It was not made clear how much Sodom was going on in these rural spots but there was certainly plenty of Gomorrah. There were allegations of a married trainer and trysts with a nanny and of big, brown, envelopes for bentjockeys.By the end, Valley of the Racehorse seemed a rather antiseptic epithet for the area. The jury of seven women and five men may have thought Valley of Sin was far more appropriate. They were to hear tales of customised briefcases concealing recording devices, a jockey wired up to make tapes of his own, policemen kicking down doors of suspects and lying on the earth in camouflage gear during surveillance.Distilled it sounds preposterous Distilled it sounds like Dick Francis. And if his sales are anything to go by, racing may not have been harmed at all Indeed, it may have been advertised. For each person appalled by the scruffy linen of the Harrington case there may have been one titillated.The allegations in the Old Bailey these last 35 days have been damaging to individuals, but the harm to racing’s roguish allure is likely to be nothing by comparison. Kim Bailey, the man who first introduced Harrington and Osborne, certainly does not expect the game to wither overnight.

He expects skulduggery in racing, he expects people to be intoxicated by it.”There is sleaze everywhere and every sport suffers from it,” he says. “No business is squeaky clean, because when there is money involved that’s not possible Racing has actually been very lucky over the years. The journalists genuinely seem to love the sport they write about and seldom run it down They are terrified about bringing the sport into disrepute As a profession we are very spoilt. I think Dick Francis has preconceived everybody to what racing is all about. I’m sure that’s half the reason why half the people get involved in racing They love the intrigue and the gossip.

The reason that racing is so popular is because there is that mystique to it.”So there it is. It could well be that, post-Harrington, the public will think racing is all fixed races, syringes and doping And they will love it.. Two days after the Prime Minister dodged the issue of the euro at a speech given in this medieval town, British athletes are here in unequivocal pursuit of another currency – gold, silver and bronze. Two days after the Prime Minister dodged the issue of the euro at a speech given in this medieval town, British athletes are here in unequivocal pursuit of another currency – gold, silver and bronze.
As a portion of the 28-strong British team sets to work in the newly constructed Flanders Sports Arena today, the chance is there for all to set down important markers for the Olympic year which lies ahead. “They can make a statement early in the season,” said Britain’s chief coach Max Jones yesterday. “A lot of people have the opportunity to hit the headlines.”Of Britain’s three European indoor champions from Valencia 1998 – Ashia Hansen, Jonathan Edwards (both triple jump) and John Mayock (3,000m) – only Mayock is back to defend in a championship that has attracted a number of leading performers including France’s Eunice Barber, who beat Denise Lewis to the world heptathlon title last summer, world decathlon champion Tomas Dvorak of the Czech Republic, and the IAAF World Woman Athlete of the Year for 1999, Gabriela Szabo of Romania.But while a strong field will make the task a tall one for Mayock, who almost literally fought off the challenge of three Spaniards on home territory two years ago, the prospects for two of Britain’s brightest young sprinters look fine.Jason Gardener, whose outstanding early season form over 60 metres sees him arrive here as clear favourite, is eager to secure a first major international title which would finally expunge the painful memories of his participation in this championship four years ago.As on this occasion, an outstanding time established him as the favourite to win in Stockholm, but nerves, and a false start, contributed to his exit in the heats.

Four years on, the 24-year-old Bath athlete is a far wiser and tougher competitor. And, unlike 1996, he has consistently exhibited the potential he first displayed in winning a world junior silver medal in 1994.Having become only the third European behind Linford Christie and Dwain Chambers to break 10 seconds for 100m shortly before last summer’s World Championships, his ambitions in Seville were undermined by food poisoning after he ate poorly cooked chicken at the team hotel.This year – with chicken firmly off the menu – he has established a winning pattern. In his last race before these championships, 10 days ago in Madrid, he recorded 6.48sec despite a poor start, which was only 0.02sec off the British record he set in winning world indoor bronze last year.Gardener is as ready as he can be to take a firm step in the direction of the Sydney Games. His closest rivals look likely to be Gabor Dobos, of Hungary, Germany’s former champion Marc Blume, and Giorgios Theodoridis, the Greek whom he beat by just 0.01sec in Athens earlier this month.The last Briton to win the 200m in this event was Ade Mafe, back in 1989, but – given a decent lane draw in today’s opening heats – Christian Malcolm and Julian Golding have both got the ability to emulate him.Since recovering from a debilitating bout of flu in the New Year, Malcolm, the 20-year-old who won the world junior 100 and 200m titles two years ago, has established himself as the form athlete domestically, although Golding was a late entry to these championships after narrowly failing to catch the Welshman on the line in Sunday’s CGU Indoor Grand Prix at Birmingham.Although the bends at the Flanders Arena offer little assistance to athletes, not being steeply banked, the relatively gentle curves lessen the likelihood that those who draw the two inside lanes will be cramped out of contention.Nevertheless, Malcolm was hoping yesterday to be drawn no nearer to the inside than lane four, which was the one he occupied in the inaugural event here when he recorded 21.08 in coming second behind fellow Briton Marlon Devonish.That meeting also produced a highly encouraging performance from Mayock, who set a British 2,000m record, but he is under no illusions that retaining the title he won with such grit in Valencia will be easy.Touchingly – or not, as the case may be – two of his closest rivals have gone out of their way to keep him up to date on their encouraging progress. After running at the Stuttgart meeting earlier this month, Mayock was approached by Portugal’s Rui Silva, winner of the European Indoor 1500m title two years ago, who told the Yorkshireman he was moving up a distance in Ghent. Soon afterwards, Mayock received a call from Italy’s Gennaro Di Napoli who casually mentioned the fact that he had been training really well in Portugal in anticipation of running…

the European Indoor 3,000m.”He said he had been playing a lot of golf while he was out there,” Mayock said. “I told him he would be better off sticking to golf rather than running in Ghent. The whole thing was like boxing on the phone…”But while Mayock shrugs off the attempts of his fellow athletes to psych him out he admitted yesterday he regrets that his adviser, the former Olympic and world silver medallist Peter Elliott, will not be there to assist him as he was in Valencia. Elliott, who is employed by a sportswear company, is working at this weekend’s English National cross country meeting.