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04 Apr 23
18:54
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18 Feb 02
Dashel Drasher recovers second place in Stayers' - but Teahupoo connections slam 'absolutely rubbish' decision
Dashel Drasher (centre): demoted to third after being judged to have interfered with Teahupoo (left)
Dashel Drasher, yellow cap, leads to the final flight in the Stayers' Hurdle. Teaupoo, with dark sleeves and star on cap, is just behind.
Credit: Patrick McCann
Jeremy Scott hailed a surprise appeal success on Tuesday as good for racing's soul after his Dashel Drasher was restored to second place in the Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.
Dashel Drasher had been demoted to third by the raceday stewards for interfering with Teahupoo at the final hurdle but, following a three-hour hearing, an appeals panel ruled there was no interference and swapped the places back. "It's been daunting, I can tell you," said Scott, who presented his case without the aid of a solicitor.
"The BHA's representative was pretty intimidating and I thought she had tied us up in fairly good knots. But Rex [Dingle, rider of Dashel Drasher] was brilliant in explaining.
"You've got people on the panel who aren't going racing all the time. They're completely independent and thank God we've got that. But I thought Rex explained our point of view most beautifully."
Scott felt the raceday decision was based too closely on reasoning that might apply in Flat racing, "where there's nothing in front of you but the racecourse and the winning line. When hurdles are involved, and extreme distances and testing going, we have to make allowances. If we're not careful, by sanitising racing too much, we lose the soul of it. And Cheltenham is all about soul."
Jeremy Scott: trainer of Dashel Drasher gave evidence at the appeal hearing
Jeremy Scott: trainer of Dashel Drasher gave evidence at the appeal hearing
Credit: Harry Trump
Dashel Drasher will now be considered for next week's Liverpool Hurdle. "He's come out of Cheltenham so well, I wouldn't totally rule it out. We want it to rain."
Tuesday's verdict was met with immediate dismay by Brian Acheson of Robcour Racing, owners of Teahupoo, who had listened in to the hearing. He thanked the BHA's Charlotte Davison for her arguments in favour of upholding the decision of the raceday stewards and then added: "To the three independent stewards, absolute rubbish. You want to get someone murdered."
The panel had heard from Davy Russell, rider of Teahupoo, who felt he would have won the race outright had he been granted a clear run in the straight. "He keeps drifting to the left," Russell said of Dashel Drasher.
"The only option I have is to keep going left and take the punishment I'm being given. My route is being dictated by the horse on my outside [Dashel Drasher], who is drifting to his left."
But the panel chair, James O'Mahony, said: "We take judicial notice of the fact that in approaching hurdles, horses cannot be expected always to run straight. We've watched carefully the approach to that last hurdle and, although Teahupoo stayed on, we find he was demonstrably a tiring horse at that stage.
"Mr Russell used the whip three times in his approach to that final hurdle. We find he made more of a move laterally left in order to find a better stride in his approach to the hurdle.
"We conclude there was no interference because Dashel Drasher was clear. We have regard not just to the distance straight ahead but to the distance laterally. With the clearest evidence in our view from the tracker footage, there was daylight in both aspects."
O'Mahony added that Teahupoo had to some extent been influenced by the movement of Flooring Porter in his peripheral vision.
Dashel Drasher (centre): demoted to third after being judged to have interfered with Teahupoo (left)
Dashel Drasher, yellow cap, leads to the final flight in the Stayers' Hurdle. Teaupoo, with dark sleeves and star on cap, is just behind.
Credit: Patrick McCann
Jeremy Scott hailed a surprise appeal success on Tuesday as good for racing's soul after his Dashel Drasher was restored to second place in the Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival.
Dashel Drasher had been demoted to third by the raceday stewards for interfering with Teahupoo at the final hurdle but, following a three-hour hearing, an appeals panel ruled there was no interference and swapped the places back. "It's been daunting, I can tell you," said Scott, who presented his case without the aid of a solicitor.
"The BHA's representative was pretty intimidating and I thought she had tied us up in fairly good knots. But Rex [Dingle, rider of Dashel Drasher] was brilliant in explaining.
"You've got people on the panel who aren't going racing all the time. They're completely independent and thank God we've got that. But I thought Rex explained our point of view most beautifully."
Scott felt the raceday decision was based too closely on reasoning that might apply in Flat racing, "where there's nothing in front of you but the racecourse and the winning line. When hurdles are involved, and extreme distances and testing going, we have to make allowances. If we're not careful, by sanitising racing too much, we lose the soul of it. And Cheltenham is all about soul."
