Appeal at Shaftesbury Avenue successful

Having passed the post first at Newmarket last Saturday, FATHOM FIVE was long odds-on favourite to keep the race in the resultant Stewards Enquiry and the bookies are rarely wrong. Yet they, the course photographers and many professionals watching were astonished when the Newmarket panel reversed the placings.

In a lengthy and meticulous process this morning at Racing’s HQ in Shaftesbury Avenue, David Allan and trainer Bryan Smart put their case through the advocacy of Paul Darling QC. Formally, it was the trainer who appealed the result and it was the trainer whose appeal was upheld, thus returning the placings to the order in which the horses crossed the line.

FATHOM FIVE has now won four races, three of them in succession this season. He has risen in the weights from his winning mark of 79 at Newmarket in May, via a win off 86 at Leicester and a win off 92 at Newmarket, and now to 97 for his next effort.

Jockey Philip Robinson was strongly supported by owner and trainer. His own appeal did not result in exoneration but the severity of the Newmarket Stewards’ verdict was downgraded somewhat. The rider of SOHRAAB Robert Havlin had not appealed his longer ban for striking FATHOM FIVE after the line. SOHRAAB’s trainer H. Morrison had neither attended the race at Newmarket nor the appeal hearing with its the state of the art, cinema-scale video facilities.