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John Hunt's Cheltenham Gold Cup commentary was finest act of sporting bravery this year

John Hunt's Cheltenham Gold Cup commentary was finest act of sporting bravery this year

Telegraph14-03-2025

There is no template for navigating unfathomable loss, no manual for facing the desolation wrought by a crime so heinous as to defy comprehension.
'Do I really need,' John Hunt told Cambridge Crown Court, in a challenge to the coldly procedural concept of a victim impact statement, 'to detail the impact of having three-quarters of my family murdered?'
Nobody can hope to understand how the BBC racing commentator feels about the savagery visited upon his Hertfordshire home eight months ago. What is universally relatable, though, is his courage: a quality expressed through his resolve to carry on living for the sake of his surviving daughter, to let their lives stand as a rebuke to Kyle Clifford's unspeakable cowardice, and to find sanctuary, ultimately, in a return to what he loves.
John Hunt was in the radio booth 21 years ago to call home Best Mate's third consecutive Gold Cup triumph, and he was back here at Cheltenham once more to see if Galopin des Champs could repeat the feat.
His Festival had begun amid desperate torment, as he read out a 1,900-word statement that reduced even hardened trial-watchers to tears, seeking to convey the experience of spending four hours with his wife and two daughters in a funeral parlour room so large that the partition had to be taken down. But he ended his week delivering a moment of pure, understated humanity, feeling the love of his racing family and channelling the old Atticus Finch credo of seeing life through 'no matter what'.
His narration of Galopin des Champs' unexpected defeat to Inothewayurthinkin would be best described as consummate. But in the circumstances, it was colossal. Boisterous, passionate, with Just a Minute standards of never repeating, hesitating or deviating, Hunt articulated the three miles and two furlongs of drama to perfection, spotting the struggles of Willie Mullins' favourite at an early stage. He noticed that Galopin des Champs was not jumping as fluently as usual, that he lacked his customary rhythm, that the only time the two-time Gold Cup winner looked like his composed self was when hampered by the fall of Ahoy Senor. 'Just six or seven per cent off it,' Hunt said. It was the judgment of a true aficionado and eerily prescient, as Inothewayurthinkin surged clear to win by six lengths.
Talk about putting things in perspective. The remarkable John Hunt commentating on the climax of the Cheltenham Gold Cup and victory for Inothewayurthinkin on BBC Radio. pic.twitter.com/sOLKvjgzHq
— Nick Metcalfe (@Nick_Metcalfe) March 14, 2025
Naturally, Hunt had offered the same measured expertise thousands of times before. It is a common trait among masters of the microphone: do it often enough, and broadcasting even a sport of this endless unpredictability becomes a form of muscle memory. But never had somebody tried to do so against a backdrop such as this. Barely 72 hours had elapsed since he gave his devastating account of the events of July 9, 2024, when Clifford, armed with a crossbow, walked into Hunt's house in Bushey and subjected his family to inconceivable horrors. 'Over a period of four hours you brutally killed Carol, waited over an hour until Louise came into the house,' he said. 'You incapacitated her, raped her and when you realised Hannah was coming home, you shot Louise in the back. I can't imagine a more cowardly act. You couldn't look her in the eye. You murdered Hannah minutes later.'
The effect of reading that testimony is profound. The temptation is to ask how he could summon the strength to enunciate the words, especially when Clifford did not even attend the court to hear his sentence of life without parole. That is before you contemplate the infinitely fraught question of how you continue when almost everything precious to you has been destroyed. Hunt, though, is discovering a path. Just as he eased himself back into work on a quiet day at Brighton last September, his response to the anguish of the trial – a trial that would never have happened had Clifford confessed the rape of Louise, as he had to the triple murder – was to seek the solace and comfort of the racecourse, the place where he has refined his art.
What does Hunt's story have to do with sport, you might ask. The answer is everything and nothing. Where sport can seem numbingly trivial in the context of an act so horrendous, it is also one of the surest forms of escapism that exists. 'Whilst I am so badly damaged, I am determined to see what my future is, surrounded by so many amazing people,' he has said.
Admiration feels inadequate as a response. Indeed, the only appropriate reaction – as sports psychologist and racing devotee Michael Caulfield suggests, heralding Hunt as a 'shining example to us all' – is one of quiet awe. You will not find, re-listening to Hunt's Gold Cup commentary, a more stirring study in bravery in sport this year. In the shadow of absolute evil, Hunt has given an impeccable demonstration of what it means to live.

