“That was rather exceptional and I think we were right to try to hold it out of the public glare,” John Maxse, the Jockey Club spokesman, said yesterday.The Chairman on the bench, as before, will be Gurney Sheppard. “If Dean gets his licence back, he rides her,” Claire Johnsey, the trainer, said yesterday. The sounding out by the Jockey Club of opinion in key sectors of the racing industry is likely to lead to the three suspended riders regaining their licences tomorrow Richard Edmondson reports. Two of the three jockeys suspended from racing following doping and race-fixing allegations may be back in action by the end of the week.
The growing feeling yesterday was that the Jockey Club is about to annul its verdict of last Wednesday, a suggestion nurtured by early bookings for Dean Gallagher and Leighton Aspell. Jamie Osborne, the third man under suspicion, remains incapacitated by a wrist injury.Gallagher has already been pencilled in to ride Claudia Electric at Sandown on Saturday. Craig Lynch, the Newcastle Eagles coach, has warned his players to ignore the two defeats which rocked London Towers’ Budweiser League season at the weekend when they line up against them at Wembley tonight for the first leg of their Uni-ball League Trophy semi-final.

“We have to concentrate on our job and forget what’s happening around us,” Lynch said. Following Saturday’s 88-82 capitulation at Derby Storm and the astonishing 79-78 home defeat against the bottom club Watford Royals, only four points separate the top five clubs and Towers have played up to three more games than their rivals.
Lynch said: “Towers are there to be shot at and they just have to respond, like the rest of us. They’re a good team, and we won’t be fooled by those results.”Newcastle are on a 13-game unbeaten run and the sequence includes two league victories over Towers at Wembley, but Lynch said: “That’s history.”. Cardiff, the champions, had looked the only side capable of stopping Ayr’s drive for the title, but Vince Boe’s first period goal settled a tense game in Eagles’ favour.
Ron Dopson was magnificent in the Ayr goal, stopping all 40 shots on his net to complete a memorable personal weekend – he shut out Basingstoke 24 hours earlier.The Scottish side, with a seven-point lead at the top, now need a maximum of four points from their four remaining games – three of which are at home – to add the Superleague title to the Benson and Hedges Cup they have already secured.Elsewhere Manchester Storm added to the misery of Basingstoke Bison – shut-out by Ayr on their own ice on Saturday – beating them 6-3 at the Nynex Arena.. Ayr Scottish Eagles took a big step towards winning the Superleague title on Sunday by beating Cardiff Devils 1-0 in South Wales. The company was set up both to carry out the duties of the BAF and set up a new structure to run the sport. It has already been awarded pounds 300,000 by the Sports Council.
A spokesman for UK Athletics 98, Stuart Barnes, added: “The half-million figure is a bit high.

You’d be better off talking around pounds 100,000.”l Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee, criticised some sports bodies yesterday for not rooting out drug cheats, saying at the IOC Session in Nagano, Japan, that many had “taken no measures to combat this [doping] scourge”.. UK Athletics 98 officials yesterday confirmed that the International Athletic Federation had offered the new body a sum of money to help it through the financial crisis left behind when the British Athletic Federation went bankrupt, but they denied it was as much as $500,000 (pounds 310,000). That figure was mentioned in reports of a statement by the IAAF president, Primo Nebiolo, that talks about a loan were in progress. UK Athletics 98 was set up in November when the British Athletic Federation went into receivership with debts of $550,000. Gary Kirsten struck a stylish century to guide South Africa into a match-winning position on the fourth day of the third Test against Australia in Adelaide. He followed up his first innings 77 with an unbeaten 108 as South Africa, 1-0 down in the series, declared on 193 for 6, setting Australia an unlikely target of 361 to win By the close they had slumped to 32 for 2.

