R. YOUNG'S SUSPENSION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 55, 6 March 1915, Page 10

R. YOUNG'S SUSPENSION

HIS APPEAL DISMISSED. (BT TELKQBAPH— PRESS ASSOCIATION.) CHRISTCHURCH, sfch March. The following is the judgment in the appeal lodged by R. Young against his disqualification by the Marton Jockey Club, in the matter of an appeal by Robert Young, jockey, against the decision, of the Wanganui district committee approving the decision of the Marton Jockey Club's stewards, who decided that Robert Young, rider of the mare Martlet, in the Farewell Hack Handicap, run on 2nd January, 1915, was guilty of obviously pulling '■he man. 1 , and that he be disqualified for a term of one year: — "The applicant Young was charged by the stewards of the Marton Jockey Club with haying pulled his horse, and an enquiry was held by five stewards (the judicial committee), at which he and his witnesses were present and were heard. It is alleged by the applicant that one of the five stewards was not present during the enquiry, but a quorum was present. The stewards decided that Young should be disqualified for one year, and in their decision stated that they were of the opinion that he was guilty of obviously pulling his horse. Doubtless the opinion was formed from what the stewards themselves, or some of them, saw of the race, as no sufficient evidence of pulling appears in the notes of evidence. The Wanganui District Committee subsequently met and approved of the decision, apparently almost as a matter of course and without holding an enquiry at which Young could be heard. "Young now appeals from the latter decision, under rule 1 of part 1 of part XXIV. He alleges that certain irregularities occurred in respect to the stewards' enquiry, but he has not convinced the judges that there were any such irregularities as to affect him. He says he was not guilty of pulling his horse, and that he could have proved this to the satisfaction of the District Committee had he been given an opportunity of doing so ? and that he is prepared to prove his innocence to the satisfaction of the judges. He does not dispute that the punishment inflicted — the deprivation for one year of his ordinary means of livelihood — was appropriate, and did not appeal to the committee to exercise its power of diminishing the disqualification, (under rule 13 of part XXXI.), npr does he now ask the judges to exercise their power in that direction. If the stewards had stated in their decision that, in their opinion, Young had pulled the horse, he would have had hie full rights of appeal from their decision to the District Committee, and from their decision to the conference ; but by using the word 'obviously' as a, prefix to 'pulling,' the stewards have (by effect of rule ,7, of part XXXI.) effectually deprived Young of all chance of questioning their decision that he was guilty of pulling. It would have been, useless for the District Committee to make enquiry in order to determine the main question which the appellant desires investigated, and it is useless for the judges to do so now. Rule 7, as worded, renders the expressing by the stewards (or a majority of those sitting) of the opinion that a jockey has been guilty of an obvious pull, or obviously pulling, fatal to his chance of ever obtaining a rehearing. The appeal is therefore dismissed, and the decision appealed against affirmed. (Signed) Oliver Samuel, chairman ; J. H. P. Strang, 0. S. .Watkins, judges of conference."