The highs and lows of riding horses in Ireland A Tale of Two Rides for Tom Kelly Jockey Tom Kelly had a red letter day in his career when partnering Hermino AA to victory in last Monday's Connacht National at Roscommon. The Eric McNamara-trained gelding was given a positive ride by Kelly, sent to the front four fences from home before staying on under pressure from the final obstacle to score comfortably. Conor McNamara, representing his father in the post-race interview said: "He had a lovely low weight and Tom Kelly gave him a brilliant ride. Tom is with us two days a week and he's a very good rider. He was in Enda Bolger's for a long time and did very well. He's a fine rider and will definitely be used plenty." Tom's next ride came 24 hours later at Sligo when he partnered an outsider trained by Charles Byrnes in a handicap hurdle. Glin Road Boy had been weak in the betting prior to the race, drifting from 10/1 to an SP of 22/1. The horse was making his debut for Byrnes and it was also the gelding's first outing of the year. In the early stages the gelding raced keenly, but Kelly soon had him settled in second last place. The pair remained there until the approach to the penultimate flight. From that point to the finish Glin Road Boy made eye-catching headway, eventually finishing second under a very tender ride from Tom Kelly. Article highlights: Tom Kelly rode a career highlight at Roscommon, then received a 14-day ban following a suspicious ride at Sligo the very next day. The trainer in the Sligo case avoided sanction entirely, raising questions about the fairness of non-trier rules. Apprentice jockey Julian Pietropaolo appealed a 4-day suspension and saw it doubled to 8 days. The BHA's handling of both the Epsom Derby non-runner controversy and the Jamie Osborne 'Great Bums' case has drawn criticism. When the Trainer Gets Off Scot-Free I have no doubt that Kelly is a far better rider than his performance aboard Glin Road Boy would suggest. The stewards were correct to query the performance, and their assessment that the horse didn't run on its merit also looks spot-on. Kelly has been banned from riding for 14 days. As part of the sanction, the horse cannot race for the next 60 days. But as has become the norm in these cases, the trainer has got off scot free. To show how easy it is for a trainer to avoid sanction, in this instance Charles Byrnes didn't even give evidence. His son Cathal represented him at the enquiry and confirmed that "the instructions given said that the horse was fit, healthy and that he was perfectly happy with the ride up until the last hurdle, where he would have liked to have seen Tom Kelly being a bit more forceful up to the line." So it now appears that even if the assistant trainer is not entirely happy with the ride, there will be no sanction against the trainer, it is left to the jockey and owner to take the rap. The rules around non-triers need to be looked at by the IHRB. In all other elements of a horse's performance and its general care the trainer is ultimately responsible. But when it comes to a horse not achieving its best possible placing, the trainer is never to blame. Appeal Backfires for Pietropaolo Another jockey in the news last week was Julian Pietropaolo, who would be well advised to think twice before lodging an appeal against any future sanctions he receives at the races. The apprentice jockey was suspended by the Gowran Park stewards for 4 days for careless riding on the 1st of June. Pietropaolo appealed, feeling the stewards had erred in their judgement. At last week's hearing, the Appeals Body: Dismissed the appeal Considered Pietropaolo's record (a third offence) Increased his suspension from 4 to 8 racedays Not an outcome the young rider would have been anticipating. The BHA's Stalls Problem Elsewhere, the BHA's decision to deem Benvenuto Cellini a non-runner in the Epsom Derby, after the horse had finished in 10th place, looks even more ludicrous following a similar stalls incident at Yarmouth on Thursday. Wrist Art reared up momentarily before the stalls opened for a 1m2f event at the track. Despite being on two legs as the stalls parted, he was deemed a runner at a subsequent enquiry. Not only did the horse take no part in the race, as his rider was unseated in the incident, but Wrist Art ended up with one leg caught on the partition between his stall and the next one as the remainder of the field raced off into the distance. Rule H (6) definitely needs to be amended, but perhaps in the interim they might consider adding a variation on George Orwell's quote from Animal Farm to help clarify their current stance: two legs good, three legs bad, four legs best. Questions Remain in the Osborne Case Finally, the BHA's Judicial Panel verdict in the Jamie Osborne 'Great Bums' case leaves me with a few questions: How could the raceday stewards hold an enquiry into the incident and not request to see the trainer's phone? Surely this is the starting point to any meaningful investigation into what images Osborne had taken and whether or not he had actually deleted them. Who were the other members of the Great Bums WhatsApp group? Considering the majority of people within the horse racing industry exist within a bubble, I'd imagine most racing fans would recognise quite a few names within that group. A penalty of a £3,000 charity donation, which I'm sure will be tax deductible for Osborne, with no other actual sanction, does appear quite lenient considering the Judicial Panel determined this was a 'Medium Level Breach' of the Code of Conduct.
