John Inverdale must not be hounded out of the BBC by Maria Miller for comments about Marion Bartoli He is, however, in hot water for remarks made about the women's singles champion Marion Bartoli at Wimbledon. And Maria Miller, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is trying to get him sacked. For the sake of horse racing fans, let us hope she is unsuccessful. I was lucky enough to cover Cheltenham and Aintree with Inverdale and I will never forget his professionalism. We once went around Liverpool on an open top bus in pouring rain extracting every ounce of information about the place from some dejected tour guide. Why are we doing this John? I pleaded. It's got nothing to do with the National. "Good background," was his reply. You never know how long we might have to talk for if something goes wrong. A couple of years later something did go wrong and we were on air for hours when the race was abandoned after the bomb scare. Inverdale was guilty of musing that Bartoli's father might have once said to her something like 'you're never going to be a looker, so make sure you can fight and scrap to win. That was a mistake. But if one takes into account the thousands of hours Inverdale has broadcast since 1985, surely the grown up attitude must be 'everyone is going to make a mistake if you put a microphone in their hand for long enough. Even Clare Balding. Remember the 2009 National? When Balding pointed out that Liam Treadwell, the winning jockey, had shockingly awful teeth, the public were apparently outraged to watch the lad so humiliated. But it turned out to be the second-best thing that ever happened to him. A kind dentist gave him £30,000"s worth of work. What is really sickening about this episode is a government minister seeing a bandwagon and jumping on it. What is clear is that Miller does not understand the value of, or recognise a heartfelt, genuine apology. Inverdale has issued one, it seems to have been accepted and everyone concerned appears to want to move on except Miller, who is attempting to pressurise the BBC into punishing Inverdale. What else does she mean by asking to be kept informed of the BBC's "further action"? And what business of hers is it anyway? The racing industry should take this opportunity to embrace and support Inverdale. God only knows how many fans he has created with his enthusiasm and in-depth knowledge of our sport.