Aurora Princess impersonating Alizarine at Galway© Photo Healy Racing
Galway carried on the recent trend we have seen in Irish racing where negative stories jump across into mainstream news at will but the positive racing stories fail to register at all.
The Galway ‘ringer’ was an innocent mistake on behalf of Jessica Harrington’s assistant Niall ‘Bubba’ Amond but managed to usurp both the Olympics and GAA on news bulletins.
Innocent as the mistake was, it’s ridiculous that such an error can go undetected until it’s too late. While this may be the first time the IHRB has uncovered the wrong horse running in a race you have to ask the question - how often has it happened?
If Aurora Princess hadn’t won Tuesday’s Fillies Maiden at Galway we would be none the wiser that the mix-up had taken place.
There have been several recent incidents of trainers or their assistants forgetting to add the lead cloth when saddling horses. These errors were only discovered because the horses finished in the first five places and were then required to weigh-in post race. When they finish outside the placings they go undetected.
If Aurora Princess had finished down the field the IHRB would never have discovered the error. The error was only identified because race winners have their microchip scanned for a second time at the racecourse when they enter the winners’ enclosure.
We learned from the Galway incident that horses have their microchips checked on arrival to the racecourse stables but there is no similar check when they enter the parade ring or, with the exception of the winner, after the race.
So in theory a rogue trainer could declare two horses to run at a race meeting - one highly rated and one moderate. Run the moderate horse in place of the highly rated one and lay it with confidence on the exchanges. Then withdraw the moderate one from its intended race due to unsuitable ground and no one would ever know. This loophole must be closed.
The Alizarine/Aurora Princess mix-up also highlighted once again the lack of awareness the IHRB stewards have when it comes to betting. On finding out that Alizarine had not taken part in the race they decided to take the following course of action - “As the horse Alizarine did not run in this race, the horse was deemed to be unplaced.”
Alizarine never actually left the stableyard so it should have been deemed a non-runner which would have meant a straightforward rule 4 deduction to winning bets on the promoted winner Twinkle and a refund of stakes to all Alizarine bettors.
Apart from the Alizarine/Aurora Princess fiasco Galway was relatively predictable - Willie Mullins dominated the jumps races, Ado McGuinness farmed the big Flat handicaps, the Mee family had their annual clutch of winners and a 23% strike rate for favourites across the week shows why the bookies love this Festival above all others.
This was the second year in a row that Galway staged all Flat cards and all National Hunt cards across the week. This change was brought in last year to reduce the number of personnel in attendance as a Covid measure and has had one negative impact on the racing. Due to the segregation of the two codes there is less opportunity for horses to run more than once during the week which was always one of the unique attractions of the Festival. Hopefully next year will see the schedule revert back to its mixed-card format and it would also be nice to think that by then we will see unrestricted crowds back in attendance.
While Galway was restricted to 1,000 spectators a day Goodwood opened its doors last week to a mass audience. Whatever your views on the speed, or lack of it, when it comes to reopening society I feel Irish horse racing is somewhat fortunate that it hasn’t attracted the loutish element that is plaguing the big meetings in the UK.
Drunken brawls have become commonplace at race meetings across the UK and while we would like to think those scenes couldn’t be replicated in Ireland where there is no history of sporting hooliganism we only have to look at recent social media footage of places like South William Street in Dublin to see the same elements are at large within our society but just haven’t ventured racing yet.
Like the wrong horses running in races - this won't be seen as a potential problem until it becomes an actual problem.
