SOME of Britain's biggest trainers on Sunday came under attack for using “bully boy tactics” in a bid to force a boycott of a race at Yarmouth.
Christine Dunnett, trainer of Southwark Newsboy, who will walk over in the final race on Monday's card, was joined by the owners of the three-year-old, trainer Gay Kelleway, and former trainer Bill O'Gorman, in expres-sing anger at the ‘big boys' involved in the prize-money-inspired boycott, including trainers Mark Johnston, William Haggas and Chris Wall, preident of the National Trainers' Federation.
Johnston contacted Dunnett to say he hoped she was “ashamed” to have declared her runner.
Dunnett, who will double her tally for the year when Southwark Newsboy trots past the winning post just after 5.10pm – assuming Monday's meeting passes an inspection – expressed her annoy-ance at what she claimed was an insulting email from Johnston.
The trainer said she supported attempts to boost prize-money, but was not happy about the big trainers deciding to hold a “wildcat strike” after entries had been made and owners had made plans to go to Yarmouth.
It was an email Johnston sent to Dunnett on Saturday that triggered an emotional response from the Norfolk trainer, who replied to her Classic-winning counterpart, saying she felt “the big boys on Newmarket Heath had used ‘bully boy' tactics”.
Dunnett claims Johnston told her how he “makes good money from training fees alone”, adding that “if small trainers go under, my position will only strengthen”.
Derby-winning trainer John Gosden was also critical of the decision by connections to run in the 1m maiden, worth £2,331.72 to the winner.
However, a spokesman for Southwark Newsboy's owners, Southwark News Racing Club, on Sunday said it was solely his decision to run, and that all prize-money would be donated to a brain tumour charity, as Dunnett had lost her husband to a tumour when she was pregnant with her fifth child.
He said: “The first I heard about this was on Friday. Christine spoke to me and said she was coming under pressure from William Haggas and Chris Wall not to declare. I told her that was bad news. There are 200 members – ordinary, working-class people, including bin men, dinner ladies and OAPS – and my first loyalty is to them. I was outraged when I was told there had been a gathering of big trainers on Newmarket Heath.
“Mrs Dunnett asked what she should do, and I told her we should stand our ground, and if it was a walkover we'd donate all the prize-money to the brain tumour research charity Christine works so tirelessly for.
“We'd made a decision we were going to run and, while some big-name trainers tried to arm-twist Christine,I'm glad she didn't cave in. She has nothing to be ashamed of. It was my decision that we would run if we could.
“If Haggas, Wall and Mark Johnston had said, ‘Let's have a meeting and include the small trainers', Christine and I would have gone alongwith it, but it was decided unilaterally by people who don't understand what the lower echelons are like.
“They don't know what it's like for me to have to call up people to tell them to cancel their charabanc on bank holiday. To call a wildcat striketwo days before people have got their day planned is unacceptable.”
Kelleway, who has three horses declared at Yarmouth, was “furious” about the actions of the main players in the boycott.
“I think smaller trainers are being bullied,” she said on Sunday. “They had the right forum at the trainers' meeting in Newmarket, not long before the entry stage for Yarmouth, and I think they could have put their point of view across then, and all trainers would have been united.
“In the end, we've had certain people phoning us up three days before the meeting, when my owners have made arrangements to go racing. My owners work and they want a day out, whereas the big trainers' owners watch it on the television from Dubai.
“I have no intention of boycotting anything, because that is not the way to do things in racing. Mr Haggas would not make a good politician. I find him a bully. This is a man who will not even say hello to me in the morning.”
Kelleway added: “Come and train my horses Mr Haggas, and I'll train yours, and then maybe I'll have the freedom to not run my horses at certain meetings. If he were to come and train my horses then he'd be glad of places like Yarmouth.”
Former Newmarket trainer O'Gorman was disappointed by Haggas's comments about Dun-nett, saying: “I think it's well and truly out of order of Mr Haggas to be pillorying Christine Dunnett. He is prominent in the East Anglia section of the NTF and he is supposed to be representing her interests.
“I find this idea of a boycott coming from him extremely ironic, given that it's been something I've proposed for the last ten years, primarily over 48-hour declarations, and he personally has been extremely noisy in shouting me down.”
Talk about "them and us" Is it a coincidence that neither Gay nor Christine speak with a plum in their mouths and they are both female. I wonder what other trainers were bullied into withdrawing their horses.