I’ve had a varied career. I’ve worked for the Inland Revenue, trained for the Bar, worked for an MP, drafted a constitution for the Labour Party, run a think-tank and been a journalist. (Bear with me – I’m not intending to offer you my life story.)

I’ve also had another strand to my life. I’ve lived and breathed horse racing since I was a tiny child. I might not be a racing insider, but I was a graduate trainee in the Jockey Club when it ran horse racing. I spent a year working in its disciplinary department. I had a spell as a racing commentator. I’ve written a weekly racing column. And I’ve owned – as I do now – racehorses. (Look out for Major Miller’s return to action in the next few weeks.)

Of all the fields in which I’ve worked, I would unhesitatingly say that racing is the least corrupt. By far. Yes, there are crooks and shysters, but so there are in the church, in charities and in every other walk of life. In racing most of the supposed criminality exists simply in the imagination of novelists – Dick Francis has a lot to answer for – punters who have done their money, and disciplinary officials looking to make a name for themselves as the hammer of corruption.

When the former champion jockey, Kieren Fallon, was cleared on Friday of conspiracy to defraud, it came as no surprise to those who had followed the case. The prosecution was strong on innuendo but very weak when it came to evidence. Some of the so-called expert witnesses called by the prosecution had worse qualifications than . . . well, me.

The notion that racing is essentially bent is widespread. With the outcome of races determining the fate of millions of pounds of bets every day, and with the sport itself substantially funded through a levy on gambling, racing is indeed susceptible to corruption. It would be astonishing if, given the huge sums involved, it did not attract criminals.

Kieren Fallon is by a huge distance the most talented jockey of his generation. He is also the bad boy of the sport, earning regular suspensions for his aggressive riding. The news now of his positive test for cocaine is of a piece. Others from the wrong side of the tracks act humbly and deferentially towards the toffs who run racing. Fallon refuses to play that game. The perception has long existed that the authorities have thus been out to get him.

My interpretation of the farce that ended on Friday is that the racing authorities started from the presumption that the chavs involved in racing are bent and that, because Kieren Fallon was their bête noire, ergo Fallon was bent and had to go. And so they cobbled together smears and circumstantial evidence to bring him down. That, of course, says more about the unfitness for their jobs of the disciplinary authorities than it says anything about Kieren Fallon.

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