Racing Diary: Jockey Club stewards are losing credibility

The Jockey Club seem to be losing the plot here in the UK at the moment because some of the decisions they are coming up with are causing controversy throughout the racing industry.

Let me say straight away that I have always been a supporter of the Jockey Club because they have had to uphold the integrity of British racing for the past couple of hundred years or so and by and large they have done a good job, but recently a number of their decisions have astounded me and many others.

The big talking point was the failure by the connections of a horse called Keltic Heritage of their appeal against the Exeter Stewards last November. They found that Keltic Heritage had been interfered with by the first past the post, but they deemed the interference accidental and as they thought the first past the post would have still won threw out the appeal.

Believe me if you had seen the race – and I must have seen it about 20 times from every different angle – you would be aghast at their decision for Keltic Heritage was literally bashed into by the winner and with such force that it knocked him sideways.

How anyone could say it didn't affect the result as the Jockey Club did, stuns me. Indeed my channel 4 TV colleague John Francome, who don't forget was a seven-time champion Jockey said – "We might as well pack up and go home. You may as well say the first past the post gets the race."

Then this week another stewards enquiry at Lingfield where Dispol Evita 'won' the seller only to lose the race in the stewards room because they deemed the accidental interference made a difference to the result and awarded the race to the second.

The winning distance was only half a length and the stewards were of the opinion that the second could have won if not interfered with.

However, Martin Dwyer, who rode a confident race on Dispol Evita said that he only won half a length because he didn't want to be too hard on his mount (she had won at the track only three days earlier) and added: "If I had got stuck into her she could have won by six lengths!"

Dispol Evita, who is owned and trained by top London solicitor Andrew Reid, will now appeal and that is one appeal where I would love to be a fly on the wall.

However, I cannot understand how this appeal will be successful if last week's was thrown out for the same offence. The inconsistency of the stewards is beginning to annoy more and more people and it's not just the public relations for I believe the Jockey Club Stewards are losing credibility.

The big freeze may have knocked out Britain's jump racing over the the past couple of weeks, but it takes more than temperatures of minus 10 and a biting wind chill to stop the action here in Newmarket. Indeed Newmarket's hardy work force have managed to keep the gallops open throughout the bitter cold snap.

"The main problem was actually making it safe for the horses to get to the gallops," said Peter Amos, Managing Director of Jockey Club Estates, who's team of 20 look after the 2,800 acres that make up Newmarket's historic training grounds.

"The frost and ice made it slippery and dangerous. So we put salt down in as many places as we could so at least the horse walks were open and this meant that the horses could exercise as normal."

Of course nowadays it's all down to 'all weather' and I'm pleased to report that in Newmarket the artificial gallops have proved 'all weather' unlike a certain racecourse where the surface was found to be frost bound!

"We have just about finished all the work on the new visco ride gallop up Warren Hill and we are hoping to open that later this week," reports Amos.

"And once that is up and running we will close down the polytrack gallop next door to it for a few days while some remedial work is done to that. This means that in a few weeks trainers will have the use of three all weather gallops up Warren Hill, including polytracks over four furlongs and seven furlongs."

The polytrack surfaces are proving extremely popular indeed the new polytrack racing surface at Lingfield is earning rave reviews in that there is no kickback and it is fair on horse's legs. Little wonder therefore that the polytrack gallops in Newmarket are the most commonly used by the town's 60 plus trainers who this year will be training around 2,300 horses.