Jimmy Walker© Photo Healy Racing
Last week’s successful appeals to the Turf Club’s Referrals Committee against the ‘non-trier’ penalties imposed on Shantou Ed, Bobbie’s Diamond and their connections at Fairyhouse were notable for a few reasons but perhaps most of all the bases on which they were made — veterinary evidence unavailable to the raceday stewards. Which begs the rather obvious question as to why it was unavailable?
Scoping mightn’t be much fun — especially for the animal — but one would have thought it a fundamental part of an examination into potential reasons why any horse might catch the attention of stewards with Rule 212 queries.
Except Turf Club vets don’t take scopes, partly because of the time and work involved for one individual, but also apparently because some owners and trainers don’t want their animals scoped, either because they just don’t like the procedure full stop, or have concerns about possible infection.
The result is that under current rules, officials have no right to order a horse scoped. That is nonsensical. The result for the Fairyhouse stewards was they came to a controversial conclusion without a full picture which only got subsequently presented to the Appeals Committee.
Samples taken from Shantou Ed two days after his race, which were subsequently sent for testing in Newmarket, revealed the horse had suffered lung bleeds both past and present. The Newmarket report added that in less severe cases of Exercise Induced Pulmonary Haemorrhage “significant blood may only be found at post-exercise endoscopic examination.”
In the Bobbie’s Diamond case, trainer Tony Martin had the horse scoped on the day at Fairyhouse by another vet. The procedure revealed the presence of blood on the trachea which may have affected the horse’s performance. This evidence was presented at the appeal 16 days later.
Faced with the new evidence provided in both cases by independent veterinary sources, it was no surprise the panel of Nick Wachman, Colin Magnier and Judge Tony Hunt allowed the appeals.
But if these cases are to have a long-term impact it must surely be in highlighting the stupidity of having raceday stewards charged with implementing the rules systemically forbidden from taking into account potentially vital information from a routine procedure which takes less than five minutes to carry out.
If resources are an issue in terms of the Turf Club vets, then it would seem a rather obvious step for an industry supposedly feeling flush again to provide them. Pay more vets more if that is what’s required. Use money to buy more equipment if necessary. But the current situation is unsustainable.
If some trainers object in principal to scoping, then OK. But get them to sign that on the dotted line, thereby ruling out any subsequent scoping evidence they might provide.
The flaws in the current system leave it open to exploitation, creating a potential ‘get-out-of-jail’ card. Most vets will tell you most horses bleed all the time. It’s the question of degree. And depending on that degree it quite often has little or no impact on performance.
It did in these cases but it is unsatisfactory to have a racecourse panel make a call, as it is required to do under the ‘non-trier’ guidelines, only for its collective backside to be later left hanging out because it didn’t have the information required to exercise its judgement properly and make a correct decision.
It’s a tough enough job as it is, and always with a popular perception that quite often it doesn’t get done at all. It’s certainly a grey enough area anyway without officials not having all the relevant information.
It’s not like vets reports have to be definitive. A couple of years ago the James Motherway trained Authorization got done under Rule 212 despite a vets report stating the horse was lame post-race. But because the jockey didn’t report he felt anything abnormal in running the horse was suspended anyway.
However the way the rules are currently shaped, shrewd jockeys could correctly conclude it is in their interest to routinely report mounts not feeling quite right, thereby opening up future options for all concerned, and it will be a singular panel which is willing to fly in the face of signed veterinary evidence.
It’s a scenario though that can be avoided by simply giving stewards on the day access to the relevant information. So the ball is in the authorities’ court to make an appropriate rule, pay for it, enforce it and stand over it.
The fear, as always, will be failure to appreciate big picture credibility in the face of short-term self-interest.
It seems a similar failure might be behind the delay in publishing the long-awaited Drugs Task Force report. No one’s saying anything officially but it appears sectional interests — breeders in particular — have caused formulation of the final report to drag on long after its original summer deadline.
What the breeders don’t relish, apparently, is the prospect of officials being granted access to carry out drug-testing, a step one might imagine is a necessary step to help counter the extent of the fallout from the steroids scandal.
Such steps are a pain for those involved, although the obvious question as to why such visits might be resented so much will leave those without an agenda free to arrive at their own conclusions.
That this is obvious - presumably to those possessing agendas too - automatically leads to concerns the report, when it appears, will wind up merely being an exercise in soothing various political sensibilities of the sectional interests involved rather any meaningful root-and-branch examination of Irish racing’s medication issues.
Finally it has been a sad week for those of us who inhabit racing’s press-rooms on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Alan Lee of the London Times died suddenly over the weekend, aged just 61. Alan was well-respected and a true enthusiast of the National Hunt game in particular. Earlier in the week, Jimmy Walker, famously of the Belfast Telegraph for over 40 years, passed away at 78 after a long illness.
I knew both men, but I knew Jimmy for longer, and in all that time it wasn’t possible to cross paths with a nicer or more helpful gentleman. He might have been ‘old school’ in terms of how he delivered copy but plenty of us learned plenty from Jimmy’s professionalism, integrity and lovely sense of fun.
Jimmy would have the important quote practically before the jockey’s feet were out of the irons - and then he’d share it around.
