First thing to say is there’s no possibility of a passport being at the start – how would it get there and who’d be holding it. I’ve owned enough horses and attended enough races to know that passport is only produced in the stables during the pre-race identity and medical check.
I’ve also seen enough horses withdrawn at the start after being checked by the vet, to believe that the standard procedure is for the withdrawn horse to wait behind the stalls until the race has been started. And that the course would provide transport to the start for stable staff if the horse needs to led back with no jockey – this would be requested by the starter over the radio. The jockey would then be driven back to the stands.
This isn’t a common event and I’d hazard a guess that Billy The Kid has never been in this situation before. The vets assume he knows what he’s supposed to do without being told, he assumes he can ride the horse back as he’s only trotting, not going racing pace, the same as he would do with a horse that had failed to go into the stalls. A classic case of ‘what we have here is a failure to communicate’.
The stewards report gives no detail of what rule they say he has broken, which doesn’t help.
Just to add I’ve had this happen with a horse I owned. He unseated the jockey as they went onto the course, did a circuit of Chelmsford at a canter, and pulled up back at the gate where the jockey and stable staff were waiting for him. The racecourse vet refused to let the jockey remount and ruled the horse a non runner. The horse was fine, had used no more energy than you’d use getting to the mile start at Newmarket. By the time you add up the entry fee, transport, staff overtime, jockey fee (which still had to be paid in full), that cost me the best part of £500 to not get a run. So it’s no wonder connections get a bit irritated when this happens.
There was a more famous example, when Coneygree was withdrawn by the vet at Plumpton before his intended debut over fences. The vet insisted the horse was lame. Four months later he won the Gold Cup.