There followed a 30-day suspension and the stirring of unused cogs in Dunwoody’s mind

There followed a 30-day suspension and the stirring of unused cogs in Dunwoody’s mind.The Irish trainer Barry Kelly, a good friend, had just died in a road accident and Dunwoody immersed himself in travel, riding work for Paddy Rudkin in Dubai, and going skiing. The self-absorption it takes to become a champion jockey had taken Dunwoody to the edge of the ravine. His body was moaning from the constant wasting, his marriage was in tatters (the husband will tell you he was no cherub in this relationship) and the word retirement came flickering into his head.That the knuckles of the sport’s competitive element was squeezing the life out of Dunwoody was exemplified one January day this year at Uttoxeter, where he ran Luke Harvey, a pal of his, off the track. Dunwoody maintained the partnership before achieving the greatest escape since our chaps started depositing earth down the inside of their trousers.”Someone said I’d lost an iron, but I hadn’t, otherwise I’d have fallen off,” he recalled.

“What happened was that the saddle slipped quite badly and if it had stayed where it was, down on one side, I would have pulled up. But I was going so well that I was able to spend a few strides using my body weight to get it back into place, but I only got it back to a certain extent.”Dunwoody was therefore hampered over the next two obstacles by a shifting seat and at the last by a mistake from his partner, who slipped and adopted the posture of a burrowing rodent Yet he still got back up to win. “All credit to the horse,” he said, yet all the jockey credits this season have been flowing the way of Thomas Richard Dunwoody MBE.It seems odd to relate that nearly 12 months ago he was almost lost to National Hunt racing. When Richard Dunwoody forced Unguided Missile’s lolling head in front on the line at Ascot on Saturday it completed a ride that was a triumph for all that the jockey had learned in his years in the saddle. It was also victory for the renaissance Dunwoody, who has locked away the stern figure of old for a more joyous existence.
Balance has long been the Ulsterman’s greatest ally, and he employed this to maximum effect on Saturday when Unguided Missile negotiated the last open ditch as tanks used to take on hedges in northern France. Fish know no national boundaries, so only by international agreement can the issue of conservation, without which the industry has no future, be properly dealt with.The writer is Fisheries Minister..

It was horsemanship that would have been appreciated from the Calgary stampede to Argentina’s polo fields and the Cossack plains of old Russia. Opponents of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which is being debated in the House of Commons today, should realise that if there was no CFP, it would have to be invented. One should not underestimate the impact of this on the locality and there is a need to proceed gradually; equally, there needs to be stability in fisheries management from one year to the next, avoiding sharp changes in quotas as far as we can.Next year, fisheries ministers will discuss a further round of targets for member states to bring their fleets more into line with available supplies of fish; I will be seeking the best possible deal for our fishermen. Newlyn has had 16 boats accepted for decommissioning this year.