BRITAIN’S two champion jockeys were both reflecting ruefully on damaging suspensions yesterday. In Melbourne, Frankie Dettori was banned for a month for a careless riding offence that would have earned a fraction of the punishment in this country. His counterpart, Tony McCoy, meanwhile, was suffering from an anomaly in the deferral system that means he must sit out one of the biggest days of the jumps season for a minor one-day ban.
Dettori’s draconian sentence, handed down by the Flemington stewards for causing interference to Distinction during the Melbourne Cup, produced widespread astonishment. Even Malcolm Wallace, Director of Regulation at the Jockey Club, admitted: “I am very surprised, especially as we have always been tougher than the Australians on interference.
“In Britain, a careless riding