Penalising owners the most effective way of changing win-at-all-costs mentality

Our man Richard Forristal's punchy interview with Aidan O'Brien last week contained plenty of straight talking and good sense, not least about the old chestnut of how to eradicate the scourge of 'questionable' riding tactics in the finish of big races.

Not in your run-of-the-mill events, where the prize-money is too paltry to make potentially dangerous manoeuvring worth the risk, but in major events, like the Matron Stakes at Leopardstown, in which Ballydoyle's Mother Earth was done no favours at all by Shane Foley on eventual winner No Speak Alexander.

O'Brien believed it was dangerous riding by Foley, which knowingly pushed the boundaries of the law and deserved a month's ban. "If the jockeys are allowed to do those things and are not given severe penalties, it will keep happening," he says, which is hard to argue with, although the matter has been allowed to meander along largely unchecked since the old king died.