RACING APPEAL COURT.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XVII, Issue 1001, 13 May 1909, Page 6

RACING APPEAL COURT.

AV uNDALE DISQUALIFICATIONS. The judges appointed by the Racing Conference—Sir George Clifford and Messrs. George Hunter and J. W. Abbott—have had two appeals before them. They have remitted the Cunningham case to the Auckland Metropolitan Committee for the consideration of fresh evidence, which had not been produced at the previous hearings by them. In the Royal Soult case the judges’ decision is as follows: —“In the matter of the appeal by Samuel George Lindsay, owner of the horse Royal Soult, and Mark Ryan, jockey, against the decision of the Auckland Metropolitan Committee endorsing the disqualifications imposed by the Avondale Jockey Club, the judges are of the opinion that the horse Royal Soult was. with the knowledge and consent of the owner, Samuel George Lindsay, fraudulently prevented from winning the Nihotapu Handicap, run on the second day of the Avondale Jockey Club’s Spring Meeting, 1908. The evidence is not decisive whether he was so prevented by an overfeed administered by one, William Jones, as alleged by him, or by being deliberately pulled by the jockey, Mark Ryan, though the many, circumstances seem to indicate that the confession of Wm. Jones was conclusive as between himsen and Samuel George Lindsay. The judges feel compelled to give Mark

Ryan the benefit of their doubt as to the method adopted in stopping the horse. They, therefore, confirm the endorsement by the Auckland Metropolitan Committee of the disqualification by the Avondale Jockey Club of Samuel George Lindsay and the horse Royal Soult for two years, but reverse the decision of the said club as regards the disqualification of the jockey Mark Ryan. They call the attention of the Auckland Metropolitan Committee to the evidence given in this case by William Jones, and recommend that he he disqualified far life. They order the deposits of the appellants to be refunded.”