IT wasn’t the outcome most expected to the Royal Bahrain Irish Champion Stakes, but last weekend’s feature still delivered more than its fair share of drama and talking-point material.

Before any further discussion on the race, what a training performance it was from Jessica Harrington and her team to get their star four-year-old back to these heights, following defeats in listed and Group 3 company to begin his campaign this year.

Not for the first time in his career, Hotazhell showed a terrific attitude once getting into a duel - and it was a fitting outcome that his trainer made history of her own on a landmark day for women in British and Irish racing.

Within 90 minutes of Saffie Osborne becoming the first female to ride a British classic winner, thanks to success on Highwayman at Doncaster, Ireland’s very own first lady etched her name into the history books yet again by earning the distinction of becoming the first woman to train an Irish Champion Stakes winner.

The elephant in the room, however, that has garnered many column inches and podcast minutes in the past week is the interference that took place in the closing stages of Ireland’s most prestigious middle-distance prize.

I won’t attempt to go over the merits in detail of what Shane Foley should and shouldn’t have done in the closing stages - that ground has been well covered by this stage - but it is a most unfortunate development for Ireland’s marquee international race that much of the discussions in the aftermath surrounded a riding incident.

Foley is one of the most experienced riders in the weighing room. Two seasons ago, the 38-year-old joined an elite group of Irish-based jockeys to ride 1,000 winners. All that said, he has publicly stated this week that he could have corrected his mount at Leopardstown.

He has personally fallen foul of similar rule breaches on a number of occasions in his career before - but is it not also a reflection of the penalties and procedures in place that he did not choose to correct the hanging winner when the stakes were highest?

When it comes to encouraging jockeys to ride within the rules in top-level races, there is surely a conversation to be had, at the very minimum, about whether there is a sufficient deterrent within our penalties.

Fitting punishment?

An 11-day suspension for Foley was reflective of the fact that this was his third careless riding breach in recent times. Essentially, the punishment for allowing Hotazhell to interfere with A Boy Named Susie, whose chance was completely compromised, would have been even less with a cleaner personal record. That does not feel fitting for the ramifications that are at play.

Yes, missing 11 days will come at a financial cost to any rider, especially one as in-demand and established as Harrington’s multiple classic-winning jockey. But the rewards for winning far outweighed the risk of suspension, in our current format for careless riding.

Realistically, barring the stewards were to find him guilty of dangerous riding, which leads to an automatic disqualification, a forfeiture of his riding fee and a minimum 21-day ban, it was always worth taking the risk of allowing Hotazhell to drift into A Boy Named Susie. Bear in mind, Philip Byrnes’ dramatic Limerick incident in May (where one of his rivals was carried out at the second last hurdle) is understood to be the first dangerous riding sanction handed out in Ireland since 2021. Even the most staunch opponents to the Irish Champion interference will concede that the Limerick disqualification was a much different incident to this one.

Saturday’s winning margin couldn’t have been any finer, a nose. If Hotazhell had to stall his momentum at any point last Saturday, if he had to check briefly to straighten up when first beginning to hang, it’s not hard to see a world in which he loses at least a nose worth of momentum. It could have been a different result. Foley crucially got his mount over the line in front, and with that comes serious windfalls.

For a start, there is the winner’s share of the Irish Champion Stakes purse - €725,000 for first place. There is no greater payday for a single race in the Irish racing calendar, flat or National Hunt.

Stallion-making race

The prestige of winning an Irish Champion Stakes cannot be underestimated too - Foley described it as one of the biggest days in his career - and there are clear stallion-making implications here too. The dust had barely settled on the Irish Champions Festival and news emerged of a joint-purchase by Haras d’Etreham in France and Widden Stud in Australia to see Hotazhell embark on a dual-hemisphere stud career, following his farewell run in the Champion Stakes at Ascot next month.

For sure, Hotazhell was always going to have a place somewhere at stud before last weekend, having previously won two Group 1s, but his Leopardstown triumph surely put him in a considerably more attractive, and valuable, position.

Foley isn’t appealing his 11 days and, to many, it will feel like a price well worth paying. It’s not as though this is the first time Hotazhell has run around when the whip has been produced either. Only three starts earlier at Navan in June, he was demoted from second to third in the Hill Of Tara Stakes for causing interference. No other rider has ridden Hotazhell through his 15-race career, so Foley would have known him better than anyone.

Had the penalties been higher for breaching interference rules in a Group 1 race, a case could be made that ensuring the colt wouldn’t do the same again would have been a greater priority.

We already see that there are clearly-stated, stronger penalties for riders who break whip rules in Britain, when those breaches come in Class 1 races or Class 2 races with total prize money of £150,000 or more. Sanctions double in those instances.

What’s more, in a bid to help resolve the Cheltenham Festival’s farcical false starts, one possible deterrent recommended by a BHA committee on the matter recently was the implementation of a tiered penalty increase for offending riders, specifically targeting Class 1 and Class 2 starts at all tracks. It is being viewed as a way forward.

An example in Australia came to mind this week too, from last year’s Group 1 Champions Mile at Flemington, won by Ceolwulf. The replay is well worth a watch on YouTube.

Overseas comparison

In effect, this was a top-level event where the margin of victory was also a nose, and winning rider Chad Schofield pleaded guilty to a charge of careless riding.

According to the stewards’ report, at the 1,400m [in a 1,600m race], the runner-up Pericles was steadied and lost its running when crowded for room. Schofield “permitted his mount to shift in when insufficiently clear”. In all truth, this was miniscule interference compared to what we saw in the Irish Champion; the suffering horse still managed to get within a whisker of winning.

What was the riding penalty? Schofield had his licence suspended for a total of 18 meetings, with the stewards’ report noting: “In assessing penalty, account was taken of his guilty plea, good recent record, that the incident was in the mid-range category and that it was a Group 1 race”.

In addition, Schofield was fined $35,000 and suspended for 11 fixtures for using his whip four more times than is permitted before the 100-metre mark. His clean record, and the fact it was a Group 1, were factored into that sanction too.

Those are serious penalties for a serious quality race - and remember, that was for a rider with a “good recent record”. One would imagine the penalties would have been raised again if it was his third offence.

Compare that type of penalty to what Paddy Harnett picked up in a 0-60 handicap worth €10,000 at Clonmel this week, when he was deemed to have ridden improperly against Shane Foley in the closing stages. With it being Harnett’s second relevant offence, the ban was nine days - only two less than for Foley’s third careless in the Irish Champion Stakes, worth €1.25 million.

Interference at all levels can be costly. But when the stakes are raised in top-level races, the penalties should be too.