Graham Cunnigham Reopens Noland Wounds

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Page 9 today's RP, Graham Cunningham reopens the Hales/Nicholls mythical arguement over Nolands intended late season targets.

Considering Paul Nicholls has already stated the original article was untrue, and John Hales is now publicly saying the Arkle is still an option, why is Cunningham bothering with this line, especially as his job in the article is simply to tip a horse for, among other events, today's novice chase at Newbury?

The things people do to fill space.

Or maybe this is evidence of an "anti-Ditcheat" group within the racing media, perhaps with an agenda, following Nicholls' refusal to be interviewed by a certain female racing personality!
 
Melendez, I think my thread is of some worth. Cunningham is reopening old wounds instead of showing some resepct to the champion natinoal hunt trainer and a well respected supporter of the game, John Hales.

What if this RP led hounding resulted in Hales saying "sod this I am giving up racing". After all of the tragedy he has had to endure in the sport, to be subjected to this sort of media mis-representation could be the final straw. Does National Hunt really want to lose people like him, especially with the recession already taking hold (see article in today's post about the failure to find a sponsor for the Derby)!
 
I cant take anything Graham Cunningham says seriously. Since I saw him on the betfair forum throwing his toys out of the pram and offering to fight the forumite who questioned his opinion.

The mans opinion is worthless in my view.
 
The opening to Cuntinghams piece is unnecessary to the point of sneeringly nasty.

Typically arrogant of the raging boast, misquoters-in-chief and wallowing in the luxury of its monopoly, to refuse any possibility that it may have used Hales' words out of context. Under no pressure they continue to march on unchecked, printing glaring and amateurish errors each and every day, putting words in peoples mouths and with no sign of an apology even when they are picked up on their inaccuracies.

Grinning chimp Skelton maybe, but he is left in a position of great trust by Nicholls on many occasions and yet he is held up for ridicule for suggesting the raging boast may be wrong in their reporting of Hales' words.

I have heard that Hales is livid with the paper in their reporting of what he said.

But Cuntingham ( sorry couldn't resist the reference to Christine ) continues with thinly veiled vitriol towards Nicholls and his festival chances and their owners with heavy suggestion that the trainer cares nothing for their wishes.
 
Well said guys.

Brig, I missed the Betfair scrap! I would have loved to have seen that. Did he post under his real name or a handle? If so what was it?
 
Originally posted by useful@Jan 25 2008, 11:51 AM
Well said guys.

Brig, I missed the Betfair scrap! I would have loved to have seen that. Did he post under his real name or a handle? If so what was it?
Click to expand...
I will try and find it for you and post you the link if I can.

Yifter The Shifter is his betfair forum id.
 
How dare he dishonour the nickname of one of Ethiopia's finest distance runners!

I look forward to it Brig, sounds like a right hoot!
 
Unbelievable assumptions being made here

First of all, Paul Nicholls has a column with the Racing Post which is crucial to them. There is absolutely no way any paper would facilitate an anti-Ditcheat agenda towards one of their own columnists. It is suicide. They'll hang one of their own hacks out to dry before losing Nicholls.

Secondly, we are dealing with John Hales the owner who - after one of the Tingle Creeks - publicly slated Ruby. The man may be lovely but he is extremely loose tongued, rash of thought and so on...in fact, Nicholls even alluded on RUK the other day that the problem was the journalist in question contacting Hales 'after his Sunday lunch. Maybe he was, shall we say, worse for wear?! He has previous form at being cretinous.

It is very, very easy for people to say that someone made certain quotes up etc etc...it's a very convenient way out. But if it were true, then libel proceedings would be issued on a frequent basis. I have absolutely no doubt Hales said what he did. I don't think he was thinking when he said it....or realised the consequences. No one will ever believe a journalist over Hales/Nicholls etc because they have a platform in which to quash the story but, remember, only a handful of people know the real truth. And there's probably a good chance it's captured on tape as well.
 
Bobbyjo, I understood the laws of this land state it is illegal to tape a telephone conversation without prior consent from the person(s) being taped.

If this is the case then any legal proceedings would describe the tape recording in this case as inadmissable.

You make valid points about Paul Nicholls' personal relationship with the RP, and without a personal insight into that, I am not in a position to pass judgement.

However, based upon the initial responses by the Ditcheat team to the RP revelations, it strikes me as totally unecessary for Cunningham to continue the debate in a column where readers want to see cases being put for his selections not mischievous conjecture.

That said I have to applaud him and Matt Williams for putting me right off Best Prospect!! Although I sided with Matt Williams in backing Big Buck's!!!!
 
Well, useful, all I can say is that for their own reasons [sometimes understandable] quite a lot of people in the public eye and quoted on a regular basis are compulsive liars. They know how to look after number one.

Fictional stories in newspaper, complete fliers...they are nothing new. But when quotes are involved it's different gravy. Once someone goes on the record then the words speak for themselves; Hales said those words and is backtracking rapidly.
 
Bobbyjo, I understood the laws of this land state it is illegal to tape a telephone conversation without prior consent from the person(s) being taped.
Click to expand...

Illogical as it may be, it was my understanding that only one person who is party to the conversation need consent to it being taped. I may well be wrong.
 
I believe that if you, for instance, were to proactively telephone me, and intend to tape the conversation, you would have to make me aware of your intention to do so.

In much the same way banks advise callers that their conversation may be taped for training purposes. If I proceed with th call having heard that message it is assumed I am consenting to be called.

