Blessed are the law-makers for theirs is not a straightforward task

Today is 8th August and this is the first chapter of the month.  Tomorrow we'll have our first runner of the month (The Rocket Park at Thirsk) and then the next day we'll have our second runner of the month (The Simple Truth - pictured here and in the next paragraph, early yesterday morning - at Leicester).  I hope that those two will be followed by Roy at Kempton on Wednesday, although I'd say that it's only 50:50 whether he gets in.  And then towards the end of the week we shall have Kryptos entered at Chester on Friday, Dereham holding three entries (at Chester and at Chepstow, twice) and Das Kapital entered at Chepstow.  The latter's participation would be dependent on quite a bit of rain falling in south-east Wales through the week, but that could well happen.  It's been a week of superb weather here but not necessarily elsewhere; and next week could be another kettle of fish anyway.

It's been a dry week in which it got progressively warmer, to the extent that we're now in a period of a handful of days featuring daytime highs in the low 30s and very warm nights.  Wonderful weather, and we'll be wistful when it's gone.  We've had an early start the past couple of mornings to make sure that all the horses were ridden by roughly 10.00, so that the exercise could take place in pleasantly warm conditions rather than oppressively hot ones.  The photographs which illustrate this chapter should give an idea of how idyllic it is at present.

As regards the wider racing world, there have been a couple of interesting disciplinary matters going on.  The success of Robert Havlin's appeal (he's pictured here shortly after daybreak this morning, at the head of that bunch of John Gosden-trained horses, riding Stradivarius) against his 10-day ban at Yarmouth seemed to unsettle a few people, but basically it was an appeal which had to succeed.  Notwithstanding that his mount caused considerable havoc, his offence was, to my eyes, considerably less blame-worthy than several others recently.  What I mean by that is that the interference caused by his riding was harder to predict than in the other cases.  In his case, one might say that the interference could have been viewed in advance as a possible consequence; there was one which particularly sticks in my mind at Sandown where the interference was almost inevitable, and one could see it coming well in advance.

As the upshot of that Sandown case, and of other recent cases, was no ban being issued, it was very hard to justify any penalty in this case.  The point is that the stewards aren't there to implement what they or we might think is appropriate, or to implement what they or we think the rules ought to be: they are there to implement the rules as they stand.  And there has to be an element of consistency.  Following on from the recent lack of disciplinary action, what happened on appeal pretty much had to happen.

The rules as they are are very vague, because pretty much every case of interference could easily be pigeon-holed into more than one of the possible options.  As I think we have discussed previously, until it becomes an offence to allow a horse to shift in or out when not sufficiently clear of one's rival(s), or to fail to prevent interference from happening, the current unsatisfactory situation will continue.  Changing the rules as thus described would also have the further bonus of making jockeys far less likely to resort to riding with only one hand on the reins - ie of picking up the stick - which would help to solve another of racing's (disciplinary) problems.

The other tricky case, of course, has yet to be resolved: what to do about the races in which George Rooke claimed 7lb when he should have been claiming 5lb.  This is difficult.  There is a deadline for the lodging of objections (two weeks) and this deadline had obviously passed before the problem came to light.  The only exception to this deadline is in cases of deliberate fraud, eg doping or running a ringer, when there is no deadline.  So the problem is that if George Rooke deliberately misled the clerk of the scales as to how many winners he had ridden, then the horses must be disqualified.

On the other hand, if he genuinely believed that his winners in Jersey did not count, then the horses have to keep the race.  And it is, of course, unknowable (by anyone other than him) which option applies.  See what I mean?  It's a hard one.  It's hard to see how he could possibly have believed that his winners in Jersey didn't count.  And it's hard to understand why, if he was uncertain, he didn't ask the clerk of the scales.  But at the same time it's hard to believe that he could have thought that it was sensible to lie about the amount of winners he had ridden.  (And I think that we can discount the possibility of him just not keeping count).  I'm glad that I don't have to decide.  I suppose that if the BHA can't demonstrate that it was deliberate fraud (and I don't see how they could) then the results should stand, even if common sense says that they shouldn't stand.

The other problem, of course, is whom to fine.  Traditionally, his boss (Richard Hughes) would be fined.  He is responsible for his apprentice's conduct.  However, the apprentice system is being changed, and under the new system it would seem rather unfair to fine Richard.  Moreover, responsibility for educating the apprentice has been more or less taken away from the trainer and given to whichever Racing School he or she attends, and to his or her jockey-coach.  And you've also got to factor in that the apprentices now have agents, and the agent's job includes overseeing things like this.  And it's probably fair, in light of the changed system, to fine the apprentice himself/herself.

I think that the fairest system would be to apportion the fine something along the lines of 40% to the jockey-coach; 20% to the Racing School; 20% to the apprentice; 15% to the agent; 5% to the apprentice's master.  You think I'm joking?  Well, I am.  Sort of.  But I'm not really.  Somebody will have to be fined, irrespective of whether the horses are or aren't disqualified (and it is my guess that they won't be, but that's only a guess) and, depending on how you looked at things, any one of those five identities could be justifiably the recipient of the fine.  And we think that interpreting the interference rules are complicated!