Mike Dillon: Relegation rule is wrong and must change

Whatever rule change there is, or however that rule is interpreted, we cannot have a repeat of the Viennetta affair at Te Aroha on Saturday.

It's a disgrace.

Thoroughbred racing cannot afford it.

For the record, Viennetta was relegated from first to third in the $120,000 New Zealand Bloodstock Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes for causing minor interference to the third horse past the post, Salsa.

It was not the degree of interference that cost Viennetta and her connections the win, it was the fact that the interference cost Salsa finishing second.

Salsa had to be checked by rider Leith Innes close to the finish and her lost momentum saw Arlingtonboulevard edge past by half a head and eventually get promoted to first when not directly affected by the interference.

Get one point correct right from the start, this should have been Viennetta's race.

She was clearly superior on the day - she was two lengths better than any other runner and the Rules of Racing should reflect that.

They don't.

And it's because lawyers wrote the rules and dominate the Judicial Control Authority and lawyers, almost certainly correctly for their own vocation, are rooted in the principles of natural justice.

What about natural justice for Viennetta - she was the best on the day. Should that be overridden by the fact that Salsa lost second?

Certainly that is a bitter pill for the connections of Salsa, a group one second looks better than a group one third on a breeding pedigree, but to lose a group one win for what was a minor indiscretion is horrendous.

You cannot seriously weigh them up in the same context. Our rules make no allowance for that and they should.

Horse racing has its own culture. Within certain fair guidelines, the overriding principle should always be that the best horse gets to the winning post first.

Inject too much common law to that and you lose focus.

You cannot blame the stipendiary stewards who brought the charge on Saturday, nor the JCA panel that upheld it - it's in the rules and generally the way it's done in New Zealand.

But that doesn't make it right.

Thinking laterally, interference on the level seen on Saturday happens at every stage of every race, why is it deemed to be important only in the closing stages?

When was the last time a horse lost a race because it checked the runner-up at the 1900m on a similar level to that which inconvenienced Salsa.

Twenty per cent of jockeys will tell you after every race they would have finished closer except for blah, blah, blah.

You continually hear that Australia has better interference and relegation rules.

In fact, they have exactly the same rules as we do, worded slightly differently.

The greatest misconception in New Zealand is that judicial panels here don't have discretionary powers in incidents such as Saturday's.

They do, but in almost every case they chose not to exercise it.

On at least one occasion the JCA panel did. It was at Trentham on March 6, 2004, when Phaedra and Michael Walker nearly put Noel Harris and Flaring over the inside running rail with 250m to travel in a 1300m maiden race.

Phaedra went on to win and Flaring partially recovered his momentum to finish fifth a little more than two lengths from the winner.

Under recently changed rules, a horse can only be promoted if that thrusts it up to a dividend-bearing position. Because Flaring could only go up to fourth, nothing was done in his case.

But in a further protest on behalf of fourth placed Gemma, who was only half a head behind third-placed King Of Ashford, the JCA ruled that the winner had won too clearly to be relegated and no action was taken.

Instead of perhaps being applauded for its initiative that day, the panel copped flak because it was a departure from the norm.

You can argue that the decision the panel reached was the right one and perhaps the criticism of it was simply because it was different. Consistency of rulings is just as important as the rule itself.

The Australians have a different interpretation of the power to use discretion. They use it only if it can be proved that if a horse wins and interferes with a placed runner, the horse interfered with would have otherwise beaten the winner.

If a winner costs a horse finishing second, as was the case on Saturday, the result remains intact.

On that basis Viennetta would have retained Saturday's race.

The Australians more heavily penalise the offending jockey than we tend to do. After all jockeys are the only ones who can correct a horse running off line.

It has to be said that Viennetta's rider Darryl Bradley is not blameless. Viennetta was at least six horse widths out when she burst to the front at the 350m and ended the race against the rail. Bradley made no attempt to straighten the mare off her inward path and away from Salsa and she was travelling well enough that if he had done so it would not have affected her chances.

The Australian reasoning is that a jockey with a four to six week suspension running through his or her mind is more likely to correct a wayward horse.

Even if we adopt the same interpretation as Australia, there is always going to be a problem in that we have a different level of person adjudicating.

Australia has a panel of stewards that are judge and jury and while that system has potential drawbacks, the upside is that the SAME person makes the final decision EVERY raceday. That has to lead to consistency.

We have the same stipendiary stewards each race, but a changing range of JCA members as the jury who, it needs to be said, are otherwise employed outside the racing industry and cannot possibly read a race as consistently well as the chief stipes in, say, Melbourne and Sydney.

You always knew the boys on the Australian Racing Retro programme on Sky yesterday were going to get right up the decision to relegate Viennetta.

"Absurd", "ridiculous", "heart-breaking" and "enough to make you turn off racing" were terms bandied about after the video was shown.

Those who believe Saturday's result is correct should ask: (a) Do you believe in the principle that the best horse on the day should win? And (b) If the answer is yes, can Saturday's relegation be justified?


Interference subjective

There is a bad anomaly in our relegation rule. Had Salsa been more badly affected by the interference from Viennetta and finished fifth, no protest would have been possible.

Our relegation rules say:

* Rule 876 (1) If, in the opinion of the Judicial Committee, a horse placed by the judge or its rider has interfered with the chances of another horse or horses placed by the judge then, subject to sub-rule 2 hereof, the Judicial Committee may place such first-mentioned horse immediately after the horse or horses interfered with.

* (2) The discretion to relegate a horse under sub-rule 1 hereof shall be exercisable by the Judicial Committee only in the following circumstances and not otherwise:

* (a) When the horse whose chances have been interfered with has been placed by the judge in a dividend bearing position; or

* (b) When the relegation will result in the horse whose chances have been interfered with gaining a dividend bearing position.

If Salsa had finished fifth, not third, Viennetta held the race.

In a roundabout way that says you can lose a group one race for minor interference, but not for serious interference.

That's not right.