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It was a killing that shocked India: Punjabi hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala shot dead through the windscreen of his car by hired hours, a Punjabi gangster named Goldy Brar had used Facebook to claim responsibility for ordering the three years after the murder, no-one has faced trial - and Goldy Brar is still on the run, his whereabouts BBC Eye has managed to make contact with Brar and challenged him about how and why Sidhu Moose Wala became a response was coldly articulate."In his arrogance, he [Moose Wala] made some mistakes that could not be forgiven," Brar told the BBC World Service."We had no option but to kill him. He had to face the consequences of his actions. It was either him or us. As simple as that." On a warm May evening in 2022, Sidhu Moose Wala was taking his black Mahindra Thar SUV for its usual spin through dusty lanes near his village in the northern Indian state of Punjab when, within minutes, two cars began tailing footage later showed them weaving through narrow turns, sticking close. Then, at a bend in the road, one of the vehicles lurched forward, cornering Moose Wala's SUV against a wall. He was trapped. Moments later, the shooting footage captured the aftermath. His SUV was riddled with bullets, the windscreen shattered, the bonnet trembling voices, bystanders expressed their shock and concern."Someone get him out of the car.""Get some water.""Moose Wala has been shot."But it was too late. He was declared dead on arrival at hospital - hit by 24 bullets, a post-mortem would later reveal. The 28-year-old rapper, one of modern-day Punjab's biggest cultural icons, had been gunned down in broad daylight.A cousin and a friend who had been in the car with Moose Wala at the time of the ambush were injured, but gunmen were eventually identified. They carried AK-47s and pistols. In the weeks that followed the murder, about 30 people were arrested and two of the suspected armed men were killed in what the Indian police described as "encounters".Yet even with arrests piling up, the motive remained Brar, who claims to have ordered the hit, wasn't in India at the time of the killing. He is believed to have been in conversation with him unfolded over six hours, pieced together through an exchange of voice notes. It gave us a chance to find out why Moose Wala had been killed and to interrogate the motives of the man who claimed responsibility. Sidhu Moose Wala was born Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu in a Jat-Sikh family in rural Punjab, before moving in 2016 to Canada to study engineering - a journey familiar to hundreds of thousands in the Punjabi it was there, far from his village of Moosa - the inspiration for his rap name - that he reinvented himself as one of Punjabi music's most influential artists. In just five years, Moose Wala became the unmistakable voice of Punjabi his signature swagger, flashy style, and lyrical grit, Moose Wala sang openly about identity and politics, guns and revenge, pushing the boundaries of what Punjabi music had been willing to was fascinated by rapper Tupac Shakur, who had been murdered, aged 25, in 1996. "In terms of personality, I want to be like him," Moose Wala once told an interviewer. "The day he died, people cried for him. I want the same. When I die, people should remember that I was someone."Over a brief but explosive career, the singer spotlighted the darker undercurrents of India's Punjab region - gangster culture, unemployment, and political decay - while evoking a deep nostalgia for village Wala was also a global force. With more than five billion views of his music videos on YouTube, a Top 5 spot in the UK charts, and collaborations with international hip-hop artists including Burna Boy, Moose Wala swiftly built a fan base stretching across India, Canada, the UK and beyond, powered by a diaspora that saw him as both icon and fame came at a cost. Despite his rising star and socially conscious lyrics, Moose Wala was drifting into dangerous territory. His defiant attitude, visibility, and growing influence had drawn the attention of Punjab's most feared gangsters. These included Goldy Brar, and Brar's friend Lawrence Bishnoi, who even then was in high-security jail in much is known about Brar, apart from the fact he is on the Interpol Red Notice list, and is a key operative in a network of gangsters operated by Bishnoi – orchestrating hits, issuing threats and amplifying the gang's reach. It is thought he emigrated to Canada in 2017, just a year after Moose Wala himself, and initially worked as a truck once a student leader steeped in Punjab's violent campus politics, has grown into one of India's most feared criminal masterminds. "The first [police] cases filed against Lawrence Bishnoi were all related to student politics and student elections… beating a rival student leader, kidnapping him, harming him," according to Jupinderjit Singh, deputy editor of Indian newspaper the led to a spell in jail which hardened him further, says Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, Assistant Inspector General of the Anti-Gangster Task Force of Punjab Police."Once he was in jail, he started to get deeper into crime. Then he formed a group of his own. When it became an inter-gang thing, he needed money for survival. They need more manpower, they need more weapons. They need money for all