Horsepower is a beautiful show - but Drive To Survive it is not

There are many beautiful shots and some compelling storylines in Horsepower, a four-part documentary due to go live on Friday on Amazon Prime Video, but it is surely not going to be the crossover hit that does for racing what Drive To Survive is doing for Formula 1. Such hopes are apparently nursed by the production team but, on the evidence of the first two episodes, made available to reporters in advance, the cast of characters is too narrow and the drama too thinly spread to turn heads far beyond the sport's established fanbase.

Oisin Murphy and Andrew Balding are the big names involved, giving the producers plenty of access from the autumn of 2020 to the summer of last year. The final episode will apparently focus on Royal Ascot of 2021, which turned out to be a huge week for both men.

Those behind the cameras must have thought they had stumbled across gold on the Friday of that week, when, in consecutive races, Murphy lost the Commonwealth Cup in the stewards' room and then landed the Coronation Stakes aboard Alcohol Free. The filly's career over the preceding nine months is a key source of hope and expectation at Balding's yard, as depicted in Horsepower, so the producers must naturally have seen this as the ideal high on which to end.

Unfortunately, it has since emerged that Murphy broke Covid rules with a trip to Mykonos at about the time filming started. As a result of that and two failed breath tests for alcohol, he has been banned from race-riding anywhere in the world for the whole of this year, a fact that has been in the public domain for seven months but is apparently not going to be dealt with in Horsepower.

Explicable as that decision may be (production was over when the news broke and the issue was complex), it is a mistake. How can you convince viewers they're getting the inside story while failing to mention the one thing most of them know about your main character?

For committed fans of racing, there is much to enjoy, including gorgeous images of horses in Hampshire. Several Balding staffers come across well, including Kameko's loving groom Marie Perrault, rendered terribly nervous by the prospect of a trip with him to the US.

Cassia Cooper, the plain-speaking work-rider credited with transforming Alcohol Free, appears, on slight acquaintance, to be a potential star. Stroking the filly at the start of her three-year-old season, Cooper cheerily tells the camera: "Her arse looks much bigger now."

Then there is the incredible story of Abdul Kareem Musa Adam, a Sudanese refugee who somehow gravitated to the yard after, we are told, arriving in England in the wheel arch of a lorry. Having established himself as a valuable contributor, he returns to Africa to comb refugee camps for his long-lost younger brother, leaving the staff's mother-figure Anna Lisa Balding beside herself with fear.

The documentary shows Andrew Balding's yard to be an impressive outfit, but it did sometimes feel a bit like a Kingsclere promoCredit: Edward Whitaker

Both Baldings are likeable, but there is rather a lot of them in the first two episodes when perhaps other characters could have been developed. The project feels quite tightly controlled and at times risks coming across as a Kingsclere promo rather than something more independent and insightful.

While Murphy's most recent ban is not mentioned, there is no other sign that he made friends with the editor. He is shown being rude to his driver. He is bitter about a three-month cocaine ban, which comes up a few times, and his problems with alcohol are addressed.

We see him pouring a bottle down the sink. He tells us: "I feel like I've turned a corner. I'm in a really good place."

Andrew Balding is more prescient, speaking early in 2021. "Oisin's got a really tough year ahead of him," he says. "At some stage, he's got to make a decision, what he wants to focus on."

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