Firefox provided Gordon Elliott with his sixth winner of the afternoon at Down Royal on Friday© Photo Healy Racing
Last week I wrote about the farcical carry on with the IHRB and the case of the Dundalk Claiming Race from March 2020 where Yuften was beaten by his stablemate.
On the 2nd November, over three and a half years after first beginning an investigation into the matter, the IHRB had suddenly and inexplicably decided to offer no evidence at an imminent Referral Committee hearing that the IHRB itself had instigated.
The IHRB then bizarrely requested that the Referral Committee, despite having no evidence, should make a decision in the matter “to enhance transparency and for the purpose of ensuring public confidence in the disciplinary process.”
Not surprisingly the Referral Committee took a dim view of being placed in such a predicament by the IHRB and hit back with: “It is for the IHRB to decide whether to comment further on matters given the longevity of this case, the need for transparency and the public interest arising.”
“Without evidence the Referrals Committee cannot adjudicate on the substance of the charges. Hence all charges will simply be dismissed.”
The Referral Committee also said it “can well understand that the outcome of this case does not answer all questions and is far from satisfactory in circumstances where serious charges were laid. However, the Referrals Committee must act within the Rules of Racing and cannot assume additional functions. To be clear, the Referrals Committee has dismissed all charges which ends this case without any adverse finding against any of those charged.”
The Referral Committee went even further by suggesting “it is for the individuals who have been charged to decide whether to raise any matters arising with the IHRB management or in any other forum.”
The four individuals who were originally charged had been accused of committing very serious breaches of the rules. It was the IHRB’s stated position at the conclusion of their investigation (early June 2023) that Yuften had been deliberately prevented from running on his merits in the Dundalk race and that individuals privy to that knowledge had profited by laying the horse to lose.
The Referral Committee gave no further indication as to what actually caused the case to collapse. They didn’t even bother to mention the IHRB’s cryptic excuse about “expert veterinary reports which provided context for the performance of the horse in the race in question were finally submitted.” Presumably the Referral Committee is as much in the dark as the rest of us.
Reading between the lines it would appear that the IHRB’s case was weak to begin with. They originally charged four people in relation to their assumption that Yuften was stopped in the Claiming race. Three months after the conclusion of their investigation and without any additional evidence surfacing they decided to discontinue the case against one of those individuals on 11th September. One month later, on receipt of the new veterinary evidence in late October, they dropped the entire case.
It would be nice to think that the IHRB would now come out and detail exactly what caused them to drop the case at the eleventh hour, but I can’t see that happening despite their own pleas for transparency.
On the race track Gordon Elliott had a couple of days to remember with 13 winners over Friday and Saturday as he hoovered up all the major prize money on offer at Down Royal. Of course that was largely due to champion trainer Willie Mullins swerving the northern meeting and normal service was resumed on Sunday at Naas where Elliott drew a blank with his 10 runners while Mullins had a treble.
The pair of them along with Henry de Bromhead have the jumping game pretty much sewn up at this stage (29 of the 45 national hunt races last week were won by these three trainers) and I’d imagine we are set for a winter where graded races will be more or less confined to horses representing the trio and maiden contests will only concern their runners despite the obligatory large fields.
The three maiden hurdle races at Gowran Park on Saturday (all won by the big three stables) must have been a difficult watch for many of the connections of the also rans. Besides the ones that couldn’t even complete the two mile course, 22 horses finished completely tailed off.
Not an easy job for the IHRB’s handicappers either, trying to assess the ability of those horses when their connections go looking for a rating.
