There’s no one I feel more for in the horse racing world at the minute than young jockey Dylan Kitts, who has had his licence suspended by the British Horse Racing Authority.
Kitts caught the eyes of the stewards and most of the global racing audience the other week when he rode 11/1 shot Hillsin at Worcester in the last race of the card.
The 2m 4f Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap saw Kitts tenderly handle his mount which was trained by Chris Honour to finish third, but despite being beaten by 1 ¼ lengths Kitts seemingly had failed to ask the five-year-old Gelding for any real effort in the closing stages.
In the immediate aftermath of the race the horse was banned from running for 40 days due to the events, and Kitts voluntarily stood down from any action until his hearing had been held by the BHA.
Now this isn’t the first time either that Kitts has found himself in hot water since he started riding under rules in 2019, back in May he was given a 14 day non-trier ban when he finished second on Jet Of Dreams for his retained trainer Warren Greatrex at Warwick.
Greatrex defended the 7lbs claimer at the time, saying that the horse he was riding was ‘problematic’, and he had shown maturity in how he handled the five-year-old Gelding who was only having his second start.
That day he was on a 6/1 shot, and finished six lengths behind the odds on favourite, but the stewards felt he had not ridden the horse to it’s full potential and banned him despite Greatrex supporting him.
Now I’ve watched the replay of that race back, mainly because after that race last week it was posted all over social media as a comparison to what had just happened, and I feel it’s very harsh to suggest that if Kitts had ridden Jet Of Dreams more vigorously in the finish he would’ve beaten the eventual winner.
I think there’s no doubt he could’ve asked his mount for a little more, there’s no doubt in that, but this horse was only having its second race, and you don’t want to give it too much of a hard race if it’s unnecessary, which in this instance felt the right thing to do.
An important thing to remember is that no two horses are the same, so the comparison that people tried to make by showing the video of the previous ride doesn’t prove anything, mainly because one horse was having it’s second start and Hillsin was having his 17th, and had still failed to win so far.
Hillsin was quite clearly anything but a straight forward ride, trainer Honour admitted that, and his instructions to Kitts was to hold the horse together for as long as possible and not hit the front too soon, something which I think Kitts took too literally.
Honour said to the stewards that he was concerned by the way the horse was handled after jumping the last flight, but felt for the rest of the time Kitts had followed the instructions, which I felt was fair enough.
For me that is exactly where the issue lies, Kitts could’ve quite easily of asked his horse for an effort after the last, he wasn’t riding an inexperienced horse such as Jet Of Dreams who was still trying to get the hang of things, he was just riding one that needed to be ridden with a lot of patience and care, which up to that point he did really well.
To say that he felt the horse had some kind of respiratory problem would make you ask if it kept occurring through the race why didn’t he just pull Hillsin up?
Which is exactly what he did last time he rode the horse around the same track back in May for trainer Claire Harris, he felt the horse was never travelling so pulled him up.
Add the respiratory problem in with the fact the horse hung badly right-handed up the straight meant that Kitts felt he couldn’t ride as vigorously as he wanted due to all that and again that’s completely fine, but I still wanted to see him at least try and give him a tap with the persuader and see how he responded.
Ultimately it’s such a shame for him because he is only a young jockey, and since taking to the saddle Kitts has ridden 11 winners in his career so far, but all of that in his mind will be overshadowed by this one ride which he will be regretting for a long time to come.
I’ve seen across social media that people believe that it isn’t just down to the jockey in this case, and they believe that he was potentially told to stop the horse, which is such a serious allegation to make without having any evidence.
In this instance all responsibility lies with the jockey because he is the one that’s riding the horse, no one else, and he can still change how he rides his mount depending on how the race pans out.
I’m no jockey, and there’s not a chance you would get me doing what those jump jockeys do, which is why I really can’t judge them because it is such a hard job, but for me if Kitts had just given it a little bit more from a viewers perspective after the last then he wouldn’t have ended up in this position, and there’s only him who can make that choice.
I hope he does keep riding after all this and doesn’t stop because he is extremely talented, but who knows exactly when that could be.
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