ALLEN UNHURT IN DRAMATIC FALL: COLLESS SUSPENDED

By Graham Potter | Monday, September 23, 2013

It is always a huge relief when all involved in a dramatic race-fall come out of the incident relatively unscathed … and that was the case when Mishani Gladiator and Anthony Allen crashed to the ground after clipping heels in the home straight, just shy of the 200m mark, in the seventh race on the card at Eagle Farm on Saturday.

Up until that time Allen had given Mishani Gladiator the run of the race, box-seating behind the early leader Tisani Tomso all through the sweep to the turn and then tracking up behind the leader along the inside in the first half of the home straight.

At that stage Mishani Gladiator had Flamboyer to his outside with Londehero right behind him. When the pressure came on 300m out, Londehero, hard on the rail, moved up alongside Mishani Gladiator.

Londehero was going the better of the two and was on his way past the Les Ross trained runner approaching the 200m mark when Glen Colless elected to angle in marginally on Londehero so that he could maintain his momentum with a run inside Tisano Tomso who, although, weakening, still blocked his direct path to the line.

It was a move Colless has made several thousand times in his career without fuss but this time there was a margin of error.

The move was made when not sufficiently clear of the luckless Mishani Gladiator who Allen tried to check but, now placed in very restricted galloping room, Mishani Gladiator clipped Londehero’s heels and crashed down sending Allen thumping out of the saddle.

As horse and rider hit the ground Allen looked to be in serious danger of being rolled on by his fallen mount. Allen himself rolled forward, propelled by the force of the fall, and his hands came up as he tried to protect his head.

Behind him, it momentarily looked as if Mishani Gladiator might cause Allen some grief, but the horse’s tumble took a right hand turn and he slipped off the track and through the plastic running rail.

Thankfully the rail did exactly what it is designed to do in this circumstance. The running rail buckled with the weight of the horse and uprights were uprooted and sent flying.

The fact that the rail reacts in this fashion goes a long way to preventing serious injury to both horse and rider. As a consequence of this safety feature, Mishani Gladiator was able to regain his feet and gallop riderless down the track … a happy ending compared to some of the alternatives.

Allen, too, was quickly to his feet and, although stood down on his only remaining ride of the day, he emerged as one very lucky rider.

Londehero, whose one hind-plate was twisted off the incident, had raced on the beat out Queen Of The Lochs in a punishing stride for stride battle to the line, but that victory was small consolation for Colless who, as detailed in the stewards report, ‘pleaded guilty to a to a charge of careless riding under the provisions of AR137(a) in that he permitted Londehero to shift out approaching the 200m when insufficiently clear of Mishani Gladiator (App A. Allen), resulting in Mishani Gladiator clipping the heels of Londehero and falling dislodging its rider.’

As a consequence of that finding, stewards issued Colless with a three week suspension to commence midnight 21 September 2013 and expire midnight 12 October 2013.

Also from the stewards report: ‘A post race veterinary examination of Mishani Gladiator revealed the gelding to have a laceration to the nose, mouth and off-hind pastern.

As for Anthony Allen, it appears he escaped with little more than a bit of bruising and soreness.

So it was that, in one of those ironies of racing, the party who came out worst in a dramatic incident was the rider who won the race.

The three weeks on the sidelines will hurt Colless but, as I said at the outset, the ultimate assessment of the incident, from all perspectives, is one of relief at the general outcome which could have been so much worse.

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