that. So, for money, you have to get into extortion or crime."Now 31, Bishnoi runs his syndicate from behind bars - with dedicated Instagram pages and a cult-like following."So while Bishnoi sits in jail, Brar handles the gangs," says Assistant Inspector General BBC Eye's exchange with Brar took a year of chasing - cultivating sources, waiting for replies, gradually getting closer to the kingpin himself. But when we got through to Brar, the conversation cast new light on the question of how and why he and Bishnoi came to see Moose Wala as an enemy. One of the first revelations was that Bishnoi's relationship with Moose Wala went back several years, long before the singer's killing."Lawrence [Bishnoi] was in touch with Sidhu [Moose Wala]. I don't know who introduced them, and I never asked. But they did speak," said Brar."Sidhu used to send 'good morning' and 'good night' messages in an effort to flatter Lawrence."A friend of Moose Wala's, who spoke anonymously, also told us that Bishnoi had been in touch with Moose Wala as early as 2018, calling him from jail and telling him he liked his told us that the "first dispute" between them came after Moose Wala had moved back to India. It began with a seemingly innocuous match of kabbadi - a traditional South Asian contact team sport - in a Punjabi village. Moose Wala had promoted the tournament which was organised by Bishnoi's rivals - the Bambiha gang - Brar told us, in a sport where match-fixing and gangster influence are rampant."That's a village our rivals come from. He was promoting our rivals. That's when Lawrence and others were upset with him. They threatened Sidhu and said they wouldn't spare him," Brar told BBC the dispute between Moose Wala and Bishnoi was eventually resolved by an associate of Bishnoi's called Vicky Middhukhera. But when Middukhera himself was gunned down by gangsters in a parking lot in Mohali in August 2021, Brar told us Bishnoi's hostility towards Sidhu Moose Wala reached the point of no Bambiha gang claimed responsibility for killing Middukhera. The police named Moose Wala's friend and sometime manager Shaganpreet Singh on the charge sheet, citing evidence that Singh had provided information and logistical support to the gunmen. Singh later fled India and is believed to be in Australia. Moose Wala denied any Punjab police told the BBC there was no evidence linking Moose Wala to the killing or to any gang-related crime. But Moose Wala was friends with Shaganpreet Singh, and he was never able to shake off the perception that he was aligned with the Bambiha gang - a perception that may have cost him his he can cite no proof of Moose Wala's involvement, Brar remains convinced that the singer was somehow complicit in the killing of Middukhera. Brar repeatedly told us that Shaganpreet Singh had assisted the gunmen in the days before Middukhera's shooting - and inferred that Moose Wala himself must have been involved."Everyone knew Sidhu's role, the police investigating knew, even the journalists who were investigating knew. Sidhu mixed with politicians and people in power. He was using political power, money, his resources to help our rivals," Brar told BBC Eye."We wanted him to face punishment for what he'd done. He should have been booked. He should have been jailed. But nobody listened to our plea."So we took it upon ourselves. When decency falls on deaf ears, it's the gunshot that gets heard."We put it to Brar that India has a judicial system and the rule of law - how could he justify taking the law into his own hands?"Law. Justice. There's no such thing," he says. "Only the powerful can... [obtain] justice, not ordinary people like us."He went on to say that even Vicky Middukhera's brother, despite being in politics, has struggled to get justice through India's judicial system."He's a clean guy. He tried hard to get justice for his brother lawfully. Please call him and ask how that's going."He appeared unrepentant."I did what I had to do for my brother. I have no remorse whatsoever." Outside the UK, watch on YouTube, or listen on The killing of Moose Wala has not just resulted in the loss of a major musical talent, it has also emboldened Punjab's the singer's murder, few outside Punjab had heard of Bishnoi or the killing, their names were everywhere. They hijacked Moose Wala's fame and converted it into their own brand of notoriety - a notoriety that became a powerful tool for extortion."This is the biggest killing that has happened in the last few decades in Punjab," says Ritesh Lakhi, a Punjab-based journalist. "The capacity of gangsters to extort money has gone up. [Goldy Brar]'s getting huge sums of money after killing Moose Wala."Journalist Jupinderjit Singh agrees: "The fear factor around gangsters has risen amongst the public." Extortion has long been a problem in the Punjabi music industry, but now after Sidhu's murder, Singh says: "It's not just people in the music and film industry who are being extorted - even local businessmen are receiving calls."When BBC Eye quizzed Brar on this, he denied this was the motive, but died admit - in stark terms - that extortion was central to the gang's working."To feed a family of four a man has to struggle all his life. We have to look after hundreds or even thousands of people who are like family to us. We have to extort people."To get money," he says, "we have to be feared."

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