R Rotorua 17 April 2013 – R 3
ID: JCA18190
Code:
Thoroughbred
Meet Title:
Racing Rotorua - 17 April 2013
Meet Chair:
JHolloway
Meet Committee Member 1:
AGodsalve
Race Date:
2013/04/17
Race Number:
R 3
Decision:
As the charge was admitted the committee found the charge proved.
Penalty:
Miss Johnson was suspended from riding in races from the conclusion of racing on the 20th April 2013 until the conclusion of racing on the 1st June 2013 which is a period of 6 weeks.
Charge:
Miss Johnson was charged with failing to ride her mount ‘Whitney Spice’ out to the end of the race when it had a reasonable chance of finishing in first position in race 3, The Rotorua Club 1230.
Rule 636(1)(c) reads:
(1) A person
(c) being the rider of a horse in a race, must ride his horse out to the end of the race if there is a reasonable chance of it running into a position for which there is to be prize money to be awarded or a dividend to be declared.
Facts:
Miss Johnson appeared for the hearing. She was advised by the committee of the serious nature of the charge and confirmed that she wished to proceed with the hearing and was admitting the breach.
Mr Oatham read the rule and advised the hearing the stewards' contention was that when Miss Johnson stopped riding short of the finish she certainly had a reasonable chance of winning the race with the final margin being a nose between first and second.
Mr Coles referred the hearing to video footage of the concluding stages of race 3, The Rotorua Club 1230 and identified the relevant runners, being Miss Johnson riding Whitney Spice and Apprentice Jockey R Hutchings on Mistarox. At that point in the race with 100 to 150 metres to run, Mistarox was in third position approximately 2 lengths from Whitney Spice and beginning to mount a strong run under a vigorous ride.
Miss Johnson wide on the track was clearly in front and finishing in first place when she stood up and stopped riding approximately 3 strides short of the line. Mistarox finishing strongly on her outside crossed the line immediately before Whitney Spice with the judge’s margin being a nose.
Clearly Miss Johnson had made an error in possibly misjudging the finish line and no blame could be attributed to her horse.
Miss Johnson in response confirmed it had been an error of judgement. She didn’t know what she had been thinking and had “stuffed up”. She hadn’t seen Mistarox on her outside. Her horse was travelling well without too much pressure 100 metres short of the race but in the conditions had slowed up quickly when she stopped riding. It was the horse’s first race but she had ridden the horse in previous trials.
Submissions for Penalty:
Mr Oatham told the hearing that Miss Johnson had one similar breach in April 2012 where she stopped riding on a horse in tenth position in a stakes race. Otherwise her record under this rule was good. Although Miss Johnson clearly had an obligation to ride her horse out on that occasion the circumstances were clearly a lot different for the current charge.
The current breach was obviously a very bad error of judgement with severe repercussions. Quite often jockeys make errors and manage to hold on with only a major wakeup call. The riding conditions were difficult which coming from summer conditions can impact on jockeys failing to adjust. The horse was a first starter and more likely to pull up when the jockey stopped riding than a more experienced mount. Also finishing wider on the track made it more difficult for riders who could be deceived by the angle.
The greatest significance of Miss Johnson's conduct was on the betting public and the connections of Whitney Spice who would both feel that they had been robbed of a win by her failure to fulfill her obligations to ride the horse out to the finish.
Mr. Oatham referred to a number of previous similar breaches of this rule including ‘B’ at Wanganui in October 2012 who was suspended for 5 weeks for losing by half a length, ‘L’ in April 2012 dead heating for 1st suspended for four and a half weeks and others for minor placings being suspended for periods between 4 and 6 weeks.
He submitted that in line with recent decisions this breach was deserving of a six week suspension.
Miss Johnson told the committee she had no submissions to offer. In the event of a suspension she preferred it to start after racing on Saturday 20th April 2013.
Reasons for Penalty:
In establishing an appropriate penalty the Committee considered all of the evidence and the submissions of the parties. We also took into account the JCA penalty guidelines in respect to Rule 636.
There were clearly aggravating factors which formed the basis for the penalty decision. These included the major impact on the betting public and the connections of Whitney Spice who had every right to feel aggrieved by Miss Johnson’s failings over the concluding stages of the race, the high level of the breach in the losing of first place and the associated costs in stake money ($4375 first, $1400 for second), and the serious error of judgement displayed by an experienced and busy rider without any reasonable excuse.
It was the committee’s opinion that the major significance of this breach was its potential impact on the integrity of the NZ Racing Industry.
We assessed the breach as being in the high range.
We accepted that the track conditions were adverse and the horse was inexperienced. We also accepted that the relevant runners were racing wide on the track due to the conditions and that this may have deceived Miss Johnson’s impression of the angle of the finishing line.
However, we found that these factors offered little in mitigation for what was clearly a flagrant breach by Miss Johnson of her obligations under this rule.
Mitigating factors included her guilty plea and relatively good record together with her frank approach to the enquiry and obvious remorse.
JCA Decision Fields (raw)
Dmitry: This section contains all JCA fields migrated from the raw data.
Data from these fields should be mapped appropriately to display amongst the standard fields above; please make note of any values below that are missing in the above standard fields but should be there.
hearingid: f923fd4ca017d12d8c89a1b0829e6857
informantnumber: A4261
horsename:
hearing_racingtype:
startdate: no date provided
newcharge:
plea: admitted
penaltyrequired: 1
decisiondate: 01/04/2013
hearing_title: R Rotorua 17 April 2013 - R 3
charge:
Miss Johnson was charged with failing to ride her mount ‘Whitney Spice’ out to the end of the race when it had a reasonable chance of finishing in first position in race 3, The Rotorua Club 1230.
