Michael Tabor, Derrick Smith, John Magnier and Aidan O'Brien at Sandown Park© Photo Healy Racing
Horse racing loves a star and the brightest one at the moment is undoubtedly City Of Troy. The colt is certainly living up to the hype and his track record breaking victory at York last week against a top notch field was mighty impressive.
It is fantastic that a horse of this calibre is trained in Ireland, but it is also a pity that we won’t get to see him race here again. The Ballydoyle inmate only ran once in Ireland, when he won his maiden at the Curragh last July, and it now looks certain that he will skip the Irish Champion Stakes next month for a tilt at the elusive Breeders Cup Classic.
It would have been fascinating to see what impact, if any, his presence on the Leopardstown card would have had on the attendance. History would tell us it would have been negligible as the great Sea The Stars could only drum up 9,100 when he won the Irish Champion Stakes in 2009.
Leopardstown’s loss is certainly Del Mar’s gain and while most of us will know relatively little about the opposition City Of Troy will face in the Classic on 2nd November, we do know that it will take another special performance from him to win America’s greatest race on dirt.
Regarding the decision to send City Of Troy to the Breeders' Cup, Aidan O’Brien as per usual says “the lads are talking about going for the Classic with him.” I always find this use of the word ‘lads’ quite funny. It is normally a word associated with a few mates going for a pint rather than a group of billionaires deciding the fate of their star racehorse.
I wonder who the lads actually are that Aidan is always referring to? The presumption is that it is a trio consisting of John Magnier, Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith, but I cannot see two former bookies holding much sway in discussions about the next target for the likes of City Of Troy.
You would imagine that Aidan and his team at Ballydoyle must have some input into these crucial decisions.
I have also found it somewhat curious that Tabor and Smith got involved at all. John Magnier owns both Coolmore and Ballydoyle and isn’t short of a few quid, so why link up with the others in the first place. If it was just about money you would think his best buddies JP McManus and Dermot Desmond would have come on board, after all that trio were in business together for decades before Michael Tabor and Derrick Smith came on the scene.
Puzzling as the relationship between the lads may be, it is nothing compared to some of the stewarding decisions we witnessed last week.
Jockey Callum Shepherd receiving 18 days “for failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures on a horse which would have finished out-right first” after his mount dead-heated at Kempton Park on Wednesday was extremely harsh. I really don’t think the rider did a whole lot wrong as he gave his horse a vigorous ride and was still whipping his mount within three strides of the line. Shepherd stopped riding just before crossing the winning line when he thought he had won, but his judgement was out by a pixel as the judge declared a dead-heat.
In essence this is a winning jockey getting banned for not trying hard enough.
The Shepherd suspension is made to look ridiculous when compared to the decision of the Windsor stewards just two days earlier. The Windsor stewards made no sanction against James Doyle when his actions definitely resulted in defeat for his mount No Retreat. Doyle clearly stopped riding several yards before the winning post resulting in No Retreat losing out by a short-head. The stewards simply noted Doyle’s explanation that his mount “jinked in the final strides on the run to the line, causing both itself and Doyle to become unbalanced, requiring him to get a hold of the horse’s head.”
We also had a contentious stewarding decision at Killarney on Saturday where Arctic Fly was allowed to keep his race despite clearly failing to jump any portion of the second fence. The horse dived to his left on takeoff and ended up creating a gap between the plastic wing and the fence which he went through.
“The Stewards were satisfied that, as per Regulation 9, Arctic Fly had remained on the correct side of the bundle of birch at the commencement of the rail to determine the correct course approaching the fence and jumped inside the wing of the fence. They were therefore satisfied that no further action was warranted.”
The fence was an island fence (that is to say it did not have a continuous rail before and after the fence) and as such it had a short piece of rail with a birch bundle on the approach side that extended approximately ten feet from the beginning of the wing of the fence. Arctic Fly did indeed pass the birch bundle on the correct side and he did jump inside the wing, which he pushed to the side, but he still didn’t jump the fence.
I cannot find any mention in Regulation 9 to suggest that the plastic wings on either side of fences are the demarcation line for a fence, but that is the interpretation the stewards have come to. This would potentially mean that if a wing falls over during a race the riders can legitimately steer their horses between the fence and the wing and be deemed to have jumped the obstacle.
Regulation 9 does clearly state in relation to island fences and hurdles: “At all island fences and hurdles there shall be a running rail of not less than sixty feet leading into the fence or hurdle on the inside.”
I’m sure there are good reasons why there should be a minimum of sixty feet of rail on the approach side of island fences, but that element of the Regulation was certainly not adhered to in Killarney.
