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12 days is fair and everybody makes mistakes.
But the fact is that it’s a jockeys responsibilty to know how the course is laid out at all times.
But case closed, sure he’ll be riding plenty of winners soon!
The crowd booed him when he came back, the first time I have heard them do that at the course in over two decades of going.
All that’s needed is a few traffic cones, obviously too much trouble for Wetherby though.
After two or three similar errors earlier this year some tracks started putting cones down and others didn’t.
Why not a simple instruction from the useless BHA to all tracks to put cones down where appropriate?
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All that’s needed is a few traffic cones, obviously too much trouble for Wetherby though.
After two or three similar errors earlier this year some tracks started putting cones down and others didn’t.
Why not a simple instruction from the useless BHA to all tracks to put cones down where appropriate?Possibly, because it’s far too simple and logical?
BG broke the rules and thousands suffer: it happens so many times each season, yet the BHA simply can’t grasp the basic problem – it’s horseracing, not orienteering.Fist wrote
"It also unfair in the sense someone like Sam Thomas (excuse me for using your name nothing personal) makes the same mistake as Barry did, only he doesn’t have any mounts in Graded races over the next 12 days so in effect they could be fining Sam much less that they could be fining Barry which really makes no sense."
It makes a lot of sense.
Its a principle that applies in law. A driving ban for being over the limit is a harsher punishment for someone who uses a car in their employment but that doesn’t stop 12 month bans being given to all,with only slight adjustments, unless a fancy brief is employed.
Are you really saying that jockeys of top stables, with entries in top races, should get lesser punishments? The jockey is the one being punished. The stable will rarely find a problem getting a suitable jockey for the top race with minimal effects on their horse’s chance.- Total Posts 17716
There’s a huge difference between a drunk and a jockey taking the wrong course. The drunk has the choice and knows full well the risk he takes and knows full well before picking up that 3rd drink he is breaking the law..
A jockey taking the wrong course is not a criminal but he is being treated like one and in a sense is being discriminated against just because he’s more talented than the next.
Let’s take it to the extreme and imagine it was Ruby who was banned and it was 6 days before Cheltenham and he lost out on ridng Kauto Star and Master Minded and Big Bucks……what has that cost him? around 60,000 pounds perhaps?
Let’s there wasn’t 1 jockey who took the wrong course that day there were 2 the other one being Brian Harding for talking sake……But Brian would have been riding at Hexam and lost out on the winner of a 5K hurdle race………..cost to him say 500 quid.
So just because Ruby is a higher earner than Brian he pays 120 times more than Brian does yet both made the same mistake. Geez that sounds fair!
I think Richard Hannon jnr mentioned a figure of around 35,000 pounds it cost Hughsie during his ban
I’m sorry but I can’t agree that these bans are fair..and the stupid thing about it is who benefits? if they fined jockey at least the money could be put to good use like employing professional down to earth stewards with a better understanding of the problems jockey’s face day in day out.
What get’s me about some of you is you sit there and say it’s fair but if it was you that was losing a possible 10-20k in earnings you’d soon change your attitude.
Barry never did this deliberately he said himself the sun was in his eyes and he was concentrating on what was happening around him………he’s not a criminal or a drunk driver but with possible loss of earnings he probably feels like one.
I think the racecourse is more to blame than Geraghty, so it is ironic that the racecourse stewards are the ones to hand out the punishment, presumably on the stipendary’s advice.
I just hope that Wetherby get some kind of punishment from the BHA.
There’s a huge difference between a drunk and a jockey taking the wrong course. The drunk has the choice and knows full well the risk he takes and knows full well before picking up that 3rd drink he is breaking the law..
A jockey taking the wrong course is not a criminal but he is being treated like one and in a sense is being discriminated against just because he’s more talented than the next.
Let’s take it to the extreme and imagine it was Ruby who was banned and it was 6 days before Cheltenham and he lost out on ridng Kauto Star and Master Minded and Big Bucks……what has that cost him? around 60,000 pounds perhaps?
Let’s there wasn’t 1 jockey who took the wrong course that day there were 2 the other one being Brian Harding for talking sake……But Brian would have been riding at Hexam and lost out on the winner of a 5K hurdle race………..cost to him say 500 quid.
