stewards who bring racing into disrepute.

​Following on from Robert Havlin’s 3-week suspension, Jason Watson now finds himself subject to suspension for not ‘taking all reasonable and permissible measures to ensure his mount obtained the best possible placing’. In his defence, Watson, quoted in today’s Racing Post’, said. ‘Due to the circumstance of my race, I did what was best for the horse and if I get penalised for that then something needs to change with the people who apply these rules and bans’.
Jason Watson is 100% correct in his statement. Stewards who bring the sport into disrepute by disregarding the welfare of horses should be removed from their positions. As Watson continued. ‘At the end of the day, my race had gone and I’d realised that in the first furlong and a half. As well as winning races, my priority is to take care of the animal and bring them back safely. On the mental side, it’s not a very nice experience for a first-time out 2-year-old to be driven to finish nowhere.’
The story of the race at Nottingham is this: Watson’s mount veered violently left leaving the stalls and was soon well adrift of the other runners, eventually finishing seventh of the eight runners in the 6-furlong maiden.
To my mind, Watson rode a sensible and caring race on a horse that because of the incident leaving the stalls had no chance of winning or being placed. As with the Havlin case, who was also riding a horse having its first race, with the other similarity being both horses are trained by highly respected and successful trainers neither of whom are known for being ‘betting stables’, it seems the stewards would have preferred to have seen Watson draw his whip drawn and hard drive his horse for six-furlongs rather than to apply kindness and horsemanship to the situation. When will the B.H.A. understand that in today’s society handing out 21-day bans, as it was with Havlin, and 7-days to Watson, for being ‘easy’ on a horse and yet only banning a jockey for 4-days when over-zealous use of the whip is the offence, only serves to show horse racing to its distractors in a very poor light?
Regrettably, Havlin chose not to appeal his suspension. Watson is to appeal and for the good of the sport I hope he succeeds in having the suspension overturned. Not that the Nottingham stewards will receive a rap over the knuckles for their sensationist incompetence. Not publicly, anyway. The underlying story with Watson, he alleges, is that he is being victimised, having received 4 bans in the last 5-weeks. Whether that is true or not is not meaningful to the Nottingham inquiry which has to considered on its own merits.
It was, I accept, perfectly valid for there to be an inquiry on the day. When horses run erratically the stewards should always inquiry, if only to establish and record all the relevant facts, as should their findings be relayed to the public. But horses are not mechanised; they are sentient beings, with thoughts and persuasions not naturally in synchronisation with the requirements of their jockeys. This was a 2-year-old having its first experience of the racecourse and for it to have been subject to a hard race, with whip drawn and hard driven, could easily have soured the horse for life, leaving it useless as a racehorse. Watson acted not only in the best interests of the horse but the best interests of its owner and trainer. Watson should be commended not punished. For bringing the sport into disrepute, for arming our opponents with slings and arrows to use against us, it is the stewards who deserve to be sanctioned.