Philip Byrnes handed 21 day ban for dangerous riding at Limerick

Byrnes was riding the well-backed favourite Marian Avenue for his father, Charles, and passed the post in front at their local Limerick track only to be disqualified and placed last.

The drama began as the runners turned for home in the second division of the two and a half mile handicap hurdle with Byrnes well placed to justify the market support only for Marian Avenue to drift dramatically and interfere with Qaasid, ridden by Danny Mullins, who eventually came home second and was awarded the race.

An even bigger sufferer was the Sean O’Keeffe ridden outsider Friar Hogan who was pushed outside the wings of the hurdle and unable to jump the second last flight as a consequence.

Byrnes told the stewards his mount had cocked his jaw and tried to run out, but the stewards took the dimmest of views, finding him guilty of the rare offence of dangerous riding and suspending him for 21 days.

They said in the post race report “In arriving in their decision, the Raceday Stewards were satisfied that P. Byrnes failed to correct his mount at a point in the race that was in close proximity to the hurdle and as such rode in a way which was far below that of a competent and careful Rider, and where it would be obvious to such a competent and careful Rider that riding in that way was likely to endanger the safety of another Horse or Rider.”

Sheer brazenness

Host Nick Luck and guest Rishi Persad discussed the incident on the Nick Luck Daily podcast with Luck saying 'the sheer brazenness of the manoeuvre was quite something to behold'.

"If he'd been suspended for longer, I don't think there would be many people who would have had an argument," Persad responded while the pair drew comparisons with the ban given to James McDonald when riding Romantic Warrior in Hong Kong last weekend.

Persad continued: "In the context of the last 12 months, the fall he had at Wexford, the soft unseat, which is the kindest and perhaps the best way to describe it politically when it looked worse than that to a lot of race watchers, allied to that manoeuvre last night at Limerick; you have to ask yourself the question about Philip Byrnes as a rider.

"If those two serious incidents in the last 12 months don't require some sort of remedial work, it's not a pretty look.

"I hope it's not just 21 days and that someone actually speaks to him and says 'you need to tidy things up'."

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