Appeal joy for Smart and Eddery

Trainer Bryan Smart and jockey Paul Eddery have had their appeals in the Ben Casey affair upheld.

The pair appeared in front of the Horseracing Regulatory Authority disciplinary panel to contest the decision of the Southwell stewards on November 22 last year.

On the day Eddery was adjudged to have made his effort too late on Ben Casey when they were second in the betdirect.co.uk Maiden Claiming Stakes, three-quarters of a length behind the winner Mulberry Lad, and he was banned for 16 days.

Smart was also fined £2,300 and Ben Casey was banned from running for 40 days.

However, having heard evidence from both Eddery and Smart, the panel accepted that the instructions given to Eddery were legitimate and involved adopting a new tactic for riding a very moderate and sometimes quirky horse.

Smart was delighted the affair had been cleared up and he now just wants to focus on next week’s Royal Ascot meeting.

“It’s a big relief because it’s not nice being accused of something you are not known for,” he said.

“I must admit the panel were very fair though.

“They listened to both mine and Paul’s cases and they understood where we were coming from.

“It was a very fair hearing, Paul was half a length off giving him the ride of the day and thankfully the panel took that view too.”

Eddery said: “It has dragged on for a long time but with the scenario we are all in at the moment I can understand why.

“The press make a lot of these cases and I can fully understand why it has taken a while to investigate, they have got to go through it thoroughly and they have, and we have come up clean.

“They’ve looked at it from a different point of view and that is probably what they should have done on the day I think.

“We have to expect things like this now with the world we are in and sometimes I think you are going to get a lot of decisions made on the day when people are under a lot of pressure. I think that is what happened here.

“He’s an ordinary horse and we were trying to get the best out of him with limited ability and we tried numerous ways to ride him which didn’t work.

“We tried a different way of riding him and when it doesn’t come off people start to look at the wrong things.

“The horse has been sold a maiden. He ran twice since and was tailed off both times.”