Alphonse Le Grande has remarkably been reinstated as the winner of last month’s Cesarewitch at Newmarket after it was revealed today that connections were successful with their appeal.
Former champion apprentice Jamie Powell was judged to have used his whip ten times in the closing stages when steering Alphonse Le Grande to a narrow victory, four times over the permitted level.
Due to the class of the race, Alphonse Le Grande was subsequently disqualified days after the contest, meaning the Simon and Ed Crisford-trained Manxman, who had been beaten a nose, was awarded first prize.
However, both the trainer, jockey and owners appealed the decision and after a lengthy hearing on Thursday, an independent British Horseracing Authority disciplinary panel concluded that one of Powell's strikes was not intentional, meaning he did not reach the threshold of ten uses needed for the result to be changed.
"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," said Panel chair Sarah Crowther.
"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.
"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 added: "Adopting a pragmatic interpretation of the word 'use' in the context of the rules as a whole and from our experience of a 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."
Jamie Powell has had his suspension reduced by eight days and Manxman will now be placed second.
