Jason Maguire has lost his appeal against a 14-day ‘non-triers’ ban and has therefore been ruled out of next month’s Cheltenham Festival. It is the second consecutive year that the jockey will miss jump racing’s biggest week, Maguire having been badly injured before last year’s event.
The verdict came at the end of a three-hour disciplinary hearing at the British Horseracing Authority which explored the fault line between what officials demand in the way of visible effort and what racing professionals feel they can ask of an inexperienced and immature animal. Both Maguire and the trainer Ben Pauling defended themselves vigorously, having been found guilty by the Ludlow stewards last week of giving Born To Succeed a “schooling and conditioning” run when the horse was seventh in a maiden hurdle.
The BHA’s Lyn Williams said there was no quarrel with Maguire’s ride as far as the turn for home but from that point the jockey had failed to make a real and substantial effort. Pointing to the rules’ requirement that the jockey not only make such an effort but be seen to do so, Williams said: “If he does not ask the question, we do not know what the response would be.”
Representing Maguire and Pauling, Graeme McPherson QC showed scorn for the BHA’s suggestion that Pauling might send a horse to the races for “a school round”. “It’s fantasy, bluntly, that that plan is even being suggested,” he said.
“Mr Pauling has taken the time and trouble to teach the horse at home,” and he pointed to the trainer’s schooling records, which show specific dates on which Born To Succeed was schooled. “No one is suggesting that the horse went to Ludlow as the finished product. He’s on a learning curve but that puts him on a par with 90% of the horse population.”
Maguire said the horse had responded to his first use of the whip, midway down the back straight, but not to a second during the long turn for home. “If I’d ridden him vigorously from the road-crossing, he’d be on the ground,” the jockey said. “He’s not experienced enough, he’s not man enough. He’d have stepped into a hurdle.”
Talking over a video replay of the race, Maguire continued: “That’s my horse stopping so quickly that the horses in front have gone eight lengths away. He stops so quickly, I’m thinking, ‘Am I going to pull this horse up?’ I want to get him home, I want to get him to finish this race.
“I’m keeping him balanced and I don’t want him to step into a hurdle. You’ll see, at the last, I’ve let go of his head to see what he’d do and he didn’t know what to do. That’s a tired horse.”
Pauling offered some context for the horse’s run, noting that Born To Succeed had been trained by James Ewart until around six weeks before the Ludlow race. Immediately after the race, Pauling told the Ludlow stewards that the horse had been “wired to the moon” on arrival at the yard and that he had had to do a lot of work to get the horse to settle.
Before this panel, Pauling enlarged on those comments, describing the initial problems he had with Born To Succeed. “He would plant on a daily basis at the bottom of the gallops. He would rear, spin round, go backwards. But he’s not a horse that’s going to be a nutter for the rest of his career. If he’s taught to settle properly, he’ll be a racehorse. He’s not thick, he’s just mentally immature.”
Pauling said the horse had learned to behave on the gallops by the time of the Ludlow race and was sent to the track in the belief that he could be competitive. “But first and foremost, he had to get round. All horses are learning. Some horses are able to learn and still win because they’re so much better than everything else. He learnt a lot from that race.”
Williams asked Pauling if he was happy that Maguire appeared to be making less visible effort up the home straight than other jockeys around him. “You don’t need to be flailing your arms or flapping your legs to get the best out of a horse,” the trainer said. “The other horses around us don’t have histories like our horse.”
McPherson showed the panel video footage of Born To Succeed’s first two runs, when with Ewart. On both occasions, in an Ayr bumper and then a hurdle race at Newcastle, he had raced freely before getting obviously tired and fading rapidly. He was eventually beaten 38 lengths at Ayr and was pulled up by Maguire at the top of the Newcastle straight.
Asked about his expectations for the horse at Ludlow, Pauling said: “I don’t think you can have any expectations of the horse when you’ve seen his previous runs. I hoped he’d run well and he did but he got tired after pulling early on.
“When you’ve got a horse like this, fractious, if he fell, then we’d probably be putting the pieces together for another year. Instead, he will come on massively. He’s had a much better experience.”
In response, Williams said: “Their delight in seeing a difficult horse complete the course does not meet the requirements of the rule, that the jockey be seen to make a real and substantial effort.” It appears the panel agreed with that view, although they did not offer reasons for their decision. Those reasons will be published in due course.
The panel refunded the deposit Maguire and Pauling had placed at the time of making the appeal, an indication that it had certainly not been seen as frivolous. Pauling must now pay a fine of £3,000 while the horse will be banned from racing for 40 days. Maguire’s ban runs from Wednesday 4 March and covers all four days of the Cheltenham Festival, which starts on 10 March.
Maguire and Pauling told the panel they had never previously been accused of a breach under the ‘non-triers’ rules. Neither man offered any comment as they left the hearing.
