Steep – I am also of that same opinion that jockeys/trainers shouldn’t be put in that position given that they rock up to the area affected and are there for a few minutes and then are expected to say yay or nay on that limited information…….information that in this case we know was incomplete because they didn’t know (and still don’t know) what caused the issue in the first place.
The course officals/stewards/BHA/groundstaff should be the only ones collectively involved in making that overall decision and if there is any doubt you should err on the side of caution and the race and/or the meeting should be abandoned on safety grounds.
As was pointed out in the Mottershead piece, the second incident of a horse falling at that St Leger meeting happened a hundred or so yards away from where the first fall happened. In this case (with time/daylight fast running out) you didn’t see a lot of additional time spent examining the course a hundred yards or so in any direction away from where the hole actually was.
I would much prefer seeing racing abandoned than a severe (possible fatal) injury happening to either horse or especially a jockey because due dilligence in assessing potential ground risk wasn’t done thoroughly enough.
Of course those concerned were going to say conditions were safe – as they couldn’t have come out and said: ‘well, we have done a initial inspection in and around the area of concern and have dolled it off accordingly but at this time we don’t know what caused the hole and don’t have enough time remaining to do a full inspection but we are going to race anyway”