KEY POINTS:
Lisa Cropp will face no official censure over her staggeringly serious Derby allegations at Ellerslie on Saturday.
That surprises many.
A number of prominent trainers have described Cropp's implication that Vinny Colgan used a jigger on Derby winner Redoute's Dancer as "disgraceful".
To be accurate, Cropp alleged she
saw Colgan pass to fellow rider Noel Harris "a silver metal object" as the two jockeys clasped hands in celebration on the way back to the Ellerslie birdcage after the Sydney colt's $700,000 Mercedes Derby victory.
The implication was obvious - she was not implying it was a metal cigarette case and Colgan was offering his mate a fag.
Being found guilty of using a jigger - an electrical device meant to propel a horse faster by shock treatment - is one of the most heinous charges in horse racing.
Disqualification for five years would not be out of hand.
No one can recall a jigger ever being discovered in New Zealand.
Even in Australia, where one or two might be uncovered each year, it is always in a training scenario.
The thought that someone would use one in a group one Derby in New Zealand, pass it to a fellow rider on pulling up and hope to escape undetected is impossibly implausible.
It's like saying Michael Schumacher was caught stopping in the back straight at the Grand Prix and injecting rocket fuel, or Tiger Woods was discovered on the 18th green at Augusta with an electrical device in the head of his putter that magically propelled the golf ball to the hole.
Remarkably, Cameron George, only three days into his new position as New Zealand's chief stipe and on his birthday, concluded the inquiry on Saturday night and said there would be no ongoing dialogue with Cropp.
The two possible charges the Cambridge jockey could have faced is bringing racing into disrepute and making a false or misleading statement to stewards.
"I'm of the view that we shouldn't deter jockeys from reporting things that they might believe are out of hand," George told the Herald yesterday.
That said, he asked where does it stop and where does it start when it comes to allegations so serious they can disrupt New Zealand's equal second richest race for 25 minutes and create a situation so damaging to the image of our thoroughbred industry both domestically and internationally.
"We need to look at a couple of areas.
"We, the stewards, have been lazy in policing areas like jockeys touching each other after a race - which is against the rules.
"We've been ignoring that and we shouldn't be - we've got to clear a few things up so they can't come back to haunt us."
George might be in a mood to criticise stewards, but overall they did a magnificent job under the most intense pressure.
The Australian admits that his first thoughts when the allegation was made were unprintable.
In an intense next five minutes racecourse inspector John McKenzie sealed the jockeys' room and searched the gear of Colgan and Harris.
Cropp, Colgan and Harris were grilled in private in the inquiry room, at which point Cropp insisted that her allegation should be investigated despite not being able to clearly substantiate evidence to support it from the video footage stewards received from Trackside television.
That clearly showed Colgan's white-gloved right hand with nothing in it as it propelled towards and embraced Harris' left hand, which contained his whip.
When the two hands disengaged Harris flicked his whip around to face the opposite direction in his hand, a point which Cropp may have misinterpreted.
As she dismounted Cropp told Peter McKenzie, one of the many owners of her mount Mettre En Jeu, what she thought she saw.
She asked if she should take the matter further and McKenzie said yes.
Stewards had the track inspected near the gate to the birdcage entrance in case the supposed device had been discarded on the track, but nothing was found.
Nearly 10 minutes later Auckland Racing Club chairman Bill Gianotti had begun the birdcage presentation when the protest siren was sounded and postponed the celebration.
Twenty-five minutes after Redoute's Dancer flashed across the line just ahead of Mettre En Jeu, stewards announced correct weight - which is official acceptance of a race result.
"We're comfortably satisfied that there is no evidence to support the claim there was a metal object," said George.
Long after the last race all three main players were again interviewed, at which point Cropp declared that the video did not support her claim.
* We can learn an important lesson from Australian racing from this incident.
New Zealand racing has no declaration to the public of what Australians call correct weight.
In New Zealand if we don't hear the protest siren we assume the all-clear has been given.
Because stewards were still deciding what could be done with an extremely difficult situation the siren wasn't sounded until after the official presentation had started, which would not have happened if club officials had been aware that correct weight had not been given.
In Australia that is given either as a hooter or is semaphored.
