Jockey questions dead-heat, loses race

Race caller Russell Leonard didn’t know how wise he was being when he opted not to give any opinion on the outcome of the fourth race at MacKay on Tuesday.

The race came down to a two-cornered contest between the Zoe Hohn trained Ruffin’ It, who was trying hold on to claim the victory, and the fast-finishing Oddfellow, who is trained by Georgie Holt.

The two runners ultimately flashed through the line seemingly locked together with the finish being so tight that it was difficult to separate the runners with the naked eye.

‘They hit it (the line) … and I’m not sure … I’ll leave it to the judge. The judge can separate them … and I’m staying out of that. I’m a deer with no eyes … no idea,” called Leonard.

‘Staying out’ would end up being a very good call, not only because of the tightness of the finish, but also because the process of declaring of the result was about to hit some unwanted, unusual and unfortunate turbulence.

Firstly, the decision went to the judge, as per procedure, who ruled the result to be a dead-heat. That normally would have been that … but not this time.

It is believed that Chelsea Jokic, the rider of Oddfellow, wanted stewards to review the photo believing she had won the race. After something close to a twenty-minute delay, it was announced that a margin had in fact been found … but in favour of Ruffin’ It and not Oddfellow as Jokic had hoped.

The stewards then altered the result accordingly, setting the judge’s original dead-heat decision aside and declaring Ruffin’ It the winner with Oddfellow being relegated to second place.

Importantly, all of this was done before ‘correct weight’ had been declared.

While it was still an unsettling occurrence, it panned out a whole lot better than the now ‘infamous’ photo-finish back in 2019 at Yeppoon when Great Fox was declared the winner over Victory Toast in a close call.

Justin Stanley, the rider of Victory Toast, disputed the outcome on the day, but the result stood and correct weight was declared … that is until, would you believe, almost two months later when further investigation and gathering of evidence led stewards to utilise a little used rule which empowered them to be able to revoke a result after correct weight had been finalised.

On that occasion … almost two months later remember … the original winner Great Fox was relegated to second spot and Victory Toast promoted to the winner’s position.

A further sequel to that protracted outcome followed when the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission (QRIC) announced that a payment would be made to the connections of Great Fox to make up the difference between first and second place prize money, ‘in recognition that these circumstances could leave the connections of Great Fox financially disadvantaged through no fault of their own.’

There was no compensation for punters who had bet on Victory Toast to win though, as all bets were settled on confirmation of correct weight as it happened on race-day.

So, while the alteration to the formal result to the fourth race at Mackay on Tuesday was regrettable, it was at least sorted out as quickly as possible in the circumstances.

Ultimately, just as with the video review system in the English Premier League and its use in cricket and line calls in tennis, the desired result is always to get the correct decision.

So, in that respect, the drama apart, this was a case of all’s well that ends well.

*The official Stewards Report for the Mackay meeting was still not available at the time of writing.