14/03/16
Well I’ve been exclusively writing up the fact for ages that it was going to happen one day and the Racing Queensland stewards at the Caloundra TAB meeting last Saturday upheld a protest over whip use, after two horses Rosella and Stonecast dead-heated.
According to the stewards report for the meeting the Chairman of Stewards was senior steward Paul Gillard and on his panel were Daniel Aurisch, former jockey and trainer Neil Boyle, who if memory serves me right was once also the Trainers Association boss and a female steward named Trudi Frazer.
The protest was lodged after the running of Race 4 following a dead-heat and the relevant part of the Stewarts reports reads:
Correct weight was delayed to enable the connections of STONECAST which finished a dead heat for 1st to view the photo finish. After viewing the patrol footage trainer G. Duncan and App S. Eilbeck (STONECAST) were satisfied with the Judge’s decision. Mr Duncan and App Eilbeck subsequently lodged an objection against App T. Williams the rider of ROSELLA which also finished a dead heat for 1st in relation to the use of her whip prior to the 100m. After hearing all the evidence and viewing the film it was established that App Williams the rider of ROSELLA struck her mount on eight occasions prior to the 100m mark, which is in breach of AR137A(5)(a)(ii) that stipulates five strikes prior to the 100m mark. As App Eilbeck the rider of STONECAST had ridden within the Rules of Racing, stewards were comfortably satisfied that this breach had a material affect on the result of the placings and therefore upheld the protest. Placings were amended to read:-
1st Stonecast
2nd Rosella
3rd Good Judge
4th Bizarre Rock
App Williams was subsequently fined $400.00.
It’s simply a no-brainer that every owner, trainer, jockey and punter is entitled to a totally level playing field out on the racetrack of dreams. The rules of racing are approved by the Australian Racing Board and are therefore set in concrete. And so it automatically follows that the respective Chairman of Stewards at any race meeting, across all codes, is charged with the responsibility to ensure that all the rules of racing are being adhered to by all persons, who via their being licensed by the controlling body, agree to abide by such rules, in the exact same way that there are rules on the road which police officers are entrusted to enforce.
In you think it through, in general terms, it is wrong that one jockey can ride within the rules of racing in a particular race and another jockey can choose to ride outside of the same rules of racing and that the one that’s riding outside the rules doesn’t get punished.
With all the comments from different individuals since this upheld protest result, I haven’t seen in one newspaper or racing television show where the exact rule that was used to uphold the protest has been reproduced. So step one in understanding a ruling is to first read the rule that stewards have to abide by at a race meeting and that jockeys have to ride by, so to that end, the Australian racing rule that was involved in the Caloundra upheld protest reads in full (Please note below that (5) underlined outlines the breach and (9) gives stewards the power to act):
AR.137A. (1) (a) Only padded whips of a design and specifications approved by a panel appointed by the Australian Racing Board may be carried in races, official trials or jump-outs. (b) Every such whip must be in a satisfactory condition and must not be modified in any way. (c) The Stewards may confiscate any whip which in their opinion is not in a satisfactory condition or has been modified. (d) Any rider who has been found guilty of a breach of this subrule may be penalised. Provided that the master and/or other person who is in charge of an apprentice jockey at the relevant time may also be penalised unless he satisfies the Stewards that he took all proper care to ensure the apprentice complied with the rule. (2) Only whips of a design and specifications approved by a panel appointed by the Australian Racing Board may be carried in trackwork. (3) The Stewards may penalise any rider who in a race, official trial, jump-out or trackwork, or 68 elsewhere uses his whip in an excessive, unnecessary or improper manner. (4) Without affecting the generality of subrule (3) of this rule, the Stewards may penalise any rider who in a race, official trial or jump-out uses his whip – [amended 1.8.09] (a) forward of his horse’s shoulder or in the vicinity of its head; or (b) using an action that raises his arm above shoulder height; or (c) when his horse is out of contention; or (d) when his horse is showing no response; or (e) after passing the winning post; or (f) causing injury to his horse; or (g) when his horse is clearly winning ; or (h) has no reasonable prospect of improving or losing its position, or (i) in such manner that the seam of the flap is the point of contact with the horse, unless the rider satisfies the Stewards that this was neither deliberate nor reckless. (5) Subject to the other requirements of this rule: (a) In a race, official trial or jump-out prior to the 100 metre mark; (i) The whip shall not be used in consecutive strides. (ii) The whip shall not be used on more than 5 occasions. (iii) The rider may at his discretion use the whip with a slapping motion down the shoulder, with the whip hand remaining on the reins. (b) In the final 100 metres of a race, official trial or jump-out a rider may use his whip at his discretion. [Rule deleted and replaced 15.6.12][Amended 1.12.15] (6) [rescinded 26.9.09] (7) (a) Any trainer, owner or authorised agent must not give instructions to a rider regarding the use of the whip which, if carried out, might result in a breach of this rule. (b) No person may offer inducements to a rider, to use the whip in such a way that, if carried out, might result in a breach of this rule. (8) Any person who fails to comply with any provisions of this rule is guilty of an offence. [Rule replaced 1.8.09] (9) An owner or his authorised representative, trainer, rider or Steward may lodge an objection against the placing of a horse where the rider during the race contravenes AR.137A (3) or (5). [subrule added 1.8.09][subrule replaced 26.9.09]
In the case of the Caloundra race last Saturday, Chairman of Stewards, Paul Gillard, and his panel, obviously felt that one apprentice hitting her horse three times more with the whip than was allowed under the rules of racing was what allowed that apprentice’s horse to dead-heat with another runner. So they correctly upheld the protest and from a personal perspective, I say “well done to them”.
