Wexford stewards' failure to act means racing's reputation has taken a beating - it must be the catalyst for wholesale changes

It was a dramatic exit that set the tongues wagging. Few Irish races as inconsequential as the claiming hurdle at Wexford last week have inspired such burning controversy and incendiary speculation.

And yet when the acting stewards adjudicated, they implied it was a case of 'nothing to see'. All neatly wrapped. They had "reviewed the unseating of P Byrnes, rider of Redwood Queen, at the last hurdle when leading". They had watched a recording of the race and "considered the matter". They had taken "no further action".

A bare, bland statement, no evidence of an interview with the jockey, seeking explanation for an incident that was sufficiently unusual and opaque to provoke a welter of debate on social media and headlines in the mainstream press in the days that followed.