Cheltenham crowd© Photo Healy Racing
It usually pays to be wary of consensus. But just because there's near unanimity that the British Horseracing Authority had a brain-fart about tired horses being pulled up at Cheltenham last week doesn't mean they're all wrong. In fact taken to its logical conclusion the BHA policy opens up a Pandora's Box.
You can see what they were driving at. Increased emphasis on the pulling up of horses that are out of contention was a recommendation of the 2018 festival review set up on the back of six horses sustaining fatal injuries at Cheltenham last year. A sport under pressure on welfare has to be seen to do doing everything possible to reduce fatalities.
So ahead of last week's four-mile National Hunt Chase the amateur jockeys were urged to pull up if out of contention, "as it is vital from both a welfare and a public perception perspective." In the event three Irish riders collected 37 days worth of suspensions between them, including, most controversially, Declan Lavery's ten ban after finishing third of the four finishers.
Lavery was suspended for continuing in the race when it appeared to be contrary to the horse's welfare. General apoplexy ensued. AP MCoy caught the popular mood, calling the ban disgraceful and professing to be embarrassed for the BHA.
In response the BHA insisted it is the responsibility of jockeys to pull up tired horses. It even doubled down by stressing that priority must be given to the horse if it would be contrary to the animal's welfare to continue riding out. The problem is that in Lavery's case in particular the welfare element is contradictory to the rider's duty to try and achieve his best possible placing.
Lavery's mount Jerrysback was not out of contention. He wound up in the frame of a Cheltenham festival race that generated significant betting turnover. If Lavery had pulled up he could conceivably have been before the stewards for not riding out to achieve his best possible placing. In the fraught welfare circumstances he might have been applauded by officials yet berated by the betting public.
Trying to square the circle of welfare and achieving your best position is an all but impossible position to put any jockey in. Lavery was put there by BHA guidelines that are fundamentally a subjective interpretation of particular circumstances. The potential for that subjectivity to blow up in their faces is obvious to even the most unimaginative.
If it is the responsibility of jockeys to pull up tired horses, then how tired is tired? Should a rider coming to the last in the lead pull up if the animal feels tired? What about on run-in? Or are winners exempt? What about if, perish the thought, a horse is set to win despite its jockey's best efforts not to - could welfare become the ultimate get out of jail card for dodge-pots?
The BHA's chief executive Nick Rust has got a lot of flak in recent weeks and came out swinging in an interview on Sunday. And for the most part he's on the money. Racing's cosy consensus that it can carry on regardless of the wider social context it operates in is a self-indulgent exercise in sticking its head in the sand. The world is changing. For its own sake racing must too.
It's too easy to play to the gallery by trotting out tired old prejudices about pinko, lefty, tree-huggers and how if they don't like it they can lump it. Or that somehow because one hasn't ridden 500 winners means having to sit back and swallow professional self-regulating reassurances about how everything in the garden's rosy.
Jump racing in particular really does need to be seen to be doing everything it can in terms of animal welfare. If hard-chaws dismiss it as optics then it is those same optics that allowed the sport emerge from the nightmare scenario of Sir Erec's fatal injuries in Friday's Triumph Hurdle with the credibility of having clearly taken all reasonable measures beforehand.
That's an example of getting the welfare question right. The actions taken after the National Hunt Chase were a maddening example of how to get it wrong. And it was needless. By any reasonable measure Lavery's ride wasn't offensive to the eye. In fact he looked to get the balance of trying to get the best position while nursing his horse home pretty much spot on.
By suspending him the stewards were obviously trying to make a point in an overall attempt to change the culture surrounding tired horses being pulled up. But they picked the wrong guy, employing a vague rule that's too open to subjective interpretation and which opens up a whole raft of potential problems if they persevere with it generally.
But that in turn raises the question of why, if the BHA do persevere with it, it wouldn't be implemented generally. The suggestion is that this is all about Cheltenham and Aintree. But if it's good enough for Cheltenham it should be good enough for Carlisle or Catterick. Otherwise the implication is welfare only counts selectively.
Racing authorities, no matter where, need to be able to stand over their welfare measures all of the time, not just when they feel the wider world is watching. But those measures need to be valid, implementable and in touch with the reality of how the sport operates. Otherwise they can become just another headache for a sport increasingly wrestling with its own identity.
As for the actual racing at last week's festival it was notable how the 14 Irish trained winners came from seven yards. And this time Pat Kelly's wasn't one of them. Even more remarkable was Tiger Roll emerging as Gigginstown's sole success of the week. The contrast to their seven winner haul in 2018 was stark.
If Sir Erec's sad fate in particular cast a pall over the final day then his owner JP McManus generally enjoyed a hugely successful week and ran away with the owner's award. Espoir D'allen's eventual 15 length winning margin in the Champion Hurdle testified to a frantic pace up front and the way Gavin Cromwell's star was able to exploit it testified to Mark Walsh's big-race cool.
He was chilly too on City Island and even though it ended in disaster the fact Walsh was on board Sir Erec in the Triumph looked particularly significant. None of which prevented Barry Geraghty's Pertemps Final spin on Sire Du Berlais from being widely regarded as the ride of the week.
Throw in Grade One victories for Rachael Blackmore and Bryony Frost, as well as Paul Townend's perfect redemptive Gold Cup moment on Al Boum Photo, not to mention it being Willie Mullins's first 'Blue Riband' success, and Cheltenham 2019 had any number of superb storylines. Even the whip issue didn't crop up much.
Yet the lingering issue after all of its over is a self-inflicted problem that didn't need to be a problem. In fact the BHA's priority now might be on preventing its increasingly irate populace from entering into open revolt. Such a turbulent reaction would be a wrong move on many levels. But once consensus develops it can be tough to turn around.
