Bri and Ben.. the numpty men.

Byline: JOE PUNTER

WHY oh why do I have to love horses and racing so much? What an impediment it has been in my long and inglorious career.

After all, I could have been born in the Home Counties, gone in to marketing, ended up knowing nothing about the sport of kings yet still made a fortune pontificating on it.

Just like a mob named Harrison Fraser who have come up with the biggest load of bollocks since Chamberlain promised us peace in our time.

Hang on to your zimmers boys but they want to sex us up. Part of their strategy is to "identify" two stereotypes, Brian and Ben.

Brian is staid, conservative, boring, sexist and fifty-plus ... and he goes racing. Ben looks likeDaniel Craig, is thirtysomething, cool, edgy and powerful (not my words). The marketing men want more Bens to rub shoulders with all us Brians at the races.

Harrison Fraser are forgetting one thing, Ben will be too busy bonking a supermodel to worry about us lower orders. Utter garbage! Racing Enterprises Ltd, the quango overseeing this rebranding rubbish, does not have one woman or non-white in its line-up.

It's the Emperor's New Clothes Mark 11.

* ONE of the straightest guys in racing is Darryll Holland who will sadly have to miss the Derby meeting next month after copping a 21-day ban at Warwick on Saturday night.

Dazzler was deemed not to have ridden out Gold Maha in a bog-standard maiden despite his fear that the filly had gone lame.

It's bureaucracy indulging in bampottery, given Holland said his mount had jumped a path and might have injured herself.

This was also backed up by Gold Maha's trainer Mick Channon.

Memo to Warwick stewards: Go after the real bad guys and stop the pettiness that has caused Holland so much strife.

*GOT a racing query? Write to Joe Punter, Sports Desk, Sunday Mail, One Central Quay, Glasgow G3 8DA or email [e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

Channon: Full support