On Thursday, the Appeals Body of the Turf Club decided to throw out an appeal lodged by 10 jockeys against fines imposed on them after the running of a handicap hurdle at Galway on September 10.
The decision sparked incredulity among the jockeys concerned. Ruby Walsh, one of the 10, said afterwards that he was “angry and very disappointed”. Davy Russell told the panel that the decision was “an absolute outrage”.
The race in question was the Cunningham Higgins Specialist Cars Handicap Hurdle, the 4.25 at Galway on the first day of the September meeting. None of the 10 jockeys who lined up at the start was intent on making the running. That was the problem. They looked at each other when starter Joe Banahan let them go, each one waiting for one of the other nine to set the pace. Nobody did. They all went through the start but moved forward only at walking pace. After 37 seconds and about 50 yards, Andrew McNamara allowed Darby Wall to break into a canter and the rest followed.
Later that day, the stewards called for all 10 riders — Walsh, Russell, McNamara, Barry Geraghty, Paul Carberry, Paddy Flood, Robert Power, Denis O’Regan, Shay Barry and Adrian Lane — and fined each €200, under Rule 272, for acting in a manner “prejudicial to the integrity, proper conduct or good reputation of horse racing”.
Penalties imposed by local stewards on the day of a race are often rescinded on appeal. We saw it in England on Tuesday when Seamus Heffernan’s 14-day ban, imposed for his riding in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot, was commuted to six. We saw it with the Tony Martin-trained Schindlers Son in June, when a 60-day ban for the horse, a 21-day ban for the rider and a €2,000 fine for the trainer were dismissed on appeal.
Geraghty, the winner of the Galway race on Artistic Lad, said yesterday: “I was astounded at the original decision but I thought that when they had had a chance to consider everything, the appeal would be successful. The case presented on our behalf was very strong and there was no real case presented against us. How the panel reached their decision baffles me.”
It is easy to understand his bewilderment. There is no rule of racing that says that you have to break into a gallop as soon as the tape goes up or as soon as the stalls open. There is no rule that tells you at what speed you have to go, or within what time you have to finish.
However, there is a rule that says that you have to do your best to achieve the best possible finishing position for your horse. If you make the running on a horse that needs to be held up, are you complying with that? Geraghty foresaw a potential issue before the race. As he went through the runners, he couldn’t figure out who was going to make the running. Walsh wasn’t going to make it, Power wasn’t going to make it, Andrew McNamara wasn’t going to make it. Carberry was the first one to line up on Marbeuf but when he did he turned around and told the others that he wasn’t going to make the running either. “I wanted a decent pace,” said Geraghty. “I wanted a truly-run race. But I wasn’t going to lead. The last time my horse won at Kilbeggan, I took it up at the second last but he idled terribly in front and only just got home. My instructions from Jessica Harrington were to be handy but not to make the running, and that was my intention.”
At the appeal hearing, Walsh said that he was under strict instructions from Willie Mullins to hold up his mount, Mountain Snow. McNamara was riding a horse who had been off the track for almost a year. Power said that the riders were involved in a game of chess. You wait as long as you can.
This is not the first race in which a group of horses has lined up with nobody intent on making the running, though usually the decision is made for at least one rider. One horse just takes off, runs away with his jockey and the rest follow. All you need is one. On September 10 Geraghty, Carberry and Lane wanted to be handy. They just didn’t want to lead.
So, what was each rider to do? Every rider is under instructions not to lead and convinced that his horse’s prospects of winning will be diminished if he does. So, what is the answer? What are the riders to do next time? Of course the authorities are there to police racing. When a penalty is warranted it has to be imposed. But why exactly were the jockeys’ actions prejudicial to the good reputation of horse racing? It was not as if they decided as a group that they would not start to race until they had gone 50 yards. There was no collusion, no plotting or pre- meditation. It is ironic that the 10 jockeys concerned have done nothing but enhance the good reputation of horse racing in recent times.
Andrew Coonan, who handled the jockey’s legal representation, was baffled. “No shred of evidence was produced to show that these fellows had in any way damaged the reputation of Irish racing,” he said yesterday.
There was a similar, though not identical, scenario in a bumper at Killarney in July of last year, when five amateur riders went at little more than a crawl for most of the race. In the aftermath, Louisa Williams, who had made some of the running on Premium Quality, had her appeal upheld while the other four riders had their fines reduced, although they did lose their deposits.
Going back even further, the four-runner 1972 Gallinule Stakes was run at a crawl, with Seamus McGrath’s Bog Road eventually getting the better of Guineas winner Ballymore. At the subsequent enquiry, the four trainers concerned stated that they had instructed their jockeys not to make the running. The local stewards decided that no rule of racing had been broken, that no penalties could therefore be imposed, and referred the matter to the Turf Club, who came to the same conclusion. However, the Turf Club did decide then that they would investigate if it would be practical to set a time limit on the duration of races. That was 34 years ago. No such limit has yet been implemented.
The most infuriating aspect of this whole incident for the jockeys, apart altogether from the fines of €200 each and the loss of their deposits of €380, has to be that this offence will now be indelibly registered on their respective records. They have been guilty of an offence that comes under the heading of “Misconduct and Corrupt Practices” in the rule book. That is a significant blemish on the record of some of Irish racing’s best ambassadors.
Thursday was a bad day for common sense.
