First past the post disqualified over whip misuse

[LD73]

This really shouldn’t be a difficult decision to apply on the day of the incident, afterall Stewards are already able to reverse placings in races and those cases are all based on the Stewards interpretation of whether the horse interfered with would have won had the interference not taken place (interpretation which could vary depending on what individual Stewards are on duty on any given day).

Rightly or wrongly the whip rules on disqualification as they stand are specifically set out and clear in a way that doesn’t require Stewards interpretation – i.e. excluding the strikes used clearly for safety purposes, if you go four or more strikes over the limit the horse is disqualified.

It is completely daft that this decision had to go to a seperate panel to decide (and making it worse by having said decision made) several days after the actual incident took place, what sort of additional experience do they have, to warrant that they have to be the ones making this decision? If that is the case then……WHY……what is the justification for it, Stewards enforce plenty of race day rules (its their job) that are probably a lot less cut and dried than simply reading and applying the rules to an incident.

or

Would the fact be that because this was the first whip disqualification decision of its kind to take place here that the Stewards on the day passed (or bottled it) on making the decision themselves and referred it up the chain?

[Author]

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