In an interesting development on Sunday, the RWITC Stewards came down heavily on racing Baron M. A. M. Ramaswamy`s trainer Karthik Ganapathy and jockey T. S. Jodha by suspending them both for six months starting January 18.

The two professionals were given the above sentence after Jodha was held guilty of not allowing Golden Knight to run on its merit on Christmas Eve while Karthik was banned as the Stewards felt that the jockey would not have ridden such without the tacit approval of the trainer.

The punishment, of course, is likely to be held in abeyance till the RWITC Board of Appeal confirms the Stewards` decision against which an appeal will have already been filed by the two beleaguered professionals.
The racing fraternity here has given a guarded response to the news of the severe punishment. As a matter of fact, what has left them unimpressed is that a couple of incidents with more incriminating evidence have been handled more compassionately by the Stewards this season. What`s more, a case of clear cut case of tacit approval of the trainer also went a begging. Further, every time the Stewards have advanced the reason of being lenient on professionals considering their past record and Karthik has no history of any punishment in the past. Why no lenient view was taken in the light of this defies explanation. Also, the Stewards had punished apprentice jockey Shammi Khan for not permitting Maverick to run on merits while they did not take any action on the trainer.

There could be an endless debate about the merits, or the lack of it, in the punishment meted out to Karthik and Jodha but this is one of the rare occasions when professionals closely associated with Ramaswamy have been harshly punished by the RWITC Stewards.

In another related decision, the Stewards have suspended jockey Paul Mulrennan from January 18 till January 28 (both days inclusive) and also imposed a penalty of Rs 50,000 for careless riding astride winner Spellbinder. The fine is reportedly because the jockey aggressively argued with the Stewards.

As the Stewards have themselves observed that Paul`s offence was very close to being termed as dangerous riding, the incident certainly had enough merit for the stipendiary stewards to call for a Stewards enquiry immediately after the conclusion of the race. Punters were also amazed when the anticipated objection from Neeraj Rawal (who rode Lakhadema), who was severely interfered with by Spellbinder, didn`t materialise. Neeraj Rawal must consider himself lucky to have been let off lightly.