Steve Jones | Sandown’s Winning Posts
IF racing had any boots they’d be riddled with holes.
The latest example of the sport shooting itself in the foot came, predictably, at Sandown’s big jumps card of the season on Saturday afternoon.
In what should’ve left racing fans with a wonderful warm feeling on a cold day, after witnessing a thrilling three-way finish, had most viewers rolling their eyes once again.
It was in the Pertemps qualifier, acting as a tasty aperitif to the clash of the country’s top two-mile chasers in the Grade 1 Tingle Creek Chase an hour and three quarters later.
Two riders at different ends of the age spectrum fought out the finish.
The results say plucky amateur David Maxwell came out on top by a nose riding Dolphin Square from young seven pounds-claiming conditional Ben Bromley on Call Me Lord.
The form book entry reveals the facts, but little of the story.
Bromley should have won the race, no doubt. He was in front when Call Me Lord passed the ‘first’ winning post. Job done. Stop riding.
High drama at @Sandownpark! 🏇
Call Me Lord's Ben Bromley mistakes the winning line, with Dolphin Square & David Maxwell the beneficiaries pic.twitter.com/kVsFtj3lH0
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) December 3, 2022
Unfortunately, there are two winning posts at Sandown and the hurdles track uses the second.
It’s well known that the course – that hosts Hurdle, Chase and Flat races – has two ‘jam sticks’ to mark the finish.
That’s not the issue. Just why the need to double up, is the problem.
They’ll tell you it’s to do with the race distances and the configuration of the tracks.
The chase course run-in from the last fence comes at a much wider angle than the hurdles track, that uses the Flat configuration.
To make it, er, clear which finishing post is which, a wooden disc, painted orange, is put on top of the marker of the ‘live’ post for that specific race.
Head down in a driving finish it’s easy to see why any jockey, let alone an inexperienced 20-year-old like Bromley, might make a mistake.
It was an error that will cost the young jockey dear.
His 28-day ban will rule him out of the busy Christmas period. Another four days was added for a whip offence, so the race, that would have seen him ride his biggest winner to date, ended up wiping him out for a month.
The opportunity to tuck into his festive lunch without fear of tipping the weighing scales too far is scant consolation for what would have surely seen him pick up plenty of winning opportunities.
There were no excuses from the jockey. He held his hands up saying “it was a stupid mistake and won’t happen again”.
It might not happen again to Bromley but, if history tells us anything, it’s that it will happen again to someone else.
He isn’t the first jockey to pick the wrong winning post at Sandown and he won’t be the last. For what?
The two winning lines are just roughly 20 yards apart – about three strides of a racehorse.
If the post used for the chase finishes was chucked into a skip, then the shortest path from the last fence to the post, given the angle of the line, would be nearer the stands’ side. So what?
At least it wouldn’t make racing – and the unfortunate rider – look stupid once again.
28 days is harsh. We all make mistakes. Young Ben Bromley will be missing out on 28 days worth of pay, which for a young lad, is very, very harsh. pic.twitter.com/VYvZoZBQfb
— Harry Beard (@HarryBeard7) December 4, 2022
It’s not just the jockeys that have trouble deciding which post is which. In 2019, at another of Sandown’s big jumps meetings – Imperial Cup day – the judge even got the result wrong having been handed a photo finish shot snapped at the wrong winning post.
All this confusion could be ended in one fell swoop. The argument against a single winning post is that it would give un unfair advantage, by about a length, to horses racing on the stands’ side on the chase course opposed to sticking to the inside.
The jockeys would adapt to the configuration, so how could it be unfair?
Luckily for Bromley, he is unlikely to incur too much of the owner’s wrath as he was riding Call Me Lord in the double green colours of Simon Munir and Isaac Souede.
His father Anthony is their racing manager, who after the race, reportedly shrugged his shoulders as he said: “He won’t be the last”.
Will racing take action to make sure he is the last? Or will it, as usual, shrug its shoulders and let everything drift along without change until the next time?
I wouldn’t mind a bet at evens on the outcome of that particular poser.
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