Fradd's punishment doesn't fit the crime
Robbie Fradd is thoroughly entitled to appeal his case over the severity of the five-meeting suspension which stewards handed down for his winning ride on Perfetto in the eighth race at Sha Tin last Saturday.
Fradd had been set to produce Perfetto for his winning run when his running was taken by an outward shift from Weichong Marwing on Olympic Gold - a shift that didn't make the stewards' report. A stride or two closer and Fradd would have established what the stewards like to call rightful running, but instead he had to take hold of Perfetto, lose valuable ground and momentum, and look for another option.
Seeing a gap emerging ahead of him, Fradd urged Perfetto forward and outward, at the same time, and perhaps the gelding didn't pick up quite as well as he anticipated after the earlier setback. Nasa Pearl (Felix Coetzee), who was weakening, was checked slightly and stumbled as Fradd came out. And the stewards were right - the incident did have the potential to be a fall. But it wasn't.
Chief steward Jamie Stier makes a frequent point of considering the 'consequential effects' of a jockey's actions. In this case the consequential effects were virtually zero - a small check to a beaten horse.
Just recently, when apprentice Jacky Tong Chi-kit caused the horrific fall to Wayne Smith, Stier justified the lenient five-meeting suspension to the youngster, in part, on the 'consequential effect' that Smith was not seriously hurt in the fall.
If that logic was indeed valid, then Fradd has been hard done by here, getting a five-day stretch instead of the standard three for trying hard to win the race and making an error of judgment along the way, the 'consequential effects' of which were close to insignificant.
By appealing only the severity of the penalty, rather than denying the charge itself, Fradd is admitting a certain degree of carelessness and is prepared to take his medicine. But a five-meeting stretch makes his penalty 66 per cent heavier than the norm, and that's going to be hard to justify.
