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These modern whips are like long black balloons. It’s hard to imagine how they could hurt anything in any circumstances. The whip rules are only there to appease the public
Moreover, I thought she gave the horse a fantastic ride. Unlike most of the professionals earlier in the day, who failed to realise that the far rail was the place to be all afternoon, she stuck like glue to the inside and nearly pulled off an all-the-way win at a pace that was on the lively side for the rain-softened ground
Well done Katy. The winning jockey often gets all the praise but in this case I reckon she got the very best out of her partner and deserves full credit for that
To be fair, the priority of a lot of race meetings isn’t the attendance, but support for betting turnover. In other sports it’s the spectators
But the long-term attendance figures will to some extent depend upon the Saturday afternoon TV audience and in that respect the figures are disastrous
Allowing the sport to go exclusively to one channel (and one that has a much lower profile than BBC1 and ITV) was a big mistake
But to sack so many characters from the longstanding popular team and replace them with carboard cutouts was even worseLet’s face it, although I agree TV viewing patterns are changing considerably, the main reason why the Ch4 audience has fallen so far is because it’s boring
It may have faults, but ATR is much more fun, eg Harvey and Weaver on a Friday night. Not everybody’s cup of tea but delivering just the sort of spontaneous entertainment that would liven up the Channel 4 coverage and probably appeal to a wider audience too. Chapman is punchy and controversial and Robert Cooper is a legend once you’ve got the joke
The ironic thing is that Racing For Change, Great British Racing, the rights negotiating team and Channel 4 (IMG) all set out to increase the popularity of the sport
All they’ve managed to do is halve the TV audience in 3 years
It can’t go onAny individual audience research figure may be inaccurate up to a certain percentage of error based upon the methods used. That’s why TV executives don’t specifically look at just one set of figures
However, in Channel 4’s case, the numbers are down, down, down – down for all meetings (though the Grand National has held up pretty well, showing what a popular race it is) and down year on year for all of those meetings
The figures for Champions Day are catastrophic. I was no fan of the Beeb’s coverage but what do you expect if you allow your sport to be removed from one of the country’s two main channels?
The introduction of a professional but dull presentation team only added to the decline. The format itself has a few defects, but many people tune in to TV shows to see characters having a bit of fun, with an element of controversy
Unfortunately the current Channel 4 offering has little of that. The rights sellers need to wake up quickly and find a multi-channel response that works, or viewing figures will continue to fallIn “real” life McCoy is quietly spoken but friendly and with a good sense of humour, Moore just wants to be left alone but he’s fine if nobody tries to make him do something he doesn’t want to do. Then he can be grumpy
Dettori is just plain rude, it’s amazing that so many people have fallen for the TV showman routine. You have to see it day after day to realise it
Very little on TV is quite what it appears to be, so we can all believe what we want to believe
But edfiggyrock got it spot on earlier in the threadHis enthusiasm is good for the sport!!
Is that the same enthusiasm that caused him to take Monday off despite having two scheduled rides? It’s clear from this thread that some of you (understandably) have only watched him celebrating on TV and haven’t seen him blanking people who have said hello to him at the racecourse. I realise that he can’t be Mr Entertainer all the time, and that people constantly expecting him to turn on the fun might be a bit tiresome, but his TV persona doesn’t appear to be anything like the off-screen one. The media know this but realise he is good box office so play up to it. Me, I like to see people with good manners.
I don’t know about his off camera personality but to say his image completely changes when the cameras are off of him may be a bit exaggerated.
No exaggeration – it changes completely.
Don’t you think that charisma should be real rather than just manufactured for the cameras? The likes of AP and co never made a song and dance about their achievements, and may in contrast appear to be a bit dull, but they are/were never half as dismissive of other people as Dettori appears to be when his grinning face isn’t on the TV.
It was an excellent ride, so credit where credit is due. However the thing that bugs me most about Dettori is that his loveable TV image drops the moment the cameras are off him. Anyone who has observed him on course will know that, far from being the fun-loving character that he appears to be in the media, he is in fact rather surly and often ignores people even when they say hello to him. The TV loons are mainly responsible for creating this cartoon person and continue to play along with it – which may be good for racing in a wider context but isn’t nearly as real as his adoring public at home think it is.
