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Before the advent of Youtube, so no idea I would be able to upload recordings in the future.
The policy back then was to only keep the latter part of minor races, unless there was an earlier incident.
So I do have the race, but only from just before the unseat. Not really enough footage to make a judgement, but here it is for what it’s worth:
....and you've got to look a long way back for anything else.
The excellent Alan Howes commentating, I didn’t realise he’d been doing it that long.
That’s splendid, espmadrid, many thanks indeed for sharing! (I’ve long since owed you a reply to a private email, incidentally – my apologies).
Obscured a little as it was from that sideways view, it’s nevertheless on the softer sides of unseats, isn’t it. We’d give that as “rfo” (rider fell off) in the pointing comments in running, for sure.
The middle one down the straight at Fontwell isn’t notably trappy, as far as I can recall – certainly not compared to the downhill one at the start of the back straight.
Yeats– this would have been among Alan’s very first Racetech calls, as he joined the roster in 2004 alongside Malcolm Tomlinson and Phil Curry.
gc
Jeremy Grayson. Son of immigrant. Adoptive father of two. Metadata librarian. Freelance point-to-point / horse racing writer, analyst and commentator wonk. Loves music, buses, cats, the BBC Micro, ale. Advocate of CBT, PACE and therapeutic parenting. Aspergers.
Espmadrid your uploads are so enjoyable to watch , spent a lot of time reliving old memories watching them .
Mick Fitzgerald defended the jockey.
That’s a surprise.
Said no one.
Would Megan have been quite so bold if the incident had happened in Britain? I am not so sure. I doubt she encounters the Byrnes very often, so it costs her nothing to be outspoken in this case.
Only a few weeks ago she was defending a shocking ride by Oisin Murphy. He admitted about two hours later he should have won.
Wexford Stewards didn’t seem particularly bothered:
The Raceday Stewards reviewed the unseating of P. Byrnes, rider of Redwood Queen, at the last hurdle when leading. Having viewed the recording of the race and considered the matter, the Raceday Stewards took no further action.
It was obvious it was only going to be discussed on ITV if both sides of the argument were put forward.
If it was all one sided and everyone said he deliberately jumped off they would leave themselves open to be sued.Jimmy Focks and son Sean were always acting the maggot. It was the only way small men could get on in the game with a little victory now and again and it hasn’t changed much to this day and anyone who thinks otherwise is on the funny fags.
Ice Saint’s trainer from this example got rumbled more than once.
(EDIT) https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/mar/10/horseracing.comment
Aside, they’re having a stewards enquiry about the stewards at Wexford. Oddly the Irish Field has it as a “subscriber only” article….
The biased broadcating corporation say this. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/articles/cz0dnpp9lkeo
I’m a paddy and that sounds a bit to me like a paddy solution to a paddy problem. While Charles Byrnes buys the brush and the son lifts the carpet and everyone draws.
“WINNER ALRIGHT”.
If you don’t think he jumped then you have to say that it’s a appalling piece of jockeymanship … However he jumped off
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
If you are convinced he jumped that is how it will look, if you are convinced he didn’t that is how it will look. If you are on the fence it is difficult to say with any certainty.
The more I know the less I understand.
If it was anyone else (apart from Tony Martin), I would probably give them the benefit of the doubt. But not this pair.
Fitzgerald is an embarrassment. As Chapman said, even if he didn’t jump off it was a terrible piece of riding. Fitzgerald didn’t even want to say that. He made similar excuses when someone had a very soft unseat at the last fence from a 1/4 favourite at Sedgefield last year.
In a crowded field, he is the worst pundit on television.
It’s easy , why are his feet out of the stirrups …. They should be investigating the stewards to , to not look into it oncourse smells badly to
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
Rishi Persad, substituting for Nick Luck on today’s edition of Luck On Sunday, has called it a “very soft unseat” after prefacing his observations with a line about how those in the media have to be careful about what they say due to slander and libel laws.
I recognise what Persad says. However, I have heard anecdotally that pundits on RTV are under instructions to not criticise trainers or jockeys unless it is absolutely unavoidable. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the same for SSR and ITV as well.
As I say, it is anecdotal. I cannot swear it is true. But I have no reason to doubt who told me and the behaviour of the channel’s pundits doesn’t exactly say otherwise.
If that is their policy, then OK. I can understand it to an extent. Racing is a small club. Lots of the participants live, work and play in the same places. They don’t want to upset one another and the media does not want to risk being frozen out by the main players. AP McCoy refused to speak to anyone on RTV after Lydia Hislop and Steve Mellish questioned one of his rides at Ascot, for example.
However, it is worth bearing in mind that the next time you see these pundits (some of them well paid, I believe) holding court after a race, they are not always going to be objective. They are cheerleaders for a sport which has a vested interest in punters losing.
The problem is: they got away with this approach in the past but nowadays the average audience’s analytical and interpretative skills are far better. Almost everyone knows Shoemark rode a moderate race in the Guineas, for example. And we know the failure of any RTV pundit to call it doesn’t reflect well on them.
CAS,
It’s not that presenters are “cheerleaders for a sport which has a vested interest in punters losing”. It’s that they have to be extremely careful what they say. Otherwise both they themselves and the company they work for could be sued and lose eye watering amounts of money. Juries aren’t Racing people, they haven’t got a clue. Trials could go either way. So unless there is a paper trail presenters have to be extremely careful these days.Value Is Everything
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