Key question is whether material extent of interference exceeded the neck margin between them at the line

Racing at Happy Valley is never dull and Wednesday's meeting was perhaps the most eventful and controversial of the season.

It was a night that resulted in two suspensions for careless riding, a meeting convened halfway through the card by chief stipendiary steward John Schreck to warn the jockeys about riding too tight and two overruled objections.

And the fallout is still being felt as Brian Kan Ping-chee pursues his appeal against one of those overruled objections in a case which is virtually unheard of not only in Hong Kong, but anywhere else in the racing world. Kan's appeal will be heard on Thursday by a new panel likely to be headed by chairman Alan Li Fook-sum and Chau Cham Son, the deputy chairman.

No one has yet come up with an example of a similar challenge to a stewards' decision, which is usually accepted as final on raceday, and it is anyone's guess where it will leave the Hong Kong stewarding process if the decision is overturned.

What the appeal has to decide is whether Me And You should keep the fifth race over Kan's Millennium Legend. It was a close call on Wednesday, but on balance the decision seemed correct even if the disputed incident had to be seen from several angles to establish a degree of confidence in that viewpoint. There is no doubt that Me And You caused interference to Millennium Legend in the closing stages, but the key question is whether the material extent of that interference exceeded the neck margin between them at the line. The answer here has to be 'no' because Me And You seemed at least as affected by the incident as Millennium Legend, if not more.

The pair were close together for most of the mile race, with Millennium Legend in fourth on the rail and Me And You on his outside. Their first clash came early in the straight as Jimmy Ting angled out from behind Refreshingly on Millennium Legend and, with Me And You hanging in slightly, the pair came close together. That was a minor incident, especially compared to their next clash at about the 100-metre mark.