British racing’s whip regulations have been left looking farcical after the Irish-trained Alphonse Le Grande was reinstated the winner of last month’s Newmarket Cesarewitch on Thursday.
Alphonse Le Grande beat Manxman by a nose in the historic marathon handicap on October 12th only for jockey Jamie Powell’s ride to be referred to the British Horseracing Authority’s whip review committee after he appeared to strike the horse 10 times.
Under controversial rules brought in by the BHA a year ago, 10 strikes or more results in a horse being disqualified for races of certain value. Just two previous disqualifications had occurred under regulations designed to deter misuse of the whip.
However, for betting purposes, Alphonse Le Grande was the winner on the day and punters that had backed the 33-1 shot, saddled by trainer Cathy O’Leary, were paid out.
Three days later, the whip review committee judged Powell to have struck Alphonse Le Grande 10 times, and the horse was disqualified. Powell was also banned for 28 days.
If that was a bitter pill to swallow for those who backed the 7-1 shot Manxman on the day, his connections were left to rue another twist to the tale after an appeal by Alphonse Le Grande’s connections this week proved successful.
Powell’s last attempted strike was judged not to have hit the horse and the Irish horse, now back in the care of his old trainer, O’Leary’s brother, Tony Martin, has been reinstated the winner.
An independent BHA disciplinary panel concluded that one of Powell’s strikes was not intentional, as he made contact with the horse moving his whip from one hand to the other.
The panel chair, Sarah Crowther KC said: “We find that his body position was different to the first nine strikes, it seems to us that he was somewhat crouched and off balance to his left and very low in the saddle.
“Whilst his arm and hand were in the same angle as the previous strikes, the change in body position and the different stride of the horse had the effect of changing the angle of the strike.
“It was common ground, that as Mr Powell retrieved his whip from that strike on the way back, pulling it back towards his right-hand side and bringing it forward, there was contact. It seemed to us the question for us was whether that contact constituted use of the whip.”
She added: “Adopting a pragmatic interpretation of the word ‘use’ in context of the rules as a whole and from our experience of panel of racing, we find it is not every single contact between a whip and a horse that will amount to a use.
“We do find this is a fact-sensitive question and specifically on the facts of this case we find the contact was made in circumstances where Mr Powell was retrieving his stick from the wrong side of the horse, and it was effectively an unavoidable contact which could not have had any material impact on the performance of the horse.”
Powell was found to have used the whip nine times, three above the permitted level, and his suspension was cut to 20 days.
The outcome finally concludes a risible chain of events that has left the BHA with egg on its face as the result of one of the biggest betting handicaps of the year is finally decided over a month late.
It will also inevitably provoke questions as to the Whip Review Committee’s decision after they’d had 72 hours to examine footage in detail and failed to spot what the appeals body did.
Alphonse Le Grande ran four times for O’Leary following Tony Martin’s suspension by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board earlier this year for breaking doping rules. His suspension was extended after he was judged to have acted in a manner prejudicial to the integrity of racing after Alphonse Le Grande won at Newcastle in June.
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