Indian racing has a curious way of punishing offences. Not by what actually happened on the track, but by how imaginatively the Stipes/Stewards choose their words after the event. The recent suspensions arising from the rides on Bezalel and Fynbos offer a masterclass in how vocabulary can be stretched, twisted and finally detached from logic, all while maintaining a straight face.

At the heart of both enquiries lies the same uncomfortable conclusion. In both races, the Stewards were convinced that the horse in question was capable of winning. In both cases, they explicitly stopped short of accusing the jockey of preventing the horse from running on its merit. And yet, in both instances, the jockey was punished because the ride was deemed to have cost the horse the race. That shared reality should have led to similar findings and comparable punishments. Instead, we were served two different labels and two wildly different suspensions, as though semantics rather than substance were on trial.

In the Bezalel case, the Stewards bent over backwards to reassure the racing public that nothing improper had occurred. The horse hung, then straightened. The excuse was examined, rejected and declared immaterial. The jockey was not accused of deliberately restraining the horse or riding to any questionable intent. He was merely found guilty of “unsatisfactory riding”, a phrase that suggests disappointment rather than delinquency. Yet this mild-sounding offence attracted a suspension of twelve race days and a hefty fine, a punishment usually reserved for conduct bordering on the unforgivable. One is left wondering how a ride that did not stop a horse from running on merit managed to stop the jockey from riding for nearly two and half months.

Contrast this with the Fynbos enquiry, where the Stewards showed rare bluntness. The jockey sat in the wrong position, failed to improve when he should have, and lacked vigour at a crucial stage. The horse, we are told, was placed at a disadvantage. This was not a matter of finesse or timing. It was labelled, without hesitation, as “incompetent riding”. In plain English, incompetence implies a lack of ability to perform the task at hand. In most professions, that is considered more serious than merely doing a job unsatisfactorily. Yet here, the punishment amounted to four race days and a fine that looked more like a mild rebuke than a deterrent.

This is where the logic quietly collapses. If unsatisfactory riding and incompetent riding both result in a horse losing a race it was capable of winning, and if neither involves stopping the horse from running on merit, then what exactly is being distinguished? The answer, it appears, lies not in the action but in the perception. Unsatisfactory riding seems to mean that the jockey knew what to do and failed to do it to the Stewards` liking. Incompetent riding, on the other hand, suggests that the jockey did not quite know what to do in the first place. In the curious moral universe of racing discipline, ignorance attracts sympathy while disappointment invites wrath.

The irony is delicious. The jockey accused of incompetence is effectively told that his ride fell below basic professional standards, yet he is handed a suspension short enough to be treated as an inconvenience. The jockey accused of being unsatisfactory is told that he did not cheat, did not stop the horse, and did not act with improper intent, yet he is punished as though he had committed a far griding offence. The words suggest different crimes, but the reasoning reveals the same belief: the jockey was at fault for the defeat.

What these two orders ultimately expose is not a difference in culpability, but a confusion in language. By carefully avoiding the charge of preventing a horse from running on its merit, the Stewards appear to be punishing outcomes through technical side doors. One rider is penalised for not riding vigorously enough to satisfy expectations, the other for lacking the competence to do so at all. The end result, however, is identical. A winnable race was lost due to the jockey`s actions.

When words like “unsatisfactory” and “incompetent” are used interchangeably in effect but not in punishment, they lose their meaning. The sport is left with suspensions that look arbitrary, fines that feel symbolic, and orders that raise more questions than they answer. In trying so hard to be precise with terminology, the authorities have ended up being imprecise with justice.

In racing, as on the track, consistency matters. If a horse is deemed good enough to win and loses because of the rider, then the offence should be defined clearly and punished proportionately. Until then, we will continue to watch riders punished not for what they did, but for how unsatisfactorily or incompetently the Stewards choose to describe it.