A WEEK has passed since the debacle of Sandown’s void race, and it’s simply time to step back, take a long breath, and examine what happened with a reasonably cool head - something which was missing all round at the time.

It’s important in such moments to establish what happened and why before trying to fix the issue, and much of the debate this week has simply skipped that crucial step.

The stop-race procedure is employed when there is a serious risk of injury which cannot be ameliorated by the standard bypass procedure.

In normal circumstances, an obstruction tends to be a fallen horse or jockey, and usually comes just after an obstacle where most falls occur, and bypassing the obstacle in question will serve to avoid the hazard.

In extreme cases, the obstruction will be at a point of the track which cannot be bypassed without significant risk, and in these cases, the Clerk of the Course must make a judgment call that it is more prudent to stop the race than to continue in view of the risk posed to horses and jockeys.

This is what happened on Saturday after Houblon Des Obeaux sadly collapsed on the bend after jumping the Pond Fence, and it was decided that it would be unsafe to simply bypass the fence and that the stop-race protocol should be applied instead.

That decision rested with Andrew Cooper, and certainly wasn’t taken lightly; whether it was the correct call in the circumstances can be argued, and it has been noted that the riders who continued had room to manoeuvre around the stricken horse.

That observation comes with the benefit of hindsight, of course, and that is not a luxury Mr Cooper had when making an initial assessment.

First question

When the protocol was enacted, the first question which needs to be asked is whether it was done properly, and the instruction in this scenario is that a member of racecourse personnel must wave a yellow flag and blow a Fox40 whistle to alert riders to a major hazard which requires them to pull up, making sure the flag is properly unfurled.

This was indeed done correctly, although the flag was held unfurled rather than being waved, which is a possible point of contention.

The next question is whether riders saw and recognised the flag, and that will presumably be argued at their appeal. At least some of the riders claimed at the time that they did not see the flag, although they confirmed that they heard the whistle, and their decision to bypass the Pond Fence can only have been the result of their interpretation of the signal they were given. If they were unaware of any flag, they would have jumped the fence as normal.

There remains a possibility that they knew that there must be a flag of some sort which they could not see clearly, and assumed it was a black and white flag designating a passable hazard. The stewards found that the riders had seen the yellow flag and raced on despite that fact, while some clever people have pointed out that if the jockeys knew that the race would be void, it would make no sense for them to continue, ergo, they cannot have seen the flag.

Much has been made of what colour the flag should be, or whether a flag is appropriate in the 21st century, but all these concerns are – somewhat ironically – just noise.

The blunt truth of the matter is that none of the jockeys in the instant they heard the whistle and saw a flag (or perceived that a flag must exist) thought anything at all. That’s because a stop flag, or a traffic light, or a deer on the road, is not meant to make you think, at least not consciously. These things require instant action, and as such are dealt with by the subconscious processes - the reflexes - of the brain. Our brains are designed to do two kinds of thinking, one measured and analytical, and one programmed for automatic response.

The problem with the stop-race procedure is that those who implement it imagine that the riders see a flag and make a logical decision – “the yellow flag means stop, so I must stop”, or “the black and white flag means continue with care”.

This is simply not what happens. If riders are trained to stop when seeing the flag in such a way that it becomes instinctive, then they will, but if that process is not instant, then the natural desire to keep riding to the finish will kick in, and it is that mental process, not the colour of the flag which is the key thing which needs to change.

More urgent

Bearing in mind that the message from the whistle is more urgent than that from the flag, it is eminently possible that the most common message which the whistle carries (proceed with caution) triggers the automatic response in the part of the brain which deals with such urgent signals; if so, then the use of both visual and aural messages, designed to make doubly sure that the correct procedure is followed, may in fact be fatally undermining that procedure.

There are several conclusions to draw if we accept the above supposition. Firstly, it’s clear that in order to enable the correct response from jockeys in this situation, there must be a total disconnect between bypass procedure and stop-race procedure, and as well as a different flag colour, the noise which signifies what procedure is being invoked should also be different, with the obvious suggestion that a klaxon or air-horn be used specifically when a race is being stopped.

It’s also clear that the closer to the finish the procedure is enacted, the less effective it will be, and riders spurred on by adrenaline and an instinctive desire to win will find it harder to notice outside stimulus.

The dangers of waiting until a field of horses is bearing down upon an impassable hazard before warning the riders are obvious, and with the benefit of 20/20 vision which comes with hindsight, it’s obvious to say that the race ought to have been stopped sooner than it was.

Finally, if the jockeys can prove that their response to stop-race protocol is Pavlovian and not the result of a reasoned decision-making process, then they should be able to get a result at appeal.