He got to Epsom by the skin of his teeth, and won by a similar margin. Meanwhile the brilliant winner, George Washington, emerged from his defeat by Araafa in the Irish 2,000 Guineas with pulled muscles, and misses Royal Ascot next week.In his absence Araafa, who had been fourth at Newmarket, was yesterday chalked up as Coral’s 11-8 favourite for the St James’s Palace Stakes on Tuesday. “He will need a month in his box before going back on the walker, but hopefully he’ll be back in full work by September, and I’d like to think we might be able to aim him at the Champion Stakes at Newmarket. It might even be a blessing in disguise.”The thin ice upon which trainers tiptoe all the time can be measured by the divergent fortunes of the Guineas protagonists. That allowed Hills to hope that this might finally be the colt to redress his serial misfortunes in the Derby, where he has saddled the runner-up four times. On the eve of Epsom, however, Bill Gredley insisted that his colt be switched to the Prix du Jockey-Club.
Olympian Odyssey then rubbed salt into the wounds by running a feeble race at Chantilly, trailing home 12th. At least Hills now has the cold comfort of knowing why.”The horse has a stress fracture in his forearm,” the trainer explained yesterday.

Perhaps the unluckiest loser of the season on his reappearance, Olympian Odyssey then confirmed his ?te calibre by taking third in what has proved a vintage running of the 2,000 Guineas. It contains about 7,000 indigenous animal and bird species found nowhere else in the world.. Even a trainer who has been in the business as long as Barry Hills must be finding it hard to abide the vexing fortunes of Olympian Odyssey, who is injured and will not race again until autumn. The marine sanctuary, tentatively named the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument, will cover 140,000 square miles, stretching from Hawaii to Midway Atoll, site of a Second World War battle between the United States and Japan. It includes small islands, atolls and many precious coral reefs. The area is home to about 14 million seabirds, including albatrosses and terns, as well as green turtles, monk seals and spinner dolphins.

President George Bush has announced that he intends to create the world’s largest marine conservation area across a broad swath of the Pacific, surprising and delighting his environmentalist critics who have had little but withering criticism of the “toxic Texan” over the past five and a half years. I could not agree more, and we are carrying out a review of planning permission rules to find out how we can make it easier for people to do their bit to help the environment. In particular, we want to reduce planning restrictions on small-scale microgeneration equipment for people’s homes and will be publishing proposals this year.YVETTE COOPER MPMINISTER FOR HOUSING AND PLANNING, DEPARTMENT FOR COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT, LONDON SW1 Grand titles Sir: P D James’ full title by no means holds the record for length (letter, 14 June): Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle, of Comrie in the District of Perth and Kinross and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover, of Preston Candover in the County of Hampshire are only two of many worthy competitors who spring to mind.VALERIE PASSMOREEDITOR DOD’S PARLIAMENTARY COMPANION, LONDON SE1 Hollywood’s war Sir: No American aircraft around in the Blitz (letter, 15 June)? Next they’ll be telling us Hollywood got it wrong and the Americans didn’t break the Enigma code by capturing a U-boat before the USA entered the war.JOHN PELLINGKEDINGTON, SUFFOLK. Surely that is a very outdated view.TINA ROWEILCHESTER, SOMERSET Solar power on the roof Sir: Thomas Sutcliffe suggests that the planning system could be more “encouraging” to people who want to put solar panels on their roofs (13 June). No ovation, standing or otherwise, merited there.EDDIE DOUGALLBURY ST EDMUNDS, SUFFOLKSir: How we laughed in the 1980s at the folly of the Soviet troops’ “occupation” of Afghanistan.RICHARD FINCHHESKET NEWMARKET, CUMBRIA Dinosaur metabolism Sir: In his article on the spider that crawled with dinosaurs (15 June) Steve Connor writes: “It must have lived at the time of the dinosaurs – long before the rise of the warm-blooded mammals.” The implication is that dinosaurs were cold-blooded. The post-war problems faced by Attlee dwarf anything Blair inherited in 1997. Worst of all is Blair’s uncritical endorsement of the brutally selfish policies of the US, which have brushed aside international law.