Rosscarbery crossed the line in third place behind stablemate La Petite Coco in the Pretty Polly Stakes© Photo Healy Racing
Saturday’s incident in the Group 2 Lancashire Oaks at Haydock when Rab Havlin received a five day suspension for his ride on the winner Free Wind has caused a storm with the majority of viewers of the race of the opinion that the stewards erred in their judgement and sanctioned the wrong rider.
With three furlongs to race Havlin was sitting in a pocket on the rail behind the leader, Eshaada. Soon after that a gap opened on the inside and Havlin asked his mount to go through. By the time they got to the quarters of the leader the gap had closed but according to the stewards Havlin “persisted and committed for his run into an insufficient gap which was only briefly viable between the running rail and Eshaada.” After some dangerous scrimmaging between the two horses Havlin switched Free Wind to the outer and they eventually ran out the comfortable winner of the race. The stewards deemed Havlin to be solely responsible for the incident and suspended him for 5 days for careless riding.
The stewards’ summing up of the incident is accurate, but for many observers it was Eshaada’s rider Jim Crowley rather than Havlin that was at fault for the interference. They believe Crowley closed the gap on his inside when he became aware of Havlin and Free Wind coming through. That view, while contrary to the stewards' verdict, is also accurate.
My own interpretation is that Crowley did edge to his left to close the gap at precisely the same time that Havlin was making his move up the inner. If the gap had closed a split second earlier Havlin could have aborted his manoeuvre but at the moment the gap closed he was already committed and the two horses inevitably collided. I’m not convinced either rider was solely at fault and it’s hard to apportion blame to either under the circumstances. There was no premeditation in either riders’ actions, these were reflex actions in a rapidly developing situation.
The one thing you have to factor in when looking at these incidents is that you have the benefit of freeze frames and slow motion replays. The riders didn’t have those luxuries when making their decisions.
Whatever about the minefield stewards have to negotiate in these interference cases, there must be barristers licking their lips in anticipation of the fallout from the Rosscarbery disqualification from third place in the Pretty Polly Stakes the previous weekend.
Trainer Paddy Twomey has lodged an appeal against the decision to disqualify the filly over drawing the wrong weight after the race and he seems utterly convinced that the blame lies with the IHRB for that error.
The problem for Twomey, the connections of Rosscarbery and indeed the IHRB is that it’s going to be extremely difficult to prove one way or the other how the error occurred and who’s to blame.
The computerised system in place to record the weighing-out and weighing-in of riders worked fine for all other runners on the day so it doesn’t seem likely that was the cause of the problem.
That leaves human error as the only other possible cause of the problem, but there doesn’t appear to be any obvious way to prove whether the human error was on the part of the clerk of the scales or the connections of Rosscarbery.
All we definitely know is that Rosscarbery’s rider weighed-in some five pounds lighter than he was supposed to and under the rules the horse had to be disqualified.
The simplified version is that Wayne Lordan attempted to weigh out at 143lbs, took 5lbs out of his lead cloths and weighed out at 138lbs but when he weighed back in after the race he was a similar 5lbs light at 133lbs. What actually happened is slightly different. When Lordan stood up on the scales for the first time he was 143lbs but we don't actually know whether that was 143.0lbs or anywhere up to 143.9lbs. This actual figure was not recorded as only the final weighing out weight is recorded. After Lordan removed lead the figure was 138.1lbs and this is recorded. When he weighted back in after the race a weight of 133.5lbs was recorded.
In theory he could have first stood on the scales at as much as 143.9lbs and removed 5.8lbs of lead to draw the correct weight. Then when he weighed back in he was 4.6lbs light. So it may not be as simple as he took out 5lbs and weighed back in the exact same 5lbs light.
There are significant financial implications for the connections of Rosscarbery over the disqualification. Not only had they stumped up €30,000 to supplement the filly for the race in the first place but they also missed out on recouping those costs with the place prize money, and then there is the notional figure of what the filly would have potentially been worth had she gained the Group One black type.
Twomey has indicated that a civil case is a distinct possibility should the filly not be reinstated to third place. Whatever the outcome of the referral and appeal I can’t see how she can be reinstated as she raced with the wrong weight on her back. If she is reinstated you’d imagine the connections of the other runners that finished behind her in the race will have even stronger claims in the courts.
Changing the subject, I was recently out for a drink with a friend when he mentioned that two of his work colleagues had just returned from Turkey where they had gone for hair transplants. I was surprised to hear that Turkey was a destination for this type of cosmetic procedure, but as I have a full head of hair I thought little more of it.
The following morning when on my phone I started to see ads for hair transplants in Turkey. I’m certain I had never seen ads for this before so the only logical explanation is that an application on my phone was listening to my conversation the previous night.
Besides the obvious GDPR implications of this invasion of my privacy you’d have to wonder why the people that have access to this information waste their time sending the likes of me ads for a procedure that I’ll never use when they could be solving crimes, saving lives or at the very least backing a few winners.
Imagine being able to listen in to JP and Frank discussing the day’s runners or Aidan chatting with the lads. It would have to be more lucrative than the hair transplants business in Turkey.
