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Far be it for me to criticise stewards but how on earth did the Prescott horse keep the race? 6.20 Kempton.
I am not talking out of my pocket as I didn’t have a bet in the race but surely Luke Morris has barged his way out and severely hampered the Charlton horse!!
Okay I will probably find out he has got four days or something like that but if he hadn’t made the maneouvre he wouldn’t have won. It seems to me that nowadays it is win at all costs and worry about the consequences afterwards.It would be interesting to hear other views regarding this
The in running comments on the Sporting Life website are pretty revealing:
The winner:
Prominent, took keen hold, switched sharply left and barged into rival over 1f out, led 1f out, driven out
the 4th:
Tracked leaders, ridden and edged right when badly bumped over 1f out, every chance entering final furlong, no extra close home
and the 5th:
Held up towards rear, headway 2f out, badly hampered over 1f out (wiped out), not recover, ran on inside final furlong
The rules favour the guilty party far too much in this country. He has cost Valiant Girl any possible chance of winning and Morris should have been done for dangerous riding.
imo
I complete agree Eclipse.They(the stewards) seem loathe to disqualify anything these days and on this occasion the move was definitely dangerous and could have caused more than one horse to come down!!
From the BHA website:
The Stewards held an enquiry into possible interference 1½ furlongs out. Having heard their evidence and viewed recordings of the race they found that the winner, POSITION, ridden by Luke Morris, had interfered with VALIANT GIRL, placed fifth, ridden by James Doyle, which in turn interfered with TIGERS TALE (IRE), placed fourth, ridden by Richard Hughes. The Stewards found Morris in breach of Rule (B)54.1 and guilty of careless riding, in that he had made a manoeuvre to his left. They suspended him for four days as follows: Wednesday 10, Thursday 11, Friday 12 and Sunday 14 October.
Glad you brought it up Raymo61 because I noted a similar thing happening in the Mill Reef Stakes.The culprit on that occasion was Alan Kirby on Moohaajim and the victim was W.M. Lordon the rider of Cougar Ridge.You need to watch the race and wonder again how the winner was allowed to keep the race.Seems like the rules of racing nowadays only apply to the count of the whip.
The winner shall keep the race edict is harmful to the image of the sport as a fair contest and it is also unnecessary. It is unnecessary because punters can stipulate FPP (First Past the Post) when striking their bet. However due to the indolence of the average punter and the current system, that service does not receive any promotion.
The following is the passage from Guidance on Interference:
One of the most difficult and contentious decisions a Panel has to make is to determine the result following interference. If the Panel considers that interference might haveaffected the result ie. the interferer might have improved his placing as a result of theinterference, an enquiry must be called under Rule (B)11.6 which has the effect offreezing the ‘payout’ until the Panel has come to its conclusion.
THE STEWARDS HAVE TO DECIDE WHETHER THE SUFFERER WOULD HAVE
BEATEN THE INTERFERER BUT FOR THE INTERFERENCE.There are a series of factors to take into account. The questions and Guiding Principles provide a framework within which the Panel work in order to come to their decision. They do not provide the answer but try to ensure that the Panel addresses
the correct questions when making a decision.The Panel should ask themselves the following questions, being mindful of the relevant Guiding Principles:
1. Where did the incident take place in relation to the winning post?
2. How were the horses involved in the interference going at the time of the incident?
3. How serious was the interference ie. how much momentum did the sufferer lose and/or how much ground was lost?
4. If the sufferer had had an uninterrupted run to the line, might it have finished in front of the interferer?
If NO – order placings to remain unaltered
If YES ie there is some doubt – proceed to question 5.
5. How easily did the interferer beat the sufferer?Having considered those factors relevant to the incident in question, if the Panel is satisfied that on the balance of probabilities the interference did improve the placing of
the interferer in relation to the sufferer(s), the placings must be altered. Otherwise, the placings must remain unaltered. Generally speaking, the longer the Panel discusses whether the placings should be altered, the less likely it is that they should be. If the Panel is unable to conclude one way or the other, the result should stand.After reaching a decision on placings, which should be announced immediately, turn back to Careless Riding in order to continue your deliberations on the category of Interference.
Remember: in amending the placings you are demoting the interferer not promoting the sufferer.
a) Dangerous Riding – the placing(s) must be altered as the interferer must be disqualified.
b) Careless, Improper or Accidental – if the Panel is satisfied that the interference improved the placing of the horse causing it, the placings must be altered.
c) The benefit of doubt should go to the horse which finished in front.
d) The Panel should have in mind that interference is likely to have impeded the sufferer to some degree and therefore a reversal of placings is more likely to follow where there is only a nose between the horses.
e) The further away from the winning post that the incident occurs, the less likely it is that the result should be changed.
f) The Panel must make allowance for the momentum and ground lost by the sufferer by imagining that it had an uninterrupted run to the line.
g) The Panel must NOT make an allowance for any effect on the horse causing the interference.
h) The Panel must take into account the ease with which the interferer beat the sufferer.
i) If a horse is carried off its intended line, the effect will vary depending on the distance from the winning post.
