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DAVID CARR |
Weblog: What do you mean the Wi-Fi doesn't work? The life of a Racing Post reporter
Starting to flag at Wetherby
And it had all started so well, too.
Back at Wetherby after the summer break. Typical Wetherby weather - damp, grey and cool.
Early banter over the phone with Victor Chandler PR man Charlie McCann, whose parting shot was to say he was envious of our cold and rain and to wish he was here - an easy thing to say when you are safely tucked up in an air-conditioned office in scorching Gibraltar.
A moment of light-hearted bizareness in the parade ring when a senior member of the northern training establishment got down on all fours, sneaked up behind BHA hurdles handicapper Martin Greenwood and started barking.
It was actually quite a good impression and he may have missed his true vocation as a canine impersonator.
And the deafening shrieks of a young female racegoer just outside the press room window as well-backed Wide Receiver passed the post in front at the end of the first circuit in the second race - it took her a while to realise her mistake but she had the last laugh (and shriek) as the horse was still in front when it mattered.
Then it all went wrong.
A yellow flag, unmissably bright in the October murk, was waved by a man stood on the inside of the final bend as the runners in the third race passed him.
That is a signal to stop, yet the field carried on and the race was completed.
And all hell broke loose.
An inquiry was called and - eventually - the race was declared void. After plenty of people had been paid out on the winner.
There were reports of punters scrambling to find their torn-up Tote tickets which now entitled them to their money back - even for those who had backed the horse who refused to race, and the one who was pulled up with a fatal injury and whose presence between the final two flights had caused the flag to be waved.
Each of the nine jockeys who carried on was banned for ten days - which made it a a big story, with the likes of Tony McCoy and Graham Lee ruled out of the Charlie Hall Chase here.
Most refused to comment but one did point out that conflicting flags were waved and the owner of first-past-the-post Cunning Clarets was quotably upset (understandably, given that the horse had been heavily backed and appeared to win on merit, albeit by the narrowest of margins).
I suspect there is enough wriggle room for an appeal so this one will run and run.
And there were also serious questions tobe asked about why the yellow flag was waved at all as the field managed to get round the stricken horse without a problem - the course responded by saying it was a judgement call by the - very experienced - man himself after a communications breakdown with the clerk of the course but a report has been passed on to the BHA.
And as we were writing all this up in dark - believe me, if the 6.00 race had been run 15 minutes late nobody would have seen it - news came through of a late ten-day for an amateur who failed to pull a lame horse up.
Champions Day at Ascot on Saturday is going to be calm and uneventful after this. At least it will keep the whip off the front page.
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