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PLACINGS OF DISQUALIFIED HORSES Present Ruling Occasionally Operates Illogically But Its the Only Fair One Possible I see tlint the disqualification of Stony Fonl for the Xew Oiiks last week his revived an old jrrievaiice and that people are aain contending that a dis liiilified iinlnial should be placed second instead of Koiii down to the bottom of the list as though having finished hist There is a Rood deal to l e said on behalf of this contention as the deprivation of place backers of their stake under such circum ¬ stances is a decided hardship but it appears to me to be the only really logical mamtcr in which the situation can be handled However let me piote the rule which governs occurrences of the sort 173 If an objection to a horse which has won or been placed in a race In declared valid the horse shall be regarded as having been last in the race and the other horses shall take posi ¬ tions according It is this direction that a horse which lias finished first or second or third as the case may be shall be regarded as having been last that is apt t cans1 dissatisfaction as it undoubtedly has done in the case of Stony Ford The unthinking person can ¬ not see hov last position can be assigned to i horse which has finished anywhere but that anil thus an alteration in the language of the mlu ap ¬ pears to be desirable desirableThe The difficulty as it appears to me is to frame a rule which shall operate equitably and suit all cases at the same time It is for this reason that I accept the existing one as sound for all practical purposes The case of Stony Ford furnishes an in ¬ stance in which the placing of the disqualified win ¬ ner as last is really ridiculous because in spite of her obvious interference with My Dear the daughter of Swynford clearly did not impede the progress of any of the other competitors competitorsCOULD COULD HAVE WON ANYWAY ANYWAYPersonally Personally I have little doubt that Stony Ford could have dispensed entirely with all interference with her rivals and still have won comfortably lint having committed the transgression of rules for which she suffered the penalty she still remained considerably superior to the other fillies in the race and Was therefore entitled to rank as at least sec ¬ ond best Hut unless you have a special rule to cover every special case which crops up I fail to comprehend how it would be possible to dispose of every incident o the sort in a manner satisfactory to all parties partiesTake Take for instance the case of Craganour in the Dsrhy of 1913 The objection then was preferred by the stewards themselves and not by the connections of tln second but the Foxhill colt having been dis ¬ qualified was relegated under the rule quoted above to last position Where would those who cavil at the rule have placed Craganour Surely not second because if he really interfered with Aboycur he prob ¬ ably also interfered with others as seven or eight horses finished virtually in a line Then what might to be done with a horse disqualified for carry ¬ ing say short weight Could anyone say whether under his rightful burden he would have been second instead of first or third instead of second or in any other position Again what about a horse dis ¬ qualified on purely technical grounds such an in eligibility or purely under the conditions Such a horse would have no right to be in the field at all and surely it could not be argued that upon dis ¬ qualification he should lw placed second for a stake for which he was not even entitled to start startNo No I am afraid that the hardandfast rule illogi cally though it has operated in Stony Fords case is the only one possible to cover all contingencies in ¬ volving disqualification Augur in London Sport ¬ ing Life
