Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
The inconsequential 3-month suspension issued to a trainer for groping a young female jockey as he legged her up in the mounting yard at a recent Queensland race meeting set me to thinking about the uselessness of revoking a person’s ability to race at meetings they never would have raced at anyway. This flaw in […]
We told you last month about a trainer having been stood down for inappropriately touching a young female jockey as she was being legged up aboard the horse she was riding for him at a country QLD meeting. Inappropriate is not actually the right word to describe the trainer’s outrageous actions – it was an […]
Breaking news out of Rockhampton is that the QRIC have raided the stables of trainer Nick Walsh after one of his horses threw banned steroid Stanozolol in the trainer’s possession. Older readers might remember that drug, it’s the one that the cheating sprinter Ben Johnson was using when he ran 9.79 seconds for the 100m […]
This above and below is what happens to a horse when it suffers a heart attack during a race. Ancient Style did not do this. Its off-forequarter gave way and it plunged head first into the turf. There is a cover-up going on here in an attempt to hide the fact that the Stewards had […]
We’ve just watched a replay of the fall at Innisfail last Saturday. The one that the Stewards said may might have been caused by the fallen horse Ancient Song having a heart attack. I’m not at liberty to share the film with you, out of respect for the injured kid, but trust me when I […]
Just when we’ve been giving the QRIC under Kim Kelly’s operational leadership a huge wrap for its hyper-charged new and improved swabbing regime in the South-East, along comes yesterday’s meeting at Cairns and blows the whole thing out of the water. I don’t know if the new supply of test kits got lost in the […]
Saturday’s fatal fall at Innisfail that resulted in the death of the horse Ancient Song and serious injury to apprentice jockey Mel Campbell might never have happened but for a series of systemic failures. For the purpose of preventing a repeat of Saturday’s tragedy these failures need to be identified and addressed. This is not […]
The Fall 6-year-old galloper Ancient Style faltered at the 600m mark of a Maiden race at Innisfail on Saturday and crashed to the turf, dislodging apprentice jockey Mel Campbell in the process. Campbell suffered serious injuries in the fall and is presently hospitalized. As bad a state as she is in, it could have been […]
A few weeks back we wrote about how swabbing at QLD metropolitan race meetings has been vastly enhanced under the leadership of QRIC Deputy Commissioner Kim Kelly, who was perhaps Australia’s – if not the world’s – best Steward prior to taking up his new executive role. It’s pleasing to see that the swabbing at […]
We often hear Stewards use the terms general deterrence and specific deterrence as the drivers for determining the penalties handed down to licensees who breach the rules. Specific deterrence as it relates to a penalty means basically “How hard do we need to hit this person for a breach of the rules to make sure […]
