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Letter of the Week

Control freaks

 

From the stewards’ report on the Sydney Cup: "… he (Bart Cummings) was advised that the stable must make every effort to rectify the racing manners of Precedence, which clearly today were unsatisfactory."

Just what is meant here by "unsatisfactory"? Precedence in no way interfered with or checked any other runner. It raced in straight lines. Its racing manners constituted no danger to Luke Nolen or any other jockey.

So what was he guilty of? He overraced and failed. So what! Every day we see horses overracing, sometimes failing, sometimes running respectably.

We especially see horses overracing when stepping up to longer races, where the pace is usually slower. Precedence pulled hard, but this is the horse; he has always been a hard goer — where is the legal sin in this? Punters beware: this was one of the real queries over his form for a two-mile race. There was absolutely no issue either of safety or integrity involved.

This example illustrates an ongoing issue with stewards — just what their charter is, or should be.

Telling jockeys how they should ride and telling trainers how they should train (as if Cummings isn’t aware of and attempting to mend Precedence’s overracing!) are not issues of integrity.

The stewards get away with this stuff because they have too much power, a power which I think is partly underpinned by a paternalistic culture and partly out of fears for a sport with fading support, fuelling false notions of integrity, leading to an over-controlling attitude.

Michael Barton
Parkville (Vic)
Today's Racing
Thursday 28 March
Friday 29 March
Saturday 30 March