I WROTE here a few weeks ago about the controversial race at Ascot in which Capeland was forced off the track by stablemate Diego Du Charmil, and how the stewards called it perfectly on the day.

In that case the appropriate rules were followed to the letter and the correct – if contentious – decision was made at the time. Well, I’m afraid a bit of a climbdown is required on my part.

The stewards were still right, but it transpired that the BHA’s handicapping team had their hands tied on another matter by an unwritten protocol handed down by a bygone head of handicapping.

Despite the consensus being that Capeland would have won outright or with the intervention of the stewards if he’d not been taken out, the protocol states that his mark could not be changed, and therefore he ran on Saturday off his old mark, and won decisively in a race which was dominated again by the Paul Nicholls pair.

In a way, everyone is happy with the result – punters at the weekend were informed that Capeland was ahead of his mark and were duly rewarded, and those who believe that a wronged horse deserves a shot at redemption got the perfect ending.

It’s also fair enough in isolation to have a rule saying that horses disqualified for taking the wrong course should not go up in the weights – after all, the small number of horses affected by this policy are generally those who would have won but for catastrophic jockey error, with fences bypassed in error being the most obvious cause.

Quid-pro-quo

But the policy does not exist in a vacuum, and there is no such quid-pro-quo for horses who fall at the last or second last fence when likely to win.

The handicapper sticks ‘em up if he wants, as Colin Tizzard is all too aware on the back of Slate House being rated as if he’d won the BetVictor Gold Cup rather than fallen at the second last, quite some way from home, and with three others for company at the time. If it’s unfair to raise Capeland, then it’s unfair to raise Slate House, and vice versa.

In fairness to the BHA, the policy will now be looked at again to decide whether it’s justified, but I can help with that. The policy simply states that horses disqualified after taking the wrong course must not be raised as a result, and it smacks of being invented for one episode in the past in which it was deemed unfair to punish a horse for a rider’s error.

This does not fall in line with the BHA’s overarching approach to handicapping, which I personally endorse. In regard to horses being raised in defeat, it says:

“While it may seem punitive to not only fail to complete but to also receive a weight rise, it would go against any handicapping principle to simply ignore the likely outcome. All handicappers use the same guideline.

“No horse can have its mark increased for anything that happens before the second last obstacle. Once a horse gets to that obstacle it comes down to the handicapper’s judgement whether a rise is appropriate.”

There is no room for clemency in this approach, hence the reassessment of Slate House, and nor should there be with Capeland and his ilk. To underline how pointless this approach is, it should be pointed out that missing a fence in error, or jumping an extra fence etc., only ends in disqualification if the rider continues past the winning post.

If Bryony Frost had pulled up at Ascot last month rather than riding to the line, Capeland would not have been disqualified, and therefore would have been raised in the weights.

At Fakenham seven years ago, Benny The Swinger would have been an easy winner, but jumped the fence opposite the stands which ought to have been dolled off. Strictly speaking, he passed the winning post the wrong side of a dividing rail, and was deemed to have run out.

If ever a horse deserved another crack from the same mark it was him, but because he was not technically disqualified, he was subsequently hammered by the handicapper, finishing second on his next two chase starts after being raised 9lbs.

Both the Benny The Swinger case and that of Capeland show that this protocol – an unwritten one at that – should never have been introduced, and had it been published before, I’d have told them that much sooner.

On the plus side, no-one ended up being compromised by this specific instance, and a recent review of handicapping procedures at the BHA will see a formal publication of handicapping policy and guidelines, probably in the new year. It can’t come too soon.