damaging and extended controversy which began when Davy
Wilmer Flores Authentic Jersey Russell punched a horse before a race at Tramore on 18 August drew towards a close on Tuesday, when the Irish Turf Club’s appeals panel increased the rider’s punishment to a four-day suspension. Russell received only a caution at an earlier hearing, an outcome that prompted criticism by leading animal-welfare organisations in the UK and Ireland. Russell’s punch to the head of his mount, Kings Dolly, provoked widespread anger and astonishment when video of the incident circulated widely on social media. The Irish Turf Club will now feel that it has drawn a line under the episode before Irish Champions Weekend, the country’s showpiece Flat meeting which opens on Saturday with stars including Churchill, Winter, Order Of St George and Big Orange due to be in action at Leopardstown and The Curragh. RSPCA calls Davy Russell punching of horse ‘totally unacceptable’ Read more But it has been a bruising experience for the Turf Club, thanks in part to Russell’s initial offence but mostly because of its own clear and embarrassing failure to deal with it appropriately. After the first hearing on 26 August, Denis Egan, the Turf Club’s chief executive, sounded more like Russell’s agent or solicitor than a senior figure in the ruling body, as he described the rider’s caution as a “sufficient deterrent” and insisted that the jockey had “learned his lesson” and would never “do anything similar again”. ?? inRead invented by Teads ?? inRead invented by Teads It was only after the main animal-welfare charities in Ireland and Britain joined the criticism of the failure to impose a fine or suspension on Russell that the case was referred to its appeals body, to consider whether
http://www.officialmetsproshop.com/Yoenis_Cespedes_Jerseythe penalty was “unduly lenient”. As David Muir, the equine consultant for the RSPCA, pointed out on Tuesday, a credible penalty at the initial hearing would have put the whole episode to bed. Instead, even the new sanction – which does not start until after the valuable Listowel Festival next week – is inevitably something of a fudge since a ban of a week or more would have cast an even more unforgiving light on the original panel’s failure to act. Advertisement But the painful progress of Turf Club discipline has also highlighted the differences between the systems operating in Ireland and in Britain, where the British Horseracing Authority brings charges but cases are heard by an independent panel. How the BHA or the disciplinary panel might have viewed the Russell case is, of course, impossible to know for sure. Were it to judge a similar offence worthy of a “disrepute” charge, however, there is little scope in its rules for anything but a four-figure fine or a significant ban, and if the panel somehow
Nelson Cruz Authentic Jersey came up with a caution instead, the chief executive would be more likely to express surprise and disappointment at the outcome than offer mitigation. It is true that the only recent British cases which offer a precedent – involving Kieren Fallon and Sean Levey, in 2012 and 2014 respectively – led to five-day bans. But even in the space of three years, things have moved on and social media, in particular, grows more powerful and pervasive by the month. A defence that something is not as bad as it looks is increasingly irrelevant, as it is how something looks that does the damage to the “good reputation of horse racing”. The BHA is increasingly aware of this, and having managed to turn a straightforward “disrepute” case, in which the jockey admitted his mistake, into a farce in multiple acts, the Irish regulator must now wake up to it too. Some may complain about mob rule via Twitter, but there is a signal amid the noise. In future, if a jockey on
http://www.officialmarinershop.com/Norichika_Aoki_Jersey a British track loses their temper and lashes out at a horse as Russell did, they can and should expect swift and stern justice. It is to be hoped that the same will now also be true in Ireland
