Bantling Boy

Owning a racehorse is supposed to be a pleasure, the sort of shared indulgence that keeps the old school tie going. For the four members of the syndicate that holds Bantling Boy, it is a slow-burning argument with expensive stakes. Two of them want to sell and take the money; the other two mean to keep the horse in the family. When one of the four ends up dead, the argument stops being academic and becomes a police matter.

Barnaby and Sergeant Dan Scott arrive to find the usual wall of polite incomprehension. But nobody in the syndicate or its orbit wants to be the one who explains things twice. The Hartleys sit at the centre of it: Angela, who runs the family with a firm hand, and her people Bruce and Marianna, each with their own view of the horse's future. Geoffrey adds his opinions, Dr Osgood adds his expertise, and Dr George Bullard adds the medical facts. Joyce and Cully keep the domestic side ticking over, because a Midsomer investigation without the Barnaby household would feel half-finished.

Steve Trafford and Caroline Graham wrote it, Sarah Hellings directed. John Nettles is Tom Barnaby, John Hopkins is Scott, and the guests do the heavy lifting: Caroline Blakiston as Angela Hartley, Simon Kunz as Bruce, Anna Wilson-Jones as Marianna, Philip McGough as Geoffrey, Barnaby Kay as Dr Osgood, with Barry Jackson as Bullard and Jane Wymark and Laura Howard in support.

Money, as ever, is the great Midsomer motive, and a racehorse makes a neat container for it. The show has hung murders on wills and cottages before, and a horse is just another way of saying the same thing: some people would rather burn the whole paddock than see someone else win. The syndicate's rows have the ring of truth, because anyone who has ever shared a car with relatives will recognise the arithmetic of ownership gone wrong.