Khawatim Stewards Enquiry

[tbracing]

Having sat down to review Saturdays racing on Sunday I head over to the ‘stewards room’ on the BHA website to see if any questions had been asked of a couple of rides I’d seen on the day and to my amazement the only one that had been asked was about the well backed favourite Khawatim who finished 2nd place to Polar Venture (who should have been favourite anyway) 1/2 a length.

Held up, but not quite as far off the pace as Polar Venture there was not a great deal of pace with the leader getting an easy time of it in front, Khawatim moved fine up to the final 2 and on turning in Polar Venture railed well round the far side (now not an unfavoured place to be at Lingfield) and quickened up his inside and quickly gained ground on Khawatim, he failed to quicken as sharply as the eventual winner initially but eventually finished well and ran on strongly into 2nd.

Now, for me as someone who is should I say a committed race reader I can see little wrong doing and am baffled, as I’m sure is Noel Quinlan.

I’m all for asking questions and feel the stewards don’t do it merely enough but there seems not real direction for doing so and lacks any consistency what so ever, when you consider in the Andrew Heffernan case they failed to pull up the rides on the day yet can find reason to question something like the above.

Stewarding can not continue in it’s amateur fashion as it is and the BHA has to look to a more professional stewarding set up if they are going to make steps to tighten up the game.

Tighter regulation and relationship with betting operators.
Professional stewarding working under a more rigid structure.
Mandatory weighing of horses.
Stricter handicapping.

These are four points the BHA need to address and get control over.

[tbracing]

The Stewards held an enquiry, adjourned from Lingfield on 25 January 2013, into the running and riding of KHAWATIM, ridden by Stevie Donohoe and trained by Noel Quinlan, which raced in touch at the rear of the field, before staying on strongly in the closing stages to finish second, beaten half a length. They interviewed the rider and the trainer. They also received observations from the Handicapper. The rider stated that in the early part of the race he had to encourage the gelding to hold its position with hand riding. He was then forced to switch around a rival to make his finishing effort in the straight, and felt with hindsight that in doing so the winner had got first run on him and that he was an unlucky loser. The trainer added that KHAWATIM is habitually slow to warm up in its races, but does not respond well to being hustled, and for this reason he had not given Donohoe specific instructions about when to make his finishing effort. Having heard their evidence and viewed recordings of the race the Stewards referred the matter to the British Horseracing Authority.

What a useless waste of time.

[Author]

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