Racing: Racegoers quickly shrug off Coshocton's death

Scanning these pages last week, my eyes fell upon a remark that distinguished the Newmarket trainer Michael Jarvis as a man of philosophical virtue. Interviewed by my colleague Richard Edmondson, he said: "The one thing about training racehorses is that you mustn't get upset over disasters because another one is just around the corner."

Those words came back to haunt Jarvis at Epsom on Saturday when the American-owned bay colt Coshocton, exhausted from a great effort that was certain to claim fifth place in the Derby, broke a foreleg when no more than 10 strides from the line. There was only one thing for it: a lethal injection.

Whatever training disasters Jarvis had in mind he could not have imagined one of such brutal irony, a blow against which philosophy was no protection. "Such is racing", they say, what Jarvis himself might have said in sympathy with another trainer, but this was horribly personal and he was inconsolable.

Watching the dark screens go up around the stricken horse, my mind went back a few years to the Breeders' Cup at Belmont in New York when the brilliant filly Go For Wand agonisingly tried to reach the line after breaking a leg with the race in her grasp, causing one hard-bitten American racing correspondent to put over his report in tears.

Go For Wand took her last strides in disturbing slow motion. Coshocton just went, the first hint of calamity coming less than a furlong before he crashed to the ground, sending Philip Robinson flying from the saddle to lay stunned on the turf. Such is racing? Well maybe, but this was the Derby not a mid-winter chase at Plumpton.

Until the mid-week weather turned bleak, bringing with it fresh concern about stamina, Jarvis had thought about overcoming the power of Ballydoyle and Godolphin, perhaps restoring some faith in the notion of a race not entirely dominated by the big battalions. Coshocton was dismissed in the betting ring, but Jarvis and his owners could dream. They deserved better than a nightmare.

They deserved to hear Coshocton's fate mentioned when the winning team came to discuss High Chaparral's victory, achieved in thrilling finish, from stablemate Hawk Wing, the mount wrongly chosen by Mick Kinane. But no words of sympathy. "That's racing", they say, which applied as much to punters bellying up against the bars, to the corporate guests, to the toffs in their finery, as it did to High Chaparral's well-groomed connections. "Yes, quite sad", I heard somebody say, "but what a finish, I was on the winner, got the 7-2, bloody marvellous."

"That's racing", they say. Well, maybe.

High Chaparral outstayed Hawk Wing, but the truth of it is that one without the other, either one, would have won by 12 lengths. Terrific horses, a tribute to Aidan O'Brien's remarkable talent, they were on their own once Johnny Murtagh kicked for home. Kinane brought Hawk Wing up to High Chaparral's quarters – "I could hear Mick, knew it was him because I've heard him before", Murtagh said. "But he couldn't get closer." Sensibly he did not use up the horse in a futile effort. "Just shows you how far the two big yards are ahead on the rest", a racing sage said.

Whether this is greatly to the good of racing generally and the Derby in particular is another matter. Despite its decline, the problems brought by the influence of American blood lines, the Derby is still the race to win but ever harder for trainers who are not backed by vast resources.

Looking out over the Downs on Saturday there was no real sense of a truly great occasion. Times have changed. The title of "World's Greatest Race", is now seriously open to question. What is left of tradition gives it a place, but like the FA Cup final it has lost much of its old lustre.

Watching High Chaparral and Hawk Wing fight it out was not the least exhilarating sports experience we will get this summer but, no matter how it was talked up, a dark shadow fell upon proceedings. Coshocton went to his grave. "That's racing", they say. Well, maybe.