THE GODOLPHIN SCANDAL
Sounds like the name of a movie, and indeed, it could turn out to be a real horror if the scandal keeps widening at this pace. It's ironic that I watched a Frankie Dettori interview a couple of days ago, where he described being nudged out of the Godolphin line-up by a new trainer that had entered the scene. Dettori said he felt so low, with everything he held dear in racing falling away from him, that he turned to drugs as a means of escaping reality, and ultimately got landed with a six-month ban as a result. With some hard work, having now served out the ban, he can hopefully get back his life and return to the winner's circle in due course.

Meanwhile, the Godolphin empire has been rocked by its own drug scandal, but, in many ways, a far more serious one. Dettori did something incredibly foolish, which he has admitted to, and paid the price in full. Furthermore, the drugs that the rider took did nothing to enhance his performance as a sportsman, while those tracked down in the stables run by Al-Zarooni are raising serious ethical questions on sporting code. Doping has raised its ugly head numerous times in America, but Newmarket and the British racing community as a whole is in shock today - first a few Godolphin horses, and now another batch, including the St Leger winner, Encke.

Whereas Dettori may possibly be able to restore his image and pride in the coming months, the damage done to the British racing industry by Al-Zarooni will last for a long time, destroying hard-earned reputations that took decades to establish, and possibly rewriting history along the way, as with the Lance Armstrong cycling case - you can be sure the owners of Camelot will be as gutted as those that came second to Armstrong in the Tour De France on numerous occasions. All we can do is hope this is an isolated case of a misguided individual striving for success at all costs...