KINGSTON, Jamaica – Following the decision of the Jamaica Racing Commission to deny an appeal by jockey Paul Francis over his four-day suspension, readers on Quickgallop.com have been weighing on the outcome of the appeal.
Quickgallop.com presents for readers a selection of of those responses.
The following is the response from C Anthony.
With reference to the subject appeal, the issue of integrity in sport has been debated and articulated by the Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC) and their stewards.
However, its evident that the most targeted group by the JRC and their stewards is the jockeys.
Sad to say or unfortunately the uprightness of the antiquated JRC and the ineptitude of some stewards give rise to a lot of controversial positions, opinions or judgements reached after consideration.
In most cases, disciplinary actions taken by the stewards and JRC for numerous different types of infringements constitute dubious and misleading information and excessive fines and suspensions.
The high handed and manipulative behaviour via gut feeling that you guys regard as best decisions are not necessarily right.
The JRC and the stewards need to be more open to constructive criticism.
The JRC and the stewards must be aware or mindful that making wrong decisions and taking negative actions create an impact on the livelihoods/careers of jockeys, trainers, grooms and other persons that depend on the sport.
The sport career path is not only for your administration staff and stewards.
Do you realise how many professional jockey’s careers you guys have damaged over the years? It is difficult to list them, may good sense prevail over emotions.
The following is the response from reader Gary Patrick.
It cannot be more evident in the way they treated Samantha Fletcher giving her 25 race days for not riding a maiden a maiden imagine that a set of draconian running that place.
The following is the response from reader Turfite.
The jockey cannot win…the horse is sore, if the jockey stays on he gets suspended, if he jumps off he didn’t ride the the horse on its full merit, yet the promoting company doesn’t have a horse ambulance to van the horse off the track if he’s lame.
How many times we a jockey has to lead a sore horse who is in a lot of pain back to the groom who then drags him to the back limping?