So just because Ruby is a higher earner than Brian he pays 120 times more than Brian does yet both made the same mistake. Geez that sounds fair!
I think Richard Hannon jnr mentioned a figure of around 35,000 pounds it cost Hughsie during his ban
I’m sorry but I can’t agree that these bans are fair..and the stupid thing about it is who benefits? if they fined jockey at least the money could be put to good use like employing professional down to earth stewards with a better understanding of the problems jockey’s face day in day out.
What get’s me about some of you is you sit there and say it’s fair but if it was you that was losing a possible 10-20k in earnings you’d soon change your attitude.
Barry never did this deliberately he said himself the sun was in his eyes and he was concentrating on what was happening around him………he’s not a criminal or a drunk driver but with possible loss of earnings he probably feels like one.
I can see your point about the different financial impact in absolute terms for your example, but the hit they take relative to their overall earnings will generally be the same.
£60k out of an annual income of £600k has the same impact as £500 quid out of an income of £5k. It’s why fining premiership footballers a couple of weeks money has little or no effect.
The loss of earnings for jockeys at the lower end of things may be the difference between survival and insolvency.
Some interesting points Fist – but two observations.
1) If the jockey does not want to be banned than don’t break the rules. Yes, they are human and make mistakes but if a mistake is made the price has to be made if only to make them think twice before making the same mistake again.
2) By nature, a jockey in the "league" of Walsh, McCoy and co are supposedly better jockeys, which is why they are paid more than the journeymen. With that comes a greater expectation and responsibility they should be able to follow the basic rules. Bear in mind they will be riding supposedly better horses and therefore the impact of their mistakes is far greater on connections and punters. If the ban means missing big meetings then tough, perhaps it will make them learn.
As the last poster stated the penalties are relatively the same.
No different as happens in the courts system where if there was an unemployed person and somebody on £50k a year both guilty of the same offence (and assuming the same circumstances) then the former would face a lower fine than the latter.
Firstly, I thought it was disgraceful how the crowd booed Gerathy into the paddock, evertybody makes mistakes.
Secondly, if half the field had followed him, which looked like happening at one stage, do you think they would all have got 12 day bans or would the stewards have been more leniant?
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Though it’s really no excuse, Barry Geraghty can’t have ridden in that many races at Wetherby since the course was changed, and the hurdles track
was
actually on the inside line he took into the straight?
The loss of earnings really is irrelavant in my mind. Jockeys get banned for numerous reasons…and must accept there is a financial repercussion. They know the rules (or they should) before a race begins.
Yes I feel sorry for Geraghty as it was an honest mistake (if there is such a thing). But just because its Geraghty and not a lesser jockey shouldn’t matter.
Having just seen the replay i can
say that Barry did make a genuine mistake and infact was lucky that two other jockeys didnt follow the same route as him.
Both Barry and Wetherby are at fault here.
When passing the winning post their are marshalls with tapes who direct them onto which course to follow, a bit like a crossover on a Scalextric set but at the end of the back straight all races follow the inside rail with no rail dividing them or marshalls with tapes or cones to direct them so its a case of follow your own line to the little bit of rail in the home straight.
Wetherby should either have people down their to direct jockeys or swap the fences back over to where they used to be so this doesnt happne again.
Barry did hold his hands up and admitted is mistaked and took his punishment on the chin and now can atleast expect to be called up by Channel 4 as a pundit on the days he will be sitting out.
What about the genius’s that actually took the RIGHT course in the race?
I think they deserve a special mention for correctly negotiating their way around their work place
Easy to see why Geraghty (focused on the bend) missed the turn. the exit should have been dolled off to stop this.
A genuine human error. Likely to be a rare Raqcing question on A Question of Sport!
Crossing from one side of the course to the other in the manner described is not unheard of – aren’t the fences at Catterick on the outside down the back straight and on the inside on the home straight?
Granted, Barry Geraghty doesn’t ride all that often at Catterick, but I’m sure there must be other similarly laid-out courses elsewhere in Britain and Ireland which he has found his way around meeting in, meeting out, without error.
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.
Two points – first a field of conditional jockeys managed to steer a correct course for two circuits on Friday.
Second, in common with the other jockeys in the race in question, Geraghty spent three or four minutes circling round at the start, which for a 2M hurdle is precisely at the point at which he subsequently took the wrong course.
AP
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