It wasn’t quite the insurrection at Capitol Hill, but when stewards reversed the on-track result of the Group 1 Gran Premio Jockey Club race at San Isidro in Argentina on protest, it prompted very ugly scenes which took the ‘bad loser’ tag for both the punters and the losing connections involved to a new level.
The race was of significant consequence with El Musical looking to win the Argentinian Triple Crown … and he went about that task by trying to lead from start to finish.
He did that, but he also shifted ground under pressure over the final 200m at which time he made contact on more than one occasion with the race runner-up Natan.
The winning margin was only a short-head, prompting the interference to be seen by stewards to have been significant enough to affect the race result which was then revised with Natan being handed the victory in the steward’s room.
That was far from the end of the story.
Scuffles reportedly broke out between the public, racing officials and police with a hostile crowd making stewards well aware of their feelings by jumping balcony’s and smashing windows close to the steward’s room.
The semaphore board reportedly also bore the brunt of disgruntled racegoers who set about damaging the board once the revised result was posted on it.
For the connections of El Musical, the day got even worse as it has been reported that the El Musical ownership group have been provisionally suspended from having runners at San Isidro race-track.