Jeremy Scott: trainer of Dashel Drasher gave evidence at the appeal hearing
Jeremy Scott: trainer of Dashel Drasher gave evidence at the appeal hearing
Credit: Harry Trump
Dashel Drasher will now be considered for next week's Liverpool Hurdle. "He's come out of Cheltenham so well, I wouldn't totally rule it out. We want it to rain."
Tuesday's verdict was met with immediate dismay by Brian Acheson of Robcour Racing, owners of Teahupoo, who had listened in to the hearing. He thanked the BHA's Charlotte Davison for her arguments in favour of upholding the decision of the raceday stewards and then added: "To the three independent stewards, absolute rubbish. You want to get someone murdered."
The panel had heard from Davy Russell, rider of Teahupoo, who felt he would have won the race outright had he been granted a clear run in the straight. "He keeps drifting to the left," Russell said of Dashel Drasher.
"The only option I have is to keep going left and take the punishment I'm being given. My route is being dictated by the horse on my outside [Dashel Drasher], who is drifting to his left."
But the panel chair, James O'Mahony, said: "We take judicial notice of the fact that in approaching hurdles, horses cannot be expected always to run straight. We've watched carefully the approach to that last hurdle and, although Teahupoo stayed on, we find he was demonstrably a tiring horse at that stage.
"Mr Russell used the whip three times in his approach to that final hurdle. We find he made more of a move laterally left in order to find a better stride in his approach to the hurdle.
"We conclude there was no interference because Dashel Drasher was clear. We have regard not just to the distance straight ahead but to the distance laterally. With the clearest evidence in our view from the tracker footage, there was daylight in both aspects."
O'Mahony added that Teahupoo had to some extent been influenced by the movement of Flooring Porter in his peripheral vision.
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Popular end to Dashel Drasher Stayers' Hurdle case - but how far is the panel's judgement to be trusted?
Chris Cook Senior reporter Gold Tweet (noseband, centre of picture) trails home well adrift of the principals in the Stayers' Hurdle Dashel Drasher, yellow cap, and Teahupoo, star on cap, in the closing stages of the Stayers' Hurdle. Credit: Edward Whitaker Oh well, it's a game of opinions, isn't it? The appeal panel has its, which is that Dashel Drasher did not interfere with Teahupoo despite appearing to carry him left on the approach to the final flight. In fairness, the weight of feeling on social media agrees. The difficulty with such finely poised cases is so much hinges on how officials interpret the evidence of a race; all of us have the scars to show that divining meaning from a horserace can be a tricky business. Panel chairman James O'Mahony and his two colleagues ran an unimpeachably fair hearing and all appear to have strong knowledge of the game, but does that make them the right sort of experts to be throwing out definitive judgements about what happened at the Cheltenham Festival? Having sat in on a number of hearings chaired by O'Mahony, I can say he is better at moving matters along than other chairs I have seen. While yesterday's hearing took three hours to conclude, it might easily have taken another hour or two with someone else presiding. But would a bookmaker fear his approach? I have my doubts – while acknowledging of course that no bookie has ever quailed at the sight of my money, either. It was odd to hear him give importance to Teahupoo being "a tiring horse" in the closing stages. They were all tiring. If Teahupoo was tiring, how much faster must Dashel Drasher have been tiring, given that his rival gained a length on him in the last 14 strides? To this onlooker, the video evidence chimed very much with Davy Russell's description of Dashel Drasher carrying him left on the run to the final flight, where Teahupoo lost momentum by taking it an angle. Yet the panel appears to think Russell was angling in search of a better stride and that Teahupoo was reacting more to what Flooring Porter was doing behind him than what Dashel Drasher was doing next to him. We'll have fairer races when the BHA decides to crack down on interference and changes its rules to give the benefit of any doubt to victims rather than aggressors. That's when we'll find out for sure how difficult it is for a jockey to keep their mount straight when in the lead. |
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Not surprised, thought he was hard done to the time. If there is daylight between, the jockey in front can choose his best path to the line, surely.
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On the day I thought it was a formality that they would reverse the placings given the nose between them and considering DD hadn't kept a straight line, so I'm surprised they've turned it around. As Chris Cook says it's a game of opinions, but it's the independent panel who hold the ultimate power, it doesn't mean they've reached the right decision imo.
The raceday stewards must be thinking WTAF! "We take judicial notice of the fact that in approaching hurdles, horses cannot be expected always to run straight." Well there ya go, it's a free-for-all now  |
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I beg your pardon, sir, what do you mean I tried to put jockey X through the rail?
It was the my horse guv, you can't be expecting them to run straight on the approach to a hurdle! |
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was similar to the pied piper race last yr..the interference was caused jumping the hurdle..
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