A matter of life or death

The lovely weather continues.  Saturday and Sunday were just the most idyllic days, with a high on Sunday afternoon of 28.  Yesterday too was blissful, albeit with only a high of a 'mere' 24.  Today we are forecast 26, and the next 10 days each have a forecast day-time high in the 20s and a night-time low in double figures.  Zero per cent chance of rain every day, apparently, bar next Sunday (five days hence) when there's a 30% chance.  So that's all lovely, and a very far cry from July Week last year.  The perfect accompaniment to Sunday's conditions was Andy Murray's Wimbledon victory.  He seems a most admirable sportsman, and anyone, never mind any Briton, who doesn't rejoice in his triumph needs his head looking at.

A less pleasing sporting occasion was the previous day's Eclipse Stakes, a spectacle marred the by inept riding by the winning jockey.  What should have been a splendid victory thus became a very unsatisfactory result, and one which provided a perfect illustration of why framing perfect rules to deal with interference in races is impossible.  Al Kazeem is clearly a very good horse, and he doesn't seem a difficult ride.  His victory was fairly straightforward - or should have been.  Unfortunately, having passed Mukhadram, he lugged in towards the far rail and on top of Mukhadram, and his jockey did nothing to correct him until the damage had been done.  He'd have won anyway, but the problem was that the manoeuvre almost certainly cost Mukhadram (who ultimately finished third after being severely hampered) second place.  Which left the stewards facing an situation which was impossible to put right.

The logical solution to such a problem is to do what one can do to make amends to the innocent victims of the riding offence.  The interference cost Mukhadram's connections slightly more than £45,000 (ie the difference between second and third prizes) and cost anyone who had backed Mukhadram each-way (there being only seven runners, so only two places for EW bets) or anyone who had correctly worked out that the straight forecast ought to be Al Kazeem to beat Mukhadram. However, the stewards can't just decree that the result should be amended so that Al Kazeem is the winner with Mukhadram second, because that would be desperately unfair on Declaration Of War's connections: that horse had, after all, finished second and had done nothing wrong, so for him to be demoted to third would be very harsh, notwithstanding the fact that third is where he would have finished had no interference taken place.

So the only acceptable solution would appear to be placing Al Kazeem behind the horse with whom he interfered, as that at least would go some way towards making amends for the harm which he had done to that horse.  This would leave the result as being Declaration Of War (who ought to have finished third) as the winner, Mukhadram (correctly) in second place, and Al Kazeem (who ought to have won and who did pass the post first, clearly the best horse in the race) in third.  This is how things used to work, but a series of such happenings in big races in the '80s led to a press campaign to change a rule which had seen some very high-profile races being given to horses who clearly were not deserving winners, and connections and backers of the best horse being penalized for their jockey's incompetence.

After Nureyev had lost the 2,000 Guineas, Royal Gait the Gold Cup and Persian Heights the Juddmonte (or Matchmaker, as it might have been called then) International,  the rules were changed so that, unless the interference was a deliberate case of foul riding (which would rightly see the horse disqualified and placed last) the winner only lost the race if he had won a race which, on merit, he ought not to have won, and had secured that victory thanks to causing the interference.  This is probably a good rule, even though one should remember that, when you book a jockey or when you back a horse knowing who the jockey is going to be, you do so accepting the fact that your horse's fate, for better or worse, is placed in that jockey's hands; accepting that you'll prosper if he does his job well, and you'll suffer if he does it badly.  If one were extrapolate the principal of owners and punters not suffering for the incompetence of their jockey, one could find a horse whose jockey fell off at the last fence/hurdle being declared the winner!

Anyway, demoting the winner is not satisfactory, but not demoting the winner is not satisfactory either.  As it is, I think that the current rules are the least unsatisfactory option.  In fact, they'd be a very satisfactory option if only we had jockeys who took their responsibilities (towards the safety of their mounts, of the other horses in the race and of their fellow riders) seriously.  In theory, no competent jockey would ever do what James Doyle did on Saturday (ie allow his horse to cause significant interference when it could easily have been avoided) - and there wasn't even the (unjustifiable) excuse of gamesmanship, because the race was in the bag anyway.  He didn't need to pull a fast one to secure a win, and he had enough in hand to give himself the luxury of straightening his mount (which can often only be done at the expense of one's momentum) without running any risk of relinquishing the lead.

If you think that I'm being harsh in my criticism, please remember that racing is a very dangerous game, as was shown at the end of last week not only by Brian Toomey's awful injury at Perth but also by the fact that a two-year-old was fatally injured in a maiden race at Sandown on Friday when struck into by another horse, an event which really should not have happened - and which wouldn't have happened if all the jockeys had done their job well.  (And I have no idea whose mount ran into the back of the victim).  Unlike what happened in the maiden race on Friday, the Eclipse's example of irresponsible and dangerous riding did not, thankfully, result in injury or death - but it could very easily have done so.  It was just luck of the draw that Al Kazeem was not struck into and that Mukhadram was not brought down.

It isn't a case of saying that the jockey didn't cause a fall so it doesn't matter: the act of interference is no different whether or not it causes a fall, as it's just the toss of a coin whether it does or it doesn't.  If jockeys are too uninterested in the safety of their colleagues and of the horses to make the effort to ride responsibly, then punishment by the stewards is the only way to try to get them to adopt a less selfish and more responsible attitude.  I, as regular readers of this blog might have worked out, struggle in general to applaud the principle of penalizing jockeys merely for doing their job badly by making innocent mistakes - but in the case of putting others' lives at risk, if hefty suspensions are the only way of making jockeys realise that it's not acceptable to ride irresponsibly, then hefty suspensions should be handed out.  Not many things are a matter of life or death, but this one is.

Of the photographs in this chapter, by the way, the first five were taken on Saturday, with the first two being of Wasabi on her Al Bahathri exercise (with Terri for once adhering to the stable's dress code by sporting shorts in recognition of the summer weather) and the fifth being of Roy enjoying the evening sun.  The sixth and seventh (of a typically quiet Sunday scene on the Heath and of a typically boisterous Sunday scene in our paddock) were taken on Sunday; and then the eighth and ninth were taken yesterday, with the final one showing Shamexpress continuing his July Cup preparation by loping in solitary splendour up Long Hill AW.