I am not privy to the RPs methods in this area, however I presume that if they make such recordings they do so with the prior knowledge of the person they are contacting.

I may of course be totally wrong!
 
Surely its all academic. Neptune Collonges runs at Cheltenham tomorrow so Hales clearly has no problem running his horses there.

Much ado about nothing.
 
Fair point Maruco, but I still think Cunningham has been out of order.

I don't think Hales ever had a problem with Cheltenham as such (how could he after Azertyuiop's success), I think he was probably simply expressing his concerns over pitching in an inexperienced horse such as Noland into the cauldron of an Arkle.

In an ideal world I suspect Noland would have had at least 2 if not 3 chases to his name by now, and none of this would have blown up. However with the weather so unpredictable, and only six weeks to Cheltenham time is fast running out to get him the experience into him that one would like.

The bottom line is a few journalists hungry for a story have acted very irresponsibly - but thats journalists for you.

I suspect poor old Henry Daly is still waiting for an apology over the Opera De Coeur slagging he got last season!
 
Bobbyjo, you enter the debate with the comment that 'unbelievable assumptions are being made here' and then proceed to make assumptions for the remainder of that post and most of your next in order to make your point!

The picture you paint is that the raging boast never re-write quotes, never take words out of context, never ask leading questions and then make a big story out of a maybe or a maybe not.

Yeah, ok.

Henrietta Knight and Jim Lewis anyone ?

This is the latest in a long line.

There'll be another next week, together with a load of lazy bollocks reporting and crap sub-editing.
 
goober, I have made assumptions based upon the information at my disposal. And then responded to the posts of others with my take on events.

There may well be people at the RP feeling very aggrieved, even let down.

But there is a more mature way of dealing with this matter than the path chosen by Mr Cunningham.

And as an outside observer I would be very disappointed if this public spat led to unecessary actions such as Nicholls being less open about his yard (currently he is the most open trainer I know) or, as mentioned early, Hales decided to turn his back on racing altogether.

Again I would reiterate, the current economic climate should see the Racing industry doing all it can to hold on to people who spend fortunes supporting the game. A few more weeks like this on the stock market and the rich benefactors will have to start cutting costs, and relatively frivolous pursuits like racing may well be the first to suffer!
 
I agree with Bobbyjo on a few points - firstly, the RP spends so much time kissing Nicholl's arse they are never going to risk seriously annoying him.

Secondly, although I realise that the RP are very guilty of asking misleading questions then building largley fictitious articles around them (Mottershead has honed it to an art form), once they get into the realms of attributing direct quotes to people that are blatantly untrue they should be getting sued for it.

The one case that sticks in my mind is that cretin Morrice directly quoting Bowen as saying Yes Sir would definitely run in the King George, not the Feltham, then Bowen going ape as he says he said no such thing. I actually believe Bowen fully but have to ask why does Morrice still hold a job and why did they not drag his sorry backside through the courts?
 
The problem with legal proceedings is the cost.

Alan Berry is quoted in today's paper as considering legal action over the Hillside Girl affair to "get the thousands of pounds back that it has cost me defending myself".

I am surprised he wasn't awared costs in the initial case, but clearly was not.

This is what probably puts people off. I doubt you can get legal aid for bringing libel actions, and so you need to pay your own legal costs and bank on winning the case.

A sad state of affairs which means the individual (Bowen in your example) either pursues the offender in court (the not short of a few bob Racing Post) or takes it on the chin!
 
Probably because to say that someone said this or that with regard to where a horse may or may not be running is not personally damaging with regards to that misquoted persons future life or work.

Ok, the boast may be found guilty of saying that Hales or Bowen said these things when they hadn't but the details of such are not ' I shag prostitutes ' 'I lay my horses on betfair and have them stopped' or 'I know where Maddie is'

What are the damages going to be if the post is found to have misquoted Hales on saying he wont run his horse in The Arkle? Not worth pursuing, though when connections complain to the paper about inaccuracies in reporting they rarely correct them in print as they cant be bothered and if they were to do so they would have to put the price up again there would be so many!!

I think it is the annoyance of being misquoted that offends the most, for the subject matter is not THAT important. For me it is the arrogance of this paper that gets up my nose.
 
You beat me to it UG. They'd have to prove damages and i really can't see how they could do it to the point where by they'd be confident of winning, and thus instructing. Bowen for example would have to prove that horses have been moved from his yard, or not sent to him, because the RP had been singularly responsible for tarnishing his reputation. The RP could easily suggest there were other reasons why he'd lost horses etc and then there's the issue of attributing cause and effect on the balance of probabilities since it would be a civil rather than criminal case.

Only last week the RP were running a story that Brave Inca was being aimed at the Champion Hurdle etc and quoting someone (presumebly Colm? - I didn't read the article). Cantoris as an owner of the horse was able to refute it, but as Maruco remarked, people had nibbled at it on the exchanges on the back of the Post's misreporting :brows: You hardly need to be a genius to work out what a collective of racing journo's could do if they co-ordinated their activity? The wanton misreporting with the view to ramping a price is a potential line of abuse much more serious.
 
I think as someone mentioned earlier the problem lies with the RPs hegemony within the world of racing journalism.

Although an attempt was made to run a rival publication it didn't last very long.

The sport has shown there can be two dedicated TV channels, surely there can be more than one trade daily?
 
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