"Parker - Don't Ever Do That Again!"

   "Yes m'lady"

Another day of racing covering itself in excrement.......when will we ever learn?

Twitter @RacingWhat

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Peace up A Town. Welcome to episode 18 of The Rap, the What's Race Amount podcast. By right, we should be sitting here celebrating and commiserating in equal measures with Epsom. There were good things about the week. The attendance has increased the height it has been since 2022, I think the Grace Course executive are saying, which is not a great thing to go to town with, but it's good, it's going in the right direction. Some of the racing was great. I'm thinking particularly Laura Pearson on Sparks Flight in the Princess Elizabeth States on Saturday. What a superb ride that was. What a really well-executed, well thought out ride down the far rail, the where everybody had not been going for the whole of the two days. Ms. Pearson went down there and was rewarded with an eight and a half length win in a group three race, which may well have salvaged her career. It's certainly given it a kickstart. A little kudos to Laura Pearson for doing that. Ditto Ronan Whelan, we should be celebrating his win in the Derby on Christmas Day. A young lad and his first big win. Everything else being equal, we should be celebrating that and high-fiving each other and going, it wasn't a bad spectacle. Yes, it rained, and there's very little one can do about that. You would also call into question the race course executive predicting 10,000 people up on the hill on the Friday. No, wrong. When was that ever gonna happen? When were 10,000 people ever gonna take time off from their busy schedule to come to what is a minority sport on a working day on a Friday and turn up at the top of the hill to watch three-quarters tops of racing? You know, you could not see the last sort of quarter, half mile of racing at Epsom on on Saturday and Friday from the top of the hill. Nobody's gonna turn up for that, free or not. You could have put Queen, you could have put Led Zeppelin, you could have put Pink Floyd on in their prime, on the hill, on Friday and Saturday. It ain't gonna happen. People ain't gonna turn up in the numbers predicted. No matter, maybe we got a little bit carried away with ourselves and lessons will be learned. I'm ignoring the blue pita-sized elephant pissing all over John Noakes' brogues in the room here, aren't I? In the shape of the fiasco that followed the derby and the non-runner of Benvenuto Cellini. My initial reaction was probably the same as most folks. I sort of went to town and said that it makes us look small time and embarrassing, and to pull a stunt like that, the stewards must have been, or it's arguable that the stewards were subject to external pressures that we were not aware of. And and the whole cock-up into conspiracy scenario comes into play here. You you think there was a cock-up in them declaring it was a non-runner, and then you very quickly progress into the areas of conspiracy. What external factors were brought to bear on the stewards who make the decision, the decision that Benvoluto Cellini was a non-runner, and then to stick by it. And then, as a rational human being, you take a step back, and as a responsible broadcaster or citizen, as I like to think I am, you wrestle with the information as it comes through, and you try and give the BHA a fair hearing and listen to what they have to say, and you get to grips with the actual rule. The rule that they invoked, they the the BHA, the stewards on the day invoked, and Sean Parker, the head honcho of the BHA, invoked this rule, which says The stewards may declare a horse a non-runner, where? In a race started from starting stalls, a horse is denied a fair start, and its chances are materially affected. Let's underline that, materially affected, included but not limited to where a horse is prevented from starting on equal terms due to a faulty action of the starting stalls. Or when a race is started, a horse is in such a position as to be denied the opportunity of starting on equal terms. That is the legislation that the BHA were quoting and which they subsequently doubled down on on Sunday and Monday, and have said these are the rules, or these were the rules that they were operating under, and that's what was invoked, and that is why Benvenuto Cellini was declared a non-runner. In response to which one has to basically say that might be the rules, that might be the legislation. Nonetheless, there needs to be realism, there needs to be an understanding of the effects of calling Ben Manuto Assalini a non-runner on the day, and the effect that that would have on the bookmakers and the punters on the course on that day. People who had backed the horse and who were expecting their money back, and people who hadn't backed the horse but backed Christmas Day, the winner, and were subject to a large rule four. These were probably going to be maybe once a year race goers who were expecting a return at 14 to 1 or whatever the price they took, whatever the starting price of the horse that went off on on Saturday, and they would not know really what a rule four deduction was. They were expected to be paid out £10 at 14 to 1. I want my £140 plus my £10, I want £150 back. Uh-uh, you ain't getting it because there's been a rule for deduction. Once year punters will go, What the fuck is that? Why am I not getting my £140 quid? Understandably so. And did that not play out with the stewards that are making the decision on the day? The actual on-the-ground effect that that decision would have had. Then there is the worldwide effect that this has had, making us look stupid and small time and inefficient and incapable of recognising the reality of a situation, and open ourselves up to what I just talked about earlier: the notion that there was a conspiracy at play here, that somebody had put an arm lock on the BHA Stewards and said there are punters in the world betting pool in Hong Kong that have bet the favourite, they are not happy, they want their money back, do something about it. Did that happen? I don't know. One will never know, and you cannot make baseless accusations and say that that was a fact. Nonetheless, that has to be a scenario, doesn't it? Because something that will be forever in people's minds that there were external forces at play here. Did Culmore put an armlock on the BHA? Who knows? They would have saved themselves a lot of time if they said, Look, the horse ran and it did its best, it was not materially affected by the incident at the starting stalls, game over, let's move on. Personally, I think that it is now two days after the race. You've taken a bit of water with it, you've wrestled with all of the information that has come to pass. There has to be a redrafting of the rule. The term materially affected in the rule is doing a JCB's worth of heavy lifting, and that is a very, very subjective phrase: materially affected. The rule should really only ever apply where it's clear to most reasonable punters, us, the people that keep the whole show on the road, that a horse has been effectively denied a chance to compete in a race due to an unfair start. So the starting stores haven't opened. That has been the classical example of why the rule was drafted. If the starting gates opened, the horse had its leg trapped, well, we as punters take that on the chin. That is something that can happen. The horse should have been better trained, it should have been better indoctrinated into getting into the stores and coming out of them efficiently. Tough shit. You know, this is what you take on the chin as a punter when you have a bet. If the horse has momentarily got its foot up in the stalls and it's slightly slowly away, but it competes in the race. Obviously, as Ben Minuto Cellini did, you know, trading pretty close to its starting price in running, its chances were not materially affected. That is pretty much all I've got to say on the subject. Now, I think it's back at you, BHA. You have got to look at that rule, you've got to redraft it, you've got to understand the practicalities of doubling down on your rule and saying everything's okay, nothing to see here, boys. Wash it under the carpet, we're going to hide behind legislation. No, wrong. The rule was not drafted, for instance, as happened on Saturday. That is wrong. We need to look at the rule again and we need to get rid of the phrase materially affected. That's it for this cast. It's not the cast that I was envisaging making two days after the derby. I was going to be looking at a quick review and then on to the joys of Royal Ascot coming up in a week or so's time. But you know, as is always the case in our funny little world events overtakers, and this is probably one of the biggest events that's going to hit the sport this year. That's me over and out. Thanks a lot, as I always say. Thanks very much indeed for showing up. Thanks a lot for tuning in, giving me your time, giving me your ears. Be lucky.