It just keeps happening. Yet again, at Caulfield last Saturday, we had the unedifying spectacle of a senior jockey being treated like a schoolboy by the Chief Steward, and the jockey reacting with a verbal spray.
Michael Walker rode My Nordic Hero in Race 6, and finished a well-beaten fifth, admittedly in a photo, with the eventual fourth placegetter. All good? Not according to the Chief Steward, who saw fit to slap Walker with a $400 fine. His offence? According to the Stewards Report, Walker failed to ride his mount out for the final two strides of the race. Yep, the final two strides, not even the last 50 metres. The final two strides…… about the last 8 metres. How stupid!
Watch the video, and it is absolutely obvious that My Nordic Hero had done his bit. Quite frankly, Walker did the right thing in not knocking the horse about unnecessarily and in letting the horse run to the line rather than belting him home. Walker’s frustrated comment in response to the fine was “I’ll just cut every single horse in half from now on” in reference to riding out tired horses. I can’t blame him. The video shows clearly that the horse had had enough. The video does not show Walker dropping his hands, nor does it show him restraining the horse. It simply shows that he realised that My Nordic Hero was giving all he could give, and he let the horse do that. That’s what a horseman does, and that’s exactly the sort of thing that proves, yet again, that the Chief Steward in Victoria just isn’t any kind of a horseman.
It is simply impossible to be a top-flight jockey without having a fair dose of “horsemanship”, but what is “horsemanship”? The dictionary says that it is “the art or practice of riding on horseback”, but it’s actually much more than that, especially for a race rider. It’s the inherent understanding of what is happening to the horse, physically and mentally, during a race. It’s the skill that persuades the horse to work with you, not against you. It’s having hands capable of having a conversation with the animal. It’s knowing when a horse needs to be “stood over” and knowing when a horse needs to be “cuddled”. It’s the art of getting the very best performance out of the horse, whilst still leaving a horse intact for the next race, even if this one is the last in a preparation.
But it’s apparently possible to become a Chief steward without any “horsemanship” at all!
Watch the videos of every other race on the Caulfield program on Saturday, and it is very easy to pick out ride after ride that didn’t differ from Michael Walker’s ride on my Nordic Hero. The only difference was that he finished fifth, not fourth, and the argument apparently is that there was a prize money difference for the owners. There was no difference for the punters, except for the desperates taking First Fours. Given that it is in the owner’s best interests for the horse to be looked after rather than driven to the line, and also in the trainer’s best interests, and also in the horse’s best interests, how can the sheer subjectivity of a fine on Michael Walker be justified?
The answer, of course, is that under the current regime in Victoria, it can’t be, and won’t be. And as long as that is the case, there will continue to be a sourness based on subjectivity in Victorian racing that Racing Victoria, as the governing body, is unwilling or unable to address.
And yes, I do know that the Chief Steward is Singapore-bound. I wonder if they really know what they are getting?
The bottom line is that racing is all about the horses, not about power trips by those in authority. We can only hope that the changing of the guard for the Stewards Panel in Victoria produces a change in attitude and approach. We can only hope that a bit of common sense and objectivity replaces the existing idiocy.
By Rob Young