An objection was lodged in the Hollywoodbets Greyville fourth race on Daily News Saturday this past weekend. The handling of the A to Z of the incident from a public information viewpoint leave ground for improvement.
Donald Bradshaw writes in the Sporting Post Mailbag that all we got was a flashing ‘race review’ no objection or grounds for an objection was announced to the horse racing viewers watching Tellytrack.
The next thing is a flashing ‘objection overruled’ – and no further comments, explanations or observations by the presenters or by the NHRA.
And now I turn to the objection itself which I assume was on the grounds of crossing and taking up the running of the fourth placed horse, Flower Of Saigon by the second placed horse, Mama Pyjama who ran across the track from the centre to the inside rail causing severe interference to Flower of Saigon in the closing stages as a viewing of the patrol film of the race clearly confirms.
If my assumption is correct, and here I do not know who lodged the objection, the connections of Flower of Saigon or the Stipes , the only question to be answered by the members of the objection board is ‘but for this incident / interference would the final result have been different from the order of finish when the horses crossed the finish line?’
The patrol film clearly shows Flower Of Saigon finishing the better of the eventual third placed horse Integrity, who is on the inside running rail – but then Mama Pyjama suddenly shifts across to the inside of the track taking up the running of Flower Of Saigon who has to check severely short of the finishing line as she becomes squeezed between Mama Pyjama and Integrity.
Watch the replay – and the head on that follows:
The result of this incident / interference allows Integrity to cross the finish line a short head in front of Flower of Saigon who was clearly headed for third place until she was squeezed and checked.
Therefore, in my opinion, the result of the race was clearly affected by the incident / interference caused by Mama Pyjama as is confirmed by the patrol film and the objection should have been upheld in terms of the objection rules of the NHRA and the result amended accordingly to 1st Top Me Up Holly 2nd Integrity 3rD Flower of Saigon and 4th Mama Pyjama.
In the circumstances how is it possible that the NHRA , on the clear evidence before them, ignore their own objection rules ?
Ed – The official Stipes Report states that at the 100m, FLOWER OF SAIGON (G van Niekerk) was carried in by MAMA PYJAMA (A Mgudlwa) which was hanging in from the 250m.
- A race review was called into this incident by Jockey G van Niekerk and Trainer G S Kotzen, which was followed by an objection being lodged by Jockey G van Niekerk, the rider of the fourth placed horse (FLOWER OF SAIGON) against the second placed horse (MAMA PYJAMA) (A Mgudlwa) on the grounds of interference in the concluding stages.
- After considering the evidence in this matter, the Board overruled the objection.
- In arriving at this decision, the Board considered that, the distance between 4th and 2nd at the finish was 0.65 lengths and the fact that on each of the available angles, there was no material evidence to support the contention that FLOWER OF SAIGON would have finished ahead of MAMA PYJAMA, but for the above incident.
- Consequently, the Board could not be satisfied that, but for the above incident, FLOWER OF SAIGON would have finishing ahead of MAMA PYJAMA, therefore it overruled the objection and allowed the Judge’s result to stand.
- The Board was of the view that there was no reasonable prospect of this objection being upheld therefore Jockey G van Niekerk’s deposit was forfeited.
- An Inquiry has been opened into this incident.
