Trainer David Hill yesterday slammed a local racing regulation which leaves champion jockey-elect Basil Marcus sitting in the Sha Tin weighing-room for one race today when eight riders are on the sidelines through suspension and injury. Ivan Allan, who retains the South African star, also lent his voice to what will become a clamour to change the rule that prevents a retained jockey taking a ride in a race if his own stable puts up a rider retained by another trainer. Hill, who complained verbally to the Racing Department on Wednesday night, is angry at the red tape that prevented him using Marcus on fancied stable runner Indian Chetak in the sixth event at Sha Tin today. 'Basil rode him last time over 1,200 metres and I had him down for him in this race,' Hill said.
'Of course, he was keen to ride but the Jockey Club stopped him because Ivan Allan is using Greg Childs on a horse in the same race. 'We have jockeys ruled out left, right and centre and here is the champion jockey in the grandstand. It's just stupid. Not only that, if you look at it from a business point of view when you have Marcus on a horse there is a lot more totalisator support. 'This is one rule that should be changed in the interests of the sport,' said Hill, who has declared local rider Rambo Tse Wai-ho for Indian Chetak. The matter is likely to be placed before the Trainers' Association and a recommendation made to the Jockey Club that the rule be deleted. Last night the Jockey Club's director of racing, Philip Johnston, said: 'It is a Stewards' Instruction and it is currently under review. It will stay in place this season but recommendations will almost certainly be made where we may have a case-to-case basis where decisions are made on merit.
'The Stewards' Instruction is there in the first place to lend support to the retainer arrangements entered into between jockeys and trainers.' Allan, who is narrowly ahead in the battle for the trainers' championship, said yesterday: 'I fully sympathise with David [Hill] and other trainers without retained jockeys when this happens. The rule has no merit. 'In this case, I was personally placed in an impossible position.
'Basil does not really get on with my runner In The Picture and we have discussed this. He is one of the few horses that just don't go for him.'
