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Magnier’s legal options would be to sue the author and/or publisher. Neither is likely to have any money, and Magnier risks a David V Goliath PR nightmare which could send book sales rocketing. It looks like he’s in a no win situation regardless of the veracity of the claims made in the book.
“They” say the softest part of Magnier is his teeth. Even a skint publisher would have their bases covered…no?
I must get this book.
Sounds interesting.
Goldrush Publications lists itself as a business helping authors to self-publish (these operations used to be known as Vanity Publishers). The only book on their site is the Coolmore one. Their address – 207 Regent St, London, is almost certainty a ‘virtual office’, the modern day PO Box. The site carries ‘strongly worded’ articles about people in Irish Racing and about the Racing Post.
Oddly, given what has been written on this thread, the blurb on the GR site for the book seems pretty positive with no reference to anything underhand.
A greedy organisation that is out of control.
They are in a large part contributing to the demise of the thoroughbred with their obsession with one sire line, their huge books to popular stallions and the too quick relegation of stallions to National Hunt breeding.
I do wonder whether the main players see horses purely in pounds, shillings and pence or whether they actually like or love them.
I recall the suffering expression of St Nicolas Abbey on the Channel 4 footage and the return of George Washington to training and his death on an unsuitable surface. I wonder whether these incidents are mentioned in the book?
Perhaps there is an element of sour grapes, but as they say “no smoke without fire”. Interesting I imagine.^ Yes, broadly agree with this on breeding; the huge books, the focus on one sire line, the immediacy of judgement have all been damaging, but to be fair breeders must also share the blame.
@ Crepello
Haven’t read the book cover to cover yet but did notice that William Jones does talk a lot about St Nicholas Abbey and his fight to survive. He had a lot of praise for the efforts made by Coolmore to save him.
He started work at the foaling barns in 2006 and he did work in the Stallion Yard so must have had some dealings with George Washington during his time there but as yet can find no mention of the tragedy..I still can’t believe that they let that wonderful horses race in those conditions it still breaks my heart to think of it.
I’m going to try to get the time to finish this book next week..it’s definitely a story that needed to be told.Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...That is interesting Triptych, do reveal any interesting snippets.
I thought that there were lots of other avenues open to George Washington. He could have been a hack for a short while. I suppose going back in training is the obvious route for an infertile stallion and often it can work, Honeyway for instance was an outstanding stallion who was initially infertile. We will never know if George Washington’s fertility would have improved. Very sad.
David Walsh writes about this book in the Sunday Times today. I can’t link to the piece because the ST is a pay site.
A firm of solicitors apparently wrote to Will Jones last November accusing him of defamation. Jones wrote back in defiant manner, answering all their points and threatening to hold them responsible for lost sales of his book. These lost sales are due to booksellers, including Amazon, withdrawing the work from their shops and websites for fear of litigation. Jones tried to place adverts for his book in the Racing Post and the Irish Field but got turned down. A cynic might suggest that was because Coolmore is an important advertiser so nobody wants to upset them. It’s also curious that the book has not been discussed on TV or radio, and that newspapers don’t seem to have written about it.
The article goes on to say that Coolmore have not yet initiated legal action against Jones but have continued to threaten bookshops who put the book on their shelves. This week, in the Dublin High Court, Jones will apply for an interim injunction against Coolmore to stop the alleged harassment of interested booksellers. So Coolmore are attempting to suppress the book and the question has to be why.
Watch this space.
“You know the scene in Jerry Maguire where Tom Cruise comes back to the house, walks into the living room full of divorcees, says “hello”, explains he is looking for his wife and then makes a long speech begging Renee Zellweger to take him back? She tells him to shut up before uttering a line so good it soon became a cliché. “You had me at hello.”
I thought of that when reading the first paragraph of a letter written last December by a retired stud groom, Will Jones, to a representative of Arthur Cox Solicitors in Dublin. Jones was replying to legal correspondence accusing him of defamation. It read: “Dear Mr Woods, you keep repeating the same mistake. When you say my book is defamatory it is your opinion, it is not a fact. The only way you can claim defamation as a fact is when a court of law reaches that conclusion. Until that time, you are alleging I have defamed your client. I deny this.”
Legal letters, especially those addressed to authors, writers or journalists, are often penned with the express purpose of instilling fear. Mostly they succeed. What was surprising in Jones’ response to Arthur Cox Solicitors was the utter lack of fear.
If that first paragraph was defiant, the third and fourth went further.
“Mr Woods, you are a solicitor representing a client but you are acting like a judge, jury and hangman . . . you are not in any kind of position to state ‘the fact that this book contains defamatory content’. This is how, by stating defamation as a fact when it is far from that, you have forced Amazon and a number of bookshops to withdraw my book and this is wholly unacceptable.
“I formally put you on notice now that I hold you responsible for any lost sales of my book from the date the book was withdrawn from any shop or website and I will be taking legal action for damages as a result.”
The book is called The Black Horse Inside Coolmore. It was written by Welsh-born Jones and published last November. Coolmore in Co Tipperary is perhaps the most successful stud farm in the world and Jones worked there for nine years up to 2015. He left at the age of 65 and wrote the book that has not endeared him to his former employers.
