Racing’s safeguards are aimed at preventing repeats of past mistakes but fell over when faced with a new one
We all make mistakes. The great thing is to not make the same one twice and I would be happy to bet that Aidan O’Brien will find some means of ensuring he is never again in the unhappy position of watching a race and realising his two runners are carrying each other’s jockeys.
That was what happened to him on Friday when Mother Earth and Snowfall ran in the Fillies’ Mile, because of course something like that would never happen in a no-mark novice race; no, it had to be a Group One, with a third of a million pounds on the line. At least neither of them won, though Mother Earth finished third, with almost all onlookers believing she was Snowfall.