Sorry, but speculating is exactly what the stewards have to do. I don’t get why this so hard. Talking about how much ground each horse forfeited by leaning on the other, as many have done, is misleading. That only applies when one or more horses simply veer off a straight line. In this case one of them barged her way out and Atzeni admitted that to the appeal panel – therefore different circumstances.
Here is the rule summarised: did SV improve her position as as result of the interference?
In this specific case the interference allowed her to extricate herself from a pocket in which she was trapped. Therefore the interference helped her win the race. She would have lost more than a head if she had stayed in the pocket or switched behind BB, so under the rules demotion is appropriate. She improved her finishing position as a result of the interference. Think about it.
… and if SV had remained trapped in the pocket or had to switch behind BB (as would have been the case had she not caused the interference) she probably wouldn’t have won. It’s as simple as that. It was a straightforward task to demote her at the very least, and the Doncaster stewards got it right. I don’t understand why people are arguing about how much ground was lost during the contact throughout the last 2 furlongs. It’s irrelevant. SV only won the race because she caused interference en route, and without that interference she probably wouldn’t have won. Therefore she “improved her position”. However, the appeal panel got it shockingly wrong and humiliated the Doncaster stewards in the process. A bad day for the BHA
I don’t think so. SV would have been stuck behind FoA on the rail and would therefore have lost significant ground. Had she not pushed BB to his right, there would have been nowhere to go because BB was tracking STS and would have switched to his outside in order to take the lead. SV’s only option would have been to switch behind BB towards midtrack and that would have been hard to overcome.
I saw your analysis on the other thread, Steeplechasing, and it was very interesting. But the Doncaster Stewards didn’t find that BB interefered with SV and so far I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the appeal panel thought so either.
Incidentally, here is Rule 54: Careless riding or improper riding
54.1 A Rider is guilty of careless riding if he fails to take reasonable steps to avoid causing interference or causes interference by inattention or misjudgement, including when manoeuvring for position.
Inattention or misjudgement – does that really sum up Atzeni’s manoeuvre?
There has been much discussion about the amount of ground that was lost by BB and/or SV in the last 2 furlongs but the key factor is what happened at the 2f pole and how SV created the gap that allowed her to win.
In failing to recognise the meaning of “careless”, both the Doncaster stewards and the appeal panel appear not to understand the dictionary or their own rules, though the Donny panel at least realised that she almost certainly wouldn’t have won if she had remained in the pocket where she was trapped
I’m afraid it’s you that is sadly lacking in knowledge of the rules. Whether she would have won or not if remaining in the pocket, is of no relevance to the result of the race.
No yeats, you are wrong. That is the rule regarding careless riding – did the winner improve its position as a result of the interference? Yes – had she not interfered with Bondi Beach she would have stayed in the pocket and it’s unlikely that she would have won.
As I understand it, “careless” riding is when a jockey fails to take corrective action, like changing his or her whip when a horse is hanging. There is no way that this, or Peslier at Goodwood, was “careless”
There was a case for deeming both incidents to have been reckless or dangerous, and thus disqualifying the horse altogether
In failing to recognise the meaning of “careless”, both the Doncaster stewards and the appeal panel appear not to understand the dictionary or their own rules, though the Donny panel at least realised that she almost certainly wouldn’t have won if she had remained in the pocket where she was trapped
I realise there has been much debate about the St Leger, but in my eyes it isn’t even slightly controversial – Simple Verse, despite being the best horse on the day, should have been thrown out
Perhaps the best solution would be to have called it “improper” riding, and for that to be included in the category of disqualification, rather than demotion, misdemeanours
First post under this name, I forgot my password for my former login, apologies.
In my opinion the Doncaster stewards were right. Atzeni admitted today that he created his own gap. But for that, Simple Verse would probably have remained hemmed in on the rail and that would have made it very hard for her to win the race.
Therefore, she almost certainly improved her position through causing the interference, and the placings had to be reversed. I really do think it’s as simple as that. The fact that Bondi Beach was holding her in plays no part in the application of the rules.
In the circumstances, the second (50-50 this time) incident is irrelevant.
Incidentally, I don’t agree it was careless riding either – it was improper at best. Careless is when you fail to take corrective action, and that doesn’t apply in this case.
