Connections of Alphonse Le Grande have been successful in their appeal against his disqualification from first place in the Cesarewitch at Newmarket last month and he has been reinstated as the winner.
Apprentice jockey Jamie Powell was deemed to have used his whip 10 times in the closing stages, four more than the permitted allowance, and due to the value of the race the Whip Review Committee awarded the historic handicap to the Simon and Ed Crisford-trained Manxman, who had been beaten by a nose.
However, trainer Cathy O’Leary and owners the Bet Small Win Big Syndicate appealed that decision, as did Powell, who had been handed a 28-day suspension.
An independent British Horseracing Authority disciplinary panel concluded that one of Powell’s strikes was not intentional, as he made contact with the horse moving his whip from one hand to the other.
Panel chair Sarah Crowther KC said: “We find that his body position was different to the first nine strikes, it seems to us that he was somewhat crouched and off balance to his left and very low in the saddle.
“Whilst his arm and hand were in the same angle as the previous strikes, the change in body position and the different stride of the horse had the effect of changing the angle of the strike.
Alphonse Le Grande (yellow) crosses the line first in the Cesarewitch
“It was common ground, that as Mr Powell retrieved his whip from that strike on the way back, pulling it back towards his right-hand side and bringing it forward, there was contact. It seemed to us the question for us was whether that contact constituted use of the whip.”
She went on: “Adopting a pragmatic interpretation of the word ‘use’ in context of the rules as a whole and from our experience of panel of racing, we find it is not every single contact between a whip and a horse that will amount to a use.
“We do find this is a fact sensitive question and specifically on the facts of this case we find the contact was made in circumstances where Mr Powell was retrieving his stick from the wrong side of the horse and it was effectively an unavoidable contact which could not have had any material impact on the performance of the horse.
“Therefore we find that in total there were nine uses, three above the permitted level, the horse will be reinstated and the suspension will be 20 days.”