The comedy of errors surrounding the Redwood Queen case needs a conclusive resolution when it is examined by an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) referrals panel on Monday. The bitter reality, though, is that most people will probably go big odds about any definitive picture of what happened ultimately emerging.
The original apparent blunder occurred at Wexford in May in a nondescript claiming hurdle. The Charles Byrnes-trained Redwood Queen, a weak-in-the-betting 13/2 shot, looked to have the race in safe keeping coming to the last flight only for her jockey, the trainer’s son Philip, to be unseated in bizarre fashion. It allowed the well-backed favourite Beacon Edge to win.
Repeated replays of Byrnes exiting out the side-door only made it look more peculiar. Slow-motion VAR footage of controversial football incidents are often said to make things look worse than they actually are; even sped up to the max, this clip still leaves most viewers and punters flabbergasted.
Byrnes has had 68 winners over jumps in Ireland and Britain in the last five years. There were 57 over hurdles and 11 over fences. He’s no leading light, but is demonstrably a proficient professional jockey. In trite football punditry terms, it might be said that Byrnes will have been disappointed with himself looking back at the film.
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The stewards at Wexford had the film to look back on immediately. They opted to take no action, not even feeling it necessary to ask Byrnes to explain the circumstances of his unseat. That means there’s an absence of live evidence in the immediate aftermath of the incident. It was only a day later, and after an entirely predictable brouhaha on all sorts of media, that the IHRB said a senior racing official would investigate it.
As a result of that, and after close to seven months, a hearing will finally be heard at the IHRB’s Curragh HQ on Monday. It’s not hard to see why it will generate significant public interest.
Some of that, inevitably, has to do with Byrnes snr and his chequered history with racing’s regulation, most notoriously the infamous Viking Hoard ‘nobbling’ incident at Tramore in 2018. The controversial Limerick trainer was suspended for six months in 2021 after being found to be seriously negligent in supervising his charge in the Tramore stable-yard.
Plenty are prepared to believe the worst when it comes to Charles Byrnes. It’s the old story about how a reputation sticks, but it would be unfair for any of it to stick to his son. He suggested after Wexford that his son was hurting more than anyone about the mishap and argued that Redwood Queen “came up out of his hands and blew him out of the saddle”. But with betting, little encouragement is needed to suspect the worst.
The IHRB said its investigation would engage with external service providers where necessary.
Proving intent in something like this is a colossal task. In 2004, Sean Fox got a 21-day ban for appearing to step off his mount in a chase at Fontwell. Suspicious betting patterns were pointed to as a contributory factor. Fox denied any wrongdoing and was eventually cleared after what he described as “six months of hell”.
That the matter is being heard at all suggests the IHRB feel there is some case to answer. Much longer investigations have been dropped for lack of evidence in the past. Nevertheless, and unfair as it might or might not be, the widespread perception remains that the IHRB is all too often more than happy to substitute motion for action.
Those embroiled in the Redwood Queen case deserve an objective examination of the facts involved. The echo chamber of popular opinion can’t apply.
The IHRB is simultaneously charged with maintaining public confidence in the sport. It appears to have a big task in convincingly navigating a problem so open to interpretation, particularly since it often finds itself open to accusations of not having the wherewithal to do so – even in some comparatively straightforward cases.
Last week’s hearing into jockey Danny Gilligan’s appeal against the severity of a 14-day ban for breaking ‘Non-Trier’ rules, for instance, underlined how random regulatory action can seem sometimes.
Gilligan admitted breaching the rules when riding the Gordon Elliott-trained Gunnery Sergeant in a maiden hurdle at Navan last month. What he hoped for was a reduction in the length of a ban that ruled him out until the New Year. Veterinary evidence that the appeals panel “attached weight” to said the horse was probably sick when it ran. So, Gilligan’s ban somehow got quashed entirely.
He can hardly have believed his good fortune, especially since the 60-day ban from racing on the horse remains in place. The rationale behind it is unclear because the IHRB statement is practically free from explanatory detail. Such a casual approach hardly encourages confidence that a problem as knotty as Redwood Queen can be untangled.
Something for the Weekend
VINCENZO (1.50) is back at Cheltenham for Saturday’s December Gold Cup following his runner-up placing to Panic Attack in last month’s Paddy Power. The form could hardly have got a better boost than Panic Attack’s subsequent Newbury success. Sam Thomas’s runner can make light of a 2lb hike for his last effort.
Trainer Venetia Williams is coming back into winning form and ZERTAKT (12.40) can underline the point on soft going in an earlier handicap chase.
