Dashel Drasher recovers second place in Stayers' - but Teahupoo connections slam 'absolutely rubbish' decision

Jeremy Scott hailed a surprise appeal success on Tuesday as good for racing's soul after his Dashel Drasher was restored to second place in the Paddy Power Stayers' Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. 

Dashel Drasher had been demoted to third by the raceday stewards for interfering with Teahupoo at the final hurdle but, following a three-hour hearing, an appeals panel ruled there was no interference and swapped the places back. "It's been daunting, I can tell you," said Scott, who presented his case without the aid of a solicitor.

"The BHA's representative was pretty intimidating and I thought she had tied us up in fairly good knots. But Rex [Dingle, rider of Dashel Drasher] was brilliant in explaining.

"You've got people on the panel who aren't going racing all the time. They're completely independent and thank God we've got that. But I thought Rex explained our point of view most beautifully."

Scott felt the raceday decision was based too closely on reasoning that might apply in Flat racing, "where there's nothing in front of you but the racecourse and the winning line. When hurdles are involved, and extreme distances and testing going, we have to make allowances. If we're not careful, by sanitising racing too much, we lose the soul of it. And Cheltenham is all about soul."

Jeremy Scott: trainer of Dashel Drasher gave evidence at the appeal hearingCredit: Harry Trump

Dashel Drasher will now be considered for next week's Liverpool Hurdle. "He's come out of Cheltenham so well, I wouldn't totally rule it out. We want it to rain."

Tuesday's verdict was met with immediate dismay by Brian Acheson of Robcour Racing, owners of Teahupoo, who had listened in to the hearing. He thanked the BHA's Charlotte Davison for her arguments in favour of upholding the decision of the raceday stewards and then added: "To the three independent stewards, absolute rubbish. You want to get someone murdered."

The panel had heard from Davy Russell, rider of Teahupoo, who felt he would have won the race outright had he been granted a clear run in the straight. "He keeps drifting to the left," Russell said of Dashel Drasher.

"The only option I have is to keep going left and take the punishment I'm being given. My route is being dictated by the horse on my outside [Dashel Drasher], who is drifting to his left."

But the panel chair, James O'Mahony, said: "We take judicial notice of the fact that in approaching hurdles, horses cannot be expected always to run straight. We've watched carefully the approach to that last hurdle and, although Teahupoo stayed on, we find he was demonstrably a tiring horse at that stage. 

"Mr Russell used the whip three times in his approach to that final hurdle. We find he made more of a move laterally left in order to find a better stride in his approach to the hurdle.

"We conclude there was no interference because Dashel Drasher was clear. We have regard not just to the distance straight ahead but to the distance laterally. With the clearest evidence in our view from the tracker footage, there was daylight in both aspects."

O'Mahony added that Teahupoo had to some extent been influenced by the movement of Flooring Porter in his peripheral vision.

Watch the controversial finish to the Stayers' Hurdle

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