Catching the bad guys: meet the new breed of investigator trying to 'police' racing

If there's one thing we need to know about the BHA's integrity department, it's that it's very much not like the police, says head of integrity John Burgess, in what is very much not like an interrogation room at the BHA's new London headquarters. Not like the police at all.

The official assurance seems to be down to a desire to get away from portrayals, drawn from recent history, of racing's own regulator consisting of multiple pairs of size 12 boots trampling through the gardens of the sport.

The picture has changed, so we're told. Where once the department often took "people directly from the police, thinking they're coming in to tell racing how to investigate, rather than learning anything about racing", now the 26-strong integrity team includes "only four with a police background – five if you count a former state trooper; three of those six years or less, myself included; the one who made it to double figures had previously worked in racing yards; and almost half of them are from a racing industry background".