UFO Info Week-End

A series of costly penalties proved to be Tampa’s undoing in a close affair

A series of costly penalties proved to be Tampa’s undoing in a close affair.There is hope on the horizon. The running back Michael Pittman returned after a three-game ban (he had rammed his wife’s car while she was driving it), but if Glazer is serious about acquiring some silverware this season, the Premiership looks his preferred option.Speaking of which, the New England Patriots are continuing to do a passable impression of Arsenal. Perhaps their owner’s alleged interest in another team 4,000 miles away is having a detrimental effect. “It is a very fast five furlongs and the race yesterday was run in a very fast time. I think that would probably be the best option.”BREEDERS’ CUP CLASSIC (Lone Star Park, 30 October) William Hill: 9-4 Pleasantly Perfect, 11-2 Bago, 6-1 Birdstone, Ghostzapper, 7-1 Roses In May, 12-1 Saint Liam, 16-1 Funny Cide, Victory Moon, 20-1 others.2,000 GUINEAS (Newmarket, 5 May 2005) Ladbrokes: 10-1 Dubawi, Etlaala, Shamardal, 14-1 Librettist, 16-1 Ad Valorem, 20-1 Iceman, Oratorio, Rob Roy, Tiger Dance, 25-1 others.. The Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin in December has emerged as the premier pot of gold.”It seems a very obvious thing to go to Hong Kong,” the Newmarket trainer said yesterday.

The colt was reported in fine fettle yesterday by Andrew Cooper, racing manager to the owning Niarchos family That was an information blitz by his standards. We do know though that Bago has long been thought a contender for deep in the heart of Texas by Stavros Niarchos’s daughter, Maria. What she wishes has a tendency to transpire.Bago may not have the traditional breeding for a winner of the Breeders’ Cup top prize, the Classic on dirt, so it may be that he has shown something of his turf brilliance on the All Along artificial gallop at Chantilly.However, intrinsic quality will not be at the core of any downfall. Hindsight provides the clearest of vision, but retrospect allows us to conclude that Bago was the one true vindicator in Sunday’s race. He had proved his quality shimmeringly at two, while the likes of North Light and Grey Swallow were successful, but less mesmeric, in their Classic victories this summer.We should have believed in Bago a little longer, perhaps understood that when he was beaten in the International Stakes at York it was no sign of weakness. Bago may have lost for the first time on the Knavesmire, but he gained so much more, essentially what it was like to be a competitive racehorse, to have his glinting sword crashed by another.There was also renaissance of a different kind in Paris on Sunday when Oratario won the Prix Jean-Luc Lagard?, providing Aidan O’Brien with a second juvenile Group One victory in 72 hours following Ad Valorem’s success in the Middle Park Stakes.The career of One Cool Cat seemed to be emblematic of O’Brien’s season of unfulfilled promise, but now that the discredited wonder horse has gone his Co Tipperary yard appears to have been steam-cleaned of his stinking effect.

Another Niarchos horse, Pascal Bary’s Six Perfections, is already on the aeroplane to defend a Mile crown so beautifully captured at Santa Anita last fall.It may not be the sort of daunting raiding party which Santa Anna once brought to Texas, but it is a troubling assembly for the hosts all the same.To start with Bago. But there is considerable evidence that transmission rates of HIV infection are much lower among circumcised populations than in the uncircumcised. It’s not all bad news.Dr NICK MAURICE Marlborough, Wiltshire Maungy moaning Sir: If I whinged, complained or otherwise looked sulky or acted spoilt when growing up in the Heavy Woollen District of the West Riding, I was described as “maungy” (pronounced morn-gee) (letter, 29 September). How will Michael Howard fare? He’s packed them off to the seaside for a spot of renewal and reinvigoration amid fears that if the monkey had stood in Hartlepool they would have come fifth. Can Bournemouth be that bracing?JOHN HARAN Leigh-on-Sea, Essex Nuclear future Sir: A couple of points in Hamish McRae’s article “Higher oil prices are just what we need” (29 September) might bear comment.

First, coal has been displaced by oil only as a cheap source of portable fuel for the transport sector and as a feedstock for chemicals. More coal is mined and used today than at any time in history; demand is growing, current world output exceeds 5 billion tonnes and is expected to exceed 7 billion tonnes in 15 years or so. Currently, this is mostly used for power generation but as oil and gas resources diminish, the possibility of again using more costly liquefied coal products as transport fuel will look increasingly attractive.Second, on the question of nuclear power, it is worth comparing the recent energy histories of Britain and France, two countries with very similar populations, industrial profiles and levels of wealth. Britain is unusually fortunate for a mature industrial economy in that we have abundant hydrocarbon resources – oil, gas, coal – enough to fulfil our needs for a century.France has no such luck. France therefore took a strategic decision 30 years ago to invest in nuclear power generation on the basis that “no oil, no coal, no gas, no choice”. France now produces 76 per cent of her own electricity from nuclear fission and profitably exports electricity to the value of €1.5bn – considerably more than the value of wine and cheese combined.That looks like a pretty smart business to me. Oil cannot keep up with growing energy demands but there is no energy crisis.