The Right System Worked Right

There's been a lot going on closer to home but credit where it's due and 4,000 miles away on Saturday night produced reassuring evidence of regulatory spine as the Kentucky Derby winner was thrown out by the stewards. Their actions were made even more laudable by being subsequently criticised by that bluffing buffoon in the Oval Office. For once the system actually worked.

That so much else of US racing is a murky mess only highlights how black and white their interference rules are and how better the sport is for that.

Stewards by definition are always open to criticism and the Churchill Downs officials certainly got plenty flak for disqualifying Maximum Security and handing the' Roses' to Country House. Trump even managed to advertise his stupidity even more by somehow attributing it all to Political Correctness gone mad.

But armed with clear and concise rules not open to ridiculous levels of subjective interpretation the stewards a performed a difficult but necessary task.

The pressure they were under must have been immense. This is one of the few times America tunes into racing. After the Santa Anita debacle earlier this year the last thing US racing needed was more controversy. No Kentucky Derby winner had ever been disqualified. And we're talking here about taking down a favourite in favour of a 65-1 outsider.

But the stewards interpreted the rules as they are, not as they wished them to be. As Country House's trainer Bill Mott pointed out, if this was a maiden claimer, there wouldn't be any hesitation. Maximum Security would have been immediately placed behind the horse he wiped out by shying off the rail at the top of the bend.

It's a baffling scenario to many in this part of the world, something which speaks volumes about a culture that's come to be regarded as every-day. There mightn't even have been an enquiry called about the incident here. And if there was, there's no chance Maximum Security would have been thrown out. Everyone would have rushed to shelter under cover of the best horse having won.

We have become so inured to this 'best horse in the race' cop-out that we don't realise how illogical it is. Just because you're the best horse in the race doesn't mean you get to break the rules and get away with it. Or at least it shouldn't. But in Ireland and the rest of Europe jockeys ride accordingly to the daily reality.

So we have jockeys operating in a culture where accidentally on purpose veering around and breaking the rules is effectively encouraged by interference guidelines so open to subjective interpretation they allow all kinds of escape routes from doing what should be done.

Maximum Security probably was the best horse in Saturday's race. What he did at the top of the bend was entirely accidental. None of it masks that he compromised the chances of two other runners in the race and came close to bringing down one of them.

The context made it a tense situation. However the Churchill Downs stewards at least were able to approach a fraught situation with a clear and workable set of rules. Here such a dilemma would have ended up in some ridiculous metaphysical contemplation of the nature of intent before ultimately doing nothing.

Calls for standardisation of racing practises are regular. More countries have gone down the same route on interference. The only problem is the wrong standard is being adopted, something the French cravenly did in order to help get more pool betting. The consequence is even more fudge stewarding that gives the benefit of the doubt to the transgressor.

Ruby Walsh might or might not be the finest National Hunt jockey the game has ever seen. Definitive verdicts on such matters are impossible. But since even the finest of his peers insist Walsh is the best they faced then it's reasonable to argue he's the best of his generation.

In many ways such labels are trite. For instance we're repeatedly advised that Ryan Moore is the top flat jockey in the world, something that might be news to some of the top guys in the US in particular.

Walsh had some uninspired moments, as all jockeys do, although none of them were to do with falling at the last. But when it counted most, it was always abundantly clear that here was a rider with as steel-trap a brain as any sportsperson of any generation.

Some years ago yours truly had a book published about Ireland's greatest jockeys, the idea of which was to hang the various elements of a rider's armoury onto weighroom figures who were particularly noted for them. It is still available in all good digital bargain bins. It isn't just a wish to pad out space though that makes me recount some of the stuff on Walsh who was then at his peak.

"Whether it's riding from the front, the back, inner midfield or outer, (he) has no equal when it comes to being in the right place at the right time. In a sport where victory can achieved by the width of a horse's nose, even the tiniest percentage advantage counts, and nobody calculates that edge better.

"During a race it is impossible not to pick out Walsh's arched figure as a reference point for pace.

"(He) has no weakness. Strong in a finish, and naturally gifted over a fence, he is also a consummate stylist. But, most importantly of all, nobody has ever thought their way through a race better."

If there's a recency bias to Walsh's claims in the G-O-A-T stakes there might also be a nostalgic skew involved for those with memories of Richard Dunwoody in his pomp. For others, that nostalgia can stretch even further back to Francome, Taaffe etc. It all ultimately comes down to opinion. What's surely undeniable though is that Walsh is an automatic inclusion in any discussion on the greatest.

Over the years that flinty intellect served up some insightful interviews granted to favoured followers. Hopefully they're a promise of the insight Walsh will deliver in his new punditry roles.

HIs observation last week that he has ground to make up in that sphere by not having a journalism degree suggests a nice line in sarcasm too. After all there's little need for such things when armed with profile, name recognition, impeccable credibility and a queue of impoverished ghost-writers!

There's a risk of talking more media shop about 'GDPR' restrictions on what information can be released on sportspeople and their injuries. But there's a broader element to this than hacks sore about not being able to get particulars on various figures. An absence of detail leads to vacuums which in turn can produce circumstances where rumours gather legs. That's no good to anyone.

It's not that long since this space made some mundane enquiries at a meeting about a jockey who'd been in the wars only to be told by officials that such information could only be revealed by the jockey himself. Since a horse had just kicked him in the face any 'how does it feel' enquires seemed tactless.

The officials were doing what they were told. But it's ironic that a casualty of the information age can be such information.

Apparently naming Ballydoyle's stars is far from an arbitrary process. The best and most significant names are kept for the most promising two year olds. With that in mind the debut of Harpocrates at the Curragh today might be worth checking out. Naming a colt after the Greek god of confidentiality and silence must surely have a special resonance down Tipperary way!

As for the opening of the new Curragh this afternoon, this is an attempt to put its significance in some kind of context - €80 million makeover no racing cert for success