Vick thought he would get away with it

An American footballer has been fined $5,000 (�3,200) for wearing red socks under his regulation white ones.

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was handed the penalty by the NFL after he rolled his white socks down to his ankles when he was playing against the New Orleans Saints.

That left his red socks exposed and the NFL fined him for breaking the rule that says exterior socks must be white at least to the mid-lower leg.

Vick said: "They got me. I can't believe it."

The Falcons' wide receiver Shawn Jefferson was also fined $5,000 for wearing black shoes instead of white.

Apparently such fines are common in the NFL and players can even be penalised for not tucking their jerseys in.

Presumably these schoolboy regulations also stretch to needing a note from your mum to excuse you from games.

Lift let down

A racehorse owner missed her horse winning one of the biggest events of the year last weekend because she got stuck in a lift.

Maria Marchos-Gouce only heard about Domedriver's victory in the Breeders' Cup Mile in the USA when she was taken to a news conference after being freed from the lift.

She was then told that her horse had won and finally got to see a replay of Domedriver's triumph a little later.

"We didn't see the race," said Marchos-Gouce. "But we heard we had won."

The French raider held off the late burst of hot favourite Rock of Gibraltar by three-quarters-of-a-length.

Sir Alex Ferguson must have wished he'd been trapped instead.