Jonjo O'Neill has lent his distinguished weight to calls for a proper summer break for jump racing by shutting down his Cotswold yard. Rumours of another equine health crisis at Jackdaws Castle were dismissed by the trainer yesterday. “We're just taking a holiday,” he told Diary.

O'Neill was prolific during the summer campaign last year but it did not convince him of the merits of year-round racing. “This time, the horses we've got in aren't good enough to win until the ground gets real quick, so we're taking a month out, which is what I think should happen for the whole sport.

“I know we can't go back to the old days but I feel the game has become a slog and is in danger of losing its sense of fun. When someone as good as Ruby Walsh takes the wrong course at Stratford, you know something is wrong.

“We all get tired, we all need a break. That goes for the lads in the yard, too, and most of mine are now on holiday. I can see nothing wrong in having a month between one season and the next. We'd all look forward to it and come back fresher.”

Wetherby, one of the tracks that declined to move fixture dates to allow even a one-day gap between seasons, shuts for summer today with another all-hurdle card. Trainers are frustrated that the best chase track in the North has been fit for use only once since Christmas because of problems with the realigned home straight. James Sanderson, the chief executive, is “100 per cent confident” it will be restored when Wetherby resume in October.

There are echoes of Lester Piggott in the late replacement of Steve Drowne by Frankie Dettori on the Oaks hopeful, Clowance. Though Piggott was not above ringing a trainer or owner to nominate himself at classics time, his mere availability often brought a queue of suitors. That Dettori is now of similar stature is rough luck on the dependable Drowne. He had won twice on Clowance and had the chance of a first classic victory.

Dettori will not have to waste for the ride - good news for his wife, Catherine. This year's “Face of the Derby Festival” has been telling of her interrupted nights with the weight-obsessed Italian. “It's on his mind constantly,” she says with a sigh. “He weighs himself a hundred times a day. Not many people get up in the night and do as Frankie does - weighs himself, has a wee, then weighs himself again.”

Lester will be at Epsom, of course, but he has another important engagement at the Tryon Gallery in London next Tuesday. Piggott will open a ten-day exhibition of equestrian art by Charlie Langton, a gifted 24-year-old from Wiltshire, who has already shown he has tenacity as well as talent. Langton tried twice, without success, to gain admission to the horse paradise that is Coolmore. His third attempt produced a half-size sculpture of the 2001 Derby winner, Galileo.

Dermot Weld's poker-player face suggests hidden thespian talents, though not enough, apparently, for him to win a film role playing himself. Instead, it will be cockney hard man Ray Winstone who takes the part in The Cup, based on the emotional Melbourne Cup triumph of Weld's Media Puzzle in 2002.

Stephen Wincer, the director, also responsible for Phar Lap, says filming will start in September.

Winstone is evidently mugging up on the role. He will be at Epsom on Saturday, sharing a box in the Queen's Stand with Alan Devonshire, the former West Ham United footballer, who has a Derby outsider named after him.