Jones says his time at Coolmore was the best of his working life, working with horses so good he felt as though he was playing for Manchester United or Arsenal. There were plenty of good people, too. But through the memoir runs a seam of disenchantment. He believes there was a culture of bullying at the stud and that lower-paid employees were badly treated. Health and safety issues raised by him were, he says, not properly addressed.
Even allowing for Jones being a disaffected former employee, there is sufficient detail to lead any reader to question whether everything inside Coolmore was as it should be.
Jones believes the issues he raises have to be dealt with because young people no longer want to work on stud farms and at racing stables. Jones self-published The Black Horse Inside Coolmore, setting up the company Gold Rush Publications and paying about £3 per copy.
Trying to suppress a book is a dangerous game, for it begs the question: Why?
He then got in touch with bookshops in the UK and Ireland, encouraging them to take copies. It went on to Amazon’s vast website and he thought he was getting places. It was then that Arthur Cox Solicitors got involved and Jones realised that writing the book was actually the easier part.Frightened by the possibility of litigation, Amazon withdrew the book and most bookshops took it from their shelves. Jones tried to take out ads in the Racing Post and The Irish Field but both racing papers turned him down. Coolmore is an important advertiser.
The book almost died at birth, but Jones refused to give up. He wrote his four-page response to Arthur Cox’s letter on December 7, fighting fire with fire. There would be no further letters from the law firm.
Newspapers did not write about the book and it has not been discussed on radio or television. This was partly because few knew of its existence but also because of Coolmore’s influence within the racing industry. Jones has been selling the book from his home, taking orders through a website he created.
He has posted out 1,200 copies and says another 1,200 have been sold in bookshops that somehow remained under Arthur Cox’s radar. Coolmore have not as yet initiated legal action against Jones but have continued to threaten bookshops who put the book on their shelves.
As you would guess, Jones is not taking this lying down. Unable to afford lawyers, he has become his own legal advocate and this week in the Dublin High Court he will apply for an interim injunction against Coolmore to stop the alleged harassment of interested booksellers. Trying to suppress a book is a dangerous game, for it begs the question: Why?
Jones has written an interesting book. His former bosses at Coolmore will disagree with much of what he has written but there is too much detail and too much concern for former work colleagues for the author’s claims to be ignored.
The book is out there and potential readers should be allowed to make up their own minds.”
I would think Coolmore would be more than concerned to find David Walsh fighting Mr Jones’ corner after the former’s 12-year plus expose of Lance Armstrong.
A journalist with severe Woodward & Bernstein tendencies.
Mike
As has been said every organisation is far from perfect and I’ve worked for a couple who you could write books about but just what he is getting at I’m not sure. We all have opinions on breeding but coolmore is the most successful operation there is so they must be dong something right. Also it’s seems they did everything they could to save st nic and the obriens were very upset when he died,Joseph having got on so well with him. That bullying may go on is not a great shock as its a pressurised business and bullying is probably worse than it’s ever been in most organisations with the pressures the modern worlds brings. Not quite sure what he’s trying to achieve but the more it’s discussed the happier he will be.
No perceivable progress at the Dublin High Court as yet but the matter might receive some attention on 25 April.
Representing himself, Mr Jones, of Cashel, Co Tipperary, told the judge he wanted an interim ex parte injunction (one side only represented) restraining any efforts on behalf of Coolmore Stud to frustrate sales of his book. The matter was urgent because it was affecting sales, he said.
In his proceedings, he also wants a declaration the book is not defamatory on its face and may be sold in outlets where books are sold.
Mr Justice Gilligan said, in circumstances where there was no court order restraining sales of the book and where Mr Jones had provided a very long affidavit setting out allegations against Coolmore, he believed the court should not hear the application for the interim order ex parte.
He directed Mr Jones to put the other side on notice of the injunctions application and said he would deal with it on Monday, April 25th.
Thanks for that Seasider, it will be interesting to see the outcome of this. You have to
admire the author for his tenacity if nothing else.In an act of SEO warfare, the Coolmore-approved Aidan O’Brien Fansite now hosts a long, poorly-written history of the business entitled ‘Inside Coolmore’.
This appears on the first Google results page for queries like Black Horse Inside Coolmore.
News from the Dublin High Court, Friday 3 June.
Mr Jones, he* said, had breached a written agreement signed by him in 2014 with his former employer agreeing to compromise a claim brought by him to the Labour Relations Committee. That agreement provided Mr Jones would be paid a year’s salary, cease working at Coolmore and would not disclose records relating to Coolmore’s clients or animals. It also provided the parties would not make derogatory comments about each other.
*Paul Gallagher, Senior Counsel for Coolmore.
In reply, Mr Jones said he signed the 2014 agreement under duress after making a bullying claim.
I don’t know the status of said agreement in law.
Coolmore maintain silence on the subject of alleged defamation. Instead, Mr Gallagher argues that, ‘Mr Jones “knew well” the nature of the material Coolmore says is defamatory, derogatory and in breach of an agreement entered into between the parties in 2014’.
Why Coolmore will not state clearly what defamatory content is in the book remains an interesting question.
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