There are only two ways to look at this upheld protest in my opinion. Firstly any reasonable thinking person could surely conclude that three extra strikes with a whip may have helped that one dead-heating horse, Rosella, be even one centimetre more forward of where it did finish, had it not been hit those extra three times, meaning it should have gone down in the photo finish, not dead-heated. And secondly if people don’t think three strikes makes any difference whatsoever to where a horse may finish – that’s fine – let’s ban the whip altogether then, like the do-gooders want, because the “do-gooders” generally get their way anyway, particularly in racing, where racing administrators seemingly pander to the wants and needs of every do-gooder group in the nation. If that statement is not fact, then where the hell are Melbourne Saturday city hurdle and steeple races in the modern era? Shock, horror, they are nowhere to be seen. Why? Bloody do-gooders, so don’t think for one minute that the whip isn’t headed in the same direction. As I wrote recently, “In my lifetime I expect the whip to be totally banned in racing”.
And if you think realistically of other analogies in life whereby a very small amount, akin to say the numbers of hits by a jockey with a whip, can make a huge difference – then there are a plethora. If a driver with an open license blows .04 in a roadside breathalyser test, he or she has committed no offence under the road rules and is free to continue on their journey, but a sip or two later at a reading of .05 they are now being charged with drink driving and can lose their license and/or be fined heavily. If a truck driver has a reading of .00 in a roadside breathalyser, he or she is free to continue driving, but if he or she should have one swig out of a stubby and register a virtually infinitesimal reading of .01 they have broken the road rules and can lose their license. If a driver goes merely one-kilometre per hour over a certain speed limit threshold that driver is considered to have committed a more serious infringement and therefore gets classified into a totally different and higher category. It’s hard to believe that’s the case, all for one-kilometre per hour over a certain threshold, but using Queensland as a litmus test, the specific road rule reads: “Driving at least 13 km/h, but not more than 20 km/h, over the speed limit” the fine is $235, yet had the same motorist only been speeding by 12 km/h – and not 13 km/h – the fine was $78 less at just $157. Take other analogies from the racing industry itself and if a trainer’s horse registers a mass concentration of 199 micrograms per litre of urine in a cobalt swab that trainer faces no charges whatsoever, but at a reading of 201 that same trainer could be disqualified for many months. And the exact same scenario can happen with TCO2 levels in equine athletes – the point of all the aforesaid being very minute differences can have huge impacts right through other aspects of racing and in our daily life. So eight strikes by a jockey, versus five strikes by the same jockey, is, in my opinion, akin to driving just three kilometres an hour over the speed limit – thus putting oneself into a dearer penalty bracket – or a horse not being positive, or being positive to certain cobalt and TCO2 thresholds, etcetera.
And in any event, the managing owner of Rosella, the horse that lost the race on protest, is Fred Brown and he’s a wonderful elderly man who is long retired from running Glen Avon Lodge thoroughbred stud between Toowoomba and Pittsworth. Fred Brown was one of my first clients of this website about 20 years ago and I recall doing stallion profiles on sires of the ilk of Just Awesome, which famously achieved wonderful fertility and racetrack results from his progeny, even though he only had one testicle. Before being a studmaster, Fred Brown was a stipendiary steward in the thoroughbred industry in South-East Queensland, so he more than anyone understands the rules of racing and how stewards have to invoke such rules as part of their job description. And I’m not talking of some bloke who spent five minutes in stewarding. Fred Brown was a highly respected steward who worked on thoroughbred stewards panels with men like Clive Morgan, Andy Tindall and Syd Fisher when industry luminaries like Clive Uhr was Chairman of the then Brisbane Amateur Turf Club and people like Judge Edmund Broad sat on the committee of same. I often think a man like Clive Morgan would liven a few licensees up today, if he was still chairing race meetings. I only wrote as recently as last week on this website that stewards are the “toothless tiger” of the modern racing industry. Now that Gillard and his panel have shown some testicular development and upheld a protest over whip rules we finally have a precedent set. Some will loathe the decision – others will applaud it. Stewards regularly cop a bagging here, so it’s only fair that they get credit where I feel credit is due.
Some racing participants will no doubt say things like “the floodgates have been opened” or “we’ve opened a can of worms now”. So what – like I said earlier, everyone is asked to play by the exact same rules and if you think it through, it’s not that mentally challenging to count to five (strikes before the 100-metre mark). We learn how to conquer that task of counting the consecutive numbers between one and five either in Grade 1 – or even prior to Grade 1. How come so many jockeys have a problem with counting to five as adults? Again last weekend, stewards reports from around Australia showed that there were a plethora of jockeys fined for overuse of the whip and for some reason some jockeys just don’t get it. That’s not my fault, the sheila over the road’s fault, the bloke who owns or trains the other dead-heater Stonecast’s fault, or the apprentice who rode Stonecast’s fault.
The owner/s and/or trainer of all horses contract out the job of steering their horse to a jockey. As an extension of that “contract” they need to employ a jockey who is prepared to hit his or her horse a maximum of five times before the 100-metre mark. Granted the thoroughbred racing industry could do more, like say putting a red line across the track, so jockeys all know where the 100-metre mark is, irrespective of how wide they are on the track, but someone smarter than me (just kidding – I’m being patronizing – I haven’t noticed too many smart racing administrators in my lifetime) can work out the finer points of that.
Please note leading Brisbane rails bookmaker Lindsay Gallagher didn’t field at the main Gold Coast meeting last Saturday, as he fielded on the Caloundra meeting, so his normal Monday column will return next week.
Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s the What’s In A Name segment from last Saturday’s racing.