Late hike in the handicap defended

THE SENIOR Turf Club handicapper has held his hands up to the error that resulted in the French horse Estrela Brage being raised 9lb in the handicap just 24 hours before last Sunday's Irish Lincolnshire, but insisted that such corrections have happened before and have occurred even closer to race time.

The late hike in Estrela Brage's rating came in for criticism prior to Sunday's €100,000 feature at the Curragh, and the horse's jockey on the day, Declan McDonogh, said it made a considerable difference to the John Hammond horse, who was beaten less than four lengths into fifth place behind Crooked Throw.

Yesterday, senior handicapper Garry O'Gorman admitted he was "still in shock" as to how he made the original error, but added that the entire process had been carried out correctly by the stewards responsible.

"I wasn't aware of the horse's last piece of form, a second in a Listed race in France, when I made the original rating for the race.

"He was the first French-trained horse to run in a handicap here and I just had the name of the horse to work with, rather than the more extensive information one gets when a horse is being transferred here permanently from France.

"Once I realised he had improved his rating to 97 in France, I alerted the stewards to the error and recommended the weight change.

"If they had said 'no' to that, then the horse would have run under the old mark. But Rule 33 allows the stewards discretion and they decided to use it," O'Gorman said.

"Hypothetically speaking, if the error had only been spotted an hour before the race then their decision might have been different, taking into account any betting situation there might have been.

"But in this situation, before a €100,000 handicap, I didn't see why the connections of the 26 other runners should be inconvenienced by my error.

"John Hammond was frustrated, I'm sure. He must have been thrilled when he saw the old mark. But I'm told the connections expected the same mark to be applied in the different jurisdiction all along," he added.

Last weekend's incident was a high-profile case, but the same discretionary powers under Rule 33 are used occasionally, usually due to a clerical error.

Turf Club rules state that stewards can act in such a manner up to race time. The same rule applies in Britain, although there is a cut-off point at declaration time.

"It happened last year at Ballinrobe on the day of a race. One of Joanna Morgan's horses was rated 45, while the minimum flat rating for a three-year-old was 47.

"The change was made and the horse still won off it," O'Gorman said.

"Something similar happened in Dubai this year when a race was moved from the turf course to the dirt at the last minute and horses ran under their dirt ratings. This rule is used every now and again.

"But it was my error and I'm still in shock as to how I made it," he added.

Estrela Brage started an 11 to 2 favourite for the Lincolnshire and ran prominently before fading to fifth place.