsonHoughton stable did suffer from a mystery virus which, among other things, dented the Derby hopes of Remand. And it is just possible that this is the beginning of another such virus. The stable, by its own high standards, has not hit winning form this season.

After the race, there was great concern about Ribofilio’s heart which had an irregular beat. But it soon returned to normal, and was presumably the result of the thing that had happened to him that day, rather than the cause.

His eye membranes, though, were inflamed and he appeared to have suffered a considerable shock. None of these theories can be discounted, yet they all apparently founder on the awful coincidence that this hitherto unsuspected weakness should reveal itself on Guineas Day with the money down. It is for this reason that one cannot discount the possibility that he was doped with a substance that cannot be detected.

The anaylsis, after all, simply says that no trace of dope was found; that the test proved negative. But this is not entirely the same as saying categorically that he was not doped. If it really is possible to dope a Guineas favourite under night and day guard, then no horse can be safe. I have often thought that one of the reasons why we are fond of horses is that they cannot talk. Just this once, I wish they could.