That was the explanation put forward by Royal Burgh of Lanark Community Council chairman Frank Gunning for last month's embarrassing confusion over the rights of Lanarkians to claim free entry to the June 11 race.

As reported in the Gazette, all of Lanark — including the council — thought it had won the right of free entry to the running of the race at Hamilton.

It was believed this was part of the community council agreement with the racecourse operators - which helped it to acquire the ancient
trophy.

However, at virtually the last minute, Hamilton Racecourse declared there had been no such deal.

And, purely as a "goodwill, one-off" gesture, it announced free entry for Lanarkians on application — when it was too late for most townsfolk to apply.

Lanark Community Council's meeting was avidly awaited by some to hear an explanation of what had gone wrong from council chairman, Frank Gunning, who was on holiday when the row first broke.

Frank said that, in his opinion, no deliberate deception had taken place and it had all come down to confusion caused by the recent departure of Hamilton racecourse boss, Alistair Warwick.

All community council members, he said, were agreed that Mr Warwick had pledged to match any offer Ayr Racecourse might make to take over the trophy.

As Ayr had offered free entry for Lanarkians to any staging of the event it held, it was assumed automatically that this was also part of the Hamilton deal.

Frank said that he "could only assume" that Mr Warwick had then forgotten to mention this to his successor, new Hamilton Racecourse chief executive Vivian Kyles, when he left to take up a new post at Ascot Racecourse.

The chairman said that he had attended the first Hamilton Silver Bell meeting — free of charge — on June 11 as a guest of sponsors Radio Clyde and had taken the opportunity to talk to the new Hamilton boss about the "bad feeling" the confusion had caused.

He said she had agreed to hold a meeting to try to hammer out an amicable agreement for future years' running of the race and entry qualifications.

But at least one community council member, Weston Todd, was far from satisfied with the explanation and how Lanark had fared in the deal.

"Hamilton has pulled the wool over our eyes," he blasted.

And he added that Hamilton Racecourse bosses had then tried to emotionally "blackmail" Lanarkians into not taking up even the limited and very belated free entry offer by stating that anyone who did would be taking money away from the charity benefitting from the event, Cash for Kids.

He was also angered by the lack of national publicity Hamilton had promised, promoting Lanark and its heritage as part of its pre-race promotional campaign.

The Daily Record report the day after the event hadn't even mentioned the name "Lanark" in its coverage.

Frank Gunning replied that this last complaint shouldn't be
directed either at him or Hamilton Racecourse but at the Record.

On the emotional "blackmail" allegation, church representative on the council, Rev Bryan Kerr said it was only a fact that anyone getting into the race meeting free would not be contributing to the charity the race was in aid of.

However, he did think that Hamilton Racecourse may have put the point over more diplomatically.

Rev Kerr said he was sure most Lanarkians would be more than happy to pay for their entry if they were sure the money was going to a good cause.

On that point, he said that Lanark must now ensure that, at the very least, every last penny of the 20 per cent of Silver Bell race meeting's £100,000 proceeds promised to Lanark projects from Cash for Kids be paid up as previously agreed.

He did not want the money ringfenced, as agreed, to be a substitute for general Cash for Kids funding.

He suggested a totally separate Silver Bell Fund be created by the charity for Lanark organisations.

* Prior to the Hamilton race night on Wednesday, June 11, the Silver Bell was last run for in Lanark 30 years ago - just before its own racecourse closed.