No longer favourite

I AGREE with Cathy Brady (Irish Examiner letters, November 27) who wrote about your racing correspondent Pat Keane’s comments on the death of Desert Orchid.

Like Ms Brady, I enjoy Pat Keane’s humorous and down-to-earth articles, but I now read them in a different light.

His offering on the fabled ‘Dessie’ was only what I would expect following his even more sardonic comments about Horatio Nelson, the horse that suffered a fatal accident during the Epsom Derby this year.

Mr Keane described this as “unfortunate — nothing more”, and advised the “whingers” who were moved by the young horse’s distress to “get a life”.

It would not have done him any harm to show a little compassion. Mr Keane is an excellent racing correspondent, but has proven time and again he’s a bookie at heart — not a horse-lover.

Margaret Baker

Carrigaloe

Cobh

Co Cork