Horse Racing: First Televised Jockey Club Hearing

History was kind to Kristin Stubbs yesterday, as she became the first person in the 253-year history of the Jockey Club to appear before a disciplinary hearing that was open to the press. Having heard 90 minutes of evidence, and with a full house of 11 journalists present, the three-man panel upheld Stubbs' appeal against a two-day riding ban imposed by the Wolverhampton stewards last week.

Transparency had arrived at the Jockey Club, and in this case at least, it left with a smile on its face. And the Club's PR people were surely smiling too, since this ancient ruling body's unprecedented decision to throw open its doors revealed no sign of the drink-addled ex-colonels of popular myth. The hearing was careful, professional and impressively thorough. If port was being passed, it was very well hidden.

Indeed, thorough is something of an understatement. The incident in the Bet Direct Banded Stakes which prompted the local stewards to issue Stubbs with a suspension was a minor one, even by the standards of "careless riding", the lowest category of riding offence. Yet still, by the time that the three riders involved - Stubbs, Joanna Badger and Alan Daly - had finished giving their evidence, it had been replayed on the big screen in the inquiry room at least 25 times, and from four different angles.

What the video showed was that Badger, who was riding Didoe, had suffered interference on two occasions on the run to and around the home turn. The first was relevant in that it had forced Stubbs, who was riding Pagan Storm, to run wide of Didoe as that runner tried to regain her momentum. The second, which also involved Daly, on Coppington Flyer, saw both his mount and Didoe impeded as Coppington Flyer moved into a gap behind Silver Island, ridden by Chris Catlin.

Daly had been warned before the hearing that it might result in a riding charge being levelled against him rather than Stubbs, and he was accompanied by a solicitor, Andrew Chalk. Stubbs was also legally represented, by Mark Edmondson. As it turned out, though, both riders were absolved of any blame for the incident.

The reason was that, as the inquiry progressed, it became clear that another factor had been involved at Wolverhampton last week. Silver Island, the horse at the front of the pocket into which Daly sent Coppington Flyer, had at that precise moment started to drop away much faster than anyone, Daly included, could have expected. It was this that finally persuaded the panel that Stubbs had been unfairly punished.

John Maxse, the Jockey Club's PR director, was keen to emphasise that the prolonged study of the video evidence at the hearing had been crucial.

"This underlines why the appeal process is there," he said. "The local stewards could never spend anything like that much time on a decision when the outcome of a race is waiting on it."

Both of the solicitors present at yesterday's hearing felt that the inclusion of reporters had been a positive move. They suggested too that the new openness should be extended beyond its current limitation which applies only to offences committed on the track. It means, for example, that the forthcoming inquiry into a weighing room brawl between two jockeys, Neil Callan and Shane Kelly, will be held behind closed doors.

"The presence of the press made little difference to the way the inquiry was con ducted," Chalk said. "I remain of the view that they should also be present in more serious cases as this can only help achieve the objective of ensuring that justice is done."

Edmondson agreed. "I don't have a problem with it at all," he said. "In fact, the more transparency that we can bring in to these things then the better it must be. You can't put the genie back into the bottle."

However, while yesterday's hearing was into a relatively minor incident, forthcoming open hearings promise to be more controversial. Only yesterday, David Elsworth lodged an appeal against a £1,500 fine levied against him under the "non-triers" rule at Taunton on Tuesday, while on February 17 Martin Pipe, the champion National Hunt trainer, is due to answer a charge over the running of his horse Celtic Son at Exeter last October.

"In this case it was simply a case of the various sides putting their case and the panel reaching a decision," Maxse said. "Other inquiries will be more adversarial. In the Martin Pipe inquiry, for instance, the Jockey Club will be trying to show that an offence has been committed, and the defence will be trying to show otherwise.

"There are no plans to extend the types of hearing open to the press, although the matter will be reviewed."