IT is a week now since Londonnationalgate. Much has been said and written in the meantime, but here are a couple of observations.

Who knew that the yellow flag meant race void? A tiny proportion of the racegoing public probably. All riders must know it, but how well do they know it? How deeply engrained into their psyche is it?

The starter has a yellow flag. Strange that it is the same colour as the Race Void flag. Is it so that, when he raises it, it means don’t race, and when he drops it, it means race? Surely the Race Void flag should not be the same colour as the starter’s flag.

And isn’t yellow a strange choice anyway? Shouldn’t it be red or black or white with a big black X and Race Void written on it? There should be no ambiguity.

In Ireland it’s a bright pink and yellow flag. In Formula 1, a yellow flag means slow down, hazard on the track ahead, no overtaking. A red flag means session stopped.

No ambiguity.

Void means void

Once the Race Void flag is waved, the race is void. It has to be void. Even if the flag is waved in error, the race has to be voided, otherwise riders would never have confidence in the Race Void flag in the future. Otherwise, they would be within their rights to ride on regardless, because there would always be a chance in the future that the yellow flag was waved in error. Therefore, once the yellow flag was waved, the race was void. One hundred per cent.

Jockeys make mistakes. To err is human, and jockeys are humans. Ergo.

The riders should have been informed long before they got back around to the Pond fence that the race had been voided. Watching the head-on view as the runners raced down the back straight, it looks like a member of staff ran in behind the runners with a yellow flag after they had jumped the first fence in the back straight.

Maybe that was a failed attempt to inform the riders then. A person waving a yellow flag at the water jump would have sufficed. Or at the end of the back straight. Or both. And whistles. (Which there were, reportedly.) And people shouting, Race Void. The riders should have been left in no doubt.

In Ireland, the track foreman travels in one of the cars that goes just behind the runners with a stop race flag.

The flag should have been waved vigorously, not pointed. And there was a black and white chequered flag being held out at the entrance to the home straight, before the second last fence, after the Pond fence.

A black and white chequered flag means that there is a hazard ahead. But there wasn’t.

It was crazy that the void race announcement didn’t come until 4.15pm, about a half an hour after the race had been run. The yellow flag had been waved, so the stewards knew that the race had to be voided. At least the fact that there was a possibility of a void race should have been announced immediately.

And finally, in all the furore, the sad demise of Houblon Des Obeaux went under the radar. He was an admirable racehorse, who raced 65 times and won 11 times.

He won the Silver Cup at Ascot and the Denman Chase at Newbury and the United House Gold Cup at Ascot, and he finished second to Many Clouds in the 2014 Hennessy.

Thought for the week

It was Esha Ness all over again. Philip Donovan was John White.