Skilled jockey Joseph Azzopardi has taken a six-week ban on the chin after he was deemed at fault within the 2023 Perth Cup which noticed the occasion suspended and a horse die.
The race which was held on New 12 months’s Day was deserted mid-race after two-horses — Dom To Shoot and Chili Is Sizzling — each fell early within the race.
Chili Is Sizzling was critically injured within the fall and couldn’t be moved off the observe, and was finally euthanised on observe.
Perth Racing CEO James Oldring stated: “Our ideas are with all these linked with Chili Is Sizzling.”
Dom To Shoot, who continued to run with out its rider after the incident, suffered abrasions and was discovered to be lame within the off foreleg however survived.
Oldring added: “This is likely one of the hardest occasions for anybody concerned with racing to cope with.
“The welfare of jockeys and horses is at all times our prime precedence.”
After an investigation, it was deemed that Azzopardi, who was using Buster Bash was at fault, charging him with “careless using underneath AR131(a) with the particulars being that close to the 2200m he allowed Buster Bash to shift outwards when not away from Chili Is Sizzling (P Knickey) inflicting that mare to contact the heels of Buster Bash and fall with Dom To Shoot (J Turner) falling in consequence and Neufbosc (B Parnham) and quite a few different runners additionally receiving interference.”
Azzopardi pleaded responsible to the cost and was suspended for six weeks.
The 27-year-old Azzopardi informed The West: “It’s the worst second in my racing profession.
“It was not intentional and I used to be attempting to regulate Buster Bash, who was using waywardly.”
RWWA chief racing integrity officer Denis Borovica stated the six week ban was “a really giant penalty, it successfully deprives him of his livelihood for that interval.”
Oldring stated whereas horse racing was a high-risk sport however that Australia had a powerful security file.
“I believe WA, really Australia as a complete, must be fairly happy with their equine welfare file. They’ve the bottom fatality charge in flat racing on the earth,” he stated.
The Perth Cup has been rescheduled for January 14.
