There's Great And There's Great Dermot Weld has a tiny verbal tic that leads him to sometimes ending sentences with 'if you know what I mean.' Considering the rest of us are mostly playing catch up with the great man it's hardly unreasonable. None of which has anything to do with Enable who is a great champion without being a great great champion - if you know what I mean. What I mean is that attempts to put her on the very top of the all-time pantheon of great horses are misguided. She is a wonderful talent and creating history by securing a first ever Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe hat-trick will see her become a singular figure. But even that's unlikely to mean promotion to the sport's absolute apex which by definition is an exclusive spot. In the last decade we have been privileged to witness two indisputable all-time greats in Sea The Stars and Frankel. By the highest standards that necessarily apply, the last undoubted top-notcher prior to them was Dancing Brave in 1986. And before him we're going back to the halcyon days of Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard. Enable isn't in that league. Reducing flesh and blood down to some geeky, logarithmic wonk-fest is always problematic, as is 'Dunphy' style parsing of what great actually means. Just as such arguments are always subjective they're also wide open to the suggestion of being best kept for the bar-stool. But simply reducing them to the bar stool also reduces language to irrelevance and great has got to mean something. That Enable is being discussed in such terms at all testifies to the impact she's made. By any measure ten Group One wins over three seasons is a superb achievement. That her progress this summer especially has captured the public imagination is a blessing that racing should cherish. She and Frankie Dettori have become the face of 2019. Certainly reducing a mare who has won at the highest level in four countries, maintained her brilliance across three years on a variety of surfaces, and in the process overcome considerable challenges, both physical and tactical, makes reducing her achievements to a mere handicapping tot seem churlish. After her Yorkshire Oaks romp last week she's now the world's highest rated racehorse on an official career-high mark of 128. The dangers of reducing sporting performance to figures are obvious. For instance Hawk Wing officially remains the best horse Aidan O'Brien has ever trained due to the 133 mark he achieved in his freakish Lockinge display back in 2003. No one can seriously suggest he's a greater horse than Enable, or that Harbinger (135) is a true great thanks to a single killer King George display. Handicapping has its own rules and they sometimes leave little room for interpretation or nuance. There isn't a horse that has looked through a bridle that could give Sea The Stars 4lbs but that's what the figures say about Frankel. Still, figures aren't immaterial either. Durability, consistency, versatility and fighting spirit are vital qualities that hardly rule out a real contender for all-time great status managing to pass the 130 benchmark at least. The other dual-Arc winning mare Treve managed 130 at her best. She was brilliant but no one argues for her inclusion at the game's absolute top table. Neither do those who were so in thrall to Montjeu's quirky brilliance, Grundy's guts, Nashwan's style or Dahlia's wonderful longevity. It's possible to acknowledge superb talents without pretending they're something they weren't. Maybe Enable is only just doing enough to beat what's put in front of her but it's an unconvincing argument. We should relish and enjoy her while we can. Who knows, she might produce an Arc display on her final start that will require everyone to recalibrate everything. But it doesn't really matter if she doesn't - if you know what I mean. Summer is almost over and still Irish racing hasn't implemented the long-awaited system which will allow drug testing be carried out on stud farms and other unlicensed premises here. Apparently the reason is Brexit and consequent pressure on the time and resources of the Department of Agriculture. None of it is good enough. A system allowing Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board veterinary officers jurisdiction to test on such premises requires a Service Level Agreement from the Department. That was the breakthrough development that allowed the industry's new anti-doping regime come into play in January, a regime finally signed off on over a year ago after considerable wrangling and delay. It was originally envisaged out-of-competition testing - even with its self defeating 24 hour notice period - would begin in the second half of 2019. But the department is apparently under such pressure with Brexit that they can't get around to granting the IHRB the appropriate SLA. It's been suggested privately that it may even be next year before it gets sorted out. It all smacks of a lack of urgency that has prevailed ever since an extensive Anti-Doping Task Force report recommending such a protocol between all sectors of the industry was unveiled at the start of 2016. That report was commissioned on the back of Philip Fenton's three year disqualification when steroids were found in his yard in 2012. Fenton had had his licence restored a year before the HRI board were in a position to sign off on the Industry Wide Policy On Prohibited Substances & Doping Control last summer. If the suspicion lingered throughout that some sectors were foot-dragging, the response was usually that it was better to get things done right rather than get them done fast. It's true that haste can lead to mistakes. But on such a fundamental issue as the credibility of a billion Euro industry then speed shouldn't be a sin either. Perhaps a few high-powered phone calls are in order. It's noticeable how there is continuing rate of whip rule breaches well over four months after the beginning of the new regime that introduced an eight stroke limit. Perhaps that isn't such a surprise in terms of amateur jockeys with limited race-riding opportunities. What's notable though is how even senior flat rides seem to be having difficulty adapting to the new set-up. At Killarney on Saturday Seamus Heffernan had a fourth breach and got sent on to the Referrals Committee. The evening before at the Curragh Kevin Manning was also sent on for a fourth breach. On Monday Chris Hayes again got into trouble and will have to appear before the Referrals Committee over his use of the whip on Helvic Dream at Roscommon. Considering Hayes was the first jockey to appear before the panel back in May, where he picked up six day suspension as a result, it will be interesting to see the outcome of his latest appearance. It begs the question if the message about misuse of the whip is getting through, especially when examining the context of Ryan Moore picking up a two day ban at York last week after using his whip "when clearly winning inside the final furlong" on the spectacular 11 lengths sales race winner Mums Tipple. This was a rookie blunder by one of the world's most experienced and high-profile jockeys. It's hard to know what he was doing. The notion that he was somehow educating the two year old looks dubious, just as any suggestion that he couldn't establish where his opposition was pushes credulity to its limit. Whatever your views on the whip rules they are in place and they're there for a reason. Surely no one should know the regulations better than those riding to them.
