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Letter of the Week

Times have changed

 

What a shame a great week of racing and yearling sales on the Gold Coast had to be marred by a disgraceful decision by Queensland stewards to uphold the Magic Millions Classic protest.

While there was interference, I believe Nash Rawiller was right in his assessment that the initial shift came from Driefontein shifting in slightly and that No Looking Back shifted out after coming from more than a length behind and going away by a long neck.

Yes, Nash did not stop riding but neither did Tommy Berry and the fact that his mount was struggling before any interference occurred makes this decision all the more baffling.

I have followed racing since the mid ’70s and I find that there are more protests being upheld than ever before, which is having a negative affect on the people who know and follow racing.

If you go back 20 or 30 years ago a protest was only upheld if the intereference was so severe it was obvious to all that the decision should be upheld, the recent The Big Steel protest being an obvious example of that.

Stewards today seem to just look at the interference without looking at the positioning of the horses and the way both were travelling before and after the interference, this Magic Millions incident being a classic case in point. On blogs and forums even those people who backed the eventual winner were amazed by the decision.

This on top of the Railway Stakes debacle, which was a terrible blight, not only on Perth racing, but on Australian racing.

It would be interesting to see how stewards from around the country would’ve decided after viewing and hearing all the evidence.

If they agreed with Queensland stewards I would be very worried about the future of this great industry.

Rod Saunders
Padstow (NSW)
Today's Racing
Saturday 30 March
Sunday 31 March
Monday 1 April