IN the last two weeks, Kings Dolly has generated a multiple of the column inches that she had generated in the near seven and a half years of her life that went before. When the shopkeeper in your local newsagent volunteers an opinion on a racing-related matter, you know that it has gone mainstream.

There was universal surprise that the Turf Club’s referrals committee did not impose a short suspension or a fine on Davy Russell despite the fact that there were mitigating circumstances, as have been well documented. A short suspension would have been fair, it would have been just.

Unfortunately, perception is much closer to reality than we like to think sometimes. To be seen to act is often as important as to actually act. In announcing on Wednesday that they would revisit the matter, was the Turf Club being weak in bowing to public pressure, or being strong in deciding to look again at a judgement that may have erred, regardless of the negative sentiment that such a course of action would inevitably generate? Not sure. Possibly a mixture of both, possibly more the former.

In one sense if the final destination is the correct destination, then the road travelled was ultimately the right road, the detours notwithstanding. But we really shouldn’t be where we are. This road was eminently avoidable.