The Will To Act

In Ireland far more serious things than racing have sadly illustrated how rules and regulations are sometimes not nearly as important as the will to enforce them. Certainly the absence of leadership from the top when it comes to policing the sport in this country can sometimes be irrelevant when those on the ground don’t appear to want to act.

Stewards constantly navigate a thin line between perception and any number of factors that aren’t obvious from the stands or on TV. Grandstand jockeys aren’t always right. They’re not always wrong either. But perception remains vitally important and whether looking from the sofa, stands or saddle, it was remarkable how the Tipperary stewards seemed to rush to accept the explanations offered for the running of The Real Article in the Grade 3 Grimes Hurdle.

Captain Cee Bee won by a rapidly diminishing short head from The Real Article who looked to travel much the best from before the turn in until being ridden out hands and heels by Pat Mangan from the last flight.

From the Racing Post report of the race, the stewards had both Mangan and Edward O’Grady in and accepted their explanations. Those explanations reportedly consisted of the horse running above expectations and that Mangan was instructed not to hit the horse with the whip but to ride him out hands and heels.

The horse may indeed have run above expectations though in the light of what the stewards were looking at, that is largely irrelevant.

In terms of not striking The Real Article it is important to keep in mind that using the whip doesn’t always encourage horses to go forward. It can have the opposite effect too. The Real Article may be one of those horses that resent the stick. He has won three bumpers and a couple of hurdles, mostly in comfortable fashion with the jockey not reaching for the whip. He did however get a few thumps from Andrew McNamara when running at Limerick, and from Johnny Murtagh on the flat at Clonmel.

The Real Article may have won if he’d got a slap. He may not. But jockeys have a requirement to be seen to make all reasonable efforts to win and stewards are required to make sure that such standards are enforced.

There has been criticism in recent weeks of how some jockeys have walked out of stewards rooms having got a comparative slap on the wrist. Mangan didn’t even get that, not so much as a caution. No one’s looking for a head on a plate but this wasn’t a good one for the Turf Club.

It wasn’t great either that Johnny Murtagh didn’t have to provide an explanation for his performance on Kirinda at the Curragh.

It has long been accepted within the game that for a truly world class jockey, Murtagh can occasionally throw in a howler that makes him look very ordinary indeed. This looked such a case. Even when Kirinda eventually saw daylight, her jockey didn’t appear overly anxious to start squeezing her up. Yet she was catching her stable companion Manieree hand over fist in the last furlong. It appeared a bad misjudgement.

If Murtagh was brilliant in the Oaks at Epsom, then Frankie Dettori was equally so on Blue Bunting in the Curragh Oaks. Like his Irish pal, Dettori thrives on confidence and his persuasion on Blue Bunting was a textbook combination of strength and subtlety.

With Dettori in this kind of form, Rewilding’s chance in Saturday’s King George looks to improve. Workforce is also going there on the back of an impressive piece of work.

In the circumstances then it beggars belief that St Nicholas Abbey can be an odds-on favourite in one ante-post list for the King George.

The O’Brien horse has been a revelation at Chester and Epsom this season but there is a considerable consensus of opinion which believes St Nicholas Abbey won the Coronation Cup principally due to a premature move on Midday by Tom Queally.

How that puts St Nicholas Abbey on top of the betting ahead of genuinely top class performers like Rewilding and Workforce is hard to fathom.