Rule 636(1)(c) reads:
(1) A person
(c) being the rider of a horse in a race, must ride his horse out to the end of the race if there is a reasonable chance of it running into a position for which there is to be prize money to be awarded or a dividend to be declared.
facts:
Miss Johnson appeared for the hearing. She was advised by the committee of the serious nature of the charge and confirmed that she wished to proceed with the hearing and was admitting the breach.
Mr Oatham read the rule and advised the hearing the stewards' contention was that when Miss Johnson stopped riding short of the finish she certainly had a reasonable chance of winning the race with the final margin being a nose between first and second.
Mr Coles referred the hearing to video footage of the concluding stages of race 3, The Rotorua Club 1230 and identified the relevant runners, being Miss Johnson riding Whitney Spice and Apprentice Jockey R Hutchings on Mistarox. At that point in the race with 100 to 150 metres to run, Mistarox was in third position approximately 2 lengths from Whitney Spice and beginning to mount a strong run under a vigorous ride.
Miss Johnson wide on the track was clearly in front and finishing in first place when she stood up and stopped riding approximately 3 strides short of the line. Mistarox finishing strongly on her outside crossed the line immediately before Whitney Spice with the judge’s margin being a nose.
Clearly Miss Johnson had made an error in possibly misjudging the finish line and no blame could be attributed to her horse.
Miss Johnson in response confirmed it had been an error of judgement. She didn’t know what she had been thinking and had “stuffed up”. She hadn’t seen Mistarox on her outside. Her horse was travelling well without too much pressure 100 metres short of the race but in the conditions had slowed up quickly when she stopped riding. It was the horse’s first race but she had ridden the horse in previous trials.
appealdecision:
isappeal:
submissionsfordecision:
reasonsfordecision:
Decision:
As the charge was admitted the committee found the charge proved.
sumissionsforpenalty:
Mr Oatham told the hearing that Miss Johnson had one similar breach in April 2012 where she stopped riding on a horse in tenth position in a stakes race. Otherwise her record under this rule was good. Although Miss Johnson clearly had an obligation to ride her horse out on that occasion the circumstances were clearly a lot different for the current charge.
The current breach was obviously a very bad error of judgement with severe repercussions. Quite often jockeys make errors and manage to hold on with only a major wakeup call. The riding conditions were difficult which coming from summer conditions can impact on jockeys failing to adjust. The horse was a first starter and more likely to pull up when the jockey stopped riding than a more experienced mount. Also finishing wider on the track made it more difficult for riders who could be deceived by the angle.
The greatest significance of Miss Johnson's conduct was on the betting public and the connections of Whitney Spice who would both feel that they had been robbed of a win by her failure to fulfill her obligations to ride the horse out to the finish.
Mr. Oatham referred to a number of previous similar breaches of this rule including ‘B’ at Wanganui in October 2012 who was suspended for 5 weeks for losing by half a length, ‘L’ in April 2012 dead heating for 1st suspended for four and a half weeks and others for minor placings being suspended for periods between 4 and 6 weeks.
He submitted that in line with recent decisions this breach was deserving of a six week suspension.
Miss Johnson told the committee she had no submissions to offer. In the event of a suspension she preferred it to start after racing on Saturday 20th April 2013.
reasonsforpenalty:
In establishing an appropriate penalty the Committee considered all of the evidence and the submissions of the parties. We also took into account the JCA penalty guidelines in respect to Rule 636.
There were clearly aggravating factors which formed the basis for the penalty decision. These included the major impact on the betting public and the connections of Whitney Spice who had every right to feel aggrieved by Miss Johnson’s failings over the concluding stages of the race, the high level of the breach in the losing of first place and the associated costs in stake money ($4375 first, $1400 for second), and the serious error of judgement displayed by an experienced and busy rider without any reasonable excuse.
It was the committee’s opinion that the major significance of this breach was its potential impact on the integrity of the NZ Racing Industry.
We assessed the breach as being in the high range.
We accepted that the track conditions were adverse and the horse was inexperienced. We also accepted that the relevant runners were racing wide on the track due to the conditions and that this may have deceived Miss Johnson’s impression of the angle of the finishing line.
However, we found that these factors offered little in mitigation for what was clearly a flagrant breach by Miss Johnson of her obligations under this rule.
Mitigating factors included her guilty plea and relatively good record together with her frank approach to the enquiry and obvious remorse.
penalty:
Miss Johnson was suspended from riding in races from the conclusion of racing on the 20th April 2013 until the conclusion of racing on the 1st June 2013 which is a period of 6 weeks.
hearing_type: Hearing
Rules: 636(1)(c)
Informant: Mr J Oatham - Stipendiary Steward
JockeysandTrainer: Miss D Johnson - Licensed Jockey
Otherperson: Mr A Coles - Stipendiary Steward
PersonPresent:
Respondent:
StipendSteward:
raceid: f9ae9c71d628e562e1df4e59f706cb8e
race_expapproval:
racecancelled: 0
race_noreport: 0
race_emailed1: 0
race_emailed2: 0
race_title: R 3
submittochair:
race_expappcomment:
race_km:
race_otherexp:
race_chair:
race_pm1:
race_pm2:
meetid: 22132fa3dcd23ff80ab511eed69b1e48
meet_expapproval:
meet_noreport: 0
waitingforpublication: 0
meet_emailed1: 0
meet_emailed2: 0
meetdate: 17/04/2013
meet_title: Racing Rotorua - 17 April 2013
meet_expappcomment:
meet_km:
meet_otherexp:
tracklocation: racing-rotorua
meet_racingtype: thoroughbred-racing
meet_chair: JHolloway
meet_pm1: AGodsalve
meet_pm2: none
name: Racing Rotorua