THIS week’s lead story needs no introduction, and even if you lived in Timbuktu or Ulan Bataar, you would have done well to avoid the news and the subsequent fallout of what absolutely no-one is now calling Gordongate.

The reaction on social media was to be expected, but the racing community as a whole tends to be slower to condemn and quicker to offer mitigation in cases were racing makes headlines for the wrong reason.