Rossa Ryan won a partial victory against a massive 28-day riding ban at an appeal hearing on Tuesday. The 26-year-old rider, who is in third place in the Flat jockeys championship behind Billy Loughnane and Oisin Murphy, was found guilty of 'failing to take all reasonable and permissible measures to obtain the best possible placing on a horse that would have finished first' when he rode Thunder Home, who finished second in a race at Sandown last month.
The James Horton-trained runner had led nearly all the way until he was caught right on the line by the fast-finishing Zero Error, who won by a nose under Jamie Spencer.
Appeal hearing details
At an appeal before a BHA disciplinary panel, BHA regulatory counsel Catherine Daly said Ryan's mount had been four lengths clear with half a furlong of the 7f race to run, but the jockey then 'places both his hands back on the reins' and then 'can be clearly seen to stop riding with said vigour' for about three strides, or one second. 'It is my case that this horse clearly would have won this race had Mr Ryan not eased off,' Daly said. 'It's not a matter of 'could' have won.'
In his evidence, Ryan described Thunder Home as an inexperienced two-year-old who had 'worked incredibly hard' to establish his advantage. 'I put my stick down because the horse has given me everything,' he said. 'When I put my stick down my horse's speed is decreasing. His stride isn't but his speed is. I am really starting to feel the hill in Sandown. He's been alone in front from the get-go. Late on he has changed his legs to try and stretch again and he can't. What the BHA argue I don't agree with. I'm actually adjusting my body. I have never stopped riding my mount.' He later added: 'I think Mr Spencer would have won either way.'
Cross-examination and arguments
During cross-examination, Daly quoted the Sandown inquiry transcript in which Ryan had admitted he 'thought he had the race won' and that he expected Thunder Home to 'coast to the line, not a problem. There is one stride I missed where you can make an argument that I didn't fully extend my hands'. Daly asked: 'Did you ease off and stop applying the same pressure because you expected he'd coast to the line?' Ryan said: 'I didn't ease off. I adjusted what I'd seen fit to the horse on the day. When I emphasise 'coast' I mean as in he doesn't need the stick. He's given me everything.' He admitted not knowing Spencer was closing. Daly asked: 'If you had realised Mr Spencer was there you would have kept riding with the same vigour that you had been riding and your horse would have won the race, wouldn't it?' 'No,' said Ryan.
Ryan's solicitor Rory Mac Neice said: 'Keeping a horse in balance is imperative. This horse is a two-year-old. It was the first time in its life it had been in front for the whole race. It was tiring. It shifts left at the very point we see the alteration in Mr Ryan's riding. The horse then changed its lead which allows the horse to flatten and Mr Ryan immediately flattens with it. That adjustment is reasonable in the circumstances of this race and the horse he is riding.'
Panel decision
Panel chair HH James O'Mahony said the BHA had presented 'a classic case of a jockey easing down when he thought he had the race won', adding, 'And he hadn't realised that with a typical, perhaps, Jamie Spencer, run, if I may be permitted to say that, he was coming with great knots on his outside to, as it were, nick the race.' Ryan's case was that he adjusted his riding 'by moving his body weight to the rhythm of the horse in circumstances where the horse was declining in strength and impetus at that stage of the race, and that that was a perfectly proper thing for a jockey to do'. He added: 'On the balance of probabilities, we prefer the BHA account, and we conclude that it is the correct account.'
However, the panel ruled that this race was one Ryan 'could, and not would' have won. 'And in those circumstances, it's not compulsory to impose a sanction of 28 days. The appropriate figure is one of 10 days.' The ban will begin on August 6.
