Racing depends on punters' money - yet this latest farce shows it is continuing to treat them with contempt

Whatever you made of the Grand National, there's no denying it was at least a public relations success. How galling, therefore, that it took just 72 hours for British racing to shoot itself in the foot again.

It happened in a Class 5 novice handicap at Ffos Las on Tuesday rather than the world's most famous chase, so the television audience was probably a hundred times smaller.

But that was by luck rather than judgement, and the incident in question underlines yet again how a sport that depends on punters' money can treat those who fund it with contempt.