Hong Kong hits front as Brits lose ground in integrity stakes

Vive la difference, as they say in France, where they know a thing or two about being different. After all, wouldn’t the world be a duller place if everybody went round beheading aristocrats or emptying tanker-loads of Spanish wine in the street in protest at something or other.

That’s just the French, fortunately, but I think many of us have a secret admiration for their uncomplicated way of circumventing bureaucratic process and making their point.

So there’s a certain irony in the fact that their racing industry is now running the risk of being pushed to the flimsy end of a rather long limb, thanks not to any insistence on militant industrial action among stable staff or the use of the guillotine in stewards’ inquiries, but on the retention of its rather fussy stance on in-running interference rules.