WHAT had looked like being a low-key Saturday before Cheltenham exploded into controversy when the winner of the quite valuable EBF National Hunt Novices’ Handicap Hurdle at Sandown was wrongly given as One For Rosie, before, though only after some time, being corrected to Third Wind.

Anyone who has tried taking times at the track will hardly be surprised that a mistake was made given that Sandown has two winning posts on its jumps course and that it is never clear which is which to the uninitiated.

Cameramen, timers and jockeys have variously been caught out, and this time it was the photo-finisher operator, followed by the racecourse judge and in turn by sections of the media.

There is no compelling reason for having two winning posts here or at Leicester, despite the chase and hurdle courses entering the run-in from slightly different directions. It is certainly not regarded as an obligation to have the winning line parallel with the final obstacle in Ireland.

There is, however, a compelling reason for avoiding unnecessarily complex processes when time and again human error has been tripping up those who run the sport in Britain.

It should not need incidents like these to trigger a review of those processes, either, given that this was an accident waiting to happen to anyone paying attention.

Now I have got that off my chest, it can be acknowledged that Third Wind – who was indeed the winner – ran a useful time, worth a timefigure of 136, with short-head runner-up One For Rosie on 143. They may have finished in something of a heap in this race but the form should prove solid.

Other solid performances on the clock at Sandown on Saturday came from Malaya (137 timefigure) in the Imperial Cup Handicap Hurdle and Commodore (128) in the staying handicap chase, with Call Me Lord (153) emerging with plenty of credit behind the former.

The Imperial Cup was run in an overall time several seconds quicker than the opening juvenile handicap hurdle won by Le Milos (122) and the listed mares’ bumper won by Misty Whisky (97), though the leaders went much too fast in the former.

There were a couple of useful winning efforts at Sandown on Friday, also, from Forza Milan (143) in a handicap hurdle and the veteran Le Reve (136) in the Grand Military Gold Cup.

It is worth calling out the winning effort of Ex Patriot in the handicap chase at Gowran on Sunday – a 146 performance which reflected well on some of the Irish novice chase formlines – as well as a number of those at Naas last Sunday.

Pairofbrowneyes registered a 153 timefigure in landing the Leinster National under second-top weight and the former French-trained Chacun Pour Soi impressed in scoring by 31 lengths in a beginners’ chase earlier on the card (139).

Kaiser Black did not have to run especially fast to win a three-finisher Grade 3 novice chase with a 129 timefigure, nor did Gallant John Joe to win a listed novice hurdle (129).