KEY POINTS:
Top jockey Chris Johnson has been suspended for two weeks and fined $3000 for not giving a horse all reasonable chance to win a race - 12 weeks after the actual event.
The decision comes nearly five weeks after it was announced a Judicial Control Authority (JCA) panel found Johnson had not taken all reasonable and permissible measures to win the race.
And it is 12 weeks since the actual race on February 6 at the Wairarapa track of Tauherenikau when Johnson rode the Jeff Lynds-trained Futureproof to second in a $12,000 intermediate grade event.
Johnson, who also has to pay $1000 in costs, will be suspended from after this Saturday's racing and up to and including May 19.
The penalty is well short of what chief stipendiary steward Cameron George had asked for.
The JCA report said George submitted for a suspension of seven to 13 weeks.
But the judicial panel did not agree with George's assumption that Johnson's actions would have a negative impact on the reputation of New Zealand racing.
Said the report: "We have to say that this, in our opinion, is somewhat of an overstatement."
Johnson's lawyer, John Tannahill, said the penalty should be a fine only and in the region of $2000 to $3000.
Tannahill said Johnson should not be made a scapegoat for what he said was a different riding standard being imposed by a new stipendiary steward regime.
The JCA panel said such a suggestion "could be nothing further from the truth" in determining the penalty.
It did, however, say Johnson was fortunate his mount finished second.
"Had he not, by chance, got up to finish in second place, then the penalty which is to be imposed would have been significantly greater," it said.
It was alleged Johnson did not take the opportunity to improve around the field on Futureproof with about 700m to run and instead stuck to the inside.
Futureproof, racing at the back of the field, was eventually pushed through a gap in the straight and came home strongly to be beaten a long neck.
The JCA panel said it had not necessarily found that Futureproof should have won the race.
"We reiterate that was not our finding."
- NZPA
