Barry Geraghty’s 30-day ban overturned

Barry Geraghty is free to ride at next week’s Punchestown festival after successfully appealing a 30 day ‘non-trier’ suspension at the Turf Club on Monday night.

Following a three and a half hour hearing in front of the Appeals & Referrals Committee, Geraghty was cleared of any wrongdoing in relation to his ride on the JP McManus owned Noble Emperor at Limerick at the start of the month.

Noble Emperor finished runner up to Velocity Boy in a handicap hurdle and the racecourse stewards imposed the harshest penalty given to a high profile senior jockey inmodern times. The horse’s trainer Tony Martin was fined €3,000 while the horsewas banned for 60 days.

After a lengthy hearing, Geraghty won his appeal and Martin’s appeal was also successful, as was McManus’s appeal against Noble Emperor’s suspension from racing.

Geraghty, in his first season as No.1 jockey to McManus, said he was delighted with the decisionand that he had been left “flattened” by the original decision at Limerick.

“It was a tricky race, and it was a tricky race to ride. I’m just glad they’ve seen it in itstrue light,” Geraghty said.

“I believed at every stage during the race I was doing the right thing and in a similar situation I wouldprobably do the same as I did. You’ve got to go with what you believe and I’m gladthe committee could relate to it as it was,” he added.

During the hearing, Geraghty maintained that by giving Noble Emperor cover, despite the front-runningVelocity Boy enjoying a lengthy lead, he was giving his horse the best opportunity to get his best possible placing.

The jockey said if he had gone in pursuit of Velocity Boy earlier, he could have wound up allowing Noble Emperor to run too keen and may have finished only third or fourth.

Geraghty gave evidence for an hour and forty minutes, during which it was put to him by theTurf Club barrister, Louis Weston, that he hadn’t given Noble Emperor an opportunityto win.

Geraghty reported that at Limerick he had been riding strictly to instructions from Tony Martin but in his evidence to the three-man appeals panel, Martin said he felt the jockeycould have switched to “Plan B” earlier in the race although he felt at best it would have got Noble Emperor two lengths closer to the 11 length winner.

McManus’s solicitor, Patrick Kennedy, reported to the panel that a “close associate” had had a “significant bet” on Noble Emperor at Limerick, provided documentary evidence of that bet, and argued that the owner was not guilty of any offence.

The panel, chaired byJudge Tony Hunt, took about 20 minutes to make their decision and, taking into account the handicapper raising Noble Emperor 1lb after the Limerick race, felt the horse had achieved its best position given the way the race panned out.

“That’s what the appeals body is for, to have a second look at what happens on the racecourse,”said the Turf Club’s chief executive, Denis Egan.