bans; sometimes they make very little sense.

​On Wednesday, July 29th, the Bangor-on-Dee stewards banned jockey Shane Quinlan under the non-triers rule for 16-days and conditional jockey Charlie Todd for 8-days for continuing on a horse that was tailed off, apparently through fatigue.
To my mind the duration of these two suspensions are the wrong way round. In effect, Quinlan was suspended for 16-days in finishing fourth when the stewards were of the opinion that, with a little more effort, he could have finished third. Todd was given an 8-days holiday for what others might define as cruelty, continuing to race a horse unfit to do so. A post-race examination of Ahead of the Curve by a veterinary officer found him to have an irregular heartbeat and showing signs of heat-stress, though in the stewards room, according to the Racing Post in its race report, the veterinary officer failed to reveal any abnormalities with the post-race condition of the filly Lyrical Ballad.
I watched neither race and have no axe to grind with either jockey and my comments are based on the suspensions and not the riding of either rider. I do not believe either jockey set out with any intention of wrong-doing, especially Todd, as I do believe for one moment that any jockey is capable of deliberate cruelty.
The thing is this; if someone in Africa is seen in the background of a news report beating his obviously tired donkey with a whip or when carrying a load far too great for it to bear, viewers would be of the opinion that cruelty was afoot and would be up in arms about it. 
When a jockey does not pull-up an obviously exhausted horse the similarities with the ignorance of the above scenario is plain. To my mind Todd should have received the 16-day ban and even then, others might be of the opinion he got off lightly. Quinlan got double the length of suspension for basically not improving his position by 2-lengths, the distance he finished behind the third-placed horse. 
The punishments for jockeys when they break the rules of racing are long overdue an urgent review. The rules should be 100% on the side of the horse, whereas at the moment the rules make it quite plain that the sensitivities of punters is of greater importance than the welfare of the horse. This sends out entirely the wrong message to our detractors at a time when the general call-to-arms is to attract a greater diversity of people to the sport. When a jockey gets a longer ban for breaking the whip rules than for dropping his hands a yard or two before the winning post or for being considered to have given a horse an easy race, the message is unequivocal.
Remember, what we might refer to as a jockey getting every ounce of effort out of his mount at the end of a race is considered by those from outside of the sport, our detractors, if you like, as ‘hitting a horse’, an act if seen by the general public outside of the sporting arena would be viewed as illegal and cruel and a case for either the R.S.P.C.A. or the police to investigate.
On a similar topic: an independent disciplinary panel of the B.H.A. overturned the 10-day ban imposed by the Yarmouth stewards on Rab Havlin for what some considered dangerous riding, whilst others deemed an unfortunate racing incident. Again, hands up, I have not viewed the race and have no real opinion on the whys and wherefores of this particular incident and Havlin is correct in saying ‘but because it looks really bad doesn’t mean somebody must have done something really bad’. Anyone who has ridden racehorses, or any horse for that matter, will tell you that horses, when they have mind to or are startled, can move very quickly in any direction, even up and down. One second you are in the saddle and the next either in a heap on the ground or hurtling through the air. It is fact and it can happen to the very best of riders.
But Kevin Blake is absolutely right; eventually, if the emphasis is not on keeping a horse straight at all times, however impossible this can be achieved at all times, someone is going to get killed or mangled. Any inquiry after the event will be too late. At Yarmouth Tom Marquand and Harry Bentley got away without injury but it will not always be that way. It may not have been Havlin’s fault but as long as jockeys can get away with not keeping straight, they will be tempted to step over the line, even if it means arguing their case in front of the stewards. To my mind, Havlin should have received a suspension of a few days or at the very least a caution.
It is one of my arguments for ‘whipless races’, that if jockeys could not use a whip in earnest, they would have to put greater emphasis on keeping their mounts running in a straight line, using their arms, legs and torso to generate the forward thrust required in a driving finish. I also contend that if horses at the end of a race, when they reaching the end of their energy resources and the lactic acid is kicking in, were kept running straight, there would less strain placed on their tendons and ligaments and would, I am quite certain, suffer less small-scale and career-ending injuries.