Amo Racing lodge appeal against controversial Norfolk Stakes result

The most controversial moment of Royal Ascot is set to be revisited after the BHA confirmed Amo Racing have lodged an appeal against the stewards' decision not to reverse the placings in the Norfolk Stakes.

James O'Mahony will chair a hearing of the independent judicial panel on Thursday, July 7, with Alison Royston and Tim Etherington also due to consider the case.

Paul Hanagan was given a ten-day ban for careless riding after The Ridler veered across the track, causing interference with fourth-placed Brave Nation and Amo Racing's Crispy Cat, before straightening up to beat another of the same owner's runners in Walbank by a length and three-quarters.

According to the BHA report on the incident, the Ascot stewards were "satisfied that the interference had not improved the position of the winner, The Ridler, and therefore ordered for the weighed-in to be given once the riders had passed the scale".

The British rules of racing have four categories of riding offence, descending in order of seriousness from dangerous through careless and improper riding to the lowest offence of accidental interference.

No rider has been found guilty of dangerous riding in Britain since 2009.

Should a rider be found guilty of dangerous riding the stewards are duty bound to disqualify the winning horse, but in all other cases the only way they can amend the result is if they can be satisfied that on the balance of probabilities the impeded horse would have finished in front of the horse causing the interference.

Silvestre de Sousa snatches up on the Michael O'Callaghan-trained Crispy Cat (purple)Credit: Sky Sports Racing

On the day Silvestre de Sousa, rider of third-placed Crispy Cat, thought that he "definitely would have won" but for the interference, though the stewards felt that The Ridler cutting across had cost him only second place.

In the immediate post-race interview – and thus before he had reviewed the replay – Hanagan believed that the jockeys in behind did not need to stop riding and that he had "done everything I could". But Ruby Walsh was among a number of other commentators to criticise the decision not to disqualify the winner.

The BHA mounted a stout defence of the rules as written and interpreted in Britain, disputing the claim made by some critics that The Ridler would have lost the race anywhere outside North America and noting over the last decade "other nations such as Japan, France and Germany have all transitioned to the British approach over recent years, with all observing the number of interference inquiries decreasing significantly as a result".

Former Group 1-winning jockey George Baker – a regular contributor to the Racing Post in analysing race-riding – believes the rules need to be tweaked in order to give stewards more power to demote, especially in cases where a wide winning margin makes it almost impossible to take a horse down unless the stewards define a ride as dangerous.

"We've just got to get it cleaner," said Baker, who was one of a number of jockey coaches on hand at Royal Ascot to accompany apprentices and other inexperienced riders on course walks. "Our interference rules in terms of demotions and placings are pretty fair, and using the law of probability to judge whether the best horse has won is right.

George Baker: 'The biggest penalty of all is losing a race'Credit: Edward Whitaker

"But I think there needs to be an element of removing that win-at-all-costs mentality.

"I don't think we see it all the time and people talk about stiffer penalties. But the biggest penalty of all is losing a race."

Gerald Mosse has been based in both Britain and Hong Kong over the years, as well as in his native France, where in March 2018 authorities moved away from a stewarding model which routinely demoted a horse if interference caused a rival to lose a place, towards one more closely allied to the British model.

That was the conclusion of more than a decade of work carried out under the guidance of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities aimed at harmonising interference rules around the world.

Mosse said: "I was at Ascot and I saw the race. In my opinion British stewards are more professional and I think they read the races better than in France. I don't want to criticise stewards, who have a difficult job in judging these things.

"But definitely it's important that they reprimand the jockey and ensure that the rules are followed. You can't cross like that and wipe out two guys without even trying to correct your course."

Mosse added: "Paul is a friend of mine and I'm not here to judge. Maybe in the moment you think you're going quicker than the others and you don't need to correct, because you think you will pass them. But in this situation he knows he is going to cause problems."

Gerald Mosse: praised the British stewards as being expert race-readersCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

Asked what he thought about the BHA's characterisation of the rules being applied the same in other jurisdictions, Mosse said: "In France it used to be different and I don't think that was fair. In Hong Kong you have to be two lengths clear. I don't know if the punishment would have been more severe because he got ten days, which is five weeks in Hong Kong. There, he might have got four days and a fine of HK$30-40,000.

"In Hong Kong they race only twice a week, whereas here it's every day, which is why the whole punishment in Britain tends to be days and not fines."

Members can watch the Norfolk Stakes replay here

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Kia Joorabchian and Amo team fuming as two runners 'wiped out' by wayward winner

Ruby Walsh: 'The fouler gets the benefit in racing – I'm not sure that's right'

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