Smullen gets 10-day ban

This season's leading jockey, Pat Smullen, was last night examining video tapes of yesterday's opener at Listowel after being hit with a dramatic, 10-day ban for apparently elbowing a rider in the head during the finish of the race.

Smullen was judged to have lunged at Colm O'Donoghue inside the final furlong of the six-furlong handicap, and the stewards decided he was guilty of "improper riding".

The suspension covers days on which there is flat racing in Ireland, and will start tomorrow week. It ends in Ireland on October 22nd and could yet affect the jockeys' championship, which looked to have been in Smullen's safe-keeping after Fran Berry's Curragh fall last month.

Just half an hour after the incident yesterday, Smullen won the juvenile auction maiden on the favourite, Kempes, to take his seasonal tally to 65.

That leaves him 13 clear of Kieren Fallon, but this prolonged absence could provoke a change of heart from Fallon, who had insisted he has no interest in chasing a first Irish jockeys' title.

"I don't really want to say much now," said former double-champion Smullen.

"I was short of room. I want to go home and look at the video before deciding what I want to do."

Smullen has the option of appealing the ban or the severity of the suspension. He eventually finished fifth on Miss Isabela, a place behind O'Donoghue's mount Tubbertown Rose, in a race won by Tiffany Gardens.

"I thought he was pulling his whip through, but then I saw the film," commented O'Donoghue, while a stewards spokesman said there was obvious intent in Smullen's action.

Smullen was involved in a controversial incident at Leopardstown last month when he was punched in the face by John Murtagh just after passing the post. Murtagh received a 21-day suspension for that; coincidentally, it finishes up today with the jockey in action at Goodwood.

Some of Smullen's intended big international targets, which include Vinnie Roe in the Melbourne Cup and possibly Grey Swallow at the Breeders Cup in New York, are not affected by the suspension.

Robbie Burke couldn't ride at the meeting yesterday due to a family illness and the jockey missed out on a couple of winners.

Wayne Lordan stepped in for the ride on Tiffany Gardens, but it was Declan McDonogh who picked up a winning "spare" in the mile handicap on Skerries. The filly rewarded the long journey from the Ardee, Co Louth, yard of Harry Rogers with a gutsy, short-head defeat of Peineve.

McDonogh then doubled up on the favourite Chiado, who scampered clear of his market rival Born For Glory to score impressively in the mile juvenile maiden.

The 9 to 2 joint favourite Don't Be Bitin eventually got the better of Cellarmaster in an incident-packed Lartigue Hurdle to score for Ruby Walsh and trainer Eoin Griffin.