Inspiral Loss Takes Sting out of Shoemark Pile-On

A weight was lifted off Kieran Shoemark at Deauville. He was not the reason Inspiral had stopped winning.

Shoemark was a spectator as Cheveley Park Stud's distinguished Frankel mare was soundly beaten into third behind Charyn in Sunday's Prix du Haras de Fresnay-le-Buffard Jacques le Marois. The ride on Inspiral had passed to Ryan Moore as turbulence gripped Shoemark's season – his first as Frankie Dettori's replacement at the John and Thady Gosden yard.

The starting point is that nobody gets to be first jockey to the Gosdens without the necessary talent. The second is that Inspiral's second consecutive slow start and Charyn's brilliance were too much even for Moore. Shoemark will have spotted Callum Shepherd's name on the Marois card. Shepherd, who finished fourth on Quddwah, endured this year's highest profile jocking-off, on Ambiente Friendly in the Derby. Being 'dropped' in racing is as old as the Thoroughbred.

Inspiral's best appears to be behind her. But there is no reason why Shoemark cannot absorb the blow of the Inspiral demotion and reboot his year, as Dettori himself did after provoking the displeasure of Gosden snr. The mistake is not to go through a rough patch. It's to surrender to despondency.

Shoemark's appointment at Clarehaven could be seen as a classic dance move in sport, where the new No 1 is the polar opposite of his predecessor. Plainly Dettori and Shoemark are contrasting personalities – though Dettori, too, had his substance abuse phase. The perception of Shoemark is bound to be skewed subconsciously by the reality that he isn't Frankie Dettori. All Manchester United managers since Sir Alex Ferguson have suffered in part because they are not him.

But 'personality' is only one factor propelling a horse in a race. Ryan Moore manages to be the world's best jockey without putting on a cabaret. His talent does the singing and dancing. Shoemark will be smart enough to know he's toiling in the void left by Dettori; that any perceived error will mutate into a debate about whether he was the right pick in the first place as the Gosdens' go-to rider.

A helpful link can be traced to Shoemark's earlier problems with drink and drugs. One lesson of addiction is that it can be overcome (not always, but with luck, and love). A negative publicity maelstrom is also survivable, especially in this age of hurtling events, when every sports story lasts about five minutes.

The ignorance of the vengeful keyboard warrior takes no account of balance or context

It may help Shoemark to see the adverse comment at Goodwood as a routine pile-on, short-lived, and correctable by winners and good riding. The fundamental truth about pile-ons is that the assailants will soon rush off to start a new one. Only the duration of your own time as the target is in question.

Which is not to say that jockeys should be exempt from scrutiny and criticism. Journalists are not meant to be cheerleaders. Journalism must, though, resist the temptation to keep saying what has already been said, to gnaw on the already chewed. I have no difficulty in pleading guilty to that myself in the past.

This column will neither revisit the technicalities of his rides on Emily Upjohn or Free Wind at Goodwood, nor pronounce on whether Shoemark is riding badly or well – except to say that an indispensable ingredient of success in all sports is confidence.

Even the greatest goalscorers, golfers and Wimbledon champions will tell you that self-belief is no respecter of status. When confidence exits stage left, doubt enters stage right. Clarity of thought then follows self-assurance out of the building. A fog of uncertainty creeps across the normal execution of skills.

It should surprise no-one that Shoemark soon found himself in a binary bunfight. That's how most discussions happen. It's not the “media” who torture professional sportsmen and women these days so much as social media, with its drive-by cruelty.

The ignorance of the vengeful keyboard warrior takes no account of balance or context. In that world, a feeling is presented as fact. Everyone is a columnist now. People who play sport for a living must learn to distinguish between noise and valid comment. It's not easy.

The worst-case scenario would be that Shoemark loses the Gosden retainer, either gradually or suddenly. The best one is that the Gosdens view the past fortnight as a standard patch of turmoil for a good jockey who finds himself in the fiercest spotlight of his career. Emily Upjohn's owner has already given Shoemark his “100% support” and Gosden has been protective.

There's no hiding it: the melodrama of elite sport feeds on sackings and rifts and reckonings. In racing, the Gosden-Dettori froideur was much bigger news than the Shoemark kerfuffle. Many seemingly intractable 'issues' resolve themselves with calm discussion and constructive honesty.

Shoemark has had a tricky summer. Losing the ride on Inspiral will have hurt him. None of that is terminal. The poet Robert Frost said that everything he had learned about life could be summarised in three words: “It goes on.”