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Shocking ride by Miss Gardner on a well backed favourite and all she gets is a 14 day ban, until proper penalties are dished out then the sport will never be straight.
Innocent mistake or not, a lot of people lost money today due to the ride or not as was the case and as it was a well backed horse that profited from the error there should have been an investigation at HQ followed by a proper penalty measured in months and not a few days.
BTW I was on the winner so not speaking through my pocket, I just couldn’t believe what I saw and the leniency of the penalty compared to Jason Maguire’s similar ban.
I have to agree.
Here is the Stewards report. The ban should have been a lot longer.The Stewards held an enquiry into the running and riding of SIROP DE MENTHE (FR), ridden by Lucy Gardner, and trained by Susan Gardner, which was not asked for any effort on the run in before finishing second, beaten 4 ½ lengths for first place. They interviewed the rider and the trainer and heard a report from the Veterinary Officer. The rider stated that she had mistaken the race distance, thinking she had another circuit to go before the finish and therefore she had not ridden the gelding out. Having heard her evidence and viewed recordings of the race the Stewards found the rider in breach of Rule (B)59.3.2.2. They suspended her for 14 days as follows: Sunday 8, Monday 9, Tuesday 10, Wednesday 11, Thursday 12, Friday 13, Saturday 14, Sunday 15, Monday 16, Tuesday 17, Wednesday 18, Thursday 19, Friday 20 and Saturday 21 March 2015.
If she wasn’t trying or stopped riding then the ban would have been 28 days I reckon. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
The outcome for the public and for punters is the same: they’ve lost money. So why is there a difference between non-triers and jockeys who can’t even count to TWO???
Will she have to go to school and take basic maths lessons? I hope so….. And I want to see the proof!!! Have her exercising 1+1=2 or 1+1+1=3 and so on.There is no excuse for not knowing how many times to go round the track.
Six months off to learn the one times table should help with that.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
She knew it was a 2 1/4 mile hurdle race, she knew it was 9 hurdles to be jumped so surely she knew that having jumped 9 hurdles that would be it and there is not a 2 1/4 mile hurdle race anywhere that has 13 hurdles in it.
It’s times like this I despair of the stewarding on British courses.
Could we have a man, woman or possibly a small child ringing a bell for the final circuit as in athletics ? Though it would be easy to envisage that going wrong
Could we have a man, woman or possibly a small child ringing a bell for the final circuit as in athletics ? Though it would be easy to envisage that going wrong
That would be great, at least at tracks like Fakenham, Fontwell or Plumpton have someone waving a certain flag before the final circuit starts.
I love the idea that if you make the punishment ridiculously severe it will stop human beings making mistakes. Uday Hussein used to whip the Iraqi football team when they lost, yet somehow this just made them play worse!
If you ban someone for six months in many cases you are just ending their career, although that may at least provide people with the schadenfreude they are so desperately seeking.
Many decent jockeys have ridden a finish a circuit early (which is pretty much the same thing). It’s not clever, but it happens. There’s no plot here, no connivance, just someone having a dumb moment.
14 days is fine. Maguire’s offence was worse.
Mike
I’m with Mike. Give the girl a break. I was at Ayr 45 years ago when the very experienced Eddie Harty rode a finish a circuit too soon on Stalbridge Colonist. That was in a big field, where he had to pass many other riders in his ‘last’ furlong who were very obviously not riding their horses out (a clue for him perhaps?).
I remember as though it were yesterday the sight of him then trying to get the horse going again after pulling up, but he didn’t give chase for long and pulled up properly. I cannot recall what his punishment was.
In his autobiography Dick Francis said that after a week-end Bank Holiday meeting at Cartmel he was struggling to remember how many circuits it was per race after something like his 12th ride that week end.
This was a one-day fixture, though, and there really isn’t any excuse.
People in racing – trainers, owners, jockeys – don’t like being reminded that some of the prize money they race for percentages of is generated via punters via the various forms of Levy, but it remains a fact and, so long as punters are helping pay you income, then if punters suffer from your actions you must expect a harsh penalty.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"If she could ride the race again or do anything differently I reckon she’d jump on the horse that threw Jamie Moore off.
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I love the idea that if you make the punishment ridiculously severe it will stop human beings making mistakes. Uday Hussein used to whip the Iraqi football team when they lost, yet somehow this just made them play worse!
If you ban someone for six months in many cases you are just ending their career, although that may at least provide people with the schadenfreude they are so desperately seeking.
Many decent jockeys have ridden a finish a circuit early (which is pretty much the same thing). It’s not clever, but it happens. There’s no plot here, no connivance, just someone having a dumb moment.
14 days is fine. Maguire’s offence was worse.
Mike
Should be the same imo Mike.
It is more difficult at Fontwell because the course is so tight and more circuits to a mile than most tracks. I’ve seen it done there before. Remember Adrian Maguire once making a hash of things.
Gardner’s concentration possibly slipped with what happened to the leader after the first circuit. Can sympathise with any jockey getting it wrong and am sure the vast, vast majority of this type of incident are mistakes. I also agree that “mistakes” are going to happen whether it is 14 days or 50 days off.
However, fear I must make the point there is absolutely no way of differentiating between deliberatly not riding a finish and mistakingly not riding a finish. Therefore (even when it is in all probability a genuine mistake) sadly the punishment must be enough to act as a deterrent for someone thinking about doing it deliberately.
I’m sorry but 14 days is not enough of a deterrent.
Value Is EverythingMaybe I’m mistaken but I can’t recall anyone doing something similar in the past. Plenty of ridden a finish a circuit early, pathetically one rode a finish after only 4 furlongs of a 12 furlong race at Wolves last year.
How difficult is it to count to 2 circuits rather than 3 though? There just is no excuse and 14 days is totally inadequate
It depends whether you see the 14 days as a deterrent or a punishment. No days ban is enough of a deterrent for Lucy I’d guess because the shame of it will mean she’s highly unlikely to ever do it again. As a punishment, I think it’s about right. She’s going to need 14 days off before she can pluck up courage to face the public again I’d guess.
Anyway, you can’t deter from mistakes imo.It depends whether you see the 14 days as a deterrent or a punishment. No days ban is enough of a deterrent for Lucy I’d guess because the shame of it will mean she’s highly unlikely to ever do it again. As a punishment, I think it’s about right. She’s going to need 14 days off before she can pluck up courage to face the public again I’d guess.
Anyway, you can’t deter from mistakes imo.Completely agree.
Ginge, you state that ‘mistakes are going to happen whether it is 14 days or 50 days off’ then end by saying ‘sorry but 14 days is not enough of a deterrent’. You cannot ‘deter’ people from making mistakes, it cannot be done: all humans make mistakes. All you can do is adjust the punishment levels for those mistakes to reflect current thinking.
On your point that there is no way of differentiating between deliberately not riding a finish and mistakenly not riding a finish, well that may be true. However if anyone was found to be guilty of the former, the 14 days could be increased to 14 years with few tears from me.
Maguire’s sin is infinitely the worse for me. He was taking it easy for whatever reason to school a horse in public. That is defrauding punters. There’s no hint of impropriety in anything Gardner did.
Mike
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