Jockey Angle with Paddy Flood: I'm not sure stewards are qualified to be using sectional timing

On this week's episode of ‘The Jockey Angle', brought to you by William Hill, Paddy Flood reviews an interesting race from Leicester.

Paddy looks at the riding of two young jockeys, Finley Marsh and Jack Garritty and comments on the methods used by the Stewards post race.

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Paddy Flood's Analysis

This ride was recommended to me, a race in Leicester on the 26th October by Eamon McCoy.

Eamon, thanks very much for that because it is a very interesting race. What we're going to focus on is stall four and stall 16. Stall 16 is Elora Prince, and Finley Marsh gives this a very good ride.

Stall four, now this is the interesting one. Red Derek and Jack Garritty. There was money for this horse, we'll discuss why it is interesting.

Red Derek jumped lovely. He's in a happy enough position. But just watch Jack Garritty's hands. This horse starts to get fierce in his hands. There is a cut in the ground and the race is a mile and a quarter. The most important thing you want to do in a mile-and-a-quarter race is get a horse to settle.

This fella is not settling one bit. You can see Jack's hands are well above the wither. He's taking a pull, he was trying. He was in a nice spot to get cover, but the horse was just charging.

He then takes him out of the bunch to get him a bit of room here because all these guys here actually came down the wide outside.

These look like they're going very, very quick from my eye, and the time suggests that they were going very, very quick.

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The interesting thing here is the horse last. But there is a reason why he's there. The horse pulled so hard early, he had to take him out of being competitive. And when he did that, I suspect the horse kind of dropped the bridle a little bit more than Jack thought he would have.

The winner is on the outside. It was a very, very good ride from stall 16.

Jack Garritty still hasn't really gone for his mount. You might say, he's not doing anything on the horse but I think that horse is running flat out, and Jack is trying to just pick horses off because if he'd have gone for this horse sooner, I don't think he finishes where he finishes.

Finley Marsh here has actually rated his horse to absolute perfection. He's still holding on to his horse. Everything around him is flat out and Jack and his horse are starting to run, to be fair to them.

You can't say that he's not trying on the horse. He's trying very, very hard. He has used his whip plenty of times. He's been pushing and shoving probably the length of the straight.

Time suggests that, by furlongs, these are going home in, 30 mph, 15 seconds a furlong, which is only a canter pace.

Ten-day Ban

Jack ends up finishing third. And the interesting thing is that Jack Garritty gets a 10-day suspension for this ride.

Looking at it on the bare bones of it, you might say, "Okay, well, why did he get 10 days?" The stewards said he didn't obtain his best possible position or his finishing position but when I look back at it, I thought if you rode that horse five more times and you rode him closer, he wouldn't have finished third. He would have finished further back.

The interesting part was that there was an appeal put in, and the appeal put in was that the stewards used sectional timing to suggest that the jockey didn't ride it to the best possible position.

I've never heard of stewards using sectional timing in my life, and I'm not sure stewards are qualified to be using sectional timing.

I think this is what the PJA's appeal was based on. They didn't inform the jockey that they had used sectional timings to time his mount's finishing speed. The PJA actually went to sectional timing professionals and got them to analyse it. They analysed that that horse ran to his highest potential and that he rated the horse probably better than most of the jockeys in front of him rated their horses. He was able to get a breather into him quickly and at the right time.

Now, he might have ended up three or four lengths too far back when he got the horse to settle, but sometimes that happens. If you get a horse to settle that's fiery, and you don't want to wake him up too early.

He wouldn't be a horse I'd be following next time. It's not a blatant stopping job by a jockey. It was more the circumstances of the race. On the other side of it, the winner came from stall 16 and went forward.

In my opinion, I think the quashed penalty is right because I don't think Jack Garritty, in any shape or form, stopped that horse from running. I actually thought he got him to finish in the best possible position, which would have been third for him. If you rode him any closer, I have a feeling that horse wouldn't have stayed.