There has been a storm of protest about the upheld objection at Turffontein on Tuesday which saw the Sean Tarry-trained Emerald Princess being awarded the race at the expense of the Stuart Pettigrew-trained Queen Of Smoke.
Those who strongly disagree with the result need not elaborate much on their reasons.
However, the 5500-career-winners legend Piere Strydom believes the correct decision was made and his reasons are interesting to hear.
The protesting voices say Emerald Princess found herself stuck on the inside behind a slowing horse in the closing stages.
Meanwhile, Queen Of Smoke was quickening on her outside.
They claim Philasande Mxoli simply holds his line on Queen Of Smoke and does not encroach on Emerald Princess.
He is entitled to do this and it initially appears he can’t move outward anyway because there is another horse on his outside.
Eventually, they say, Calvin Habib decides to force his way into the gap.
In the same way a footballer going for an evenly contested ball is allowed to lean into an opponent, the protesters say Mxoli leans into Habib in an attempt to keep his position after being bumped sideways by Emerald Princess.
His reasons for doing this might also at some stages of the bumping match have been to prevent his mount from crashing into the horse alongside him, because as soon as there is room to move to his left he does so.
The contest then becomes even and Emerald Princess heads Queen Of Smoke, but the latter then produces a late surge to get up.
From their perspective, the only grounds for an objection would have been if Queen Of Smoke had been beaten, because she appears to have been forced off her line by Emerald Princess.
However, Strydom says one has to go further back in the replay.
He said Habib was behind the slowing horse in front, but Mxoli then moves outward slightly creating the gap for Habib, who then naturally goes for it.
Strydom said Mxoli then retrospectively decides to try and force Habib behind the front horse again. i.e. he had realised his mistake in allowing a horse with plenty in the tank a gap and then tried to do what he should have done earlier, but Strydom points out that it is too late and doing it retrospectively is unfair riding.
In fact, Strydom believes Mxoli should also receive a suspension for his actions.
It is in fact impossible to see it the same way the stipendiary stewards saw it because they have access to any angle at any stage of the race.
The replays available to the public on youtube only show the side on view and the 4Racingtv replay shows a limited head on view.
A freeze frame as the 4Racing head on replay starts backs up Strydom’s argument. There is at that stage enough room and Mxoli subsequently moves inward by about one horse width.
The other question is whether Emerald Princess would definitely have beaten Queen Of Smoke but for the interference.
However, the scandal has moved on to worse ground than the rights and wrongs of the decision itself.
It turns out one of the stipendiary stewards who sat in on the objection process, and who was part of the decision-making process, is the father-in-law of the jockey who lodged the objection.
All and sundry agree this should never have been allowed to happen.
People not recusing themselves from decision-making processes is actually quite a common occurrence in South African racing.
