No confusion for Aidan O’Brien in Dewhurst while St. Mark’s Basilica prevails | Horse racing

“It was one of those weeks,” Aidan O’Brien said, but it felt like he had turned a page in one of the most difficult periods of his career when he saddled the first two at home in the Dewhurst, won by St Mark’s Basilica. under Frankie Dettori. The fact that his staff saddled two in the race was a source of tension in itself, a day after they managed to put the wrong number of cloths in the coaches’ corridors at the Mile of the Fillies, but this Once there were no dramas and even eagle-eyed social media users agreed that St Mark’s Basilica had won and Wembley was second.

“Things happen that are not in your control and you can’t do anything about it,” O’Brien said from his base in Tipperary. “Things happen and then you say, ‘Why couldn’t I have controlled it?’ or: ‘Why couldn’t I have done anything different?’ That’s the way it is and accept it. It was a fun week. “

Funny was probably not the adjective that first came to O’Brien’s lips last week, when he learned that the runners planned on Arc day at Longchamp would have to be retired, victims of the pollution crisis affecting the Gain feed company. But among them was St. Mark’s Basilica, which showed no ill effects from its vain trip to Paris by running bravely to prevail here for three parts of a length.

That served to justify the 1.4 million pounds he paid for him at auction last year and he is now near the top of the 2,000 Guineas bets in May at 12-1. Wembley, which made a big move from behind after running the widest of all, is available with equal odds. O’Brien will undoubtedly receive a significant fine when the British Horse Racing Authority completes its investigation at the Mile of Fillies, as a coach cannot shirk the responsibility of making sure his staff know that one of his charges it belongs to the other.

But it is possible to feel sympathy for him under the circumstances, as the mistake was made by the grooms who have been based in England for this coronavirus-affected season and who have seen little of the affected horses, while he has remained in Ireland for all the time.

“There, except by the grace of God, I go,” said more than one trainer here and the BHA will hopefully consider what changes are necessary to avoid a recurrence. It was surprising to learn that although the identities of the horses are verified twice before the race, both verifications are done before their number pads are put on. Delaying the second verification until after that point now seems essential.

The BHA says the protocols introduced after the Charlie McBride case in 2017 were aimed at alerting trainers that they had sent the wrong horse to races and also ensuring that horses were not participating in the wrong race. They hadn’t anticipated the particular bug that caused trouble on Friday.

But would it have been so difficult to foresee? “We closed the loophole,” BHA CEO Nick Rust said early last year, emailing an owner to assure him that the sport was well managed and that such confusion was a thing of the past.

The email, transmitted to this correspondent shortly thereafter, also spoke of the introduction of a “double block” protocol to establish the identity of each broker. It sounds like overconfident language, 21 months later.