The above puts into context the decisions made. The key point is that if the interference is anything less than ‘Dangerous’ then the stewards can only demote if the interferer has improved its placing. It does come down to opinion, and to tell the truth I don’t envy the stewards their job on occasions.
In this case once the decision was made that it was ‘careless riding’ then the die is pretty muc cast and it will be ‘the placings remain unaltered’.
If posters on this thread have a beef I’d say it’s with the Rules and those that formulate them rather than those charged with adjudicating on them.
Rob
Rob , agree the rules are wrong plainly
Someone somewhere decided that throwing horses out of first place would be detrimental to betting turnover..or betting in general , hence the muddle we are in now
FPP is a non event and punters know it , it takes a major miracle for a horse to get disqualified
Wrong , very wrong
imo
Ricky
Indeed Rob, the rules are not strict enough and the interference was severe enough to cost another horse any possible chance. The penalties are not heavy enough to deter jockeys from making what could have led to severe injuries or worse. Until someone is killed or seriously injured as a result of such action I do not envisage the BHA amending the rules and penalties. However by then, it will be too late.
Eclipse First
It could be argued that presuming an action which could cause severe injury is deemed ‘dangerous riding’ then there are penalties to deal with it and deter. The discussion then centres on what constitutes ‘dangerous riding’.
The French method is to demote horses that cause interference. The British method is to avoid demoting unless it’s a must. I suspect the ideal lies somewhere the two, but it all comes down to opinion.
Rob
The rules are there, but they are not being enforced. The stewards gave the maximum penalty without being forced to disqualify the guilty party. It is as though they are frightened to censure the jockey for his actions beyond a certain level, yet if horses had been brought down and injuries occurred then doubtlessly a major review would have been instigated.
Thanks for posting the rules. I guess it came down to a decision between "dangerous" and "careless" and once it was deemed as the latter the result stood because the interference took place quite a long way from the winning post.
When I watched it at the time I definitely felt there was a significant movement from two horses that caused the incident. Obviously Position came off the rail sharply but I also thought that Tigers Tale moved to its right at exactly the same time and that’s what made the incident all the more dangerous. Valiant Girl was chopped off badly but Position was nearly knocked off its feet. It was amazing that it recovered and still won. So I think that the two horse movements made the whole thing worse but you have to take the jockeys’ actions in isolation I assume?
I wonder if Luke Morris claimed in his defence that Tigers Tale also moved to the right and I wonder if the stewards took this into account? Is there somewhere where the transcript of the stewards enquiry is published?
Was it careless or dangerous? Personally I think it was dangerous. At the time Richard Hoiles (co-commentating I think) said it "was as close to dangerous riding as I have seen for a while." And he’s someone who chooses his words quite carefully I think.
I did actually have money on Position in the race and I must admit I was fully expecting the result to be changed.
In general, my view is that the rules are inadequate. They allow any rider to disadvantage other horses without penalty as long as the stewards think that the disadvantaged horses would not have finished in front of the offender given a clear run. There are all shades of injustice possible, from a small loss of prize money in a small handicap at Kempton, to a horse being denied a place in a Classic. They also allow a horse to keep a race it would not have won without the rider committing a breech of the rules, which is hardly compatible with fairness or justice.
In this particular case, my view is that the stewards are in error. The move by Luke Morris was dangerous. There have been far less obvious, and less dangerous, cases where the UK stewards have deemed such a move to be dangerous and not careless. Quite often that has happened when a horse has fallen as the result of such a move. But the stewards are not asked to judge the severity of the consequences, they are asked to judge the dangerousness of the move. In this case it seems as though the stewards looked at the consequences and not the move. I am very sure that if all three horses had fallen, and horses and jockeys had been injured, then they would have deemed Luke Morris’s move to be dangerous. If such injury happens in a future case, then the BHA and the stewards would need to examine their consciences in the light of them abdicating their leadership role in horse and jockey safety and racing integrity.
Even if the stewards thought it only careless, with both disadvantaged horses finishing within a length and a quarter of the winner, I would have thought that the amount of interference they suffered cost them at least that much.
I think the key line in the guidelines is
Which effectively implies unless it is a clear cut case of dangerous riding there is going to be very little chance of the result being amended.
I always remember the last time I went racing at Woodbine and there was a race, about a mile if I recall, where the eventual winner jinked right coming out of the stalls and knocked the horse in the next stall – it wasn’t that bad a knock, the sort of thing you see over here almost every day. I was totally gobsmacked when the winner was disqualified and placed behind the horse he had interfered with at the start, even though there was absolutely no doubt it had won the race on merit.
I think that story illustrates the other side of the same coin.
I wouldn’t like to see our rules changed to be like the Canadian or even French versions but I do think the rules here should be tougher.
Surely that could be dealt with in the "failing to keep a straight line at the start" rule?
In this country jockeys only give lip service to the rules as they know the penalties are not severe enough to encourage them to keep within them over the benefits reaped by showing a blatant disregard for them.
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