Earlier, Australia’s captain Mark Taylor had become only the ninth Australian in history to carry his bat through a Test innings, finishing on 169 not out after more than eight-and-a-half hours at the crease.
Fourth day; South Africa won tossSOUTH AFRICA – First Innings 517 (B M McMillan 87no, G Kirsten 77, W J Cronje 73, P L Symcox 54).AUSTRALIA – First Innings(Overnight: 327 for 9)*M A Taylor not out 169S C G MacGill b Symcox 10Extras (lb12, nb5, b2) 19Total (122.5 overs) 350Bowling: Pollock 41-11-87-7 (nb2); McMillan 23-5-60-0 (nb1); Kallis 18- 5-45-1; Klusener 27-65-104-1 (nb2); Symcox 13.5-3-40-1.SOUTH AFRICA – Second InningsG Kirsten not out 108A M Bacher c MacGill b Warne 41J H Kallis b Kasprowicz 15*W J Cronje c Warne b Kasprowicz 5L Klusener b MacGill 0P L Symcox C Healy b MacGill 2H H Gibbs st Healy b MacGill 2J N Rhodes not out 19Extras (nb1) 1Total (for 6 dec, 58 overs) 193Fall: 1-80, 2-133, 3-155, 4-155, 5-157, 6-165.Did not bat: B M McMillan, S M Pollock, D J Richardson.Bowling: Kasprowicz 18-5-55-2; Bichel 14-2-51-0 (nb1); S R Waugh 4-1- 13-0; Warne 15-2-52-1; MacGill 7-1-22-3.AUSTRALIA – Second InningsM E Elliott c Richardson b Pollock 4*M A Taylor b Klusener 6G S Blewett not out 9M E Waugh not out 11Extras (nb2) 2Total (for 2) 32Fall: 1-6; 2-17.Bowling: Pollock 6-2-11-1 (nb1); Klusener 5-2-12-1 (nb1); Kallis 4-3- 1-0; Symcox 2-0-8-0.Umpires: D B Cowie (NZ) and S G Randell (Aus).. He suggested yesterday that Lamaison “may not be mentally up to it”.
Lamaison, who scored 18 of France’s points as they came from behind to beat England 23-20 last year on their way to the grand slam, was devastated after Saturday’s defeat.Should the French selectors decide to drop him, then Thomas Castaignede would play at centre with the goal kicking duties and David Aucagne at stand-off.Villepreux said the match with England would prove a huge test particularly for the younger players in a fresh French team under a new captain, the hooker Rafael Ibanez.”We’re hoping for a successful fusion of the young players with the more experienced,” Villepreux said.Ireland have named the Garryowen scrum-half, Steve McIvor, among the replacements for Saturday’s Five Nations game with Scotland in Dublin.The 28-year-old, who won his two caps against Australia and Italy last season, replaces Niall Hogan after the London Irish half-back fractured his cheekbone playing for his club on Sunday.The London Irish lock Gabriel Fulcher and Victor Costello, the St Mary’s College No 8, have been switched from the Ireland A team to play Scotland A on Friday at Donnybrook to the senior squad’s replacement panel.Their places in the A side will be taken by Bath’s Brian Cusack and David Erskine, of Sale, while the Bristol stand-off, Paul Burke, takes over the Ireland A captaincy from Fulcher.Kevin Yates is expected to deny allegations of ear-biting when he faces a Rugby Football Union disciplinary panel today. But, illogically, I still think France will win, and am backing them to take the Championship as well.. There is no questioning his ability – what worries France’s backs guru, Pierre Villepreux, is the centre’s mental state after missing a potentially decisive kick in his club’s stunning defeat by Bath in the Heineken Cup final on Saturday. Christophe Lamaison, the Brive kicker who was France’s match-winner against England at Twickenham last year, could be left out for the confrontation between the sides in their Five Nations’ Championship at the Stade de France outside Paris on Saturday. Woodward has kept the pack that held New Zealand, with the enforced substitution of Mark Regan for Richard Cockerill.The most risky French ploy is to play Thomas Castaignede, now of Castres, at outside half, when what he is naturally is an attacking centre. And Clive Woodward has been more level-headed in his selections for Saturday’s match than Pierre Villepreux and Jean-Claude Skrela seem to have been with theirs, despite some silly, unnecessary teases on Woodward’s part last week.Accordingly Jeremy Guscott duly returns, and quite right too.

The younger Quinnell is not the most accomplished line-out performer I have ever seen either. But with the other exports that really have been chosen, Barry Williams, Gareth Llewellyn and Scott Quinnell, they would undoubtedly strengthen the pack. The time when the Welsh selectors could afford to turn up their noses at players turning out for English clubs has long passed.From what I have seen in France, the standard of top English club rugby is higher than anything regularly available there as well. There are four forwards in the Allied Dunbar Premier Division who are arguably the superiors of the players Bowring has chosen: John Davies and Craig Quinnell of Richmond, and Nathan Thomas and Richard Webster of Bath, though Thomas is a substitute.Admittedly Davies and Webster are getting on a bit, even though Webster did sterling work for Bath at Bordeaux. He is, I am afraid, the victim of prejudice: not colour prejudice – certainly not – but that prejudice which works against players who have come to the game relatively late in life and also happen to be extremely fast.The wiseacres always say in these circumstances that they are “not sure about his defence” even though his defence is exemplary, as it is with Walker. Yet on Saturday 4 April England play Ireland at Twickenham, leaving Wales to play France at Wembley on the Sunday.Oddly, I have the feeling that Wales may win this match, if Kevin Bowring can pick the right team. Both Andrew Harriman of Harlequins and Simon Davies of Swansea were insufficiently recognised by their countries (in Davies’ case, he was not recognised at all) on this spurious ground.Earlier I mentioned the makeshift aspect of the Welsh forwards.