October
JulyHe'll take it, and why not?
So Shane Scriven is "not happy, but I’ll take it." Really. I just bet he will take it and why not? I bet he can’t believe his good fortune. He has been able to ride right throughout the Brisbane carnival and he is now off to Dubai for his annual holidays at a time when he usually takes extended time out from riding in Brisbane anyway. What a total farce this whole Ipswich whip debacle has been from the very beginning and what a dreadful precedent it has set. If some little known three-kilo apprentice from the backblocks had done what Scriven did, I suggest he would have been rubbed out for a year or two.
Someone originally said: "Scriven is a good bloke who has weight problems and if this disqualification stands it will be the end of his career." Well let me say that there are probably hundreds of jockeys around Australia who could assume the tag "good bloke" and it’s just a fact of life that almost all of them have weight problems. It’s also no coincidence that the amended three months decision was brought down on the eve of an eight-meeting careless riding suspension that Scriven was about to serve, effectively shaving even more time off the original five-month suspension.
I noted no talk of the amended three-month disqualification being the death knell to his career, which some media commentators, possibly friends, were confidently predicting at the time the initial five-month sentence was handed down by stewards. There was not a word muttered about the possibility of that happening in Bernadette Cooper’s terrific Racing Retro interview last Sunday. How wonderful to see someone ask the hard questions in racing.
Funny how something like a probable forced retirement can go on the back burner in about as long as it takes to grab a whip off a fellow rider.
Armidale (NSW)