"If she did win the Lowther, she might go on to the Cheveley Park She will have not more than two more runs this year.". At the moment you can get odds of between 33 and 40 to 1 against Tottenham winning the Premiership this season - and that hurts. Nadwah, not seen on a racecourse since collecting Royal Ascot's Queen Mary Stakes six weeks ago, may have just one more outing this season and the Lowther Stakes at York on August 21 is her intended target. "As far as we can recall there has never been a ban as high as this handed out by the stewards at a racecourse."Of course, a ban could be much higher if the offence was serious enough to be referred to Portman Square.". Gary Hind was furious yesterday after being handed a three-day ban under the "non-triers" rule at Folkestone. Hind called it "a poor decision", after being stood down for 14 to 16 August following his ride on John Gosden's Literary, which was beaten six and a half lengths into fifth behind Country Thatch in last race.

He described Literary as a stubborn filly that he was trying to relax, but the stewards felt he could have brought her home in third place. The incident overshadowed a fine piece of training by Con Horgan with Country Thatch, who 12 months ago underwent an operation for a soft palate. "The highest ban a rider can get for one offence from local stewards is 14 days, but in this case it's the double whammy," a Jockey Club spokesman, John Maxse, said. Bastiman's spell out of the saddle runs from 14 to 23 August and then from 25 to 30 August. To complete a miserable day for the Bastimans the jockey's father Robin, the trainer of Mybotye, was fined pounds 200 for failing to inform the stewards of the reasons for Mybotye's poor performance on his previous outing.According to Jockey Club records no jockey has been given such a severe penalty by racecourse stewards for his riding in one race. "I reckon that might be the last one I'll build."Few would care to bet on it.. Most people's idea of a steep learning curve pales alongside the lessons Harvey Bastiman had to absorb yesterday.

The apprentice created an unwanted record at Catterick when he was given suspensions totalling 16 days for his riding in one race. Bastiman, 22, was stood down for 10 days for reckless riding after the well-backed Mybotye had finished first-past-the-post in the `Doncaster Town Moor' Handicap, but the stewards also took exception to his use of the whip and added a further suspension of six days. "I'm building a new 12-stall gate for a race track in Tucson," he says. "It's like your automobile, if you don't take care of it, it won't take care of you, so I rent them and I service them."Almost 60 years after his idea started to transform racing worldwide, Clay Puett is still regularly making improvements to the design. As with so many clever inventions, the stall was born out of failure and frustration, in Puett's case the result of being asked to act as a starter at a track in Colorado.

"I was a complete failure," he says, "and I wasn't used to that I just couldn't get them away in any kind of a line. There were seven or eight riders and they all wanted to be first. I had no control, so I decided to invent a piece of equipment that would let them out when I wanted them out."It took Puett a decade to come up with the design which, while it has changed in several minor details, is still the basis of stalls throughout the world today "Nobody's ever made one better than ours," he says "People didn't think you could lock up a thoroughbred However, I thought different. Horses are a lot like people, if you treat them with kindness, you'll get along."He was right, as the first trial at a course in Vancouver on 1 July 1939 was to prove, and scepticism swiftly turned to unbridled enthusiasm. "It took me by surprise," Puett says."By the end of 1940, they were being used at every major track in the United States, first at Bay Meadows in California when that opened that year, and then at Pimlico, Belmont and so on."It remains a thriving business.